Month: May 2019

Hi there! Are we all set for the weekend?? 🙂
I popped into town this morning to post some garlic to a friend and drop some off to another local fellow who wanted to buy some.
Was nice meeting him and we had quite the garden chat before I had to go.
I premade dinner (mostly) as I don’t feel up to making a huge effort in the kitchen after long hours working in the yard. (We had home made hamburgers tonight!!)

I checked on my worms… even though I totally over fed them, they seem to be happily chowing down on the food I gave them! This makes me happy.

I decided to add a few layers to the latest Huggle-Monster. I grabbed our panning sieve tray to sift the coffee down. Its a rather nice task!

I dragged out the wood chipper today, intending to get all the saved branches through, but the wind really kicked up this afternoon and I was seeing a lot of the woodchips flying randomly all over the yard. It was a bit annoying as I was in the groove, but… it would have been a wasted effort. So I gathered up what I had done and mixed it with the coffee and fed it to the Huggle.

I popped the passionfruit leaves on first, then weighed them down with the woodchip layer.
Then I emptied the other dry neglected compost bin on top of that.

THEN – I mowed the front lawn so I could get a heap of grass clippings as well.

Enough. Just have to wait until Sunday for my straw now.

Its a cold night… Pip is, as usual tucked up in his fire warmed towel. We’ve created a monster there. He hangs out pointedly staring at you until you get the hint and as soon as the towel comes off the heater, he gives an approving Meow and stands waiting to be swaddled in it!!
I wish someone would do that to me!!
Cheers

Hello!!
Well… the B12 definitely kicked in and I aimed at a totally unrealistic lot of tasks I wanted to get done today.
I finally dragged myself inside, just on dark to sort dinner out!! 😀

First up – a trip out to Bunnings to get some cocopeat and worms. I was all-fired keen to get my wormlings into their new home.

I ignored their fancy ‘worm blanket’ which sold for about $11 and dropped by spotlight and picked up 2 metres of hessian jute for $12. That should last for a while 🙂
I decided to put the worm farm down in the hothouse for the winter where they will be protected from the cold winds and get a little warmth through the day. I’ll probably move them to the BBQ area in the nicer seasons.

Learning curve #1 – soak this in bucket of water first.
While it was soaking I went and chopped up a gourmet feast for my new pets.

Once I got that sorted out I put it back in the worm farm tray, then added my new worm family in.

I need to ask my worm farming friend about the level of cocopeat I have used and how much food I gave them. I think they have a bit much but I will sort that out as I go.

I gave the hessian a good soaking and it went in on top.

I did find a lot of tiny worms still clinging to the bag that I carefully had to relocate.

I am rather excited about finally getting a worm farm!
If I do everything right and get nice castings and worm wee, I will have to share with Gerry who gave me the setup! I am sure he will love some for his garden too!

What I didn’t intend today was clearing out this disgrace of a hothouse. Sure it is on my ‘List’ but it wasn’t planned for today.
However, since I had to make a bit of space for the worms, I figured I might as well keep going.
Tentacular really needed to be brought way back under control too.

With luck that won’t hurt it!!
Now have to find a spot for the mountain of offcuts!

The outside got a trim as well… once I untangled more of the passionfruit vine from it!

I think the poor fuscia on the right will need to go… it got really leggy and straggly.

Picked up plenty of passionfruit!!
And now I have lots of space in the hothouse!!
Oh the possibilities!!

Then it was time to feed the new Huggle-Monster.
I thought since marigolds were so beneficial, they might do well composting in a hugelkultur…??

I finally rang the market guy, Barry, about the straw and glad I did! I have secured the last 12 bales which he will bring to the market for me to collect on Sunday. Then I can complete the Huggle Monsters and let them compost properly over winter.
By this time it was actually fairly dark, so I abandoned any ideas of adding more to the Hugelkultur or woodchipping.
Tomorrow is another day!

Hope you had a great day too!
Cheers!

