Time to eradicate them

Weeds!

Spurred on by my organic horticulture course, I'm going to step up the pace on getting rid two main offenders. We are required to carry out a 10 wk project on eradicating weeds on our properties. I've got so many, I'm just going to concentrate on the following two.

Creeping buttercup is just all over my lower garden where the vege garden is - apparently a sign of bad drainage since it grows well in wet areas. I spent a few hours today/this evening pulling them out. Creeping buttercup is best kept away from your compost heap as it won't likely get hot enough to kill off any seeds present and therefore you will reinfect your garden again. Tomorrow's job will be to bag them up in a black polythene bag and let them rot/cook down for a few months to a liquid which can then be added to the compost.

The other weed I am going to concentrate on is the convolvulus (bindweed). This is also all over my property. Another one that is best kept out of the compost and will need bagging up to rot down. The tiniest bit of root will reshoot if left in the garden or plonked on the compost. The roots are a pain to get to the bottom of, they just run for ever.


Part of the problem is how I'm going to keep the paths from spreading into the vege patches. Because I have a chicken tractor which gets moved around, it's not suitable to use with raised beds. I could possibly add borders around the beds, but with the number of vege patches on the go (12 2x2m patches) that is a LOT of wood required. .

First potatoes!

Yesterday I was having a sneaky feel around under the potato mounds (the plants haven't yet flowered) and noticed a few decent sized spuds under there. So gathered up a few and we had them boiled up tonight for our dinner. Mmmm...

What *is* this?

This is really strange. I have just harvested 3 of these vege plants. They were from my first batch planted back in September. When I chose seed packets, I only chose things that I eat and know. None of my seed packets look like this and I have kept them all.

I know that they are a silverbeet - but not like the silverbeet I know! The leaves are way too round and smooth. They don't taste silverbeet-y even - just green!

Has anyone had seeds (hybrid perhaps?) do something completely different to the packet?

A Wonder-Full day

Well, Rach has inspired me again. It spurred me into action to do what we do anyway, but be a little more intentional about it rather than just falling into the trap/routine/humdrum (??) of just having another home-filled day. So although we enjoy those home days, and do things in the weekends with dadda, it gave me the oompf to actually get out and have our own adventures during the week too!

So, I remembered hearing about some rock pools down the coast a little way. I had never been there but have always been meaning to take the kids there. So after a few morning chores including giving the garden a quick weed (and discovering our rainbow coloured carrots are growing after all - a lovely Wonder to start the day with) while the chickens were out for a run around, a quick top up cuppa tea for me, bag packed with food, water, hats, spare clothes, our latest chapter book and us all sunscreened up - we were off at 10.30am.

Fifteen minutes down the road and we were at our destination.


We discovered:

Rock pools
Dead crabs x 3 (they were bought home to show dad, 2 fleshy (non-smelling) have disappeared - hmmm, me thinks the dog snaffled them up!)
A sea anemone
Various seaweeds
Wild goats wandering on the rocks x 2

The kids had heaps of relaxing fun throwing stones into the water, climbing up the rocks (Little Miss D surprised me with her keenness and agility at this, playgrounds don't really do it for her, so I've just assumed she's not into or not confident at this type of thing), running through the water and general busy-ness.

Once back at the car for a sitdown on the grass with some food, I wandered back across to collect up some seaweed to take home for the chickens and the compost.

Back with the kids and I read a chapter from their book before heading home.

(Just a shame that EVERY time (I'm not exaggerating) we drive down that stretch of highway there is a car accident blocking at least one lane of road if not an accident happening right IN FRONT or NEXT to me - no wonder I only do that trip every few months).

What a lovely idea

With Christmas approaching and ideas going around on what to buy, what to make, what to give and trying not to get caught up in the hype of MORE, MORE, MORE, I was pleasantly surprised last week.

We attend Playcentre twice a week - it's a parent-run, government funded playgroup with about 25 kids per morning session.

