what else is growing at ours

I started a walk around the garden on a previous post so I'll take you from the veggie patch up to the swales.  On the way though, we should really pop in and see how well the bananas are doing.  We now have four circles going on either side of the driveway.  And after losing a few bunches with the February cyclone, we now have three gorgeous bunches remaining and picked our first ever bananas yesterday.  And they taste amazing!

 We have four paw paws in with the bananas but these two have the most sun as the bananas are below them, so they are doing the best.  They are both heavy with fruit right now.

I've been doing a lot of work on the swales in recent months, clearing out the grass that has grown back and putting a thick layer of mulch down.  Then I've planted grown cover and a shrub layer and these are slowly taking over.  There is still weeding to do as the goat weed and cobblers peg seem to still find a way through.

This swale is a bit further along in the process

The ground covers of pumpkin, sweet potato and mint are taking over with pepino, edible hibiscus and cardamon establishing at the next layer.  Then all the trees are really taking off, both the fruit trees and the nitrogen fixing natives.  Hopefully the whole area will look like this once the food forest is fully established.  Lots of work to do before then though! I am starting to join together the bottom two swales, planting trees either side and leaving a path in between.  I've grown mulberries from cuttings, macadamia trees, pidgeon pea, rosellas and a jack fruit from seed.  At the moment, we are just mowing down the middle but once the trees get a bit taller, I'll put a mulch path down, as I have on the next swale up.