Month: October 2023

Hi!

I’m madly gardening as well… My mental to do list is a bit much!! The above photos are the cut versions of the soaps I posted about the other… Day? Week? I’ve lost track. Surprisingly a bit crumbly with the cut but they look effective.

A last batch of Christmas tree embeds soaps from the other day… actually it was a double batch. Then today I whipped up a batch and used the end of the tree embeds to poke into these citrus and sage fragrances soaps.

I had a good response from my kind Facebook friends re the terrace house soaps so I did another batch. Pic from before windows and doors installed!

I put some Christmas soaps on my shelves at the Arty Duck last week.

It was a super slow day sadly, but I spent my time making lidded fancy boxes for my fancy terrace house soaps.

I used some of them to house my other big fancy (expensive) soaps at the Rocky Cape market last weekend and they were quite popular… ie I sold 4 hahaha. Perspective tho… I don’t often sell my ten dollar soaps!

Here is my pretty setup

(I love my banner)

Maureen’s table… With her husband Gerry’s awesome willow baskets made into hampers!

Lots of lovely stuff.

Jude was also there with her beautiful plants and veggies.

It’s such a gorgeous hall.

It was well set up and the kitchen was making scones and sausages in bread and coffee etc. Sadly the weather was a bit dismal and it kept the crowds away. We sold OK … it was a lovely day out, just would have been better for everyone’s big effort to have more people dropping in. Never can tell with markets.

Speaking of markets… I’ve been accepted to join in with the Burnie Cruise Ship Markets! Basically the council have set up the event of an area of market stalls in town to coincide with cruise ship season.

However… apparently you set up for when the ships dock… mostly 7am (I am going to die) and you stay until they head out… which is about 6pm. Quite a long day!! Not sure what to expect but will give it a go. I’ve nominated seven dates over the next three months so I’ll soon see if it’s worth my time. From what I hear, about a third of the passengers just wander around Burnie and the remaining ones do paid tours so don’t wander about the city.

Overall it means I need to be consistently making soap to keep stocked up and cured in between anything else going on! Fingers crossed!

Hope you are all having a lovely week

Xxx

Hi!
Might as well start with garden..

We weeded the blueberry patch and the garden path.
By the time we get woodchips we’ll have lots of places to spread it around to!

Check it out! Potatoes making an appearance!

I went into the garden today between soap batches and they’ve grown a bit more which is encouraging!

The zukes getting some sun
And the rhubarb exploding in size

The pear tree had lots of blossoms. Happily I’ve noticed little swellings of pears starting to grow… luckily because the wind has been diabolical today so hopefully what is there now will hang on tight.

I am looking forward to a new batch of spiced pear paste!

(These are all just snaps on my tablet btw)(So lazy)

I had to re weed this patch… and finally planted out the strawberries that the possum ate. One or two might cark it but most look ok.

More often than not, I come back from a day working at Judes with plants! What a dream job hey?
My lavender died so I am replacing it with Chamomile that I was given.
Fingers crossed I can keep it going. Putting this one in the pot otherwise it would probably get run over by the oregano haha

The poor sage is hanging on by its cuticles still…

In the hot house the apple cucumbers popped up really quickly. The Lebanese cukes are still… resting.

No sign of the butternut pumpkins or luffa either…
But I did prune two of my tomatoes.

(Basil from seed doing fine too)
Of course, laterals went into water to wait for some roots to grow

Still staring at tomato flowers…

Snowball bush about to puff out into flower

And the cherry blossom is gorgeous.

So… soap
My market went pretty well… I failed to take a camera!! A friend sent me snaps which I haven’t downloaded yet.
But I’ve been trying to stock up the last few days as what I make now is the last of the saleable stuff for before Christmas.

This one smells amazing…(sandalwood and vanilla) but discolours.
I was keeping that in mind and the final rich warm colours are quite lovely.

I poured some more Christmas Tree embeds. Two of which I used today.

Some plain soaps for another project which I started today…

Lovely warm colours too.

