In Sydney it felt like the rain was never going to stop, there was constant downpour with the only change being when it absolutely bucketed down. It seriously rained for six days and six nights.

When the rain stopped on Saturday my ears went in to shock, it was suddenly quiet, and before I knew it Mark was calling me to come and look at something right away. What did he want me to look at? The sunshine and clear blue sky of course! I had to go and look at it right away as I’m sure both of us thought it must have just been mother nature teasing us and the rain would start up again, and the sun would go away quickly. But, it is still here 🙂

So, at the first sign of a break in the rain and some sunshine I put my wellies on, and went out in the backyard to check on the girls and the veggie patch. Also to get the dose of sunshine that I seriously needed.

The poor chickens were saturated, obviously fed up of being cooped up they had decided to leave the dry warmth of their coop to stretch their legs through the puddles in their run. So the first job was to throw some hay around the run to give them something dry to walk on and have a good scratch. They weren’t shivering, so there was no need for a towel dry.

The next inspection of the veggie garden was a little saddening. All the rain and wind had really given everything a beating. I removed every slug I could find in the veggie garden, re-staked the tomatoes, and went on a mission to remove all the tomatoes from the vines that were swollen and about to burst. These are great to make green tomato chutney. I also removed the tomatoes that the slugs had gotten to and gave them to the chooks.

Basically, my tomato loses were the chickens gains, and they ended up with many more tomatoes than I did-green tomato chutney will have to wait until autumn.

On the upside, there are still tomatoes on the vines that surprisingly didn’t fall victim to too much rain, wind, slugs or death by frost. This morning I have lots of tiny red tomatoes and one ripening Roma tomato. I’m looking forward to lunch time.

To see what else is growing in my BACKYARD GARDEN click the link.