Another week...

Garden: Yay, I got into the garden earlier on in the week! I dug in my blue lupens, sprinkled wood ash over them, added more chicken poop and lightly dug it all through. Not too happy about the HUGE blister I got of my hand though - didn't even notice it chaffing over a sticky-outie bit on the spade until it popped. Got me out of doing dishes for a night anyway ;)

Chickens: All three chickens now have bright red, plump combs, so I know that we'll shortly have 3 eggs a day - can't wait! As it is I've already stopped buying eggs with just one egg a day.

Drawing: Yesterday the weather turned cold and miserable. Perfect drawing weather! Just what I needed to get stuck back into my course. So with the fire roaring, and my cup of tea beside me, I started by brushing up of my skills. I continued on with another portrait before moving onto the next chapter on shading.

Tattoo: For a while now I've been wanting to get another tattoo (I got my 2nd back in January), so spent a bit of time online finding inspiration for designing my own. I've finalised what I want, and have it all booked for in 3wks time! It involves a lotus, a bird, spirals/korus, and the elements of nature - and it's pretty!

Ukulele: Went to my 2nd ukulele class today. I have been practicing my chords all week, as well as trying to get the strumming down pat. I tend to have a problem with getting my fingers stuck between the strings and pinging them. So, I've spent a lot of time researching the problem, and finding ways to overcome it. It just all seemed to click for me yesterday, and I found the perfect place for *my* fingers and thumb to be when strumming. Then I moved onto learning some different strum patterns. Number 10 of this tutorial is my favourite so far.

Illness: Ick, poor Simon seems to have come down the flu. He's been in bed since yesterday morning and his symptoms so far seem so similar what I had a few months back (sleeping all day, fevering, sore throat, headache...). I'm really hoping that his one is the same variety as the one I had - I really don't want to get another flu!

The week

The kids have been making board games!

With the lighter evenings, they've been spending some time before dinner outside in the sandpit and working on constructing a "shop". Nathan intends on stocking his shop with swords and bows and arrows.

I went to my ukulele group this morning. Had a great time! I had self-taught myself three chords before going along (and then when booking, the teacher asked if I could learn another three so I was up to speed with the rest of the group) since they have all been going for a couple of months already.

Spring cleaning - I probably blog about it whenever I do more than the basics on housework lol! Well, with all this gorgeous spring-like weather I have been torn on where to spend my time. So yesterday I made my way through the kitchen, laundry, and bathrooms, as well as checking and sorting my stock in my herbal cupboard. Not a lot to toss out, a little rearranging, but mostly deep-cleaning.

The garden has also been calling me - with the herb garden all busy doing its thing, now is the time to start planning the Spring/Summer vegetable garden. I have most seeds I need (I do need to get some carrot seeds though), so it's just a case of planning my timing and placement. I do need to also get down into the lower garden again and clean out the chicken coop to fertilize the beds, dig in the lupen, and weed around my garlic and onions. I have a few buckets of wood ash to dig in too, to raise the pH and alkalinise the soil - I have an abundance of dock and creeping buttercup still down there, which are strong indicators for acid soil conditions. When using wood ash instead of lime, the recommended is to use about twice the amount - I don't really know how much I need, but am going to give a liberal dose to help things along. And strange for this time of the year, but the garden is looking like it might need some water!
I haven't done anymore on the drawing course. I really feel with this lovely weather, that I'd rather be physically doing other things and enjoying the sun - make hay while the sun shines and all that. I'll save the rest of it for a cold, rainy day (I'm sure there will be more of those to come).

A productive day in the garden...

Our eggs, my first lemon, kale, leeks, lettuce, radishes, spring onion, and parsley.

Yesterday the kids and I got out in the garden for the first time in a while. It's really ticked through winter quite nicely this year and producing some good colour and veges - this would be my first winter where I've had a good amount coming through. Out of my kitchen garden I pulled out what I thought was a weed (didn't recognise the leaves), but discovered a forgotten radish in there. I haven't grown radishes before, but had some in a bundle of seedlings I purchased from the supermarket a while back. After looking over the rest of the garden, I realised I had most of a meal out there waiting for me.

