Image via Wikipedia We have slowly been replacing some of our non-performing trees and shrubs around the yard with fruit trees. Today we planted a pear tree - a Williams bon Chretien, which is a lovely juicy dessert pear.

We're hoping that someone in our neighbourhood also has a pear tree for pollination. I think we'll be pretty safe, although it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if we had to plant another. Pear trees are lovely even without their delicious fruit and we do need a few more trees around our fenceline.

Pears fruit around late summer so it will fit in well with our other fruit trees. We will now be able to harvest various fruit from mid January to April. I guess I'll have to do some learning about preserving!

Over the last month most of our seedlings have been slowly establishing themselves. Mostly they've started putting on some new growth now. We discovered that it is still too cold here to try tomatoes. We only have two of the six seedlings left and they're not looking very happy either.

Today I sowed about 80cm of carrots (Heirloom mix) and lettuce (Mesclun mix). I'll do weekly sowings of these for the next couple of weeks. We have begun to prepare a bed for the beans, cucumbers and zucchinis which I will start planting out in around two weeks.

In other parts of our garden, our peacherine tree has started blossoming today. It seems to have a good covering of buds, so hopefully we'll get another good crop. It took me a little by surprise, as when I did a walk around earlier this week, there were no buds to be seen. For anyone wondering what on earth a peacherine is, my explanation would be they are very big nectarines. I believe they're a cross between peaches and nectarines (hence the name), but I don't find too much "peachy" about them. Most importantly, they're delicious! Usually the fruit ripens around mid January, unfortunately coinciding with our annual beach holiday.

The plum tree should be flowering in a week or so. The peach is still looking very quiet. It's a young tree, only in it's second year so I don't expect much fruit anyway.