We've also received a wonderful $1000 grant from the Awesome Foundation which went straight towards purchasing our much needed honey extractor.  See our pictures from our first extraction! So besides tending to our 18 hives around Melbourne our garden is still producing lots of wonderful fruit and vegetables.  The weather as we all know has been a tad... topsy turby with one day 40 degrees then the next 20 - our poor tomatoes have taken a battering with all this heat and then rain.  On the upside, I have never seen such big zucchini and cucumbers!


We have rock melons and water melons growing in the greenhouse which I am super chuffed, seeing that I have never grown one before in my life.  I've also put in a second lot of corn which has been growing like crazy with all this heat and rain.

Our highlight though is of course associated with our Bees - our first honey extraction! Mat and I were so excited to un cap those first few frames to extract that delicious golden nectar we call honey.  What a gift from our own backyard. See our pictures from our first extraction!

Corn, oh yes.. one of my all time favourites, I just love the taste of corn on the cob.  I couldn't wait for it to be planting time, much the same as tomatoes really.. timing wise.  We planted some swwwwweeeeet corn, again I grew them from seed, about the same time as the tomatoes.  When they were about 10cms in height I eagerly planted them in the patch. I put a row of them in behind the tomatoes vaguely remembering reading about how they help those tomatoes stand up, I supose like stakes really.. interesting I thought..

The seedlings I grew were Sweet Corn indeed... sweet 16 of them rose up out of those beds at a fast rate (about 2m tall)  All I could think about was when they were going to be ready, eating those juicy cobs over summer.  I had heard from asking a few friends who had grew corn when would they be ready? After each inspection I was told, wait until the silks turn brown.. well that was a problem.  The hot days we had, had fried them.. soo what else could tell me?  Someone else said, peel a cob back and prick it with a pin.. if the juice is clear, they are not ready.. if they were milky.. go for it.  That was also a problem for me, they were decent and fat but they were dry.. dry and hard... hmm.

I left them go for another week, worried.. I go back to the packet... duh!  Please make sure you read what you are planting.. 'or leave the cobs to mature for golden popcorn'... ouch.. well we have a load of popcorn, fine pop corn it is!.. sadly though I wait for another season to see what fresh home grown corn is like.. dammm