Update for the beginning of May

We've had a few personal events to challenge us in the last few weeks and have had to take a bit of time out from the farm projects, so I apologise for the lack of posts of late.
The veg garden is in a state of rest. The raised beds are not yet constructed. However I still have a reasonable crop of rainbow chard, chillies (outdoors in May?), herbs such as basil and coriander. My celery is coming away well, and I've planted some beetroot. Also the artichoke has sprouted a few more buds which we'll enjoy any day now.
We've got a few birds for the table (chickens) in the freezer. Three of them are some of the young birds (about 16 weeks old) and 1 is an old hen that must be about 3 years. Will be interesting to see how they compare (toughness etc). We ate a 3 year old hen a few weeks ago, I cooked it on the rotisserie and it came out very well, not tough at all. And a wild duck which will be enjoyed tomorrow night (it's duck season again).
A friend gifted us a large bucket of wild mushrooms recently, so I made the usual soup, creamed mushrooms on toast, and we also had them in pasta and fried in butter on the BBQ with a steak. Yum!


 I've done a lot of repotting of plants and just have one big cactus left to do, and my frangipani once it has shed its leaves. There were no flowers on it this year and I think that's because it needs new soil and a bit of a booster with fertiliser.

We've got loads of Poroporo seedlings coming up in various pot plants, so in the next few days I need to get on and transplant these. I hope they survive. We want to plant them as short-term hedging, and also hopefully harvest the berries to make jam. Poroporo also has interesting medicinal properties as indicated in this article.