What's up in the garden? (The first of an occasional series)

It's the last day of 2008 and I'm seriously considering spending it in my PJs. While I make my mind up, let's go for a wander round the garden, shall we?Just outside the back door is a trough which I planted with parsley, coriander and mint last year. They all died (a combination of too much sun and no water while I was away cruising) but the mint has sprung back to life this year. Just looking at it makes me want to make couscous tabbouleh...

Here's a photo of my zucchini plants:They got eaten, and not by me. It was quite funny really. The one on the left went first. One evening it was there, all 10 cm of it and the next morning *poof* it was gone! The one on the right lasted almost a week longer. I was confident it was safe and then, again, one morning I looked outside and it had disappeared overnight...

The silverbeet's doing much better than the poor old zucchini:The tomato plants are growing slowly but there are no sign of any tomatoes so far.My back-from-the-dead rhubarb has 5 stems to it.Whatever was eating the herbs when they were first planted appears to have stopped (I'm guessing they discovered the zucchini plants) but the coriander obviously couldn't cope with the stress and has bolted before I could pick any. I must check to see if that's normal for this time of the year...Also spotted in the garden: