Over winter we have been madly planting bare rooted fruit trees; cherry, pear, apricot, and peach (oh and an avocado) were added to our existing apple, lemon, plum, nectarine, feijoa and fig. In order to make room we had to remove some Wattles that had given us afew years of their optimistic yellow early spring bloom but unfortunately they had past their best. Years ago i did a Diploma of Horticulture - Orchard Management at Massey University in NZ so it will be fun to put my knowledge to good use.

We have the cherry, apple and pear planted up against a wire framework and hope to trygrowing them as a

fan, hopefully the pruning won't prove too

challenging.

The nectarine that i have been pruning in a standard form is blossoming and due to all the rain we have had lately i am hoping for a good crop this year.

meatballs and tomato sauce

Vito cooked for us tonight a dinner of meatballs and pasta in tomato sauce. Kids loved and for that matter so did I.

.5 kilo of mince (can be beef or a combination of pork and veal)

1 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese

1 egg

1-2 tablespoon breadcrumbs

Salt and pepper

½ small onion finely diced

Optional finely chopped parsley

Mix and massage mixture together with your hands and form into balls

Shallow fry meatballs in a heavy pan

Finely chop one medium onion and 2-3 cloves garlic and fry in olive oil.

Once the onion is translucent add 1-2 tablespoons of tomato paste and fry with onions for a couple of minutes

Add tin of chopped tomatoes and 1 cup of water

Let sauce come to the boil and simmer with meatballs for 45 – 60mins