From fiery chillies to figs, a summer garden in full swing
Our blooming crepe myrtle.
Hinterland Homesteading with Racheal Pascoe
Welcome back everyone! It is so wonderful to have you all back Homesteading for 2026. While lots of plants are struggling with the intense heat, some plants shine this time of year. The chilli plants at our place are loaded. Our passionfruit vines have lots of fruit on, the rosella bushes are busting out with lovely healthy fruit and we have tomatoes for miles. Our fig tree has the cutest little figs on it. I haven’t ever grown a fig before. A first for me this year. That is of course if I beat the possum to them!
Chilli harvest
A bumper chilli harvest needs to be handled with gloves.
My hubby Gavin and I have been busy harvesting our chilli crops. We only have a few bushes planted, but they certainly have been bountiful. The yellow habanero chillis are a 10 out of 10 for heat, so we pick them with gloves on (While trying to remember not to rub our eyes or touch our faces. Ha!) Some of the chillis will be dehydrated and put in oil, others will be left whole and fill jars of olive oil. Our son-in-law enjoys the hot chillis, so we have a taker for those ones thank goodness.
New Year Joy
A new year is a fabulous time to find the joy in your garden. We are so blessed to have a very happy crepe myrtle which has tonnes of flowers on it right now. It is a burst of colour as you come into our driveway. I am thinking of taking some cuttings after it has finished flowering. You will notice lots of crepe myrtles around town. There are several white ones up at the Nambour Hospital which I admire each year. Maybe I will invest in a white one for home. After flowering, it is best to prune the crepe myrtles quite hard. I take a good third or more off the entire tree. It bounces back each year, looking just magnificent.
Jobs around the garden
We have been watering early mornings and late evenings. I have been staying out until nearly 7pm some evenings, just pottering around. I really enjoy this time of year in the garden. Okay okay, I enjoy all times of year in the garden! I am still buying lots of bags of horse poop from near the Erbachers Fruit Store. It is the best deal I have found $10 for 5 bags. I am often passing that way, so it is convenient to pop some bags in the boot of the car. It is a good idea to age horse poop for 3-6 months before using it on the garden. This allows for the acidity to reduce. I have been making a couple of new gardens, so I have been happy to just be loading up those areas directly. With the start of our growing season here on the Sunshine Coast creeping up on us, any work done to improve garden beds is a little investment in a good season ahead.
‘To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow’ – Audrey Hepburn
Happy Homesteading everyone!