Just not much blog posting - but lots and lots of things have been happening. We've now got the "feature" raised beds into place - ie the redgum sleeper surrounded ones, rather than the strawbale / adobe (not whinging but it's been a bit to damp to start on those so we're holding off).

We've placed one around the back (opposite where the strawbale walls / beds are going to go) for growing some citrus in:

Then we put some big ones around the front. These will eventually be covered by a pergola that will be used to grow some summer shading vines on, but in the meantime, we're going to be planting them out as herb / quick pick vegetable gardens.

(And don't tell him I said so, but the little tractor was very helpful when it dragged that bale of straw from the paddock to the work area - saving me a lot of wandering backwards and forwards with the wheelbarrow!)

These are quite big beds and they are filled with alternating layers of straw, animal manure and some of the manure / compost that Eric dug out of the animal shed up the back.

We've also planted out quinces and pomegranate trees along what will be the outside edge of the pergola - again to try to shade the front of the house which is pointing in the most ridiculous direction for the weather conditions up here.

It'll be a few years still before they can help shade the house much - but we'll have to do something to at least make us feel like we're moderating the extreme weather.

I've started some planting in these beds - but I'm taking it slowly as I'd still expect we've got some more doozies of frosts to come before this winter is over, plus it would be good to get a little more water into the beds and some settling down done.

And we planted the obligatory bay trees outside the main doors - can't be too careful about external witches after all (apparently there's a bad enough variety of one in the house already!).