Gates, Seaweed & Jungle Clearing!

Well… another beautiful winters day.
To be honest I am itching to just sit in front of the fire all day and work on my latest crochet project, but the weather is just too nice to waste! It will turn horrible soon enough!
Jeff got out and chook-proofed the gate he recently put in. He did a great job of actually installing it by himself. Before we just had a dodgy arrangement with a steel dropper and some old chicken wire.
This is MUCH easier!!

The slope of the land means gaps. Chickens are squeezy so we have to make sure they can’t find any little spots to pop through.

I started by working on one of the raised garden beds and decanting my kelp juice.
Step one:  weed garden

Step two: Stare at revolting fermenting kelp.

Step three: remove kelp

I covered the garden bed in the used kelp… I am sure there is probably some goodness left in it and it might also slow weed regrowth.

I gathered all my saved milk and cordial containers and filled a fair number with the kelp juice. There is still about a third of the barrel full of it but I have run out of containers.

I used some of the leftover juice to give the cabbages a good dose.

I am so pleased with how they are looking!
The covering of seaweed mulch has been brilliant – very few weeds have popped up and those pulled up easily

I hope they heart up well!

So… whats next? Yeah. The poor old hothouse

I fully intended to pull all the tomatoes, capsicum and cucumber out.
But…

I contented myself by pulling up all the finished cucumbers and cutting back and taking out most of the tomatoes. I have left a few since there is still fruit happening

The passionfruit has gone mad.

It clearly adores its new home in the hothouse. I suspect I will have to get tough and start cutting it back so it doesn’t take over completely. As it is I can’t shut the door anymore!

I am just hoping that it will produce a ton of fruit in the next season – very excited about the prospect of that! If it doesn’t it will certainly get a severe haircut!

Hope your week has started well!
Cheers!

Small winter harvest!

Failure to Garden

It was hard to resist the weather today. Pulled on the hiking boots rather than the gumboots and went for a lap around Anniversary Bay!
The Strait was pretty flat today

Was nice to see this view again… seems like its been a while!

The tide was coming in so we had to walk over the rocks in places rather than across the sand.

The beach offered up some more sand art of course.

The last stretch of beach before heading inland to walk up those mean hills.

The first (almost) straight up hill was a bit testing but overall not as bad as I expected since its been a while since we did proper regular hikes.

A fabulous way to spend Sunday afternoon!
Hope everyone else has a wonderful day too!
Cheers

Snap out the window on the drive home!

Garden Progress

If this weather keeps up I am going to have to go out for a hike!
Its so lovely!
Today I finished off my weeding/clearing project in the herb garden and extension.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

I like before and after shots. So satisfying!!
One more… Before:

After:

The oregano that I accidentally planted in a pot is going really well. I plan to do a lot more of these soon-ish and get them established and happy – then hopefully sell them out the front.

The Salvia is still looking good although its past its best. It really is a bright spot in the garden!

Hope your weekend is going beautifully too!
Cheers

More Weeding

The other day I managed to go to the supermarket in my gumboots!
Erk… I was almost in town when I realised! It was difficult to pretend I was just finishing up a hard days work in the paddocks since I had gone to the effort of putting my nice jeans on and my new beret…
Mostly I tried to ignore my feet.

Another lovely day out there today (Mind you the nights are really chilly!) so I got a small load of washing done and on the line. They mostly dried and are now finishing off in front of the fire. (Anyone recognise the super-hero symbol?) 😀

Time to tackle another section of my garden.

I actually was only going to do the section along the fence, but I was really enjoying it and wanted to finish up the entire middle part of the garden. I sacrificed splitting more kindling in favour of staying in the dirt

Quite the improvement.
Haven’t looked at tomorrows weather so not sure if it will be a garden day or a crochet day.

I put out some wheat and the young girls got in there and frantically pecked away… until one of the older birds sauntered over. You can see they are being a little braver by getting back in there to snatch a bite!

Today was the first day of winter!! Its really cold now. Icy night because there is no cloud cover. I need to pluck up some courage to go back out the back to stock up on some wood. I like to have it all inside by the fire then, in the interests of gaining more ‘wife points’ I get up at about 6.30am to re light the fire so Jeff comes back in from his night shift to a cosy house.
(Its about 4C (40F) right now and will get close to zero tonight.)
I just looked at the forecast – a few nice days ahead so hope to take advantage and get more outside work done.

Nice little butternut pumpkin made into soup tonight!
Easy dinner with some home baked bread on the side and banana fritters for dessert!

Hope you have a great weekend planned!
Cheers!