October 2016 – Page 2 – Head in the Clouds

Ruby in Action!

And the rain came tumbling down again today – it really seemed to set in. It makes the garden look pretty, but I wasn’t so enthused about wallowing in the mud getting cold and wet weeding, so I thought I might trot around town and deliver some of the eggs we seemed to have amassed!

I dropped off a total of 4 dozen, but still need to supply both Margie and Ruby with a dozen each. No worries. Got plenty. Considering doing roadside sales with them soon!

Anyway, I dropped in to see what Ruby was up to & scavenge a cuppa. I found her pottering about her garden, oblivious to the rain in her coat and using an umbrella as a walking stick!

Watering the hothouse tomatoes & mystery seeds (She can’t remember exactly what she planted – so she is in for a surprise)

I admit I didn’t stick my nose in the hothouse until she knew I was there as I didn’t want a face full of water!! I stood back and called out, so she poked her head out and got me to turn the water off for her.

crop-ruby

Ruby was feeling quite chipper, despite the gloom and rain. She had had a good nap and felt energetic enough for a stint in the garden

So we did a tour to see what was happening

Ruby has practically filled this plot with potatoes! I only dug the first bit – she has done the rest!!!!

Apparently its time to run a hoe between the rows of these spuds. I NEED to get in here and sort those little weeds too!

Despite a bit of snail and slug action, the peas are going along pretty nicely – and Ruby has also put in another row at the side!

I thought Ruby looked great in her rain-garden clothes so I made her stop for a photo – she totally got into the swing of it by posing – pointing toward her gilder rose 😀

We eventually went inside for that cuppa (and cake) and a catch up.

I told her I was heading home as Jeff had the fire on, and I could see an afternoon of comfort and crochet.

Ha!! Got home and because it hadn’t rained for ten minutes, Jeff had a fit of optimism and was back in the duck yard weeding!! Sigh. I couldn’t let him continue alone, so I dragged my grotty clothes back on and joined in the fun! I am sure I will get some updated photos tomorrow for you. The corn may get in the ground soon!!

Hope you have had a lovely day, and an awesome plan for the weekend

Cheers

Weeds, Weeds & More Weeds

Had to start with something pretty! Two of the iris graced us with their presence!! They look lovely in the garden outside our kitchen window!

Guess what? A FULL day with no rain! Mega exciting. On with the gardening clothes again and out into the duck-yard (the yard that has never had ducks) to get stuck into the weeding

The weeds in here are so small and fiddly! It really takes forever to dig them out – and mostly we are surrounded by squabbling chooks, looking for worms.

I want to put some runner beans along this fence. And maybe some passionfruit

This was the point I called it quits – Jeff continued on for a while, but I had to clean up and duck into the supermarket. I very much want this sorted out so we can plant our corn ASAP

Todays treasures??

With luck we will be able to get back to it tomorrow – I am about to check the forecast!

I will leave you with a few more iris photos and bid you goodnight!

Cheers!

Less Rain, More Gardening

My friend, Rachel, left in the morning and the day wasn’t too bad, so got back out into the garden this afternoon – in between rainfalls!

Time to clean up the raised garden bed that I had earmarked for tomatoes. The seeds from last seasons self seeded broccoli are going to be an ongoing thing – I saved some, but pulled up everything else and dug a bit of compost into the areas each tomato seedling was destined for.

The wind is still a bit unkind, so I didn’t bother with the seaweed mulch (would have been blown all over the paddocks behind us I reckon!) and covered them with some slightly redesigned ice-cream containers

My other heirloom tomatoes from seed are going along really nicely! I am thinking I may even have some success finally, with some tomatoes from seed!

At times I had to duck back into the hothouse and do a couple of tasks in there as the rain would pelt down for a short time, then switch itself off

I decided to uproot one of the broccoli that had gone to seed and give it to the chooks for a treat. I don’t mind leaving things like this flowering in the hothouse – attracts the bees.

Then I figured I should do something about my bean patch

Not sure why every bit of garden debris ended up here!!!??

