Garden – Head in the Clouds

Moving Wood

Hello!
What a contrast in weather today! I probably got sunburnt!
Glorious!
Didn’t do the gardening I failed to do yesterday…

Jeff got stuck in with the chainsaw and axe and cut a lot more wood.
I moved a lot of it. We also finished off our day with a lap around the river track too!
I might hurt now. 😀

The wood pile still growing. The big logs at the front left for splitting later.

I thought I would start to put together feed bags full of chunky awkward offcuts to set aside then sell as campfire wood once dry.

I filled the big box in the bbq area today – which freed up another pallet to store the bigger wood.
Then of the wood that Jeff split today, the drier stuff I stored on the back veranda –

We don’t have a fire every night now – Pip is not pleased since he gets deprived of the warm towel!!
But we have about run out of dry wood so it was nice to have another small stock ready for those cold snaps

The heavier wood I just stored under the roof of the hothouse.

I did a little bit of gardening… very excited to plant something in the Huggle Monster at last!
My apple cucumber seedlings were not progressing in their pots – time to go out.
I put some of that lovely composted straw down first before topping with a bit of the soil mix and planting the seedlings into it.

They got a bit of a watering and of course, covered up this evening.
I am really hoping I get some success here – I enjoy trying new things and these have been a long time in the making. The idea will be for the seedlings to spread out and cover the mound.

I’ll continue at times to top up the Hugelkultur beds with compost, manure and straw.

Very excited to discover carrot and beetroot seedlings today!

So far so good on the zucchini’s

Still no second potato patch dug, but these guys are looking happy.

Can you see a little splash of blue sitting on top of my snow pea branch trellis? A lovely wren sat there are tweetled his heart out! His crest was all up too! A few hen-wrens came around attracted to his songs! Was really lovely!

My poor neglected wisteria has some flowers!

The plum trees are amazing! Can’t wait!

I am not sick of standing under the fluffy cherry blossoms and enjoying them!

I hope your day has been at least as lovely as mine – just with less aching muscles! haha
Cheers!!

Taking it Easy

Check out this gorgeous hanging pottery vase that one of my sisters sent me!!
Rosemary sent us an exciting parcel of birthday presents this week!
The vase I adore! Of course I had to put some rosemary in it haha
(No – its not our birthdays. My Mum is the one in the family that usually has her act together there being on time. The rest of us just send presents along randomly throughout the year!! Its pretty awesome!! 😀 )

My mud puddle weeding project. I’ve had a couple of goes at this area… but half heartedly really… I’ll have to put some real effort in soon since spring is creeping up on us.

See?? The plum tree is already in pre blossom production!

Where the mulching stops and the weeds kick in.

Walking the naughty chook back to her side of the garden!
They all got some hot mash this afternoon and they were thrilled!

A couple of the hothouse snow peas are looking much taller! I fed them some worm wee – will see how they like that!

Dinner! Still finding some beauties in my carrot patch!
Half of this was on the dinner plate tonight!

I felt sorry for Little Moo being out in the rain and cold, so I treated him to a few apples.
Look at that smug little face! haha

Back in my soapy world – I took the soap out of the loaf block and out of the moulds.
I like the pattern on top – but the colours were nothing at all like I planned.

You can see also that the clay colours haven’t been mixed in – even though I really thought I had gone overboard mixing.

Its all learning and practice.

I did a bit better job cutting this time – still broke away a bit.
And the colours? What you were supposed to be looking at was Indigo, Red and pink.
I think I have ochre, green and salmon.
Hmmmm. The fragrance is ‘Dragons Blood’ So I was going for dramatic colours haha – er – this is SO not dramatic.

Dragons Blood I bought because I liked the name. Think incense and oriental. Its rather nice really!

What mixture didn’t fit into the loaf mould, went into my new $1 bargain op-shop love heart moulds. Cute guest soaps maybe?
And a couple of normal sized blocks of ‘not indigo and red’

The library table seems a bit crowded! I am going to have to rethink the storage arrangements in here!