I made a self-crusting quiche - just added in some GF flour, cubes of potato, chicken, milk, and cheese to my leeks, kale and eggs.
Served with salad made with lettuce, radish, egg, spring onion, and lemon juice all from the garden.
Crutons baked in the oven with butter using semi-stale gluten-free bread.

Garden - mid winter

After all the wet, mild weather, I reckon the garden is in a pretty good place. It's looking lovely and green, with the some bright splashes of colour throughout. I think we've got some frosts arriving this weekend though...

Front herb garden with veges mixed in -
lettuce, spring onions, silverbeet and spinach

Lower garden - calendulas brightening things up

My little lemon tree - finally producing abundantly after 3yrs. Needs a good
weed, and those blue lupen are almost ready for digging in.

The chookies! Caramel (on the left) with her lovely bright red, plump comb. She's the layer.
The other two's combs are still pale, dry and shrivelled while they are off the lay.

My plum bursting into blossom.

Love the red of this geranium. I got a little cutting from my
great-aunt about 18mths ago, it's nicely established now.

I found this cute wee dress at an op-shop a few months back as a dress-up for Danielle.
I recall owning one of thee kilt/dresses back in the '70s. She decided she wanted to wear it to school tomorrow. 

The garden over the weekend...

I felt inspired to get out into my herb garden yesterday (before the rain came). It's looking really good, and fillling out nicely now, so minimal weeding is required. The borage, calendula and yarrow that seeded over late summer have really filled in a lot of the gaps. The bright colour from the calendulas, violets, feverfew, borage and rainbow chard continue to brighten things up.

I took these photos this morning - it's started off as a sparkling, shining one with a gorgeous blue sky!

I also gave the chicken coop a much needed clean out. We've had a LOT of rain, and things have gotten really soggy and gross in there. So, once all that poopy-straw  (with masses of lovely wormies in it) was shovelled out and added to the winter garden beds (with blue lupin in them), Simon went down and laid down some fresh straw.

 The far bed on the right of the path has the garlic, the middle is where my vege seedlings are going, and the front bed has some onions. The beds on the left have the blue lupin.

The wild strawberries I was given a few weeks ago and coming along well. In fact, all my strawberry plants are looking fantastic and filled with flowers and growing fruit.

My hanging basket in my front porch has some lovely bright colour draping over the sides now. Love the vibrant colours of the lobelia and the pansies together.

The week of nothing much...

Hmmm, well  I haven't really been up to much aside from resting and regaining energy.

I've been reading a few books though...Walking to Mercury by Starhawk (lent to me by a friend) and I'm halfway through Clan of the Cave Bear.

My seedlings from a few months back are looking awesome and ready to be transplanted into the garden. My 2nd lot of seedlings are now ready to repot and I have put another lot of seeds up. Feels good to be back into a routine of successional planting.

Most of the garlics are up and looking good, and I'll then put another lot in on the winter solstice.

The kids have been busy with a variety of things - Danielle's class went off and did plantings for Arbor Day during the week. Nathan's Cubs group have been working on emergency preparedness. Over the weekend, Simon took the kids out for a walk in one of the local public farmland reserve areas and got completely soaked from a downpour, but they had a great time nonetheless.

I enjoyed watching the Sherlock Holmes series on TV.

Jerusalem Artichokes and other garden additions

When I was away at my last women's weekend, I was chatting with a woman I've known for a few years through my Transition Towns network (was a lovely surprise seeing her there), and we got to talking about our garden efforts. She was saying she had a load of Jerusalem Artichokes that they have been enjoying, and take minimal work to grow, and offered for me to come around and take some away. So yesterday, after feeling mostly better, the kids and I popped around to her place for a visit.

I recall finding these in my organic vegetable box a few years back. I first thought they were ginger root, but upon snapping a piece off I realised it wasn't. A phone call to my mum had her IDing it in one of her vegetable encyclopedia type books.

I found this interesting article that has a good explanation about how it grows and what conditions it likes and dislikes. I do have a suitable area in the garden where I can put them, so any tubers left behind that decide to sprout up, can do so without concern of it taking over the area. I roasted some up for dinner and will keep some for trying a few other ways and that should still leave a good amount to plant out in a wee while.

I also came away with some wild strawberries, nasturtium seeds, and miner's lettuce. Pretty rapt about having some edible ground covers to pop in.

