Summer flowers

This sunflower is surrounded by sweetbite tomatoes, which could be the reason it has not been attacked by the marauding cockatoos.  Fingers crossed this flower will produce seeds for next season.

A neighbour gave me a few gladioli corms and this one in apricot hue is the first to flower. 

I am considering myself fortunate to have this one flower from the dahlia bush.  In the past I would get masses of dahlias right up till autumn.  I have to find another spot in the garden with enough sunshine and not too many invasive roots from the big trees.

Violas in a pot to bring some colours.

The soil in this west facing bit of garden is not the best but compost and cow manure are helping the plants to produce some cheerful sunflowers and hollyhocks.

harvest

This basket of eggplant, zucchinis, tomatoes, capsicum and basil was turned into a delicious ratatouille.  A pity that the eggplant is slow growing.  There are flowers and baby eggplants but at the rate they are growing I will not be harvesting more till autumn.  The tomatoes have been providing us with juicy, sweet fruits of five different varieties.  The capsicum too is slow in producing more.

This year the flat peach harvest is small.  They have the sweetness of nectar.  I am thinking of putting in another tree and may start by digging a big hole and filling it up with compost to prepare the site.

The flat peach tree is small and I intend to keep it that way.  The soil where it is growing is very poor and I have built up the area surrounding the tree with compost and mulch.

This sunflower did not get a chance to mature and produce seeds.  A cockatoo snapped it off the stem and trashed the flower just for the fun of it.  I arrived too late.