Some of it can probably now be stored in a box but I think I would like some shelves for them.

Anyway, thats all the news from soggy Tasmania!
Hope your week ends well!
Cheers!

Slightly Domestic

Hello!
Sunday! I was leisurely having my coffee when I remembered that the market was on today, so had to hurry things along a bit.
I missed out on getting the wheat for the chooks so they are going to have to put up with store bought stuff 🙂
I did find a silicone cupcake mould that will be a fine addition to my soaping gear. (Bargain – one dollar!)
We got some honey and I ordered two raised beds of a custom size for the veggie patch. The fellow is so nice! I offered a deposit, but he said no. Will make them AND deliver!! This is the part of country living I love. People are so relaxed.

After the market Jeff and I did a lap around the river track. He does it to switch off. I come back with 50 more projects and ideas because my brain goes into overdrive!

Hmmmm – a sudden explosion of bugs in my worm farm.
I’ve been advised to cut back food and just give them cow poo and cardboard. haha

Finally got to egg washing. A task put off because over winter the eggs all seem muddy and poo encrusted. Nice.

The rest of the afternoon was spent in some domestics which included a much needed vacuum. Love the wood fire but… so messy!!
Anyway, things are a bit better now.

Snow peas! I don’t know why I haven’t tried growing them over winter in my hothouse before!! I wonder how they will fare?

So… the espresso coffee soap!
They look deliciously like chocolate fudge!!

The straight espresso fragrance was SO strong but it seems to have dropped out of the soap a lot. Now I think there is just a subtle coffee smell.
I’ve also crushed some beans and added as a scrub.
Will just have to wait a while before I can test it out in the shower.

And a bit better lighting for the other two…

Jeff cancelled Netflix as we’d watched most things he thought. Give it a break for a while. THEN saw season three of Stranger Things was out… so we are trying to binge our way through it before the service cuts out lol!
Has anyone else seen it? Its so quirky. Set in the 80’s. I love the kids. Sci-fi and suspense.

Okies… thats all from me!
Enjoy what’s left of your weekend!
Cheers!

Garlic Planted!

Hello!!
Today we had a scheduled power outage – and it wasn’t raining so I went out into the garden with hopes of planting the garlic, digging up iris and picking up cow poo.
Sometimes I over estimate what I can actually do.

I worked on the ‘easy’ patch first. I decided to put the early garlic in this one. I hadn’t yet put the blood and bone and lime into it so I just did the usual trick of shoving everything in at once instead of thoughtfully scheduled!

I don’t mind higgledy – piggledy gardening but I do like my garlic to look ordered.

Lovely! That’s the way gardening should be. All done without a fight.
Can’t say as much for the duck yard garden plot!

This is where the white garlic is to live. First I had to sprinkle lime on it.
It was about at this point it started to rain.

So… the camera went away – first because it didn’t need to get wet and secondly because to take any photos would mean a 10 minute hand washing exercise!
Oh my!! What a nightmare. Sticky sticky clay mud and I had to clear the (insert swear word of choice) twitch out too.
My boots gained weight and I gained height. I couldn’t walk on the woodchip path because my boots just picked it up!! 😀
It was pretty awful! BUT I wasn’t going in until I had it all done because I knew I’d just put off returning to it.
After a lot of heavy work, the plot was planted. I did two sections of six rows, so basically I can reach each row fairly easily.
So happy to have it all in. Approximately 250 cloves got planted all up.
Enough??? haha

Little by little I might get this whole yard under control by spring?? Hmmm
Needless to say digging up iris and collecting cow poo got cancelled.

The rain brings out the lovely Macrocarpa wood colours –

I hope your day was slightly less muddy, but equally satisfying!!
Cheers!