Chit chat stuff from around the garden and out-and-about

Well, my first lot of garlic is now in the garden. I wasn't too impressed with my pesky chickens coming along right behind me and scratching them out again though! They weren't after the garlic, rather just the soil that I'd disturbed - and then a little fantail started to flitter around the garden too hoping to get any little insects. So, after chasing them off a few times (and replanting the garlic twice), I put them back in their coop. They're all looking a bit bald and scruffy at the moment due to moulting.

I then discovered some Saffron corms in my garden. My mum gave me a handful last year, which I planted but kept forgetting about. A few weeks back my mum called all excited telling me to go down and check to see if the there were any flowers ready to pick, as she'd discovered some in her garden. Sadly, I couldn't see a thing and thought I'd killed them off (or accidentally weeded them out). But, when I was there weeding the onion patch I noticed them again (and pulled them up in case the chickens came along and pulled them out too!), but maybe I should have left them and they might have flowered?? So they're back in the ground again and hopefully they'll continue to increase in number as this lot already have.

My seedlings are coming along nicely, as well as my current seed tray. So far I'm having better success with the seeds germinating. Loving having my greenhouse right under my clothesline - it certainly doesn't suffer from lack of attention there!

Look at this cute picture I took while out during the week. Some elderly women at the local Arts and Crafts centre just down the road from had decorated (keeping warm lol) the trees outside their building. I saw them stitching them on earlier in the week.

The sun continued to shine yesterday morning, so the kids and I went down to the markets and bought some fruit and veges for the week. It was also a good opportunity to get the ripstik and scooter out of the car for a play.

We bottled up the ginger beer, so that's happily sitting and continuing to brew.

Chook space

Back in 2007, I read Linda Woodrow's The Permaculture Home Garden and got all enthused about getting chooks. I was super keen to get started, but felt that the dome style coop was a bit unattainable for us at that time (and I really wanted to use recycled materials from around our home as much as possible). So I designed a square coop 2m x 2m and just under 1m high. We had quite a large bamboo grove with thick bamboo growing in it. So we chopped them down, sawed them to length, and I went about lashing and cable tying them together. Simon then went through with and put cross bars at the corners with screws, bought some chicken wire, found some thick plastic wrap in the garage to wrap around the back half, attached some corrugated iron on for a roof over half of it, closed off a part for the roosting/nest area and it was good to go. Well, 4yrs later we still have the original coop and it's still going strong.

Initially, we moved it around the yard as a tractor and the chickens remained cooped and content on their fresh patches of greens munching and scratching away. My first year of gardening saw us with fantastic crops and healthy soil. I then started to find it tricky to maintain the crop rotation and successional planting though, so the chickens eventually got "parked" up on the side of the beds and just moved up and down the yard as required, but no longer directly placed over the garden beds (my growing times seemed to be quite a bit longer and I couldn't really get it to match up easily).

All the moving around meant that the coop did sustain a bit of wear and tear from our lumpy, uneven ground, and the bamboo stakes snapped in a few places. It was around this time that I decided to go with a fixed area for the coop (the chickens were basically free ranging all day by this stage), so we weren't getting contained "poop" to benefit from. So, after choosing our spot, and deciding to provide them with a better "house", we worked on attaching the kids unused plastic playhouse to the back. It was perfect in that it had a door to lead through to the original coop, several windows for gaining access to eggs and scooping out the poo, and could be fitted onto the back of the coop with minimal modification (with a perch fitted inside between the walls). Super easy and still works really well. The only issue we have when there has been torrential rain (once or twice a year), is that the area they are in is prone to surface flooding for a few days. This is something we may need to reassess if it continues to happen.

I went down to get some recent photos and discovered my camera battery was flat...

Around the home and garden over past week...

Chickens: I bought a new bale of straw for the chicken coop. We've had a lot of rain over the past few weeks and things are getting pretty soggy down there. So, after a good clean out and fresh straw they were back in happily kicking around. Needing to throw a lot of extra greens into the coop to give them something extra to nibble on now that they're contained for more hours (with putting them away a little earlier so they don't roost in the trees).

Seedlings: I potted up my seedlings since they have reached the two-leaf stage - it appears that I had mixed success with the broccoli and cauliflower seeds so repeated these with a fresh packet.

Garlic: Making plans to buy some garlic for planting in about 2 weeks time. I'll also do another lot on the Winter Solstice.