I had to weed out the twitch from among last seasons bean plants. Twitch is so annoying. Its so long and ropey and gets in between other plants which makes it really had to pull up without digging up the entire plot

I added in some topsoil that we dug out the other day, as well as a couple of buckets of my home made compost (and a ton of worms)

Now they just have to grow like crazy and climb up and over my arch!

Potatoes are really coming along pretty well!!

More flowers are showing up, although the iris are taking their time about blooming!

Hope you have had a fabulous day!

Cheers!

Tiptoe Past the Tulips

Rachel and I actually pretended to be tourists today – of course it was raining intermittently, but it turned off and on enough to get out and see the local countryside a little bit!

Table Cape and some surrounding farm areas are all a sea of colour these days with the tulips out everywhere

We did go up to the tulip farm – checked out the shop and displays, but acted a little stingy and didn’t pay the $10 to actually go into the fields – figured I would wait until the weather was nicer, and I had my tripod to experiment a bit with some photos.

But there were a few fields of tulips that we could see on the drive back home, which was very enjoyable.

I hope your day was just as beautiful!

Cheers!

Source Images: DSC_2447.JPG (Av: F16.0; Tv: 1/500 sec.; ISO: 800; FL: 48.0 mm) Processing: Fusion F.3 (HDR; Mode 1)

Property Hunting

20161017_111540_resized — Inside the wacky world of real estate

Hello!

I am being a little boring in my blogging world – the rain is back with a vengeance, so not much of a chance to improve my garden.

Plus been running about with my friend checking out properties, which is awesome fun!

One place today that we went into was the most amazing mish-mash of styles and colours you have ever seen!! I think I time warped back to about 1974. I felt naked without my flares.

You know when something is so bad and over the top, it just tips over from tacky into fabulous? That’s where we were at today!

I just took some snaps on Rachel’s phone but haven’t got the ones of the lounge room (which was very special) via email yet..

I will drop back via my blog sometime tomorrow to try to be a little more interesting!

Hope everyones week started splendidly!!

Cheers!

Photo Challenge, November

Hello!

We spent a pretty fun day over in Devonport looking at investment properties with my friend Rachel.

Again – nothing new on the home front 🙂

Still, nice to drag a few vegetables out of both the garden and freezer to make up dinner & watch a movie or two in the evening – and generally catch up with a good friend!

Just thought I would mention that I am running a new photo challenge via facebook late November. The group has been created now with a new list of subjects to photograph – its a closed group, but anyone interested in joining in, please let me know in the comments below and I will send you out an email with a link. You would be most welcome!

Basic Outline

There is a list of ten subjects that group members go out and take photos of. As an easy example – the first subject is “Pink” People go and take a bunch of photographs with pink in them, choose their best/favourite shot and upload it into the “Pink Album” on day one.

It continues on for ten days, a new album & subject opening each day to contribute to. My contributions to the last challenge can be seen here

Once all participating members have filled an album, everyone gets to vote for their favourite images.

At the end, the person with the most points wins a prize (usually some home made jam/relish and something knitted)(All from Norwich House of course!)

While the competition aspect of it is fun, its mostly developed into a nice little community of people who enjoy photography – experienced and beginners -that come together for a couple of weeks, get creative, make friends and maybe even learn some extra photography skills, or impart some of their own knowledge.

Its very relaxed – there are some rules of course, but mostly just commonsense ones.

Hope everybodys weekend is pretty fabulous!

Cheers!

Notes to Non-Australians – How To Eat Vegemite

Hello! I am keeping busy with my friend arriving today, no new gardening news.

I had a question about Vegemite from Janet a few weeks back. (Popular spread for bread here in Australia) Her older son was daring her younger son to eat a whole jar for five dollars.

