Beginning of winter officially in Australia, but our winters in Sydney are quite mild compared to lots of places in the world. Lately it's been fine and sunny every day with temperatures getting up to 17-20 degrees C during the day and down to 3-5 in my particular part of Sydney at night. Everybody I know has colds - me included - the day starts to cool off quite suddenly from about 3pm and you can find yourself breathing cold air before you know it. It's also been very dry - we are still very much in drought conditions - the water level in our main supply dam has fallen below 40% for the first time in a long time, and they have just brought in more severe water restrictions.

I'm actually enjoying this weather at the moment. If you can find yourself a sunny spot in the middle of the day, it is very pleasant, and a good time to be gardening because it is not too hot and humid, like it is in summer. Some seeds from the tomato plants from summer decided to germinate where they fell, and they looked quite healthy, so we decided to give them a little bit of protection by building a sort of green house over them, made of clear plastic on a frame. One of the plants has even set some little tomatoes, so we'll see how that goes. The soil temperature is going to drop, but a blanket of mulch might help. The space is 8ft square and sloping on top - big enough to walk in. I'm going to try a few other plants in there too. It will be an interesting experiment anyway.

Jenny