Hello!
Our silly cat seemed to want to sit outside today! It wasn’t raining but it sure wasn’t warm either!!
We were in town early – Jeff had a tooth extraction (ow – he was a sore fellow for a lot of today but seems to have come good this evening) and I finally got my B12 so hopefully I’ll be bouncing about again 🙂
We really didn’t bounce today though 😀

I finished drying and putting the garlic salt through the mortar! Such a lovely lot there! I plan on using it tomorrow night when cooking so I will be able to give you a report then.

I cleaned up my worm farm – actually while the weather is cold and dodgy I should pop out to Bunnings and get some cocopeat and get online and order some worms to get started!!
Now that I have had my B12 I’ll write a list and get all re-motivated 😀
Not much else happened today. Had the fire going and spent a very nice lazy day inside!

Off to bed for me.
Will aim to look as relaxed as Pip 🙂
Cheers!

It’s been a quiet few days at Norwich House
Pip went through a ‘hide and seek’ phase… he is not very skilled at the game but we had fun anyway.

I picked up a bag of tulip bulbs at a market recently! I had chosen a place to put them (in the old zucchini patch) and went outside today to tackle the cleanup

I didn’t really last that long out there!! Pretty sad huh? The wind was awful and the sticky mud was annoying me! My boots became about a kilo heavier and none of the weeds would shake off my gloves!!

And there is that one tomato plant right there that I don’t know whether to pull up or not. We are probably five seconds from frosty weather but while there is fruit there is hope and I hate pulling them out early!

So I decided to decide another day!! haha
The tulip bulbs will have to wait a little longer.

Lots of baby fennel has started to appear everywhere!! I’d like to transplant it – no idea if it likes being moved but I will have to try. Thought I would put it along the fence where the sunflowers were (that Little Moo ate) so if another cow arrives and eats the fennel it won’t matter all that much.

No, thats not vomit with a parsley garnish.
Thats garlic salt in the making!!
I got some pink rock salt and whizzed it all up with some garlic (1/3 garlic to 2/3 salt)
I had it in the dehydrator for about 9 hours… I had to break it up and put it back through the ‘Gee Whizzer’ and finish it off a bit more in the dehydrator. I have more to do, but I crushed what I had ready more finely in a mortar this evening and I think I am happy so far. Have to test it on some baking potatoes to really see if I did it right!!

Oh – and I put seed garlic up for sale on a local facebook noticeboard and got a bit swamped with orders!! So I’ve been busy putting packs together and organising that! But Yay!! Should come home with a few $$ in my pocket tomorrow!

We had a couple of funny visitors the other night.

A set of rather dodgy possum photos and a really grotty window… but they are cute!! I don’t know what it was up to!
Pip was fascinated!! He tried to pat the possums face through the window!

(You can just see the paw up there!!)
Then the look on the possums face asking what on earth that was!

Then there was some mutual staring…

Another possum came on the scene – after first inspecting my pumpkins then they both ran off and had a nice loud squabble!!
If you haven’t heard Australian possums – well… they sound like little banshees or something 50 times larger and more frightening than they actually are!! 😀

Anyway – I best be off to bed as I have garlic-delivery duties tomorrow morning!!
Hope your week has started well!
Cheers!

Hello!!
For some mad reason, Jeff was all super keen to get out and work outside. I was looking longingly at the unlit fire thinking ‘Netflix’.
He had been into town earlier and picked up some more steel droppers and Cousin Jeff had dropped off some more pallets.
So we built a wall for the wood.

My previous efforts were just not working so well this time. The pressure of the heavy green wood really pushed the stakes out alarmingly.

Its a lot easier to quickly stack the wood up this way – we don’t have consistent enough sizes to do a criss-cross stack at each end. (I am sure we will get better at this as we go along.)

The pallets under the wood really help too – I hated getting the manky bottom pieces full of mud and bugs!

Ready for some more wood now!!

