It's been a bit of a rollercoaster of feelings this weekend.

Yesterday one of my dear older chickens (Mouse) was killed by my neighbour's little dog (it must have jumped a few fences alongside where it lived, travelled up higher and come back down to where it could get to them). Not a nice way to go - but fortunately quickly. I've rarely even see this dog, so it's not like it's there constantly watching the chickens...

Now strangley, the rest of the chooks have settled down. The remaining older girl (Moon) has pretty much stopped picking on the two little ones (Magpie and Peach) and hangs around with them for company (or to keep them in line lol), sits next to them on the roost, lies down in the sun with them and generally acting quite friendly (but has given the little black one the odd peck if she's seemed too confident ;)). She was pining and calling for Mouse quite a bit yesterday and was subdued but seems to be coming right.

So since I could see the change in the way they were relating and I had Simon at home as backup today we decided to let them all out this morning. Until now, the little ones have been inside the coop since the escapades on the first day. I figured they were no longer going to be chased away by the older one and they knew their environment, knew me and Simon (the kids were staying at nannie and grampies for the night) and knew their coop was their haven. So out they came and they did great. They spooked a few times but not majorly and I was able to round them all up easily enough to put away inside when I was leaving the garden. No chance of letting them out to free range without me there now since the dog over the fence has the taste of chicken blood.

The situation is full of irony really (including the fact I was breaking the local bylaw by owning more than 3 bantams without having concrete floored housing for them) - but may just all work out ok.

Garden stuff...I bought a tamarillo tree and planted it, planted out some raspberry canes I was given yesterday, dug up/prepared one more vege bed, noticed heaps of tiny plums starting to grow, piled up soil against one self-seeded potato plant which is located in a really random place but at least free from frost, spotted some of my onion seedlings popping through the surface, tried to find a Jasmine plant to grow up our bamboo shade structure in the herb garden but they were out of stock, my first daffodil opened just in time for the first day of spring tomorrow and looks so pretty on my front path up to my door - I look forward to the other 5 plants flowering too.

A bit of a physical day

I've been wondering when I'll get that achey-back feeling like I did last year and was beginning to wonder if my sole reliance on gardening-as exercise was going to fail me this year. But it seems not.

Today I spent a bit of time off and on over the whole day outside (along with making bread with the kids, juicing a backlog of oranges we had accumulated from our vege box and turned frozen bread crusts into garlic butter snacks and read books amongst other things).

~ I snipped up the remainder of the branches and sorted them into a mulch pile and those that will be stored for next winter's firewood/kindling.

~ I transferred the soil from the frogpond into one of the garden beds to build it up a bit.

~ I hand-dug around in the potato patches to see if any of the seeds were sprouting or if I needed to start again. I did locate some sprouts slowly making their way to the surface so will leave them to it for another few weeks and will hopefully see some action.

~ I removed a large bucket of woodash from my fireplace and sprinkled it over all my garden beds.

~ I weeded my front garden, and planted out my herb seedlings.

~ I popped one courgette seedling down into the garden even though it may still be a little cold for it. I still have another 2 continuing on inside my house. No other spring seeds/seedlings have been transplanted just yet, I'm letting my wintery veges continue on with their thing. Still no sign of any carrot or onion seedlings popping through the soil.

~ Did a bit of reading on my sunny front porch of a new book "How to Grow More Vegetables" by John Jeavons that I blogged about a few months back and decided to go ahead and purchase. So my focus will be on aerating the soil more than I have been and consequently creating a raised bed (I half-heartedly tried it out today on one bed and it looked lovely and fluffy aferwards). I will be doing further reading to get ideas on closer planting (although I don't plant in rows anyway and plant closer than recommended, it appears that this theory is closer again).

~ Re-sowed more seeds into a propagator that was accidentally knocked over by a friend yesterday (a shame that the significance of what happened was lost on her - I guess it did just look like a tray of soil...)...but I'll forgive her lol.

~ The chickens seem a lot more relaxed although one of the younger ones if still quite skittery (and gets a bit picked on) around the big ones although the other young one is quite happy (and seems to be accepted) to eat alongside them. It's been interesting to see the pecking order develop. The little ones look keen-as to be out scratching around with the big girls, but I'm not so keen just yet incase they get chased off again. I want to wait till they get a little bigger so they can't squeeze through the wire mesh for a start. At least by removing the branch pile from against the fence, it can't be used to walk up and hop over the fence any longer.