Well, the Christmas party has been organised for a few weeks time - a barbecue down at one of the local reserves. We have been requested to bring a gift for our own children in the form of a Book. I thought this was just the *best* idea I have heard. It's pretty simple, and could be a book for $5 or $20 depending on your budget or whatever. Kids would never know the difference value-wise, and there will no envy of some getting lollies or others getting the most craved-after toy out at the moment. We like to get the kids a new book each for birthdays and Christmas anyway, so this gave me the drive to put it into action.

Books are still about the only thing I feel the need to buy when in a mall...mostly I buy online, but there is something about browsing a book stand.

A HUGE heap!

Today I spent the morning out on a fieldtrip for my Organic Horticulture course. We had to prepare a large layered compost pile using a wide variety of materials. The end result was a pile about 1.5m x 1.5m and 1.5m high. It was an interesting process, and I have taken away a few things that I wasn't aware of before.

Did you know the optimum ratio for carbon:nitrogen materials is 25:1?

Most people add too much nitrogen material - I know I do anyway.

Nitrogen materials (green) include: green garden waste, weeds, kitchen vege and fruit scraps, grass clippings etc. These provide protein for the microbes.

Carbon materials (brown) include: straw, hay, sawdust, woodchips, dried leaves, twigs, shredded newspaper etc. These provide energy for the microbes.

So although the ratio is 25:1, that doesn't actually mean for example 25 centimetres to 1 centimetre, but it is important to add reasonably equally weighted layers of each as you build your compost pile. As the decomposition process occurs it will reduce to 10:1.

Most compost piles will reduce and do it's thing regardless of how you do it - but if you have a pile too high in carbon, it won't be decompose very quickly as the micro-organisms require adequate nitrogen for the process to work efficiently. If the pile is too high in nitrogen, it will work well, but there is a wastage of nitrogen that is released (as ammonia) into the air and waterways producing pollution.

When you have a higher ratio of carbon (as recommended) you will likely need to start adding water to the heap - I've never really needed to add water because my nitrogen materials have had plenty of moisture in them, however, by adding more brown waste (carbon) I will certainly need to begin to do this. (Unfortunately, today when the water was being added via a large hose from the bore someone turned the tap on too much (when they were trying to turn it off) and it leapt out of the person who was holding it's hands and dowsed three of us head to toe! Luckily I had a spare top in the car and just had to put up with clammy jeans for the next 1.5hrs and yucky hair that went frizzy as it dried!).

For this aerobic system to work efficiently, it also requires air pockets to break the materials down. This can be achieved by creating a layer at the bottom from small branches (about the width of your little finger), as well as ensuring only thin alternatining layers are added ie a large amount of grass clippings will compress and start to decompose anaerobically.

Other useful additives and activators include: blood and bone meal, seaweed, small amounts of wood ash, rock dust and animal (but not pet) manure.

Happy composting!

Ooooh, I spotted a bit of red...

While bouncing on the trampoline with the kids this afternoon, I looked up to the plum tree which is right beside it. I spotted about 3-4 plums that have started to turn red. Can't be long now!

The apples are also about 2-3cm in diameter too and so far look lovely and healthy.

Usually...in years gone past I've only noticed the fruit once it's ready to eat! I'm really enjoying seeing things through fresh eyes and literally from the ground up.

Can't get enough

I love potatoes! Give them to me in any shape or form and I'll eat them.

No wonder I have multiple beds of potatoes growing. I'm hoping they give me a good return and that I am able to get my storage methods to work well for me.

Some of the earlier plants are now flowering, so I'm definitely hoping for new potatoes served with melted butter for Christams lunch. Yum!

Help me save my broad beans...

Eek, my poor broad beans which have been arriving in my weekly box of veges have been ending up in a very sad place...

...my compost bin.

Terrible I know.

