A few readers love reading and looking at my blog posts because they believe they can keep up with some of what I am doing each week, while others love gardens and vegetables. Most are happy to read and to see whatever is on offer here in glorious Tasmania. But right at the moment I am distracted majorly by another passion of mine – researching and writing history and I have not been out and about to experience the summery delights of Hobart and beyond. But I did work in the Food Garden of the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens (RTBG) last Thursday when we planted shallots and spring onions and cleared the orchard end of weeds in anticipation of Tino Carnevale and the ABC Gardening Australia crew coming this week to film in that section.

I was introduced to a long handled tool called a ‘scratcher’ for use in pulling through the dirt to make a depression in which to lay the shallot and spring onion seedlings, before swiping the soil by hand over the roots. The intent was to create long straight rows.

The evidence of foraging wallabies was everywhere.

The Giant pumpkins continue to expand.

The corn was looking good.

The last of the sunflowers ‘shone’ with a golden glow.

The kiwi fruit are gradually increasing in size and the plants look so healthy.

This Thursday’s effort was given by my fellow volunteers without me and they undertook a very large harvest. Of course there was weeding to be done!  Their reward was a demonstration from the Food Garden co-ordinator, Adam, showing them how to prune a fruit tree. Photos galore have arrived from Robyn and Pam which show a range of fruit and vegetables after harvest at their absolute glossy colourful best. Quite marvellous. The following photos of the harvest ,which is given to charity, are courtesy of Robyn.

Pam sent the following photo –obviously the tomatoes were spectacular in their colour, size and variety.