In Huggle-Monster news… I have two sadly neglected compost bins that I have decided to clear out and start again from scratch. I emptied one today and spread it over as one of the layers on this second Hugelkultur garden.
Then I got in touch with my bushcraft skills (er… lacking)

OK – here’s the plan. I saw a really great little fence woven out of sticks and branches on Mavis’s page over at One Hundred Dollars a Month.
I need to prepare more stakes but to be honest by this stage of the day I was saturated and pretty ready not to be outside. (I started off in wet weather gear but just overheated haha)

At some point, these ‘snowball’ bushes need a brutal pruning. I think the branches are going to be ideal to weave through the stakes around the Huggle-Monster. Then I can finish going the hack with adding more compost and materials and finish with a layer of straw

I have so much to do in here!! It was great to use it over summer but I didn’t have a chance to really sit down and think about how I was going to organise the space properly.

I am thinking a lot more of those smaller brick raised beds… or similar.
I should just sit with paper and pen and some measurements and figure it out!

Not much more I could have fitted in time wise, but there is a lot of potential here!!

Once the tomatoes come up I will put the garlic back in the same place as last season… At least the grass and weeds were kept down where I had mulched with the seaweed.

This is one cherry tomato plant that decided to grow right next to the garden bed!! Not being a great tomato-disciplinarian, I went ‘meh’ and let it go!! I even picked a tomato off it the other day!

The leek and brown onion I put in here a couple of weeks back are now mostly all sitting up fine.

Lettuce, capsicum, cool wriggly willow branches and hopefully rocket seedlings and not weeds!

The cabbage patch needs weeding but apart from that and a few chewed leaves, they seem to be going along well. Perhaps its time to be kind and give them a feed of my kelp juice!

Oh, and good news… we sold the ride on mower today!
A couple dropped in that had seen it before – complete with cash in their pocket and a trailer on the car!! One more thing done!
Hope you had a slightly less muddy day than me!

Cheers!

Today I had a couple of spoils.
I went in for a massage which was rather divine!! The lady instructed me not to throw about wood for the rest of the day!
I dropped off eggs and veggies to Shirley and also popped in with some eggs and pumpkin for Ruby, sat and had a cuppa and a good old catch up. (She very apologetically brings out the ‘shop bought’ biscuits (cookies) and reckons she is letting the side down)
I asked how she has been and what she has been up to…. she gives me that funny grin and says, “You know… I think I am just getting old!!”
Bless her cotton socks. She does things but wears out quickly and has to sit and have a rest or a lie down. You can imagine it doesn’t please her much!!
But then we are talking gardens and planning what we are going to do this year… then she laughs and says, “Listen to me at 102 planning on what I am going to be doing next season!!” But then we agree that planning really is 3/4 of the fun of things!

The other egg delivery was to Maureen and I also dropped off my latest bin of coffee grounds for her husband Gerry – he was very pleased to get that! He was showing me his compost system and we are talking about worm farming (I a currently proof reading an ebook on worm farm for beginners for a friend of mine which is giving me a solid understanding of it) and Gerry offered me his setup that he had never used and didn’t plan to!

Ooooh – yes please!!! So into the back of the car it went!
Now to clean it up, finish proof reading this book so I can jump right in there and start my worms!!

I love the idea of getting the worm wee and the castings – all that good stuff is magic for the garden of course.
I’ll let you know when my friends book is available in case there are other beginners out there that just need to know where to start!!

Anyway, lovely, lucky day for me!
Hope your day was just as bright!
Cheers!

Hello!
Pip was being Mr Irritating today. I don’t think I was translating his Siamese very well. I had no idea what he actually wanted. Multiple times he was up places he knows he shouldn’t be! And look how remorseful his face is!! Like not in the slightest!!
In the end I put him on his harness and shut him outside for a while!

Enjoyed a big veggie dinner last night with some baked chicken marylands to go with them. I love baked veggies. Even better when everything is 100% home grown. (Ok… my friend grew the broccoli but it still came out of a home garden!!)

The weather was a bit ‘meh’ today so I was just as happy to get into the mess that was my seed storage and make use of that lovely drawer unit.

From chaos to harmony

No excuses not to have everything from now on right where I can find it!
I even have a drawer for all the little envelopes.

