Suddenly – it’s that time of year again. All the hard work through the winter months in the garden is starting to pay off. I can pick an almost complete salad from my garden of greens and herbs, the tomatoes are beginning to flower (ready for sauce and chutney around February / March), the chillies and capsicums are blooming, celery is growing taller by the day – as is the sweet corn – the beans and snow peas are curling their way up supports and the zucchini is spreading far and wide. But the real show that summer – and Christmas! – has arrived here in Australia is the berries.

We’ve been growing blueberries, raspberries and strawberries for a few years now. I have three blueberry bushes in pots that are, for some inexplicable reason, suddenly giving us extra fat and juicy fruit this year compared to last season. These are the first ripe ones I’ve picked. Trust me when I say they only ‘just’ lasted long enough to take this pic before my kids devoured them.

Nom nom nom!

The first of the raspberries were picked a few weeks ago. Right now, we’re getting about six a day from what started as three canes. Judging by the amount of flowers and baby berries on the canes – there will soon be a lot more than that!

And finally, the strawbs. During winter, I split our duo of strawberry plants that had begun bursting from their pots, and planted them in a special new strawberry patch. We’ve had to net the patch due to the local bird-life, but also the possums. It seems to be working.

Keeping the wildlife at bay…

I was hoping to have enough berries to make jam this year. I don’t like my chances of that, though. Not with my kids around anyway…