Tulips & Iris

Hello!!
Quite a slow unproductive start to the day. I had heaps of blood extracted (all sorts of updated tests) I had to fast, so no brekkie. Jeff popped back into the dentist but couldn’t get in until 11am – not worth going home. We looked for a few soap making bits and bobs in op shops then dropped in to see Ruby and Margie and drop off some hay – and I also put the newly collected coffee grounds into her compost.
Ruby was having a very tired day – she was dressed up to go to the bank but didn’t have a lot of energy 🙁 Still… she always perks up to chat to us and catch up which is lovely.
I finally got home at midday for my breakfast! Was getting a bit titchy by then haha.

My original plan was to finish weeding the garden patch and bung in the tulip bulbs. (Then do more fence weaving)
But.
I’ve been watching that gardening show and it wasn’t enough.

First things first… the frost didn’t do much for this tomato plant… instead of bringing in the green tomatoes to ripen inside, I just pulled the whole plant up and hung it in the hothouse. I have done this before and often I get ripe tomatoes off them later.

All my iris need to be dug up and replanted. They’ve been swamped by everything else in the gardens so I made an unscheduled start on them to help fill the space. I also thought since I had so much success selling my garlic via a local facebook page, maybe I should try with the iris as I will have way too many.
It was a challenge getting them up as they are tangled in themselves and everything else… and under everything else which meant me crawling in under bushes and trees to dig them out!

I had Pip out for a while. He enjoyed himself… and ate a lot of grass so I assume I will be presented with cat-vomit somewhere inconvenient soon.

Little Moo also kept me company… although its his fault I had to have a second shower today… he reached over the fence when I wasn’t paying attention and slobbered all over my hair!! Niiiiice!!
Sigh. (Country living at its finest)

Anyway, thought I would plant the iris in clumps according to their colours.
I think I knew where the different colours were.
I have a rusty brown with yellow throat… that beautiful mauve/purple with the yellow throat and white with a yellow throat. All quite stunning.

Going against my usual ‘chuck ’em in’ nature I have placed them all out first. (Gardening show haha)
I have three clumps of the rusty brown, two of the white and the purple down the middle. Then arranged the tulips into circles.

Fingers crossed it looks good in spring. Now have to think what to grow around it all… Alysium? A mix of stuff?? I am not really good at knowing much about flowers. I think I need other stuff to fill the gaps once the flowers are done.

I did want to go and add to the Huggle-Monster fence, but by the time I finished mucking about with the iris and everything, it was four o’clock and getting chilly. I had a few other things to do and Jeff wanted a soup for dinner because of his tooth. (Damn, I was all about leftovers tonight not cooking!)

I made the chooks a warm mash/muesli mix… they were pretty happy about that.

Eventually I got to sit down for a nice hot chocolate – interrupted briefly by noticing that the sky was doing pretty things!
Hope you had a great day too (without the blood tests or dentists)
Cheers!

Fencing in the Huggle

Todays weather was as gorgeous as yesterday was dismal!!
I thought I could work on the Huggle 🙂
Chopping and shaping more stakes – I quite like this process!

Then off to start pruning the snowball bushes to get some weaving materials.

This was the point where I was wondering how much of a pain this was going to be and mentally putting the blame squarely on Mavis from One Hundred Dollars a Month’s shoulders for putting the idea into my head haha.

Actually, really not too bad. It probably would have helped to google it and watched others do it to get some tips, but I don’t mind learning curves.

For my next one I will put the stakes much closer together to make the weaving easier.

Since I hadn’t disposed of Tentaculars vines I thought I might try to use some of those to see how they went.

Once the leaves fall off, it will add extra mulch and hopefully the vines won’t be too brittle…??
I am now doing a bit of a mix of both materials

Really hoping this doesn’t look completely lame when I am done!!! Once I have it up to a height that I am happy with, I’ll cut all the stakes off to a similar length.
You can probably tell I also added a layer of straw to the ever-growing hugelkultur!!