SO! Please share with me your best recipes or tips on what to do with them. I have to admit I have not even tried them yet. I have terrible memories from my childhood about yucky mashy grey beans served up with white sauce. I still don't do white sauce served over vegetables...

I really want to like them and who knows, maybe I'll add them into my planting plan for next year!

A bit of therapeutic painting...

And not of the Artistic variety. No, I really like painting furniture - the kids have had plain MDF bookcases for AGES and I've been meaning to get around to painting them up, Nathan also had a set of drawers that were surplus from our bedroom set, so that needed matching in too. Fortunately, with my desire to do this today, it tied in with Simon being home. So I was able to spend most of the day just taking my time, coming and going with it and got it all done.

I find it quite meditative - kind of like gardening really. I'm in my own headspace and just going through the motions of completeting the task at hand and seeing quite quick results. I'm impatient like that.

New batch on the go

Well, we finally finished drinking through the first batch of ginger beer. It definitely improved as time went on and had a lot more fizz - it was lovely and tasty too.

So, today I pulled out my 2nd recipe to see how it goes. The yeast mixture is in my hot water cupboard at the moment and over the next week will add more sugar and ginger to the bowl before adding the water and bottling up.

All potted and ready for Christmas!

I thought it was about time my grown-from-seed tomato plants were put into bigger pots. So, it was my first chore for the today. These are looking better than my own plants, and were selected as gifts which will be for my two grandmothers and another elderly relative. Flowers are already starting to appear on a couple of the plants. I've been nipping out the laterals and feel like I finally know what I am doing with tomatoes - now just to wait for my own plants to get bigger.

My new favourite vegetable

Yum!

We were down in the garden this morning letting the chickens out for a run around and just generally hanging out down there when I spotted one of my spinach plants looking "kind of ready". I couldn't say for sure what it was at the time, but grabbed a leaf and munched. What a crunch it had! It was quite sweet and very edible. It almost had "depth" to it unlike regular spinach which is very leafy in comparison.

I suspected it was my New Zealand Spinach, which not only had I never eaten (what is with that?), but I had never even heard of before embarking on growing my own vegetables!

So after riffling through my bag of seed packets I couldn't locate one for NZ Spinach, but google confirmed my suspicions.

It is a strange plant and is actually a vine (succulent hence it being fleshy in texture) and not actually real spinach at all. It is full of nutrients and great as a salad addition - or maybe a wee fresh snack when I'm down gardening!

The water trough is *finally* ready and safe!

Over the weekend I harassed Simon to make me a lid and attach it onto the bathtub so I could finally fill it up from our water tank and feel safe the kids or neighbourhood cats weren't going to fall into it. A hole at the end of the tub needed to be covered over as the ball-cock valve was set just above it and it meant that it was an overflow with the water pouring out the side and the valve not shutting off.

So, we're all sorted and I can water away at my leisure - just need to hope I don't have neighbours who wonder if I'm watering on the "wrong" days and try and dob me in to the council for thinking I'm using town supply when they I shouldn't be!

Bamboozling!

I looked over at the bamboo patch last week and realised it had completely resprouted after I chopped it down to ground level in the middle of June. So 5mths later it looks like this, standing at about 1.5 metres tall.

We have heaps of bamboo still to use and I'm slowly making my way through chopping off the leafy ends, using the snippers or tomahawk to cut off the branches and laying them beside the fence ready for use.

So far I have used them for tomato and sunflower stakes, have made teepees out of them for my peas, constructed a fence to contain the dog separate from the kids and of course my chicken coop - which is still standing up to the test of time!

Rock on bamboo.

Giving it a kick start...

Well the ginger beer doesn't seem to be doing a lot. There is not a lot of fizz at all - so I have added another teaspoon of sugar to see if we can the yeast going again.

I will be trying out Mel's recipe next and hoping for a bit more success.

Thanks for your feedback on how you all bottle your brews. I bought myself a larger funnel, so at least my sieve now fits inside it and hopefully a little less hit and miss.