Dashing through the rain

Well, not a lot of interesting update really...

We've had a lot of rain lately with only the odd hour or two of sunshine. Fortunately the sun shone for a few preplanned outings (a birthday party on saturday morning and then a visit to a local bird sanctury yesterday). The daytime temperatures have definitely gotten warmer though.

Simon and the kids bundled up in raincoats and boots and went down to the beach this afternoon and collected up a bit more driftwood and a few stones for the frog pond. So, after washing them down, they have been placed down around it. Still need plenty more though.

The chickens have fallen into a wee routine that seems to be working for us all. We still let the big girls out around 8am (they block the two little ones from getting down off the top of the nesting box where they sleep), then I rearrange the inside of the coop so that the little ones are on one side and I leave the nesting side open for the big ones to have rain shelter if they want it as well as being able to lay eggs. At around 4.30pm I wander down to feed them again, put them in all back in together for a bit of socialisation and the littlies are gradually being harassed less although they are still a bit skittery if the big ones walk near them.

Simon closed in the back of the coop with plastic and extended the corrugated iron roof so the little ones had good wind and rain protection.

I transferred a bunch of seedlings out of the seed trays into pots over the weekend and have noticed my second attempt at raising herb seeds has been successful. Nathan helped me sow some scarlett runner beans that we saved from the vine in autumn to see if they sprout.

I don't see any sign of all my onion and carrot seedlings (unfortunately sowed and then heavy rains hit which I suspect washed them all away). No seed potatoes have sprouted yet either - I won't write them off just yet, but do wonder if the soggy soil was too much for them. No worries, because I don't have any sufficiently sprouted seed potatoes yet to replace them; so while they sprout, in the meantime, the ones in the ground might pop through.

I have begun chopping up the branches that are lying around our property so they can be saved for wood and the rest can break down (and it removes a means of escape for the little chickens who used the pile last time to hop over the fence!). I'm about halfway through, but waiting for some finer weather!

While making the most of the rainy weather, I went through on a decluttering mission today and tackled a large chest of drawers in the hallway which holds stationery and craft supplies. It them lead me to rearranging my laundry cupboard which holds random storage items.

I've been trying out my crochet skills again and have made myself a couple of wide headbands which I'm quite pleased with.

Working it through...

Well, not too sure that the chickens are in a much better place with each other, but I've helped their environment work a bit better for them in the meantime.

Today I had the two big girls out roaming around but discovered them trying all means of escaping the property which has never happened before. So after shooing them back down where they belong (and getting Mouse out of the hedge 6ft up) it seemed that Mouse was desperate for something and was eventually waiting by the door of the coop. So I let her in and she promptly sat up on the nest and laid an egg. My chickens have been very poor egg layers since March, so this was fantastic. But it meant that I now couldn't shut them out of the coop all day and couple that with them being escape artists I needed to figure something else out.

So I found an old window fly-screen under the house and used it to partition off a section of the coop where it could be swung open (using cable ties) to have them all together as well as well as accessing the roosts. It also meant I was able to shut them all away during the day when I went out whereas yesterday I had the two big girls free ranging all day until dusk which makes me a bit nervous due to a roaming dog in the neighbourhood and their desire to find a way out! I now just need Simon to extend the roof over the other portion of the coop for the little girls to have rain/sun cover during the day if they need it. I'm hoping with them being closed in together during the day they can observe and get to know each other through the mesh yet still interact/sort it out at the end of the day when going to bed (which is down to merely a minute of jumping around finding their places for the night). I'm hoping one morning to just go down to let the big ones out and find them all scratching around happily together!

Getting the run around

Argghhhhhh!!!!!

Simon let the big chickens out this morning since they were up and about, the babies were still sitting in their nesting box (or perhaps intimidated to stay there).

