Month: November 2018

Weeding in the Sometimes Rain

So… Emma and I went out to buy some established basil today so I could start getting cuttings from it sooner than what my tiny baby basil will manage.
Hmmm… see what we came home with? Leggy tomato plants! haha
The basil at the nursery was not much bigger than mine! But they were selling these tomatoes for $2 each, so figured, why not?
Since it rained a lot today, blew a gale and also hailed… I didn’t put them in the garden.

Emma and I braved the on and off again weather and did some weeding. This raised patch had lots of fiddly little weeds

My happy-hippie niece tied up her dreads and got into it!

We cleared it out nicely, left some of the self seeded tomatoes but I am sure the twitch will return soon

Then we moved on to the duck yard garden where we could be a bit more brutal!

Just pulling out the worst of it. Still no seaweed on the beach to use 🙁

We didn’t scratch the surface today but still filled the barrow a couple of times or so!

I also wanted to give my garlic some breathing space and weed in between the plants too… the sparse seaweed really did do a good job of keeping the weeds down. Grabbed the last of the hay to use where I could.

Anyway, again – little by little. I could do with a few decent days in a row to get my teeth into it again.
Brrrr – tonight is chilly! Time to snuggle up in bed. The electric blanket is on and beckoning!
Hope everyones day was great!
Cheers!

Small Garden Update

Hello!! How’s the weather around your place? Another fine day of mizzle here! Jeff and I went out for a walk, Emma made a fire and stayed inside! 😀

The flowers I planted a while back look like they might be about to do something interesting!

Checking out my little zucchinis to see how they are going. At least I can tell they are getting bigger!!

Little Moo came charging up to the fence for a scratch and a hello!

Little Moo is a bit of a sticky-beak too! Likes to know whats going on!

Sweet peas are really lovely at the back door! I didn’t even take the old ones out and replant. These just appeared from fallen seed and did their own thing!

I tidied up one of the tomato plants and popped the laterals that I snicked off into some water. Now to wait…

Down in the Duck Yard garden, this is the best of the three rhubarbs I moved.

The cardboard is starting to do its job. Still need seaweed or straw! And heaps of it! Not much seaweed on the beach at the moment.

So pleased with the garlic… it still seems to be going along fine.

I have two cabbages going to seed. I will cut that back to one when I clean up in here.

Flowers on the raspberries!

Beetroot and carrot well up in the raised bed. Also a LOT of self seeded broccoli and tomatoes – next on my list for weeding and relocating stuff.

Carrots starting to show their feathery bits!!

The snow peas at the end also are looking pretty good!

The corn is ok… seems slow so far. Still need to plant another patch!!

Its nice to bring a bit of spring inside too… these do smell so amazing!
Hope your day is wonderful!
Cheers!

Hothouse Envy

Hi!! Gosh – what a wintery feeling day today! A heavy fog along with what Margie and Ruby would call – Mizzle! (Miserable drizzle)
Yesterday was a great day at the Deloraine Craft Fair! So many fabulously clever people showing their stuff! The whole town is the site and they provide buses to get from A to B to C etc
I had fun Christmas shopping (gotta start sometime I suppose) and even bought something for me!!
So, today we all had a slow start after such a long day, then went visiting cousins. I had organised to meet Leonie up at her parents place for a cuppa.
I just have to share Tas and Beths hothouse with you.
I really want one!

They built it quite a few seasons ago… actually I think it was just after I brought them up some fresh tomatoes mid to late winter!! Kinda impressed them so a hothouse was planned and made!

See why I want one?

Lettuce!!! So much lettuce!

Two rows of sturdy tomatoes!

They’ve totally got the jump on me when it comes to zucchini!

And I love the sunken walkway at the other end!

When it was built, trenches were dug along the sides and the plastic was run along the bottom, held down by lengths of 2×4, then filled in with dirt!
The steel droppers were put in and the polypipe over the top… then the plastic pulled over (double sided adhesive on the polypipe) and sunk into the ground  on the other side.

Kitty not too sure about the noise my camera makes!!

Anyway, it was a really nice afternoon visiting!
Hope you had a great day too!
Cheers!

(I took my basket to my cousins filled with rhubarb and herbs, came home filled with lettuce!)

Attacking the Hothouse

Hello! How is the weekend going?
Weather has been a bit ordinary… lots of off and on rain, temps dropped and the wind blowing pretty hard!

I figured working in the hothouse might be the way to go today. Less chance of being rained on. Plus after a while the wind usually makes me a bit nutty!!
As you can see – Tentacular is still in the process of taking over the world!! Still unsure what to do with it – if anything (Apart from build that second hothouse)

We’ve found about three passionfruit so far…

Anyway, I wanted to rearrange the hothouse so I could start planting some things in what little ground Tentacular has left me.

Felt good to get the rubbish out and make sense of this area again.

I needed to move at least one table today, so planted some seedlings out and moved others anywhere I could

I put some of the cos lettuce and celery that were badly grown in the egg cartons into the newly weeded area in the herb garden and covered them up… will see if they go ok or not. Its all an experiment. Some I took off the egg carton, some I didn’t.

Found some nice surprises today too

Even though every season I tell myself… “Only TWO cucumbers” I can’t help it and put in three. Then in a few months, inevitably I will have cucumber regret!!

Some of the seedlings I moved to the cleared bench. Hoping to get these out in the next week or so – I’d rather wait until it wasn’t blowing a gale. (Also have to decide WHERE and prepare more plots!)

Excited to see some tomato flowers!!
Not to mention a stack of self seeded plants doing well.

Today I also made room and planted four eggplant seedlings and 3 capsicum. They were pretty tiny, but hopefully they’ll be happy in the dirt with some compost and I’ll see some growth soon!
They are all tucked up under their bottles tonight!

I still have high hopes of fitting in watermelons, basil and more capsicum. 🙂

Anyway, I am off to bed.
Hope everyone has a great Sunday planned. We have a full day ahead – hopefully heading out to a big craft fair. Looking forward to a good old fossick about seeing what clever people make!
I will leave you with my magic rock and water trick.
We put a lot of our collected-but-unpolished stones by the shed door.
Its amazing the change when you pour a watering can full of water over it!
Enjoy.
Cheers!

Then:

To This:

There really are some gorgeous rocks in this pile!!

Sapphires – Tiny Tiny

Hello! How is everyone? It turned a bit cold today – I didn’t do so much. Nagging headache that seems comfortable to stick around!
Got some snaps of the tiny chips of sapphires. You’d chuckle to see a photo with scale. As it is, the close up photos look more impressive than real life, but it is a lot of fun to find them, no matter if they are teensy!

Tonight we were treated to a spectacular storm! We don’t usually get the thunder and lightning here, but it really turned it on for a while!
I stood out the back in the dark to watch, thinking I could just enjoy without the camera… but on and on it went so I caved in and went and got it. Only hand held, didn’t bother setting up tripods etc, but managed to get a few streaks on the ‘film’

Its all gone quiet… everyone is in bed, storm has finished. Time to tuck Pip up and head off.
Hopefully the weather will be nice tomorrow and my head not headachy and Emma and I get to do some interesting things!
Have a great day!
Cheers

I think the last is my favourite. To get lightning shots you get a LOT of failed totally black frames! lol