Month: June 2019

The rocket is going great! This is the lot that has just self seeded from the last plants. I like easy gardening!

While I work out the best way to do the raised beds in the new patch, I got in today to the main veggie patch to sort out a few garden beds.
First, the pumpkin patch.
I pulled apart two of the straw bales that I conditioned but didn’t really plant anything in… I moved the broccoli from one since it was going rather slowly.

Feeding the soil! Lots of lovely worms in it and its all breaking down beautifully. Should help hold back the weeds in spring too.

Onion and leek patch – slow but still sitting up nicely.

I’ve left the silverbeet in (chard) as I want to see if I can get some new seed.

The ravens are still going mad out there – but today I got extra entertainment in the form of the beautiful Black Cockatoos! They were flying overhead and mucking about in the trees yelling their heads off about something!

I keep apologising to them all about taking their lovely trees away!

Slowly getting all the tomatoes out. Untying all the string is the annoying bit. I could cut them but I am being frugal – will run them through the wash and use next season.
The tomatoes went to the chooks. They are going ‘funny’ as they ripen and they don’t taste great anymore. Giving up.

I didn’t mulch this bed, but weeded and pulled out the snow peas at the end of the plot.

I will be pleased when the tree is done then I will have a safe place to put up my garden shed which means all my garden stuff IN ONE PLACE!!

The pear tree got a bit of a prune – just the bits that stuck out making it hard for me to walk by.

Somebody needs a wing clipping!! She flies over the pallet fence, trots around the front yard and then into the garden via the top gate (which we are learning to keep shut now)
No mystery where the tops of my lettuce have gone!!

I found some snow pea seeds on the dead vine… so I’ve put them in the ground in the hothouse to see what happens over winter. You never know your luck right?

The brassicas I put in the hothouse are finally starting to take shape!

And those manky tomatoes I moved the other week into the hothouse? They are starting to look rather nice and get a better colour!

All in all… happy to get some garden jobs done!
I keep saying little by little don’t I?
Two months until spring people! Eek!
Cheers!

Hello!
I hiked 10kms with Jeff yesterday!! I rather felt that in my legs!!
I didn’t get any photos as I was just happy to get up to the top of all the hills!
We are still dithering about the timber for the proposed raised beds. Not a cheap affair so not rushing just yet.

Warrick, the Tree-Guy came back today and cut a lot more off our trees.
Sob.
Nah – its good to keep going with this. Will be happy to have it all done.
Not a lot of huge stuff came down this time. And the added bonus of not double handling it as its all on our property, not out on the highway needing to be moved in!

At least we have a bit of a system going now that we’ve done it once.
If the weather plays nicely we should get through it in a timely manner.

Its amazing the sheer volume of branches up there. Bringing down the last big ones will be a bit scary!
Still… thats for Future Lisa to worry about.

Happy to see all the purple garlic sitting up looking fabulous!

And check it out! Broccoli starting!

I am not sure I should have really done a winter veggie patch, but oh well… its here now.

The cabbage is looking rather nice too so I probably won’t have too many regrets.

I picked some beetroot too and pickled that today. I did it in little square chunks as I was given some home made goats milk feta cheese – and beetroot-feta-rocket salad is fabulous, so I am excited to make some up. (The rocket has reshot so it seems I have plenty of that!)

Pip continues his winter hibernation in stages of five warmed towels per day. Currently curled up under my windcheater because I was too lazy to get back up and re-wrap him in a fresh towel!!
Spoiled much??

Hope your day was wonderful!
Cheers!

Hi!
And the beautiful days roll on!
Back on with the gardening duds and into it.

Wow… at the deeper end I had to remove half a meter of dirt – and rubble and concrete!!
It’s reasonably level now.

I thought this section wouldn’t be as severe…
Ha! Not quite half a metres difference, but not far off it. Still coming across lots of rubble and concrete to slow things up a bit.

I dug up a lot of pegs today. Plastic. And the usual crockery and glass

I was a bit disappointed to finish all that dirt removal and fail to find a marble… then what do I see peeking out of a mountain of dirt?

Yay – new marble!

You know how normal people dig holes??
I dug UP a hole!!
I had just finished leveling the first area and moved up to the second.
Walked back down to see this:

It went down a fair way too! I got a stick and poked it in (This is Australia after all, so I am not silly enough to stick my arm down there!!)