Later on I decided to let them out and see how they went. They were happy for a while until I tried to put them away and we lost them both over each of the neighbours fences. I managed to get my one back and Simon eventually found his one. One then made the mistake of running towards the other two who were busy in their usual spot - the big girls then bailed it up against the chicken wire fence that the neighbour had up from previously owning chickens and the wee thing managed to push her way through the gap of the wire by bailing her up against the wire fence (was about 10cm diametre). Simon was out so I had to wait till he got home just before 5pm to get her back (in the 4hrs she was over there she hid in a bush and then as dusk started to fall she began walking up and down the fenceline trying to get back) with the help of the neighbour. Only then (phew!) she flew into a huge compacted pile of tree brances and mulch and burrowed in so we had to lift that up to pick her out. Finally both were inside and after they'd calmed and eaten I let the big girls back in who only bailed them up for about 10mins tonight before they all put themselves to bed.

We are contemplating putting up a moveable wire partition for use during the day if I need to coop them in so they can exist next to each other, see each other and hopefully start to get on. I will just move them between sides to get into bed etc.

I had a very unproductive day stressing over the situation!

A busy day at the urban homestead

~ I freed up another vegetable patch and sowed some carrot and onion seeds (noticed 4 potato plants that have self seeded from last year's remains - have left them there). Weeded other patches and popped carrot seeds into empty spaces.

~ Simon dug up a long potato patch for me. This was on a grassed/weedy area that hadn't been converted to garden last year - so was hard compacted soil that needed a bit of work.

~ I went off to a Transition Towns subgroup meeting of keen gardeners (and wanna-be's) which will focus on sharing skills and workload between us on our own properties. Today was mostly about getting to know each other, what our skills on offer are and what we'd like help with. It was an interesting few hours and I got to chat to a few new people which made it doubly worth while.

~ Simon then went off to pick up the new bantams (as yet unnamed). Yikes! We introduced them after the other two had gone to bed, but obviously not dark enough, so there was a bit of postering and pecking and intimidation going on. Eventually it got dark enough and the two new babies put themselves to bed (or were let into it...) in their new nest underneath the older two and the older two put themselves into bed. Will be interesting to see how things are tomorrow.

~ After Simon went to pick up the chicks I went down and sowed the potato seeds into their new ditches.

What a weirdo LOL

You know that you're on a different wave length when you go to bed without noticing the seedling propagator still on the end of the bed AND wake up in the morning and still don't notice it (and yes I had my glasses on by then). You only notice it a few hours later when you tidy up the room...

We keep our seed trays and new seedlings in our bedroom (and on the chests of the drawers) since it gets all day sun and acts as a glasshouse.

Wish me luck!

We get our two new chickens tomorrow. I've been reading up on how to introduce new birds to the existing flock. Seems that most times there will be problems, but there are a few things to try.

Since I have only one coop, I think we'll move it onto a fresh patch of grass so it appears "new". We'll pop the new girls in onto the roosts after dark. Simon is making a new nesting box to add in, so if need be there won't be territorial issues over the old box and the new one will be suspended underneath.

Funny how I still get concerned for the girls when there is stormy weather and hope they're not too scared down there with their iron roof taking the brunt of the rain and hail. At least it's dry and would be reasonably warm with them able to snuggle together.

It ain't so satisfying...

Looking at your vegetable garden flooded in water.

We've had so much rain in the past few days that the garden is unable to drain off and my plants are swamped. In two of the beds the water is over 5cm high (one with broccoli's and one of my potato patches where the 30cm ditches are full to the top and overflowing). Fortunately all the other beds are on higher ground. The last time the garden got flooded was during spring 5yrs ago. Depending on how long it takes to drain away, I may be able to save my broccoli's by transplanting them since they are still at a large seedling stage.

So, another lesson learned. Not a good idea to populate the lower garden beds during the winter/spring rains. We're onto about our 6th downpour of hail for the day, but those seem to have left the plants intact fortunately.

But on the amusing side, my frog pond is full, just need to finish it off lol.

Where we're at

Random downloading of brain ahead...

Not a huge amount of action in the garden this weekend although I did get one bed of onions and carrots sowed today though.

I also got stuck into the frog pond this afternoon and tidied up the hole and lined it with polythene. Haven't yet progressed any further though.

Simon dug the kids a sandpit in the middle section of grass above the vegetable garden area where the swing and trampoline are. So they now have a nice big sandpit, and their playhouse has also been relocated off my deck which will make room for some potted vegetables if I need to.