A simple snack

This afternoon, Nathan and I finished reading Little House in the Big Woods. Towards the end, Laura recounted a story of making Johnny Cakes. I had fleetingly heard of these, but had no idea what they were. So, after a bit of googling I liked what I found - they are a fried cornmeal based bread. I have been wanting to add simple recipes to our list of quick meals and snacks along with something that was made from easily available ingredients (and needed to be gluten free and not requiring a multitude of ingredients to get the "right" texture that is often difficult (or expensive) when trying to replicate wheat flour recipes). I did find many variations of Johnny cakes, but somehow ones using baking powder and ingredients that I didn't think would have been readily available back in settler times kind of didn't strike me as the real deal (and I always get annoyed when I find recipes for cornbread that actually use wheat flour!). I did find a few sites claiming to have the "original" settler version of the recipe, so that's the one we went with and required the least ingredients.

Johnny Cakes

1 cup cornmeal
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 cup boiling water
1/2 cup milk
Butter for the pan

Mix the cornmeal, salt and sugar in a bowl. Pour the boiling water over the dry ingredients and stir. Let cool for a few minutes. If the mixture is too thick to spread in the pan, add some milk to get the texture you like.
Heat a lightly greased skillet or griddle. Pour the mixture into the skillet. You can cook the entire recipe at once or you can make small cakes.
Cook at medium heat for about 5 minutes.

Traditionally they are served with maple syrup - here however, we don't produce maple syrup, so sticking to the good old Kiwi pancake tradition we had freshly squeezed lemon juice and sugar sprinkled over ours. They were yummy and quite satisfying!

Here in New Zealand we have our own version of settler/travelling/bush bread called Damper (actually, I think we share this recipe with the Aussies...) - it is made with wheat flour though and generally wrapped around a stick and cooked over an open campfire (well that's how we did it in the Girl Guides). I did find one gluten free version which I may give a go sometime.

Sooooo many oranges!

Our organic vege box seems to have an excessive amount of oranges and tangelos at the moment. I know I could make a request to cut it back, but then I found a great way to use them up that fulfilled many purposes. I've randomly done this in the past, but I can see it will be a regular weekly activity from now on.

The kids don't really like eating oranges as they are (actually maybe it's because I don't enjoy preparing them for them to eat, so it's not something that's not been presented as an option??). They like them squeezed and I often squeeze them one orange each a day which they have with their lunch. Still too many oranges though.

They do like ice blocks though and as a way to avoid the suggestion of buying them an ice block while out, I've been making frozen ice cubes of the juice (mixed with 50% water) and serving them up to them which keeps them busy for 1/2 hr or so while they make their way through 3-4 ice cubes each.

The bottling has been done

It wasn't the most elegant of processes and definitely something I need to work on.

I had the kids holding the bottle still with the funnel (too small for the job I think) balanced in the neck, I held my small cooking sieve over the top with one hand and used my soup ladle in the other hand trying to get the liquid into the sieve and hope for the best. Put it this way, Nathan needs a bath tonight or else ants might find their way to him (Danielle wasn't the dedicated worker he was and moved out of the way lol) while he sleeps and my floor needs mopping coz my shoes stick to it!

How do y'all go about it?

Why have I added a picture of the current moon to my site?

Well I was looking over at Lilymarlene's blog and noticed it on her sidebar. I'm fascinated with the moon, don't know a lot about it, want to learn more one day, and maybe if I have a reminder right in my sight often enough I will delve into a bit of education sooner rather than later. And who knows, maybe one day I will look into this whole "planting by the moon" stuff and will know where things are at at a single glance...

Make hay while the sun shines...

Well, it was actually the flip side of that today lol! It was raining all day, so instead of conditions being favourable for working outside, it ended up being favourable for knocking off some of those inside activities that I've been meaning to do.

Ginger Beer it was.

I decided to start with the recipe from the Living the Good Life book.