My immediate response was “Get your younger son to ask for a whole heap more cash”

Its not that I don’t like it – I love it, but very few of us Australians eat it with a spoon (shudder)

Its a yeast extract – salty/savoury NOT sweet or chocolatey. My Canadian husband seems to think it works well on his bicycle chains! 🙂

I am under the vague impression that you have to be brought up on it to like it. People do make the mistake of sticking their noses in the jar for a big sniff – don’t do that!! You’ll never be the same again.

People also try to spread it like peanut butter – again, not a good life choice!

First, cook your toast, nice hot buttery toast!

Get your knife and artistically scrape bits of vegemite over your hot buttery toast!

I will take a couple of months to get through a jar – as you can see, not much needs to go on the toast.

Now, think savoury, be brave and take a bite.

Actually Vegemite might have been banned in the US, not for taste reasons, but due to the high yeast content!! Puzzling. And disappointing.

One of the greatest joys in an Australians life is watching foreigners taste Vegemite for the first time. 😀 Its the little things in life….

Any non-Australians out there taken the Vegemite taste test? Did it go well? Did it end badly? I would love to know!!

Hope everyones Friday has been amazing!

Cheers!

New Garden Bed & The Raspberries Get Netted!!

Hello!

This was a well deserved cuppa at the end of the day. It was t-shirt warm for most of it & no rain!! Super! We shoved two loads of laundry through – we were so far behind on sorting all the linen from when we had a houseful so it was good to get that done!

I started the day with a bit of bartering. A friend dropped by as she wanted some seeds/seedlings – and I have more than I can sensibly use, so I like sharing the ‘food’ around!

Anyway, Sharon gave me these gorgeous soaps and I loaded her up with whatever seeds she needed, and some seedlings (like the lettuce, self seeded silverbeet & some parsley)(oh and strawberry runners). We both felt very happy with our deals! And her two-year old Lottie, helped me collect the eggs! Super effort – only one cracked! LOL

Onto my flower garden project – out the back where the strawberries were I wanted to create a colourful garden of flowers – encourage bees and for general enjoyment.

We took the old parts of Ruby’s strawberry bed home and I thought I could grow sweet peas up it. It had some manky netting that I figured the sweet peas would happily cover.

Did I mention at some point in the past about me being aesthetically relaxed?? OK well I am, Jeff – not so much!

The netting came off, chicken wire put on, and then he painted it bright red!

This was yesterday. Today it was dry so I put it in the little patch that I dug and added compost to.

I had some seeds soaking – the sweet pea which I have now planted all around Hal, so hopefully when grown up and over, the red peeking out of the green will look rather good. We shall see… I also had some marigold and sunflower seeds soaking and I have scattered them around in the rest of the area. Time will tell if this is a disaster or not!!

So – on to the raspberries!!

Remember that super bit of polypipe I found at the beach last month? (Story here)

I am thrilled with it and totally want more! Two steel droppers and voila! Pipe over top, and you have a very sturdy structure!

Time to sort the netting. We had to ‘sew’ two nets length ways. Using a wool needle and fishing line!

Jeff lines up the netting as I moved along sewing

This basically took forever – ask my Mum – I am SO much better with a stapler than a needle! 😀

Finally we were done – ok I quit just before the end and have dubbed the unfinished part ‘the entry’

The netting went over fairly easily, despite the wind starting to kick up again.

Now I can get in and weed, mulch etc without the chickens coming in to redesign my mulching techniques!

Oh – and we found a hole.

I stepped on a part of the yard that totally sank like a mini sink-hole!

It was amazing how easily digging into this spot was – and how far down the shovel disappeared!

We (ok Jeff) took the grass sods off the top, dug out the area (yay – topsoil for me) and then we (me) refilled it with the dirt we have from when the bore was dug – packed it down and regrassed.

Excitement short lived – not a treasure chest – just a big rock!

Well – happy to have achieved lots today! Best be off to bed – girlfriend arriving tomorrow on a spur of the moment weekend trip to Tasmania! I love random events! I wonder if she likes weeding?? 😀

Cheers!

Carrots & Compost

I am enjoying seeing more come out each day

Hello! Today the stretches of sun were noticeably longer and more encouraging than recent times!!