Seeds: Sowing more above ground leafy green seeds as per my lunar calendar.

Herb/Weed ID: I've been wanting to find some mullein to get a visual ID on, and make sure I don't mix it up with foxglove. Well, I was fortunate when away for my first women's weekend that I was able to ask a fellow wild weed user to point them out for me - perfect!

Technology: Well, it seems the kids finally have a game console that brings them into the 2010s. My mum the Baby-Boomer is more onto it than us lol. She gifted Nathan one of her WiiFits (she had 2!) for his birthday. Last year he got her hand-me-down digital camera that was better quality than my one lol. I've not really been hanging out for them to have something like this, but it is kind of nice that they aren't the completely missing out due my own disinterest. So I can see a bit of a game-buying session coming on.

Special outdoor spaces...my little herb haven

I spotted a few cheery, bright spots out in the herb garden a few days back. They sure are appreciated as the weather cools (and the days look dreary) and as some of the plants are starting to look spindly and tired.

Strangely, the heratsease violets aren't really visible unless the photo is expanded.

Calendulas, Heartsease, and red stalks of the Ruby Chard/Silverbeet.

Thought I'd do an update photo of the herb garden to see how it progresses through the seasons.

Left

Middle

Right

So, alongside all the herbs/weeds that I've bought seedlings for, or propagated cuttings (rose geranium, other geranium, rosemary, evening primrose) or entire bits of plants uprooted and replanted (red clover, forget-me-nots, feverfew), I'm also cultivating some wild weeds that have made their own way there. I have patches of plantain, chickweed, nettle, heartsease, sweet violet, kawakawa, and dandelion.

I'm now loving how the calendulas and borages have popped up all over the place too to fill the gaps. I only need to do minimal weeding these days. Any gaps get vegetables planted in them like silverbeet, spinach, lettuces, and peas (and tomatoes in summer). The garden is also perfectly situated to catch all the autumn leaves dropping off the trees that hang over the fence that add a nice mulch layer for winter.

Happenings from the past week and idle chat...

Hanging out time:
~ We've just completed 2 wks of school holidays. Our first! We had a lovely low-key holidays - mostly hanging out at home together, playing board games on rainy days in front of the fire, catching up with friends, stargazing on clear nights, a trip to the art and culture museum, a bit of crafting, and catching up with our unschooling friends (Danielle declared to them that she is a School Kid AND a Homeschooled Kid - she wants to claim both labels still lol).

Blokus - a game for adults as well as children, where once you know the
rules and figure out how to make strategic moves, age is not an advantage.

~ Apple Magic: Find the secret inside.

~ Nathan pondered whether Kapiti Island (just off our coastline) is taller than the Eiffel Tower - so we did a bit of googling and found out that Kapiti Island is 197m taller.

Garden:
~ Minimal garden happenings this week - my seedlings are coming along well (when I remember to water them and take them out/or air out the greenhouse so they don't overheat). Chicken coop got a clean out and poop added to one of the garden beds in preparation for my seedlings when they are a bit older.

~ Continuing to harvest enough silverbeet to bulk out and add to most meals. Feijoas appear to be coming to an end - but we've gorged ourselves every day and haven't had any excess (aside from sharing with friends we visit).

~ Chickens are off the lay for winter it seems.

~ Simon's built a bike shed. The kids bikes used to live up on our covered porch by the front door - but now that the table and chairs are there, the bikes have just been shunted around. Since this photo was taken he's added a wooden post up the side and top to protect us from the the sharp edges. He's left the bottom section open so it doesn't get too damp in there. It's a long shed and the open end will mean that it should be mostly sheltered from any rain driving in in that direction. And that's my poor very under-used bike in there too.



Around the home stuff:

~ Ick, tax pack has arrived to complete. And homeschooling paperwork to claim a bit of "payment" for the part term when we were still homeschooling. I won't go on too much about the parking fine when we met up with a friend elsewhere and forgot to check for limited-time parking signs! Oops.

Herbal Healing:

~ A friend had a nasty cat-bite on her hand. After being tended to by the doctor and medicated up, I also suggested the chickweed poultice for the swelling. After 2hrs of having the poultice on she said she noticed the swelling down and could move her fingers more than she could before. The wounds also oozed a little as Susun Weed said would likely happen.

