They're Back!!!

Over the years of writing this blog, I've written a few posts about my battles with the bush turkeys. They love my garden; especially my veggie garden beds...many readers from around the world have commented on previous posts about the turkeys, telling me of their battles with wildlife...deer, rabbits, birds, kangaroos etc
this was last year...

Last year and the year before that, I didn't have many issues with the turkeys....lulled into a sense of false security eh? My 'fake turkey' made by a friend has been pretty good at discouraging the male birds but maybe the turkeys are getting smarter?

The use of wire and plastic netting and wooden stakes is an integral part of gardening; this is the veggie bed adjacent to the raised 'sweet potato' bed...

Last month I was so proud of my 'sweet potato' garden bed. The plants had grown thickly and completely filled the raised bed that I use for growing them. I was looking forward to digging up a bumper crop in October. A male turkey had dug up some veggies in my larger veggie patch but the smaller sweet potato bed had been left untouched. I had put plastic mesh over that bed though, just in case.
Then one morning I came out to the garden and found this...

Silly me thinking that the plastic mesh would keep the turkeys out of the bed. It was just flung aside!
I replanted any plants that had been left and we got out the wire mesh. I put one layer over and then decided to put another layer over; all weighted down with pavers.

While we were away in Sydney, the plants didn't do very well but since we've been home, with some TLC the plants are gradually 'coming back'.
Knowing that a lot of friends who live nearby have their own battles with the turkeys, I posted photos on Facebook. One friend wrote this comment...I realise that I really shouldn't whinge/complain about the turkeys in my yard, after reading this! But maybe just a bit of a grizzle now and then! Lol


But I haven't lost my sense of humour! 

Goliath of the veggie world?

Recently, while weeding in one of my veggie gardens, I found this little sweet potato ( kumera) peeping up out of the ground...so I dug it up. 

It wasn't very big so I made sure I bought another one from the supermarket...

And then a few days later DsD1 brought us a sweet potato from the veggie garden of the cattle property in Wandoan, where she lives...

It's huge!

I couldn't cut it, so I had to get some help from DH...

Now lots of vegetables would be rather 'woody' if left to grow so big before harvesting...but not these sweet potatoes! I love this vegetable...cooked any way, but my absolute favourite is baked in the oven, either in chunks or chips. And so most nights we have been having this favourite of mine to accompany dinner. 😉. Despite eating it most nights, we aren't even halfway through it yet! Lol. It's still just a bit big to fit into the crispers of the fridge...so it's up top. But I have plans to make a batch of soup, some sweet potato fritters, vegetable curry and a few other ideas, so it won't be taking up fridge space for much longer. 

Meanwhile my sweet potato crop is nearing harvest time. And for the first time in my experience, the possums have been eating the sweet potato leaves...just a little nibble at first...

The leaves must be delicious! 

I will be putting some mesh over this bed. Not to stop the possums nibbling the leaves but rather to stop the bush turkeys from digging up the sweet potatoes...yep, it's almost THAT time again! Lol

Progress in the garden...

On the first day of autumn I wrote about the veggie patch. The wildlife 'rules' much of what happens in that patch but I was hoping to actually harvest a crop of some sort before too long.

March 1...tomatoes, some herbs and an eggplant...

Yesterday...

Despite the resident possums' penchant for nibbling the leaf tips of the tomato plants, the plants have made a lot of progress. One plant had 'regular sized' fruit...

The other is a cherry tomato variety...

The eggplant has grown well too...

Lots of flowers and one eggplant...

There has been a bush turkey coming to visit but she has contented herself with just digging up a pot plant or two...sigh...and has left the veggie patch alone...for now anyway. 

When I'm back to being retired later this week, the plans are to empty 2 of the compost bins into the other end of the larger raised bed and planting a capsicum and a zucchini. Of course the actual emptying of the compost bin will be done by my lovely DH...he was busy the other day with the mulcher too...

We'd both been busy over recent weeks trimming shrubs and one of the trees in the front yard and after the prunings had dried out a bit, it was time to reduce them to mulch. It's amazing how that little machine reduces a big pile of branches etc to a small mound!