This morning I made up 10 litres of my laundry liquid – we had run out completely, and I didn’t want to waste that sun and gale-force breeze!! 🙂

A nice big tub of gooey laundry detergent!

If you want to see how I make this, just click here

I was interested to note that that batch of laundry liquid was made in April – I don’t think I have made any since, so that has lasted just on 6 months! Not bad for half an hours work and a huge savings at the supermarket!

It was also time to get out the gee-whizzer and sort out lunch for the worms

I was curious to see the bottom layers of the compost – just to see how things were going. Well, to me it looks pretty good! Worms were popping out everywhere!

A lot of the worms had disappeared by the time I went back in to get my camera

I gave both of the compost bins a good turn with the fork

Pleased how quickly these have come along

I think processing the scraps small has really helped this along. I am wondering when I can just dump some of it in a garden bed!

Speaking of garden beds – a quick overview of the main vegie patch. Its slowly slowly coming along. Its easier to pick out where the potatoes have come up now.

Source Images: DSC_2384.JPG (Av: F10.0; Tv: 1/400 sec.; ISO: 500; FL: 28.0 mm) DSC_2385.JPG (Av: F7.1; Tv: 1/200 sec.) DSC_2383.JPG (Av: F9.0; Tv: 1/320 sec.) Processing: Fusion F.3 (HDR; Mode 1)

And the snow peas are hanging in there

Yesterday, in between rainstorms, hail and visiting Ruby, I managed to get some carrots in the soil

Adding some of the you-beaut compost from the nursery

I know you are not supposed to overdo the fertilising for carrots, but the topsoil I put in here didn’t look very inspiring – and it does need something! Hopefully its enough. I will add a lot more to the other side, where I will try to plant my heirloom capsicums.

I have some carrots still in the garden which I will let go to seed. In the meantime I scrounged up some seeds from last season.

I’d just like to add its tricky trying to plant carrot seed in strong winds. (Cue mystery carrots popping up in strange places!!!)

I am very encouraged by my tomato seedlings so far…

I did go out and splurge on a punnet of tomatoes to put in the outside garden now – so I have my three in the hothouse which are forging ahead, then I will have these next ones coming along – they will be slower in the main garden, but they can act as a forerunner to the little seedlings above (if I don’t somehow kill them)(I am being very kind to them, so fingers crossed!)

I am really hoping tomorrow will be a much more sensible spring day (with sunshine and minimal wind, preferably no hail) so we can do a bit of catching up.

Cheers!

Found some lavender I didn’t know I had! Bonus! 🙂

Ruby Tuesday – Whats in the Garden

Hello! I managed to drop in to Ruby’s today for a cuppa, a catch up and a bit of a look to see what the garden was doing!

My sister Michelle had asked me to get a photo of the guest book she & her husband Tony had made (also from my parents). They did a beautiful job – Ruby now keeps it handy on the coffee table for other visitors to sign in case they missed out doing so at the party

I noticed Ruby had gotten into the garden and planted another row of potatoes! There is no stopping her!!

Ruby has braved the weather to do a bit of digging!!!

First potatoes up – as well as weeds again so soon!!

Ruby has put in carrots, parsnip & beetroot

Margie made a mulch barrier, along with a bit of snail bait as some of the peas got chewed

Some more spring colours are working their way into Ruby’s garden too.

A single yellow tulip! Ruby is really pleased with this one!

I can never remember this tree’s name – but I want one!

Can you imagine your garden without zucchini? It just seems a normal thing to put in to me… but Ruby remembers when they were unknown and when they were just being introduced into the gardens – People bought it to try it out then didn’t know what to do with them – and of course so many of them! lol.

Apparently there was a lot of trial & error and swapping information with neighbours!

Anyway – we are still getting a lot of off and on rain which doesn’t help us get the outdoor stuff very far along. Hoping we will be back to Ruby’s soon to sort out her strawberry patch!

Cheers!

This is actually a protea, not a real Waratah, but it is magnificent!