I reckon I’ll be adding a layer of mushroom compost in the spring, but for now, apart from the fence, this Huggle-Monster is free to rest and compost its little heart out over winter!
Have a great day!
Cheers

Home Again

Look at that! The garden says ‘Welcome Home’ with the first tomato sighted!
It was a busy few days in Ballarat, wonderful to see Rachel again and check out her properties. I think I took about 1000 photos!! (Add ‘post processing’ to ‘To Do List’)
Rachel has done an incredible job over the past 8 years of buying properties, renovating and furnishing them, then renting them out on short to long term basis along with weekly housekeeping.
I had only seen the first ones, so it was fabulous to enjoy looking through a number of them over the past few days.

Lovely to be home. Pip sulked a fair bit apparently, but wasn’t too badly behaved. Jeff cooked me dinner upon my arrival home which was just fantastic!

Today I treated myself to harvesting the first plot of garlic! So very chuffed with the size of the bulbs overall!

Smells amazing! Just letting the mud dry. Will brush them off tomorrow and find a place to hang them. Since we have visitor #23 due in on Tuesday, best not hang them upstairs as usual…

The cucumbers look so much bigger in only a few days!! I even see some efforts towards fruit!!

Over the next few days I need to get Megumi’s room ready and a general house clean.
Probably some gardening in there as well!
I think the corn has mostly bounced back since the Evil Rabbit Incident, so I think I will leave them to do their best and put another plot in where the garlic just came out of!!
Best laid plans and all of that!
Hope your week has been going fabulously!
Cheers

Snow peas! Slowly the salads are getting more interesting!

Fence. Done.

Hello!
Speed blogging… its almost midnight and I am about ready to get to bed!
My bag is pretty much packed… paranoid about forgetting something important, like my camera!!
We spend the day finishing off the fence and even slipped a river hike in this afternoon!!

Look at that!! An enclosed vegetable garden!!
I am so thrilled right now. Actually I am also a tiny bit miffed to be leaving the state instead of going to play in my new space!

I did a rough fill of the bottom as the step downs left considerable gaps. I will attend to this later but for now its a fairly large diversion for both rabbits and chooks. Hope the possums aren’t interested either!

I am looking forward to cleaning it up and putting in some pretty features as well as a few more plants – and generally watching things grow.

So much space!!

We put the stump under the pear tree. That’ll be our lunch spot when working.

The finishing off at the bottom is a lot more rough on this side!! I’ll eventually work something out!

Ooooo – I also picked two of the garlic because I couldn’t help it. I have packed them in my bag to take to Rachel. I am sure she will be impressed. (And despite the double packaging my undies are still probably going to smell like garlic!! Gah! 😀 )

OK… Since I don’t have a mobile device, I am doing the usual and will be unplugged for a few days. Not sure when I am back… probably mid/late next week!
Stay cheery!
xx

An ‘Interesting’ Visit to the Vets & a Bit More Fence!

Hi! Well… I have a few things to squeeze in before heading out to Ballarat.
We decided that Pip needed a steroid injection since we are both usually needed to give him his daily tablet.
Luckily the vet was able to squeeze us in to give him his shot.
Poor Pip. One look at the cat carrier and he tried to hide in bed.
I got to the vets…he is all alert and wide eyed but calm enough considering.
Well… all that went pear shaped the second I went into the room and put his carrier on the table.
Oh dear.
I went to extract him and got hissed at in no uncertain terms. (Pip hissing at ME!!!) Hmmm…. so I move the cage at a better angle to get both hands/arms in to get a better hold and ease him out.
Oh no no nup nopety nope. We are not going to ease out and we are going to now proceed to yell the house down! He sounded like an alley-cat ready to take down a rottweiler! The vet is like ‘let me try’ and I am thinking, are you sure??? That sounds like a sure-fire shredding machine in there. Have to give her a whole bundle of credit for sticking her hands in!!
There was an almighty hiss, yowl and what could only be described as a scream. (not from the vet thank-goodness!!)
I am checking her arms for blood as she took them out, asking her frantically if she was ok!!
Poor Pip is now wound up tight as a spring at the very back of his carrier.
Plan B.
Dismantle cat carrier.
Once Pip was exposed we just covered him with a towel while she got the needle ready. Still with the muffled hissing and yelling.
At least he knows how to share his feelings.