~ I had my third chickweed success in as many weeks - Danielle got 3 huge mozzie bites on her ankle over the weekend that really swelled up the whole area and itched like crazy. After returning from being away for the night, I popped a handful of chickweed on and wrapped it up for a few hours. Voila! Upon removing it 2hrs later, we discovered the swelling had completely disappeared. 

~ And another chickweed story. I really seem to be attracting these! Nathan came home from school with a sprained ankle yesterday - painful and quite swollen. So at bedtime (for some reason it still seems to take a while for my brain to click in that I could be using something herbal instead of doing nothing), off I trotted to gather some chickweed and a bit of plantain, which also has anti-inflammatory properties. I crushed and broke it up and strapped it on as before. The swelling was downa  bit and will repeat it again. Love that stuff. I reckon I've well and truly learnt a good deal about chickweed now.



We've dubbed the white cloth (old nappy cut up into squares) and one of Simon's
stretchy sweat straps from inside his bike helmet as the chickweed wraps. 



Gardening and home happenings from the past week...

Chickens: I've had to make sure I get down to the garden to put the chickens away by around 4pm lately. If we leave it any later they climb the pear tree and prepare to roost for the night. Then we spend ages encouraging them down again so they're safely inside for the night (and also it stops them squawking loudly early in the morning). I did leave one chicken up the tree one night as she wouldn't budge and it was dark already, only problem is at daybreak she flew down and then proceeded to stand at the outside of the coop calling the other two!

Seeds: I've found that some of my packets of seeds must be no good. Several varieties didn't germinate - only problem is I don't know which packets are the problem (I have several open ones of each). I will need to make sure I keep them aside next time to see which ones are the dodgy ones so I can toss them out. We had gusty winds last night, so I sent Simon outside to strap the little greenhouse to the washing line pole it's up against.

Handy little fire-starters: Our lovely Cabbage Tree drops a large amount of dead leaves. I read a while back about gathering all the leaves together and tying them up into bundles and using them as kindling/tinder to get the fire started. I used one of the bunches last night and it worked great!

Buying power: We switched to Powershop a few months ago after being cold-called on the phone. I usually don't like to receive calls like this, but I'm not particularly loyal to my power company, and I must have been in the mood to listen to their speil. It's kinda fun purchasing the specials for power in advance, and so far have partly-purchased right up to December (eek to the $300 worth of purchases I made though to get the long-term savings). We haven't really been with them long enough at this stage to see if we will be saving much money though. We are low-energy users, which means we use less than 8000kw per year, but they guarantee a savings of around $10 per month from memory. Our power bills year-round only fluctuate between $90-130 per month. Even if I factored in the cost of buying firewood for 7-8mths of use, our average year-round monthly energy bill would be around $150 which is pretty good really when I hear of some $300-$400 winter bills!

Further fire-safety: Danielle's been really bothered by the house-fire story of a few weeks back, so I've been really working on trying to reassure her. We went over the plan again, and I also removed the security latches off the kids windows so they are free opening now. The phone call to the alarm company confirmed my suspicions - the only way to check our mains-wired alarm is to test it with smoke. They suggested buying a can of smoke from a hardware shop, but I realised I'd overheated my oil till smoking point during the week so Simon used that held up under it. Yep, that set it off.

Pumpkins: I didn't intentionally grow any pumpkins over summer, but I had quite a few pop up as per usual. I had one lovely looking pumpkin that I've not seen before (and therefore no seeds in the compost to pop up). I cut it open on Sunday to make a yummy pumpkin soup for lunch. We kept all the seeds from inside so I could a/ grow some this year, and b/ save the seeds for doing an Autumn craft with the kids. I can see this will be a once off craft - even with Nathan helping me, cleaning and washing the seeds took ages lol.

What I've been up to over the past week...

Lighting fires: I've rediscovered the upside-down fire. I first heard about these last winter and had great success with them. You basically build the fire the opposite of what we typically think. So, instead of building a teepee style fire with paper on the bottom, then kindling, then a few larger chunks directed up into a point, you layer your items the opposite. Start with large pieces of wood layered across the bottom of the fire (tightely nestled together all paralell). Then lay a few sheets of newspaper flat across that (or torn into strips). Then layer some kindling across. Then more paper. The instructions suggest using firestarters at this point. I don't use fire starters though, and have found if I put my kindling on top lightly layers with scrunched up paper it works just as well.