This evening I've been working on my garden plan and have mapped out almost 100m2 of garden beds! Last years' garden was about 60m2 with the most work being the intial digging of the plots (very compacted and weed ridden soil), so I figure what's another 30m2 of digging this year! Once it's all set up and the planting is done successionally, it's very easy to maintain and harvest. And with our new push mower - it keeps the paths between beds nice and trim.

I have decided to plant tomato plants around the frog pond to provide shade and foliage for the frogs and also takes care of where was I going to put some of my tomatoes as I'd run out of room by that stage.

Need to figure out some sort of system for watering the garden. Last year I found it a bit of a drag carrying buckets of water from the water trough (which is fed by an irrigation hose that runs from our water tank under the house that is filled from roof runoff and controlled with a ballcock valve) to the garden beds. What would be ideal is if we can modify the plug hole of the bath tub/water tough and put a garden hose connection on the end so it can be gravity fed.

This week I plan on digging up the remaining 3 potato plots and get the sprouted bits into the ground.

Frog research

So, since we've decided to add a frog pond to the garden (and knowing nothing about frogs except my poor tadpole that turned into a frog overnight and escaped its bowl with I was 4) I have just been off researching.

Seems we have most of the supplies needed - plastic to make the pond, rocks and branches for the sides and a rain-water supply nearby. We would just need to find some water plants and then most importantly provide some shade for the pond. At the moment as you can see in the pic below the garden is fully exposed during summer (during winter is mostly shaded). What we have just decided to do is make a corner frame from bamboo on the north side of the pond that I can grow peas around. The frame may actually also have a "roof" for peas to grow over the top of the pond too.

The garden today

Just because I like to look back at start of season and end of season photo's. Here it is with a couple of potato patches all freshly dug with trenches. The kids and I spent a bit of time putting in some of the well sprouted seed potatoes and the rest of the brassica's. The hole with the muddy bucket next to it will be where the pond will go.

The garden was certainly useful in transforming tonight's dinner from a lifeless one to a fresh one. I harvested some broccoli shoots (I harvested the main head months ago but I kept the plant still in the ground to get the side shoots which produce a meals worth about once a month), lettuce and silverbeet/spinach. We had a frittata and salad on the side (the only vege's left from my vege box was a carrot, a small leek and an avocado.

Heaps of Herbs

I've been *waiting* to get these seeds into the propagators. So this afternoon, feeling all full of energy I set to work.

Like every good gardener should!

LOL!

I decided to review last years blog entries for August and there was plenty of talk of late frosts and a feel of spring in the air. So, having learnt from last year and losing my first batch of corn seedlings (what was I thinking?!) that I don't have any plan just yet for getting some of those later seeds going just yet.

I do have another batch of brassica's to go out and other seeds are still popping through the surface of the seed mix. So will be at least another 4-6 wks away till they can go in the ground anyway by which time (going by last years entries) the frosts should be pretty much over.

Potatoes I may still put out since they will remain underground for a week or two and then I can easily protect them with a layer of straw if needed.

So, always a good idea to learn from past mistakes and endeavour to not repeat them!

I'm on a roll...

Another gorgeous day and we were out in the garden at 9.30am. The kids happily played in their mud hole while I dug over 2 garden beds in preparation for potatoes.

I went out to run a bunch of errands just before lunch and grabbed a couple of bags of seed potatoes from the garden shop. I'm still in a learning-phase of what to do with most things, but after a bit of googling it was clear to me that there are MANY ways or methods for: digging holes, spacing, when and how much to cover, how to chit, whether to cut the potatoes to get more sprouts per seed etc etc.

So, here is what I am doing...

~ In my newly dug over beds, I have dug trenches about 60cm apart (so I get 4 rows for my 2 metres).
~ Then when I plant the seed potatoes I'll place them down about 15cm and about 30cm apart. I will get about 28 plants per patch.
~ I intend on digging up a total of 4 patches for now and one patch will have some earlies planted.
~ When the plants grow I will mound up the soil but keep the top of the plants showing.
~ I intend to mix straw in with my soil as I cover
~ I have cut up my seed potatoes with an eye in each section.
~ The potatoes have mostly sprouted, but I have popped them on a seed tray to allow the cuts to dry for a few days and let the sprouts grow a little longer. They have been placed in my laundry - with natural light, but not direct sunlight
~ In the garden beds I will sprinkle on some potash (woodburner ash), mix in some compost with the soil and place the seed potatoes in.
~ I will protect them from any surprise frosts by covering over with straw

Today we also bought a semi-dwarf apple tree to replace our old one that fell down last year.

