We are out of new spuds at the moment.
The variety that was meant to be ready in time is about 1 – 2 weeks late due to the cold spring.

We still have plenty of Cherries, Broad Beans, Peas and Eggs available on the Stall though.

We are out of early Cherries.
We only have some new spuds (2.5kg for $5), Eggs (1doz for $5) and some Comfrey plants ($4/plant) on the Stall at the moment.

At this stage we hope to have Dawson Cherries starting around December 20 if we get some nice fine weather.

We currently have delicious tree ripened Cox’s Orange and Red Delicious Apples for sale on the Stall.
Cox’s Orange are a great dual purpose Apples as they taste great fresh or cooked.
Red Delicious are a nice crunchy eating Apple.
We are selling both Cox’s Orange and Red Delicious on the Stall in 5kg bags for $5 or 2nds boxs 7kg for $5/12kg for $10.

Gidday folks

Time for an update on life here on the Orchard.

We, the Hobbs Tribe of Hobbs Orchard, managed to survive the winter months relatively unscathed.
I will admit that there were several occasions in which we almost froze whilst venturing outside to perform necessary tasks and duties but thanks to two wood burners (which ran 24/7) the house remained nice and toasty!

We didn’t let the sub antarctic weather stop us from getting out and about though.
As usual we ventured to Queenstown several times over winter (in between the snow dumps) and despite the fact that it was colder than a penguins rear end, we still had a loads of fun!

Here's me and Ruby trying not to freeze to death on a -5 morning!

You can check out our Winter Photo Gallery here.

Once the snow melted and the days began to warm up, the buds on the fruit trees began to move faster than a caffiene addicted rabbit so before long we were in full blown frost fighting mode.

Ah good ol frost fighting.
Yep, nothing says good times like running around an ice covered Orchard at 1am checking every sprinkler to make sure there are no blockages.

Funnily enough though, this Spring has been rather non-eventful when it comes to severe weather; a welcome change considering the last couple of Springs have been full of weather related turmoil!!
You can check out our Spring Photo Gallery here.

So apart from a cold winter and a reasonably normal spring (so far) things have been ticking over nicely here at the Hobbs HQ.

I’m going to be updating the blog more regularly from now on so stay tuned for future updates!

It is freezing.
Thanks to a cold southerly currently rolling up the country the current temperature stands at 6c with a wind chill of about 3c!!!!
We have even had a close call with hail on Sunday when we just got the tail end of a band as it passed through the Valley!!!
Too close for comfort!!

As you can imagine we have our fires on full bore so at least the house is warm and toasty.
Just a bit of a shame that the Fruit Stall don’t have the same level of warmth!!
I don’t recommend boxing up Apple orders at 6am when the temperature is this cold.
Lets just say after 1 hour Mum and I couldn’t feel our hands!

Just so you guys can see how cold everything is at Hobbs Orchard here’s a couple of photos taken at 9am this morning of the Benger Range.
Enjoy!!!!! 😉

For the past few weeks we have been catching several large ferrets in our ferret trap.
Some big, some small but yesterday we were greeted with something different.
A white ferret!!!!!
That’s right, a snow white ferret!

Don’t think for a minute though just because its all cute and white and fluffy that it isn’t a marauding killer!
We caught it just outside the chook house door so if we hadn’t had the trap set we very likely would have a repeat of the last ferret related incident.

As you can imagine we have reset the trap just in case more ferrets decide they want some chicken to go.

No much to report folks.

Apart from the fact it is cold and misty this morning.
Is meant to be fine later on but as you all probably know, the weather forecast tends to be as accurate as a blind man in a sharpshooting contest!!!!

Fruit wise we only have Pears and Apples at the moment.

Will keep you updated.

Nectarines will be finished today.

Once they are gone we will have just Pears and Apples on the Stall until the rest of the Plums ripen in a couple of weeks.

It looks as though it will be a nice fine day today and the temperature is meant to get up into the 20s.
About time!!!!!

After lots of patient waiting, P.Y.O Haven Peaches will begin tomorrow.
The price is $1.90/kg for P.Y.O.

We had hoped to have had them sooner but thanks to the weather spitting the dummy we haven’t had enough sunshine to ripen them.
Luckily we had a decent day yesterday which managed to kick everything into gear!!!

These 5am starts in the Fruit Stall are overrated!!
After 5 straight weeks of it, me and mum are a little bit shattered!!!!

Fruit-wise we still have the same as yesterday, Billington Plums, Gravenstein Apples and Haven Peaches.