The idea is that the fire starts at the top and drops hot embers down in the lower layers that then proceed to light up (providing you can keep the top on fire long enough which is why I suppose they suggest firestarters). The real benefit kicks in when the bottom layer catches fire. It seems to burn nice and long and hot and actually takes much longer for it to burn through, so you are not having to keep an eye on your fire when you first light it. It will go for a few hours before you need to top it up.

Here's a pretty good link on how to do it (aside from all the manly man talk).

Garden: My lupin seeds have all sprouted (I hope they don't look too enticing to the chickens).

Laundry: We've had a few wet days and it's meant that the drying racks need to come out. I really try and avoid putting the racks up in the house during winter to avoid adding moisture to our home. But, sometimes it just can't be avoided (as it is I only do one load of washing evey 2 days).

Walking to school: We've managed to walk to school, on average, 4 days a week. It takes us about 15mins with me walking at a fast pace, and the kids on their scooters. It's great exercise for me since it's my only exercise aside from gardening. I really hope to keep that up when the weather takes a turn, but we'll see. As it is, I only use about a 1/3 a tank of petrol a fortnight (and that's in my itty bitty little car).

Technology: I have finally stepped (just a baby step) into the 2000s as far as technology goes. My mum got me a basic iPod for my birthday. I'm not really one to listen to music all the time, nor one to race out and get the newest and latest in technology. I much prefer the sounds of nature around me when I'm out gardening, and my own headspace when at home. I do like music, just don't seem to crave it as others do, but I have been really wanting to listen to quite a few podcasts over the years and finally, now I can! It never appealed to me to sit at the computer and listen to them since I'm not really into needlework crafts that require me to sit, so I never really had the opportunity before. I have several Susun Weed discussions on CD that I want to listen to, and have now found that she does podcasts too. So, I can now do that while doing housework, or even on my walk home from school on my own. Oh, and I have loaded all my music CDs onto it as well, for a bit of light relief between interviews. :)

DVD watching: The kids went to stay at my parents on Saturday night and Simon and I went out for a meal for my birthday. We grabbed some DVDs on the way home, to settle for a night in front of the fire, with the rain pattering down outside.

Oops, heartburn hit me. So, out came the fennel seeds for a cup of soothing tea.

What I've been up to this week...

~ I've put up a seed tray - as per lunar gardening (thanks for the reminder Linda!) I have put in leafy greens: silverbeet, spinach, lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, leeks, cabbages, and parsley.

~ I have a little plastic greenhouse that hasn't yet been used. I had it on my front porch waiting for autumn, but with the revamping of that area, I needed to find it another little spot. I tried it on my deck, but have several problems. It only gets morning sun, it's more exposed to the weather over winter, and there is no water on hand (and I don't go out there regularly enough - so am likely to fall into the trap of "out of sight, out of mind" and kill all my seedlings off). So, I thought that the next best place is in my front/herb garden area next to my washing line. It gets great sun from lunchtime onwards and is fairly protected from wind and rain. Also, I can anchor it to my clothesline if needed (and is in my daily sights for tending to it!). All very permaculture gardening of me applying my zone theory hehe (it's now been placed in zone 1).

~ We've been collecting up the fallen feijoas everyday. Yum!

~ Watering the lupin seeds and strawberries since the weather's been really dry.

~ The kids and I finally have Kiwisaver accounts. I never got around to it when it first came out 3 years ago, and recently started thinking about it again. However, in our favour, with the international financial crisis the funds are not worth much more than what we'll be entering at now (the government will still give a kick-start of $1000, but this may be discontinued soon, so get in quick if you have been wanting to get yourselves set up).

~ Our dishwasher has been broken for about 6mths and we just hadn't got around to getting a tradesperson in to have a look at it. I was put off with the potential increasing costs of a dishwasher needing new parts but with no guarantee of it going (even though it was only 4 years old)! So, we bit the bullet and did have it assessed on Monday. Very sad, but it wouldn't go with the the most likely replacement part (fortunately no cost on the part as the guy agreed to take it away with him). So we now need to decide whether to replace it or just suck it up and keep on handwashing (I'm impressed with our zen approach to it though, and neither of us have been stressing over doing the dishes 2-3 x a day).