I could have measured the length but that would have been sensible, so below photo from my fingertips to end of stick is how deep I got it down there!!

Nothing grabbed the stick or hissed at me or did anything untoward (slightly disappointed) so I just filled it up with the readily handy dirt and moved on to the top section.

I’ve created a building site.

All that rubble and concrete is going to go ‘down the hole’ (the not-septic-hole) but by the time I was finished this afternoon I was done in. I had no intentions of picking all that up today!!
I had to save my strength to top up on the nights firewood!

I think the rounded thing on left of photo above might be the septic pipe… Didn’t dig further to investigate haha (Call me boring…)
So! Tomorrow I can trot down to the hardware shop and see about getting some timber!
I’ve decided that we need to build these raised beds first and fill them so they are nice and stable then I can build onto them, back fill up to them and complete the rest of the garden.

Hopefully tomorrow I’ll take a break from digging 🙂

Hope your day was great!
Cheers

A new day in the garden… & a new marble! 🙂

Yesterday was a bit of a run about day – then finished up by photographing my young cousin all dressed up for her school leavers dinner.
She looked gorgeous – but I forgot to ask if I could pop a photo on here, so you’ll just have to imagine the blue sparkly dress for now 🙂

So… today – another stunner of a winters day! Back to my digging.

I progressed to the end of the strip! Then I was all fired up keen to get both ends level. One half will be higher than the other but I have limits on how much dirt I want to shovel out.
Finding concrete put a bit of a go-slow on my plans.

Yay. (not)
Back out with the sledgehammer.

It was probably an old path. Its pretty thick too!
I am not sure how much I will remove – the lower part I have to remove all of it because that section of raised bed has to be dug out lower to get it level as I am not really interested in building a retaining wall.
The section between the two stakes on the left is going to be open as a path so it might not be nec. to remove. Not sure yet. The raised bed on the upper side doesn’t have to be dug as deep to level out so again… I might not have to get that bit out either!

Now that all the matted grass and concrete is up in this section, I should be able to level off the area for this raised bed. Tomorrow. (That is if the weather keeps up with this magnificence!)

I dug up a LOT of ‘stuff’ today. Above is the selection of the more interesting bits. Mostly it was a lot of glass. Still waiting on coinage or jewellry… 😀

I also dug up a lot of curl grubs! So I put them into what my niece calls ‘the happy chicken bucket’

The chooks got two lots of these grubs today (and a damaged worm)
Should have heard the happy ‘chuck chuff chuff’ noises they made as the gobbled them up!!

As usual the galahs came in for their afternoon snack too.
So I put some seed in their bowl (which someone knocked off and broke the edge off!!!!)(Not sure whether to blame chooks or possums.)

Eventually I had to come in.
Was pretty pleased with dinner tonight.
All home grown veggies, with lamb chops that I got yesterday – swapped for my BBQ Sauce (How fab is that??) along with my home made relish and home made garlic salt.
The lamb chops – from a local farm – were divine!! Lucky us!

Hope you’ve had a great day too!
Cheers

What a lovely winters day!!
Even Pip was enjoying rolling about in the sunshine!

Time to get cracking on this slightly ambitious garden idea.
First, removing the rocks, bridge and cement edging.

I quite like the bulked up wall here now haha.

This huge piece of timber along the steps was NOT going to come quietly!
In the end I had to whack it with the sledge hammer.
Satisfying.

Jeff helped me get out the cement edging and then assisted with marking out the whole area.

I got slightly further than pictured with the grass removal from the bottom future raised beds area.
Clearly I have a lot of digging to do and a vast amount of leveling.

The sloping angles are not going to be my friend… But hopefully will be worth the effort in the end.
Jeff thinks I am mad for starting this now.
Oh well… keeps me off the streets. 🙂

As usual… dug up a fair bit of ‘archaeology’
I think the marble was the best find. (Still waiting to dig up something significant one day)

Eventually the chill of the late afternoon drove me to finish up.
There were still chooks to feed (and the galahs), had to top up the firewood for the night and sort out dinner. (Not to mention a bit of a sit down and a hot chocolate followed by a blissful shower!)

Hope your day was full of sunshine too!
Cheers

Endless criss crossing of tracks in this area!
It was chilly but mostly sunny so we got out for another walk.

I made a point today of collecting a whole heap of rubbish photos (not that I am sharing here because its too depressing) and at some point I might annoy the council about it.