The vet was so good, she just got enough towel off to hold him by the scruff and quickly give him his needle then he was done. She thought she should try to check his tummy but the second she touched him again there was another series of awful howls. (Still under the towel!) We decided to give up right then, leave him tucked under his towel and reconstruct his carrier!!
Plus he made quite a dreadful smelly fluff, so thought it was best to exit stage left with my poor little Pip.

Guess how much that cost me? (Besides a bit of dignity)
$13.50!!! Aren’t my vets amazing?

I did feel so terrible for Pip. He was clearly frightened – he knows now a trip to the vet is an injection. We only do it if we have to go away. Normally we are fine with giving him his daily pill.
He has had lots of loves and cuddles today and I think he has forgiven me.

Then I had to recover!! haha

We did a bit more work on the fence and got a few panels on, dug some more holes and cemented more poles in.

I am glad we left this side until last… the step downs are significant with the slope, so happy we have had practice and more or less know what we are doing now.

The rope is keeping us in line.

I am really hoping we can finish this tomorrow!

Cucumbers are getting to be a good size! No tendrils yet though.

One of my hothouse cucumbers is growing nicely.
The other two lost their second leaves and are kind of doing not much… not sure how long to wait before replacing them

All 4 hothouse eggplants are doing pretty well.

And Tentacular is still being splendid!Look at all the fruit tucked away in there!!

I discovered my first snow peas today!! Reckon I’ll be munching on a few tomorrow!!

I mulched the zucchinis with grass clippings to smother the weeds and give them a chance with water retention. They are growing quite nicely… although I am nervous about the hungry night wildlife!

And look at all these cheeky tomatoes growing under the zucchini!!

Clumps of sunflowers that Emma planted for me!

And parsley going to seed everywhere!!

Bedtime for me!
Will leave you with a few snaps of my paper daisies that are looking quite pretty!
Enjoy the end of the week and have a fabulous weekend!
Cheers!

Evil Bunny

And today in Tasmania’s North West, we are back to sunshine and blue skies!! I swear someone sits up there flicking the weather switch!!

I am rather gloomy tonight. The lovely corn patch above has been decimated by a hungry rabbit. The photo was taken a week or so ago and had progressed even better than that. I was so happy with it!!!
I saw the evil ravager on the front lawn. It also dug up and ate my newly transplanted beetroot and a few lettuce seedlings for good measure.
I hope it gets a tummy-ache!!
I will dig up entire plot and resow. Not much is salvageable and I want them all to grow at the same rate.

In a small twist of irony, we started working on the last side of the fence.

This has suddenly become rather pressing and urgent!!
(Apart from the fact I am booked to fly out to the mainland to do some photography for a friend on Sunday haha – nothing like squeezing in an extra job before our next visitor)

So I have a lot to sort out in the next 48 hours!

The butternut pumpkins have taken their sweet time to start producing new leaves after being transplanted. There is hope (And I am keeping them covered at night and will probably put a net over them eventually since they are in the duck yard garden.)

In much more cheerful news, the early purple garlic is starting to die off. So I had a little fossick about in the dirt under the mulch to see if there were good sized bulbs.

I am a bit chuffed with these!! Looking really fab! I reckon by the time I get back home they might be ready for harvesting!!!

The white garlic are also going well but will need a bit of extra time to form up. They really haven’t started to die back yet.

Plums anyone?

Anyway, I need to go write a list of ‘things to achieve before Sunday morning’ (And before anyone thinks I am rather unorganised (ok, generally yes I am) but I only found out today that this was a thing.)
But thats my friend Rachel – we can be a little spontaneous!! At least next week that will make for a rather different blog story!!

Have a great day everyone! (Hope its naughty-rabbit-free)
I am off to dream about stewed corn-fed rabbit….

Cheers!