~ I've painted my little shelf unit ready for the garden shed, and also the little table in our lounge that the kids have been using for drawing at.

~ I found an awesome old footstool for my lounge at one of the local thrift shops. I've been wanting something for ages, but didn't want to buy one. I did briefly entertain the thought of making a poof/footstool, but flagged it as too hard to source a nice heavy filler. I felt a big guilty asking if I could buy it, when it also appeared that it may be used as a chair in the shop. And yes, soon after the woman there agreed to sell it (very willingly), did another volunteer arrive and started muttering about losing the chair. Oops! :)



~ Sadly, there was a fatal house fire 2 nights ago in our town. Nathan had heard about it at school (it involved a mum and two kids) and was concerned about our home. So, the kids and I set to re-discussing our escape plan and went about checking our smoke alarms. I discovered that I wasn't sure how to test our alarm that is connected up to the mains power (the alarm works, but not sure yet how to test the smoke detector part). So after a few unsuccessful tries, I located our other stand alone unit and put a fresh battery in and we were good to go until we sort the other one out (on the list of phone calls to make today).

~ Oh, and it's my birthday tomorrow. Can't even claim to be mid-30s anymore, definitely late (very late) 30s.

Autumn garden to-do list - Sunday update

Today was a very productive day with us all out in the garden!

~ Weed a couple of garden beds (ones which will be slighted shaded over the depths of winter), lightly turning the top layer of soil (don't want to do too much so I don't damage the structure of the soil at this time of year) and sprinkle on handfuls of Blue Lupin seeds so I can grow a winter cover crop, and then rake the soil over. This will be the first year I have done this, but have been meaning to since I learned about them when I did my Organic Hort Course 3-4yrs ago. - check. We ended up with 3 beds of blue lupin, and the remaining 3 are relegated for winter plantings.
~ Add compost to the beds. - check (we got a trailer-load and liberally dumped it on and turned it in. We haven't bought a trailer load for the lower gardens before, so they were due for a big boost. Usually I just add it from a bag or from our compost bins).
~ Put up some seed trays (or buy the seedlings): lettuce, spring onions, peas, carrots, spinach, silverbeet. Onion seedlings are already in. - tomorrow's job
~ Bulbs and sweet pea seeds need to go in. - check
~ Clean out the chicken coop and sprinkle all the poo on the garden bed I've set aside for my garlic - check
(these beds will also get a good dose of fish meal, woodfire ash and compost). check
~ Replant calendula and borage seedlings that self-sowed (and put extras on freecycle for others to come and take away). - check
~ Add carbon back to the soil - dig in carbon by-products such as corn stalks, brocollis, peas and beans. Also mulch with straw (great if it comes out of the chicken coop with food scraps and chicken poo mixed in) and dry material from around our property. - check.
~ Replant the strawberries and any new runners into well composted beds. - check

The upper kitchen/herb garden still has an abundance of silverbeet growing for our use (I notice that the chickens are self-feeding off the plants down here). The tomato plants and courgettes were finally pulled out. And the last of the beans were harvested before being pulled up.


Before (with 2 cleared beds from during the week)

 



A fresh start.

We harvested some pears, apples and rhubarb to make a yummy fruit crumble for dessert!

Autumn garden to-do list

I've finally made it out into the garden! There are still quite a few chores that need doing though, but I've made a little start. With a bit of help from my Organic Garden Calendar by Kath Irvine, and a few other books I have on hand I've put the list together.

~ Weed a couple of garden beds (ones which will be slighted shaded over the depths of winter), lightly turning the top layer of soil (don't want to do too much so I don't damage the structure of the soil at this time of year) and sprinkle on handfuls of Blue Lupin seeds so I can grow a winter cover crop, and then rake the soil over. This will be the first year I have done this, but have been meaning to since I learned about them when I did my Organic Hort Course 3-4yrs ago. - check

~ Add compost to the beds.

~ Put up some seed trays (or buy the seedlings): lettuce, spring onions, peas, carrots, spinach, silverbeet. Onion seedlings are already in.

~ Bulbs and sweet pea seeds need to go in.

~ Clean out the chicken coop and sprinkle all the poo on the garden bed I've set aside for my garlic - check
(these beds will also get a good dose of fish meal, woodfire ash and compost).

