The Diggers Club

I just recently joined, The Diggers Club and got my starter pack today with lots of mouth watering goodies in there seed and plant catalogs.

http://www.diggers.com.au/

My mum has been a member for year and seeing that they now have a shop here at our city's  botanical gardens and are running workshops, I thought it was about time I joined.
They have an incredible range of old and unusual seed and plant varieties. I am looking forward to building up my garden with lots of goodies in the coming seasons.

Blue banded bee

Yet another shot of a blue banded bee. Caught this little one having a rest while foraging in my borage. They are also very attracted to the lemon mint.

Cacti

Years ago I started collecting cacti. They were an ideal plant to have with our climate and I loved them, so many shapes and verities. Unfortunately I they were heavily infested with mealy bug at one stage and I could not control these pests without some really harsh chemicals, so I lost quite a few. Some have survived though and I am just now getting back to these poor neglected plants.
I have had some nice surprises in amongst these, finding some I thought lost.
Here are some that are coming into flower now.

Plus those that I have started to repot.

Except for the one in the yellow pot. That is a tree. LOL.

The new year.

Well Christmas has been and gone, as well as the new year. January is nearly at an end already too. Not much has been happening in the garden of late. We have had extreme heat here and it is just a case of trying to keep everything from drying out and burning to a crisp.
The blackcurren is sporting some orange mesh back mittens at the moment to keep it from scorching.

The blackberries are looking rather stylish in their mesh curtain outfit.

We have started harvesting blackberries now and they are yum. My mum always had problems with the fruit scorching before she could do anything about it.
I have had some scorch on the fruit but managed to get the curtain on before too much damage was done. And once the real heat started they handled it very well with the covering.

We are now harvesting tomatoes, zucchini and corn.

Our house has been doing well in the heat this year. We don't run air conditioning and the place has really held it's own in the heat. We don't use the front door at the moment, windows are closed before the sun comes up and our roller blinds are kept down all day. It's a bit of a cave but does not get hot till mid/late afternoon. If it is too unbearable we run the water cooler for a while and as soon as the sun goes down the windows are all opened.

Not many garden projects can be done now. I am scheming and planing new projects for autumn.