[Shayne Parkinson]

We have a vegetable garden and a small orchard. Over the years we've learned that some things just aren't worth struggling with, as they don't suit our local climate, but what grows well grows *very* well. In the vege garden, corn, tomatoes, salad greens, artichokes, asparagus, beans and fennel are all prolific. For fruit we have blueberries, strawberries, apples, pears, apricots, figs, persimmons, nectarines, plums, quince, feijoas, loquats, guavas, grapes, passionfruit ... I think that's it.

We net the berries against birds, otherwise we'd get nothing at all. For the other fruit, the birds take a tithe, but generally still leave us with more than we can eat.