On Monday we learned that we should always close the gate when leaving the garden. In the early evening I went up to the garden to get food for dinner and discovered a pademelon in there. Normally they are active at dusk but this one was a bit more adventurous. It turns out the pademelon had a friend who stayed for two nights. This friend was particularly taken by our lettuce, sage and native geranium seedlings. There has been no more damage so it seems our visitor has gone even though no-one saw it leave.

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On Thursday we learned that we should always close the gate when entering the garden. When we’re up in the garden Ebbi usually sits under the wheelbarrow, leans up against the bags of leeks or seeks shade beside the corn. But on Thursday morning she took herself to the local gym to escape the noise of an excavator nearby. Four long hours later we were all reunited thanks to our local community, which we now also know better.

We did get some work done around this rollercoaster ride. More used cardboard boxes from our local hardware store let us (Alex) finish off our first row of beds. Garlic went into one bed (we still have a lot to go) and will plant cauliflower and brussels sprout seedlings in the other two when they’re ready. It’s amazing how much more slowly the plants are growing with colder and shorter days. (“Amazing” also means surprising, which also means that we need to fix our spreadsheets and better allow for this next year!) An hour of careful measuring and marking the corners for the next set of beds means we will hopefully have two straight rows of beds in a few months’ time. For now we have three beds in a corner. So we end the week with 39 beds outside the tunnel (covering 292.5m2).

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Alex also finished off the shelves in the tunnel, which means less seed trays in the laundry. We fixed a leaking irrigation pipe that we discovered in another part of the property. (More accurately, we dug up the mud, tried to fix the leak and disconnected the pipe. But there is no leak now.) We planted more seeds. We continue freezing and dehydrating food for winter, including a first attempt at (what I hope is) rosehip that is at the front of the property. And a tomato has finally turned red, which was cause for celebration.

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