Maybe this year

While asparagus are pretty tough and don't require much special care, it is a few years between planting and eating.

This is the third year the asparagus have grown at Marmalade Cottage.

When you plant crowns, you need to leave them alone for at least two years for the plant to sufficiently establish before you can cut the spears and have it survive.  For seeds and seedlings, it takes a good five years.

We might be lucky this year.

Behind the asparagus is a silvanberry.  It's bred for Perth conditions, but struggled last year.  We're quite pleased to see it's survived.  Perhaps there will be berries this year too.

Keeping the bees happy

This plant has been a mixed success.

It's red mizuna, an Asian stir-fry green.  It's rather too peppery for the reinventors' liking, but the bees think it's wonderful, and it's helpful in deterring nematodes.

It's also taller than the practical reinventor and looks quite impressive.  Last year's single plant produced hundreds of seeds, these are self-sown. 

Citrus in bloom

This is the tangelo, both fruiting and flowering.

It smells divine.  Utterly intoxicating.

As does the lemon.  And the bees agree

Gratuitous chook shot

And hasn't the passionfruit vine grown?!  It now all but covers the chooks' outside area, and it's been there only about 18 months.

In Perth, it's been quite wet the last few months for the changeover between winter and spring.  This was a rare sunny day, and the chooks couldn't wait to get out for their free-range.

So, so fresh

Tonight's dinner included this:

 Some lovely, young garlic, which went wonderfully with this:

our self-sown silverbeet.   It was less than 15 minutes from picking them, by torchlight, to eating them.

Nothing compares.