I wish we still had the deposit returned on cans and bottles. Even if it didn’t stop cretins from throwing them out on the sides of roads, at least there would be groups of kids/clubs collecting them to raise money.

We came across one site that had a household lot dumped. Fish tank (broken) microwave, carpet, car jack, chairs, a naked headless Barbie… Half of it had been set on fire too. Trying to imagine how people think this is ok!

The steeper roads/tracks were a bit slippery still but mostly the going was ok – we did a bit over 6km again and worked up a fair sweat getting back up the main hills! Steep as!!!

The pine plantation areas often have a number of great fungi… mostly they are about done but we spotted a few.

I love these ones (Amanita muscaria ) Straight out of a fairy tale book.

And speaking of fairy tales – how cool is this?? A fairy ring!! I have never actually seen one before.
Did anyone else read about them in childrens fairy tales?

This one was made up of the coral fungi. I was careful not to step inside it as I didn’t have time to be kidnapped by pixies today.

I didn’t get much done in the yard today. I did clean the fireplace out and put the ash on the second Hugelkultur bed – and topped both beds with some of the cow poo. It was like icing a cake with a shovel… didn’t smell as good though! 🙂 😀

Oh – and in very exciting news, my main soap supplies arrived today! Lots of moulds, dyes and fragrances!!
Nearly got everything now!! Can’t wait to get making some more soap!!

Have a lovely day!
Cheers

Little Moo enjoying some silverbeet!!
He is a happy chap lately as there are cows in his neighbouring paddock – sometimes if he bellows loud enough they come over to keep him company.
Mind you, I went out and called him and he came springing over to me like a lamb!! So funny.
Then we walked back over to meet his friends.

Whilst on the topic of cows… yesterday, somehow I managed to convince Jeff who was settled in listening to a book in front of the fire after our walk that it would be the best fun afternoon activity ever if he joined me with a shovel and the wheel barrow.

Yup – cow poo collecting! haha – three barrows worth!
I must admit Jeff wasn’t skipping out of the house in glee at the prospect, but his sense of humour kicked in – musing something about his school year book ‘where do you see yourself in 30 years’ kind of thing.
Running about a paddock to collect cow poo to save five bucks was not it.
(I am positive its worth more than five….)
Anyway, once the weather fines up again I will put most of this on the two Huggle Monsters (Hugelkultur Gardens) Plenty of time for it to age before spring planting.

Today was a bit of a run about day – shops, chemist, optometrist – that kind of thing. It was also pretty wet and gloomy.
I actually drew a starting plan for the garden out the back that I started pulling apart.
Its starting to form a picture in my mind. Now have to get on with the clearing and prepping of the area!!
Sorry – not the greatest snap – that spiral thing is meant to be a rock herb spiral.
There will be raised beds flanking the inner bit – the strawberry part will be deeper as thats where the land slopes a bit.
I can work with 6-7 metres across and 4mt deep.
I’ve been looking at pinterest too long and have some fabulously unrealistic plans for the path.
The tree guys are meant to be returning soon so unsure HOW to juggle everything – but you’ve got to have plans, right??

I read a crochet pattern from a book for the first time! Took me all of a rainy afternoon to sort it out (I am a youtube person when it comes to learning new patterns) My first one was a bit muffed but this one worked out ok. The colours are a bit terrible in the snap – dark day and indoor lighting kills the colour. Just unsure if I have the patience to do 17 more!! (or the yarn)

So – not much else really happening today. Sold my last strawberry plants, so they made a grand total of $51!! A nice addition to my gardening fund!

Hope you have a great day or evening (whenever you are) – take a leaf out of Pips book: Be Relaxed!! 🙂

Cheers

Well… that winter padding is not going to fall off on its own. Time to get hiking again.
Joined Jeff on his hike around the Oldina area – not far from us.
Mostly it is unattractive logging areas, but has lots of great (if somewhat steep and wonky) tracks with a bit of natural bushland left.

I am suspecting this might be foxglove… If so, I am keen to get it for the garden!! Its classed as a weed although its so beautiful to see on the side of the road in bloom.
A lot of the logged areas are so unkempt when it comes to weeds and their management. And the whole area is a nightmare of rubbish that people come up and dump there.
Still… there is a lot of beauty there too.

I had the camera tucked away in my bag for the ugly areas and the tricky tracks. Some seem to be almost vertical!!

