Doo doo doo... lookin' out my back door

I know - I haven't posted since Sunday - again! But it's only Thursday, not Friday, so that's progress!

It's been hot and humid hear lately, but we finally got some rain to cool things down, so I popped out to check on the garden between rain clouds.

Remember the little veggie plot I planted in May?

Well...

It exploded! We've had lots of rain, and a great week of hot sunny weather. I need to get stakes for the tomatoes, and I should probably thin out the onions,  but I'm really please with how it's doing, with minimal interference from me!

 The cherry tomatoes are coming. There's lots of these little guys hanging off the branches - a few warm days sunny days and they'll be red.

I've got just one pepper between my two pepper plants - but I'm so pleased with that. All the gardeners I know have said they haven't had much luck with peppers. The pepper will actually be purple, so that dark colour on it isn't a disease - it's suppose to do that.

I wasn't sure if I'd get fruit on the strawberries this year - but three of the four plants had flowers, and one of them...

... just look at those berries! The other plants are just starting to push out the berries.

And I think I'm going to have a bumper crop of yellow beans!

I've got a whole row of plants and they are just covered in mini-beans!

And remember the mystery shrubs out back? Well the neighbour identified one a Gooseberry for me. And it's definitely berried!

There were tonnes of these hanging from the branches last week, but the birds have gotten most of them. There's only a few left now. The other plant is a Jostaberry.

The berries have only just started to turn dark - the birds haven't bothered with them much, but I suspect they will soon.

I also came across this very cool mama spider and her nest.

According to my googling, she's a black and white jumping spider. She's only about the size of my thumbnail. 

While I was out the boys just had to come out too. 

If I don't take Rocky out as soon as I get in from work - he screams at me all night.

Tux... I don't think the birds will come if you hang out right under the feeder.

It's been mentioned before that some people are amazed that the cats don't take off on me when we're out. Well that's not strictly true... it's just that Tux isn't really well enough to run fast....and Rocky is too fat, so they aren't too hard to keep corralled while I'm puttering around. Mostly they stay in the yard, but every once in a while, Rocky will decide to go full Cheetah and take off down the little gully that runs behind the houses (we don't have a back fence yet)

"I'm freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

 I've learned not to run after him. He can only do short little bursts of speed. And then he stops. If I follow slowly and a few feet away, I can usually get ahead of him and shoo him back into the yard, where he collapses on the patio stones from too much exertion.

 "Okay Mum, I promise, I won't go cheetah again - don't make me go inside!"