Winter pear

In late Autumn, the Packham's Triumph pear tree flowered in one location and one of these flowers has since pollinated against.. well, I have no idea.  Since then, at the start of Winter, it has gotten down to almost 0°C at least once and there have been white frostings on the ground, but the lone pear keeps growing.

Garlic Planting - Winter 2016

These are the first two of three garlic beds I've planted this year, both used for the broad bean landrace last year. There's a wider third bed which was dug and planted out in several days of hot weather. Here are the varieties and the beds they're planted in:

• Bed 1: Ajo Rojo (Trade-Me, 2016)
• Bed 2: Rocambole Early White (Koanga, 2016)
• Bed 2: Rocambole Early Red (Koanga, 2016)
• Bed 2: New Zealand Purple (Koanga, 2016)
• Bed 3: Takahue Red (Koanga, 2014, replanted)

Here are the two ex-broad bean beds dug up and weeded. There were of course some volunteer broad beans growing, some of which were perennial planted before the last Winter.

Bed 2: Rocambole - Early White.

Bed 2: Rocambole - Early Red.

Bed 2: New Zealand Purple.

No photos were taken of the planting in beds 1 and 3.  I think some of the varieties were sprouting already, perhaps the Ajo Roja.  My memory is failing me.  I had wanted to get these in earlier, but was too busy to prepare the two existing beds, and dig out the third one.

A better Summer in Winter, than the actual Summer

It's winter, but the temperature yesterday reached 25C, and today reached 29C. I doubt we had hotter temperatures than that in Summer, which was plagued by overcast misty days. I had to go out and water the plants, the passionfruit and broccoli were looking wilted.

I'm seriously hoping we get some hard winter before spring comes.  On one hand I do have things like the figs which don't like it so much, but then on the other hand I have maples which would like a frost and other various standard trees that like a given number of hours below 8C during winter.