This morning, lying in bed with my cup of coffee (yes, I get coffee in bed every morning), a mother antechinus ran along the window ledge with four babies clinging to her back, and dropped them into my handbag. A few minutes later, she was back with another lot, and another. In total, there were twelve babies, dropped into my bag. And she was off. Handbag day care.
I have zucchini and their close cousin tromboncino going nuts in my garden this time of year. It is compulsory in our household to have zucchini every day, I’ve given so many away that my friends are avoiding me, the chooks have gone on strike and refuse to eat any more. This is the first year I’ve grown tromboncino (Diggers seeds) and I think they have upstaged Blackjack as my…
Many food plants are very good at calculating whether the days are getting longer or shorter, It’s how they tell what season it is. The scientific term is “photoperiodism”, and there’s more about it on the gardening page. There’s no point in cheating with photoperiodism. Plants that fell for tricks like that became extinct a long time ago!