Simon dug up the weeds from a 5yr old compost heap exposing some lovely rich compost underneath. I will relocate this to make room for a new potato bed.

And looking at the ugly mud-hole that the kids have been working on over the past few months, I'm thinking that they've jumped and stomped the life (literally!) out of it (although having SO much fun in the process). It would take a lot of turning and recomposting to get it back into a healthy state - so Simon suggested we turn it into a small pond and get a couple of frogs. What a fab idea! We had floated the idea of a pond last year when we first set up the garden, but parked the idea to just focus on growing food. But I think now with the kids being a bit older and would understand to not jump on the netting that we'd place over the top that it could be a goer and would really add to the life and feel of the garden.

Spring must be coming!

(not my tree)
The blossoms on our plum tree are in full bloom and the days are feeling a bit warmer and definitely longer...

So, despite (or maybe because of) the stormy weather we've been having, today I felt completely inspired to do a bit of clearing out. The doors were opened to let the warm sun in, air out our home and bring fresh vibrant energy in.

I rearranged furniture in Nathan's room to make room for a new chest of drawers we'd been given, put some of his unused toys into Danielle's room (particularly the chunky toy animals that she loves) and re-sorted their bookcases. Simon and Nathan spent a while cleaning the deck, outdoor furniture and kids playhouse after the stormy weather and the masses of sandpit sand that that was everywhere and stuck to everything.

Last night I was sorting out sewing materials when, due to a power blackout in our area, I had Simon's headlamp on to see what I was doing.


Fortunately, the fireplace was still able to provide boiling water for a cup of hot chocolate.

Today the chickens finally had a whole day out to scratch and run around.

So it was a successful weekend where I decluttered a lot, tossed a little, recycled some and donated some more.

Organic goodies

Up till now, I've not really gotten into buying organic food aside from our weekly fruit and vege box.

The only things I do currently buy are peanut butter, raisins and tamari sauce (because it's also gluten free).

But, I've recently joined up to a co-op with some local mums. Today we met - and in a house of chaos and mayhem (with about a dozen mums and about the same number of kids) we went through the product list including what we wanted. By buying through a co-op we are able to buy the goods at the trade price.

I'm sure I came away with a lot more than I had in mind when I went there lol.

I am particularly excited about getting into organic dairy products - we ordered a 25kg block of butter, and one of cheese to be divied out amongst us.

Along with a variety of other goods, I have also ordered myself 6 x 3kg tins of tomatoes (I will open one tin at a time and freeze in smaller portion sizes). I'm hoping those will last me through till my summer crops are reading for harvesting.

Annnnnnnd...push! V.2

Boy, these old-fashioned manual tools and appliances really do get you moving and exercising! LOL.

We acquired this vacuum cleaner last week. It's great! I despise getting out the vacuum cleaner, plugging it in, blah blah. But this little thing gives the carpet a quick spruce up in no time at all. Of course, it doesn't do the whole suck thing, but is great at flicking up random fluff and crap off the floor.

This is why the list never gets shorter!

The research list!

So, I knock one item off the list (the corn) and before I know it, another has been added.

The most recent being cheese.

Last year when I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver I was as keen as to try making my own Mozzarella.

Only problem was is that I didn't own my own thermometer and the candy thermometer one friend had only started at higher temperatures than what I was after. After a little research at the time, I came across a few online places that sold cheese thermometers (there was nothing available in my town) - but I was loathe to spend a lot of money on a thermometer specifically for one job and didn't know how keen I'd for a long-term investment.

However, tonight I went to one of those upmarket kitchen-ware parties and they had just the thing. A thermometer with a probe that ranges right through all temps, good for going in the oven, good for just taking the room temperature and also a timer - I like multi-purpose.

So, while I wait for it to arrive I will ensure I have all the ingredients I need to finally give this a go.