I will then try out Mel's recipe (along with the above recipe is a non-plant ginger beer since I don't have access to a Real one).

Either way, I'm looking forward to some homemade fizzy since I do quite like some but we no longer buy any.

Cooking with eggs

While browsing one of my cookbooks today I came across a few cooking tips which confirms what I already suspected.

When poaching eggs it is best to used freshly laid ones because the white and the yolk are firmly attached still - older eggs will tend to have the whites separate and break right away from the main part of the egg.

Hard boiled eggs are best done using eggs which are at least a few days old - freshly laid eggs are almost impossible to peel without removing half the egg with the shell!

Fresh from the garden

Yum!

I was at a loss on what to have for my lunch today. There wasn't anything much appealing in the fridge. I flicked through one of my cookbooks with lovely bright funky pictures and spotted a delicious looking Spinach Florentine. Aha! I had plenty of spinach (or maybe it is silverbeet that isn't fully grown?) ready for picking and the chickens had laid 2 fresh eggs (I just needed to add another from yesterday's lot to make it a halfway filling meal lol).

-Poach a couple of freshly laid eggs
-Saute the spinach in a lump of butter and season with salt, pepper and nutmeg
-Lay the eggs on the spinach
-Place a few slices of parmesan cheese on top
-Grill in the oven until the cheese melts

Caterpillars attack!

Not quite so dramatic as that yet! This afternoon we were out in the garden and I noticed one of my broccoli plants had a few nibble holes. Upon flipping the leaf over I saw a few tiny caterpillars on it with eggs randomly scattered around. So off they came, squished, eggs, squished and funny spit-like stuff in the centre of the plant flicked off. So around the rest of the plants I went. Only one bed so far had noticeable eggs on a few of the plants but I can see this will be my daily ritual considering I still have the vision of uncared for broccoli's from last year riddled with caterpillars when I came to harvest them.

I constructed some tripods from bamboo for my peas to grow up - unfortunately I wasn't thinking too far ahead when I sowed the seeds - in a row - so kind of overlapped the tripods down the row and I'm sure they'll find their way up anyway.

The sustainable water source is working

It's been SO nice to have our tank water finally in a state to be used on the garden. Since the bathtub was installed down in the lower garden with the irrigation hose feeding into it, it's been really satisfying to dip into it with the watering can to use to water the garden (which hasn't actually been THAT much since we had that huge amount of rain 2-3 weeks ago, but since then the days have been quite warm and windy and the soil has dried out). Today we have a light rain (perfect garden watering rain I think) again which has had the overflow on the tank once again dribbling. It's a huge tank (couple of 100 thousand litres I would think) so will be interesting to see how it gets us through summer for guilt free garden watering.

Kids books and self sufficiency

We've just started reading "Little House in the Big Woods" by Laura Ingalls Wilder - the first book of the Little House series.

It's been a fun read so far and every page is action packed of daily living in a self sufficient way. I don't recall reading this series when I was younger, but certainly remember the TV series. It is definitely filled with plenty of new things for Nathan to quiz me on and provokes many interesting conversations.

Nathan's new saying when Simon gets home from work is "Dad, put your gun up on the wall" as Pa Ingalls does after a hard day out in the Big Woods.

Potatoes here, potatoes there, potatoes everywhere!

Well, so far my little experiment is going well. I see lots of green leaves!

I have two beds of potatoes grown from certified seed potatoes.

I have one bed of potato sprouts chopped off from my bag of organic potatoes (a bit of a naughty I know, but I wanted to see what happened)
I have about 7 seed potatoes in a mulch heap of mostly leaves and grass which doesn't get a lot of sun.

I have about 4-5 in my front garden full of a soil/clay/sand layers with full sun which have taken a long time to break through the surface and grow.

Oh, and can't forget the lonesome seed potato rolling around in my bedroom somewhere from where I sprouted them and it seems to find its way off the dresser down onto the floor and under the bed and back again - will that also produce? hehe