Cutting them up takes longer than you might think!!
Luckily Jeff has us listening to some Terry Pratchett audio books (at the moment we are well into ‘I Shall Wear Midnight’) so I was entertained whilst working

I had to do this soap in three parts (not including the coloured chunks part) today, so I am very keen to see the results of the cut!

And lastly, but the one I am most chuffed about, started as seeing something on pinterest that I couldn’t find again for love nor money, so had to just try it and see!
It was also done in two stages.
Above is the snap of the first pour (using dividers to separate the three colours)
The leftover mixtures to both stages I made into the ‘Kaleidosoaps’

I was aiming for terraced houses with snow on their rooves and a kind of snowy sky…
I was delighted with my first attempt, and indeed I have people saying they want to buy them already! And since I cut them a bit chunky and only have ten… I will need to have another soap day ASAP!
(PS I had to hand indent doors and windows on both sides of soaps haha… again… audio book!)

xx

Ahhhh… flowers on the tomato plants in the hothouse!!

Its very exciting. Just have to make sure no mousie mouses get to them first!

I’ve planted more seeds that are in the hothouse waiting for germination.
The weather is doing ok… warm, but then will slip back to some cold winds and rain of course!

I found a punnet of basil… and in the interests of oodles of pesto, bought it, and separated the clump of seedlings. I just went and checked earlier and they are all sitting up nicely! (Bottom left is celery (aiming at celery salt)

Jude gave me some Japanese Mustard seedlings so I bunged those into the soil in front of where I’ve planted some cucumber seeds.

I am also suffering from lack of pickled beetroot since I never got around to planting last season.
SO… in go the seeds!

Jude also gave me a couple of zucchini seedlings which I have put in near the new apple trees

And due to changeable weather and chooks, I’ve built them fort knox

So far they are both doing really well.

We had a clean up day…

I have no real before photos.. the poor old BBQ area was such a mess again! So we pulled everything out, sorted, cleaned and discarded.
Two trips to the tip later…
Jeff was annoyed at how much stuff had accumulated, but I think it made sense. We started not doing dedicated trips to the tip once every three or four months. Usually its me having to drop off the household rubbish when I am in town. I am usually doing a heap of other stuff so I don’t go on a trip around the yard gathering old odds and ends to throw away like we would do with a dedicated tip trip. And things build up!

Leaves and debris get into that area a lot making things messier than they need to be. So we had the idea to shade cloth in part of the structure.
Luckily for us, my Fabulous Favourite Uncle had sent us some great shade cloth offcuts and this piece was perfect for the job.

Jeff cut back a lot of the branches too and now the rain wont blow in here too much either.
Hopefully it will help keep the place less manky

It was a really good job to get done – it was really bugging me but I knew we needed a full day or so to sort it out.

The chooks are laying well!
I’ve been making some biscuits lately…

The trick is trying to keep the choc chips out of Jeffs tummy before I get around to making these things!

Anyway, they were yummy.
Emphasis on the past tense!
There is a bowl of chopped up choc bits sitting there now waiting for me to transform them. Currently a packet of choc chips cost more than buying a packet of choc chip bikkies so it doesn’t make it a financially sensible option. So I got the cooking choc bar and gave Jeff the task of chopping (He might as well take part in the whole thing.)
I suppose where you are all from, supermarket prices are just going up and up like petrol? Its getting insane.
A good reason for me to keep plugging away at getting the garden in full swing.

I made some jam drop bikkies too…

And in a fit of kitchen activity… some tomato sauce for Jeff who was about to run out!
I used the tomatoes in the freezer that he had picked while I was in Japan!

The oregano and lemon balm is incredibly lush.
I’d been out a few times with the basket and scissors to gather the oregano to dry, but its rained every time!
Finally got to it yesterday!

I can’t even see in the patch where I picked it all!!

Oh… I saw something on a FB reel. Someone made a plant hanger. They’d bought some craft hoops and used zip ties, but I thought I could make it using all natural stuff from the garden… and tied it together with the flax I’d made cordage out of! Pretty excessively rustic but I like it.

Ok… enough rambling from me. I am heading back to the fire.
Trying for an early night tonight as I am booked to have a market stall out at the Rhododendron Gardens tomorrow!
Hope you all have a lovely weekend
xxx