I fancy a trip back to Japan to stock up 😀
Anyway, thats another job I can tick off the list! Now I can go collect seeds to my hearts content!
Have a lovely day!
Cheers!

Look who found the bird feeder!! I am able to sneak quite close to them. They are wary but not super timid.
Would be nice if they got really used to us.

Jeff was the motivated one today and got out to work on the tree. I eventually followed! We just got the chainsaw back from being sharpened so Jeff got into all those bigger logs at the top of the yard.
I dug out two barrow loads of ash from the fire and dumped it down a handy hole 😀
Unfortunately the wind was blowing the wrong way today… it didn’t seem too strong, but it blew it onto the highway and over Jeff, so gave up on that.

I concentrated on stacking.

Jeff taught me how to split wood today!! I hadn’t done it before… I harbor some worries about taking a foot off (this is me so entirely possible) and sometimes its good NOT to know how to do everything – if you get my drift.
However…

So here’s me in my super flattering sexy garden clothes having a whack at the logs

Actually its a nice relaxing process once you get into it! Jeff showed me clearly how to swing and where my hands should be etc… so I am set!
(I am hoping one of my readers, Elizabeth, will be a little impressed that I have finally had a go at this!! 🙂 haha)

I handed the axe back to Jeff and continued stacking.
I also put a couple of loads into the duck yard garden along with more of the tree that Jeff cut, ready to create another Hugelkultur. I was just using all the really small, weird or impractical pieces that were too hard to stack or cut. Lets be honest. We don’t have to be picky. 🙂

The log piles are growing! The scary thing is…this is only scratching the surface. There is SO much more tree to come down. Just got to work out what on earth we are going to do with it all!

Isn’t the grain of this wood gorgeous? And it smells divine!

I am going to need a 4wheel drive wheel barrow soon! Pesty chickens are trying to dig to China or something!

Since we don’t have any decent square bits, I cheated and went with the steel droppers at the ends.
Anyway, since you can have too much of a good thing, I quit for the day, brought up a load of wood for the evening fire and went and picked tomatoes. I am hoping to barter these for some home made sausage rolls…

Cheers!

Hello! I spent most of the afternoon working on the cabinet of drawers.
Sensibly I took all the drawers out first before we moved the main bit to the back veranda. It was still heavy, but it wasn’t impossible for me this time!
The card dividers alone had a lot of weight.

I thought the best place to work on it was out the back so I could brush off all the spiders, webs, dirt and whatnot.

Looks slightly disastrous from the bottom!

The back has an area of disintegration. Shouldn’t be too hard to remove and replace.
One side of the unit is a nicely finished timber and the other side is just raw – I suppose wherever it lived it had another unit right beside it so the maker didn’t see the point in making that side attractive.

Once cleaned off of most debris, I got some furniture polish and buffed things up a bit.

Meanwhile, back in the shed, we put the second unit away for now. If we can’t think of a good place/use, then cleaning it up and fixing them up and selling them on would be the thing to do.

Jeff helped put the unit inside and I got to and started cleaning out the drawers. A three fold process… a good scrubbing down dry with a brush, then a bit of a wash with a damp cloth, then the front got a dose of polish.

Times by twenty – I was there for a while!!

There were some odd little things in there – explainable things like paperclips… and unexplainable like above!

As mentioned… oodles of dividers

The drawer bottoms were made out of a chip board – most were in ok nick, but a few were a bit manky… or in this ones case, a big bit manky!! I didn’t bother trying to clean… I just knocked the bottom out. It wasn’t coming in the house!

I want to get a new set of drawer pulls too. Jeff said he thought I should leave these to keep with the rustic look. I think they just look rusty. A quick look online and they will be quite easy to get hold of.

A slight jigsaw puzzle which I have failed a bit on – because its been handmade a long time ago… not all the drawers fit in every sliding space. Of course I didn’t note which ones went where when I took them out.
I have all in but one that won’t slide home.
Tomorrows challenge.

I cleaned up some spare timber we had floating about and just laid them across the top so I can kinda use that space

Now I need to start madly saving more seeds to fill it!!
Hope you had/have a great Saturday!
Cheers!