After a while we got to a blissfully easy road with gorgeous bushlands and the river.

There was some great fungi about too – I was regretting not having my macro lens!!

The occasional leaf
And one of my favourite things – scribbly bark on some fallen trees!
This is caused by the larvae of the scribbly gum moth. I love natural art!

There is not much artistic about the countless areas and articles of rubbish we came across.
This smashed glass however did offer me a little interest with the shapes and colours.

A large eucalyptus tree had fallen here… someone has been clearing up the wood. (free firewood?)
A man fern was also cut and left – we were considering seeing if we could find a way to get the car down to this point as the man fern will grow.

Speaking of man ferns (or tree ferns if you prefer)
Check out this insanely huge (and presumably old) beauty!

Towering above all the others – it really had a presence about it.
But not until I walked around and got to the bank I could see the actual scale of this fern

Would you like some scale??
Here is Jeff:

We’ve never seen one that big before.
And at a growth rate of about a centimetre per year, I’d calculate a good 400 years on this Earth.
The vine you can see growing up it is actually a blackberry – another weed. Next time we go we will take gloves and snippy things to remove it.
Oh – and here’s another Jeff photo – just for his folks!! (haha – Hi Judy)

After we said goodbye to the monster man fern, we went off the nice road to a more challenging road that went, ok… it didn’t go straight up, but it did feel like it a bit.

The recent rains make things muddy, sticky and slippery!!
And when you’ve just about got your breath back, you come out into a vastly different area again!!

All in all it was a really beautiful walk – I am sure it did me good!! (I sweated a lot and boy I can tell its been a while since my last hike!)
Hope you all had a lovely day too!
Cheers!

Hello!
We started the weekend well with clear sunny blue skies.
I was dumb enough to put washing out. Haha – They got dried a reasonable way before I had to rescue it!

Pallet resting place for pumpkins…

Look at this horror!!
Lets look a little closer –

Time to rip EVERYTHING out!!
This whole area I am keen to revamp. I am just not sure how.
First I will get out all the main weeds and plants, then remove the concrete edging and rocks that surrounded the strawberry patch etc. Get a nice big blank slate.

Can anyone give me a hint why I get so many self seeded tomatoes each season??

The tomato laterals I am trying to get to grow aren’t doing much, but I found these in the strawberry patch so thought I would rescue them and pop them in the hothouse and see how they respond.
I buried them deep and mostly on their sides to see if they would put down more roots and then watered them in with some of my newly collected worm wee

Hopefully they will sit up ok.

I didn’t get through it all of course. But it was a pretty good start. The other side is a bit more horrible with the sorrel and slows me down digging up the strawberry plants.
Jeff did a lot of mowing and whippersnippering and I barrowed the grass clippings to places in need.

I want to bring in new stock when it comes to the strawberries… maybe use a few of the old. I put an ad on the local facebook community page offering 10 plants for $3
So far I have requests for 80 plants! Yipes. Better get moving tomorrow morning and sort out what I have before rashly saying yes to any more!

Once everything is gone I think I’ll make a start by collecting some cardboard and covering the whole area to start to kill the grass and weeds – with the blank slate I should be able to envision the area more clearly.
Mostly I want flowers, but I am dead-keen on a rocky herb spiral and I need to get my strawberry patch back in here as well as they really love that position.
Perhaps some quality time with a tape measure, pencil and paper??

Hope your weekend has started great too!
Cheers!

I knew I cleared the dining room table for a reason…
Pip happily snoopervising the creation of another tension tray.

Then he got bored – (I love cat-yawns!)

And then he wanted to play with the sticks

Eventually I completed another tension tray.

It rained on and off… not as bad as yesterday.
So I finished the vacuuming since Jeff was awake.
Ran about the yard in between rain squalls and fed the chooks – under supervision, as the sparrows are just cleaning us out of wheat!
Moved one of the half pallets up to the back veranda and set it up so I can store my pumpkins on it (will let it dry out first).
Went to top up on firewood and saw about 5 chooks calmly marching down the track near the shed… on the ‘non-chicken’ side of the yard! Busted!!
Had to herd their feathery butts back and sort the fence out.
Lastly today I took some eggs and veggies to Shirley and had a nice cuppa and some cake, along with a chat.
Brrrr… seems cold tonight!
Have a great weekend!!
Cheers!