~ Replant calendula and borage seedlings that self-sowed (and put extras on freecycle for others to come and take away). - check

~ Add carbon back to the soil - dig in carbon by-products such as corn stalks, brocollis, peas and beans. Also mulch with straw (great if it comes out of the chicken coop with food scraps and chicken poo mixed in) and dry material from around our property.

~ Replant the strawberries and any new runners into well composted beds.

We're continuing to harvest a large handful of string beans everyday and they really are a lovely addition to our meals. I put them into everything and Nathan quite likes them just cooked up as a side dish too. I'm really hoping the many pumpkins and squash have plenty of warm weather left to grow now that they're taking off. I did harvest our first zucchini yesterday and can see they'll be coming through thick and fast in the next week or so.

I've been much more focused on having seedlings constantly on the go to pop into the garden so hope to have a reasonable autumn/winter garden (mostly brassicas, silverbeet, spinach I think).

Refashioning...

I found a little brown linen tunic dress I'd made Danielle about 18mths ago that was now much to small. I made the original dress from a large women's tunic top I found from the op-shop. I had out my Sew Liberated book last night and realised that the original dress was quite a good match for the wee blossom shirt in there. I figured if I could open up the shoulder seams and chop a bit off the top, that I'd be able to use the tunic as is and just insert some sleeves which would then increase the size of the dress by a few sizes. I didn't have enough scrap left of the linen, so used my leftover brown knit from my skirt and added a wee bird at the bottom. It's perfect again and will do nicely as an autumn top over jeans and a long sleeve merino top.

Well, we had a week of sickness here and not a lot happening (unfortunately (or fortunately?) I was the last to get it so I continued on as much as possible in between times). The weather hasn't been the best so we didn't really miss out on much outside except for the day I was sick and slept the day away. Oh well!

During the week while still in isolation with our germies I did get to enjoy a bit of this (we had a few sunny hours one of the days lol). Summer's been a big tease in this part of the country this year!

Today was wonderfully sunny again and no wind so we all spent the entire day outside enjoying it and getting plenty of yard work done.

I spent the morning clearing out the herb garden (was very overgrown), trimming a few bushes back and found some spots to put in some more herbs that my mum had brought back from her BILs herb nursery - yay!

A few of them are going to be tall trees and were ones that I have been after since planning my herb/insect habitat a few years ago when I did my Organic horticulture course. So I finally have Lemon Verbena, Angelica archangelica and Bergamot Lemon to line the back of the garden and provide a bit of a wind break and privacy as well. The ones I popped in today are useful in teas, medicinal and culinary as well as attracting bees.

The kids and I gathered some herbs to make some herb ice blocks that they could tie up off a tree branch to catch drips off as they melted. We used mint and lavender flowers.

Meanwhile, Simon was off sorting out what we were going to edge a few of the garden beds down in the lower garden with. I've become increasingly discouraged with the garden and the masses of weeds and grasses that encroach on the garden beds which makes it tricky to keep on top of as well as the more unkempt it becomes the more I tend to ignore it.

So, I decided we were to edge four of the beds as permanent year-round, and the rest can come and go as we require more garden to spread into for our Spring/Summer garden. So he dug out small trenches to sink the planks of wood into (we went with untreated macrocarpa) and leaving about 10cm above the ground which I can gradually fill in to make the bed raised slightly. With luck, the chicken coop will still be able to placed over them as they are a little smaller - if not, no big deal, it just means I'll need to put more work into fertilising etc.

So we spent the afternoon marking out the grid to edge them while still hoping for a reasonably natural look. I have found my attempts at using driftwood or rocks no good with the weeds I have - they just find their way in and around and make it extra difficult to get to them.

The ice blocks were ready (although Danielle wanted to finish munching on her freshly pulled and washed carrot first)...

Here are a few crafts I've been working on in the evenings.

Cute little fabric basket (using more hessian which was useful instead of needing interfacing) using this tutorial. I will make some more in fabrics to suit Danielle's room when she gets her new (well, old but refurbished) desk for her birthday in a few months - I think a couple of these will be good for holding little bits and pieces. The finished basket is about 12cm across.

Then I made this cushion cover for the desk chair. Just need to make some ties for it.