Did a night hunt for pests tonight, catching about 60 slugs, some cockroaches, earwigs and a couple of snails. My motivation was to find what was chewing the top of a big cabbage. I expected an animal but it was a very veracious giant slug — now deceased! There was quite a few leopard slugs prowling the yard. I leave these slugs alone as they typically don’t eat fresh vegetation. They prefer decaying matter, rotting meat, and known to hunt down and consume the pesky slugs. Easy to spot as the marking as much like a leopard. Some of the bad slugs were almost as big as this fellow.

Wishing everyone a non stressful dash to the end of 2025 from myself, Billie & Benji!

I wanted to use things from the garden as part of my family Christmas contribution. Early yesterday I picked loads of perpetual spinach and what I think is Brazilian spinach. The rocket is in the photo too but thats not for christmas. It took much of the day, but with the help of a borrowed pasta maker made up a bunch of spinach and ricotta cannelloni. Its all frozen now and awaiting some bechamel sauce and cheese on top before it gets cooked on Christmas day. Used up all my dried oregano so drying more today. Is anyone else cooking food to share with family and friends from their garden produce? I often find that what i can serve others is different to what I can serve my immediate family.

This is great forecast for the coming Christmas, definitely going to hot in my part of Australia. I am just planning for Autumn now as it's my best time if the year for gardening and making compost