Category: Garden

Back to the Garden

Hello!
Back to the garden and kitchen to work on whatever needs to be done.
Poor Pip back to the vet today for another injection and an added antibiotic.
He handled it better than me. According to the vet, there was much less drama – only one little growl.
I really didn’t like to ask what happened last time!!
Its a worry when your fur babies aren’t as healthy as they should be!
Still – he came home and napped with Jeff and is now snugged up on my lap as I am typing. Seems I am forgiven for putting him in the carry case and driving him to the lady with the needle.

Yesterday I put in a small plot of lettuce.

They weren’t growing so fast in the pot… not surprising as it was just cheap potting mix with no mushroom compost. Time to get a few into the ground

I didn’t do much apart from weed, dig and add compost to a couple of short strips.

The outside tomatoes are going well… I finally got around to tying a lot of them up. There was a lot of ‘sprawl’

I even got my first outside tomatoes with colour to pick!

(These are the heirloom beefsteak which I grew from seed)

The rambling duck yard pumpkins seem to have managed a couple of actual pumpkins!! About time!

Yesterday I got a lovely lot of hothouse tomatoes and more cucumber… and a whole heap of apple cucumber that went a bit mad while I was gone for two days!

Oh – and a hilariously small passionfruit. I think I should cut it open and try it tomorrow!

I am worried that its hard finding potatoes. I am really hoping my crop is not all leaves with not much underground. I do know its a while before proper harvest, but I am rather attached to potatoes…
This lot were just beautiful – steamed with butter, salt & pepper.

Today I picked what plums I could reach by myself. A friend is picking up this lot. I have no room left for more in the freezer. (I ordered a side of beef so I REALLY need to clear at least one freezer!)

I even had some kitchen time – made some blueberry ice cream and cooked up a pot of onion, garlic, tomato, herbs, zucchini & capsicum and popped them in the freezer. A start of storing my winter collection of spaghetti sauce and sauce for casseroles.

Well… time for the rest of this household to get to bed!

Hope your day was great too!
Cheers

New Corn Patch

Hello! Thought we would give a new crop of corn a go today!
Cleared out most of the lettuce patch – left a couple for seed.
Jeff got in and started the job while I sorted some more plums.

Popped in a couple of barrow loads of mushroom compost then a good watering. Now we wait and see if this was a good idea or not!

A friend dropped by and we picked about 4 buckets of plums for her! She thought I was exaggerating about how many we had. She just stood under the tree with her jaw slightly ajar wondering where to start!

Beetroot in the new patch has sprung up!

New potatoes for dinner! So good!

I’ll be absent a few days. Impromptu trip south with a cousin, so won’t be near a computer to say hi!
Take it easy

Cheers

Jam & a Few Veggies

Hello!
I thought it was Tuesday. Apparently it was Wednesday. hmmm.
So I cooked plums…
Then I made some jam – a plum/raspberry combo

I just taste tested some on some fresh bread – not bad! May be a little tart for some tastes but I like it. The batch was bigger than the usual and I just guessed with the lemon juice… 😀

Meanwhile, Pip was blocking guarding the exits.
Helpful

I need to eat cucumbers faster or give them to someone else to help eat them!
I wish my zucchinis were a bit keener… but happy to find another one today.

Whipped up another beret… because I could 😛

I started a yellow one too, but I would love to get back to the shop and get some pretty yarn and make some colourful ones. (you know, with the graduating colours)

We made a small escape this evening down to Fossil Bluff. The weather was beautiful and it was lovely strolling about.

Of course we were keeping an eye out for agate. I was also keeping an eye out for examples of pareidolia.  (Seeing patterns in random data is the explanation, but perhaps illustrated by seeing faces in rocks?)

This one has quite the defined nose!!
Why? You ask… Running another photo challenge soon and I put pareidolia in as a subject. I thought people might come up with some fun stuff.

This rock slab I found interesting with all the markings on it and the indents highlighted with water!

Bedtime for me. Tomorrow I can wake with confidence knowing I am in Thursday!

Cheers!

Wood Stacked!

Looking all the way back to yesterday – the front lawn with a nice stock of wood.

We had a decent lot of wood leftover from last season and I must say I thanked myself and Jeff a lot today when stacking the latest pile… so much easier now I have these pallet walls and built in back. No balancing and can fit so much more in without feeling its going to fall on my head!

I only planned to sensibly do half today and half tomorrow – but I was enjoying myself out in the sunshine (sweating!!!) plus I also wanted to impress Jeff. So its all done and dusted. Well I was not so much dusted as splintery, so tonights shower was rather extra nice!!

I moved the sprinklers around today as I worked to give various parts of the yard a decent soaking. It was nice taking a bit of a break from wood stacking to get a bit of a cool down as I moved it here and there!

The first tomato plants are about done. Looking woebegone but still have fruit ripening. Everything else is lush and the whitefly seems to be lessening with the spray doses I have been giving them in the evenings

I am really quite pleased with my herb garden and its extension… even though pumpkins, tomatoes, cucumbers & capsicums aren’t herbs… well… its all going along pretty nicely. Even better since yesterdays haircut & tidy up!

Apples everywhere.

Thrilled that I finally have several butternut pumpkins growing well.

Not having children, we never thought about being ‘Empty Nesters’ but I confess, here we are – our little feathered friends have flown!
I peeked at them yesterday and they were sitting up looking ready to go! I feel a little sad as it all happened so quickly!
I hope they stick around the area!

The bees are still hard at work.

I really am enjoying the sunflowers! I have too many photos – always looking for the perfect snap!!

Hope your day was perfect too!
Cheers!

Herb Garden Tidy-Up

Hi there!
I gave myself a plum holiday today!
The herb garden area has been annoying me as its so overgrown and straggly.
Even though it was pretty hot out there, it was great to get in and give everything a severe haircut.

The feverfew and the sort-of-curry plant were a bit out of control

The fennel is always out of control but I kinda like it 🙂
Then there was the little fence thingy we put up around an old water heater to hide it. Had grand visions of growing vines over it. Sadly only big weedy grasses took an interest.

I took a fair bit of weeds, rubbishy leaves & prunings out of the garden

So much better! I will do something a little more aesthetically pleasing around the water heater and also thinking of another rosemary plant in the back corner there… its a hard spot and something to just go mad in there would be ideal.

I gave the area a good soaking. Watered various other areas of the garden and did random weeding. The hothouse got a bit of a weeding as did the entryway into the main garden.

I even made time to get into the kitchen and try making those raspberry chocolates again! I used more sugar in the leather this time, but it takes ages and ages, remains sticky and is still reasonably tart! But mixed in with the chocolate, I am a fan. (Says she sneaking back into the fridge again!)

I eventually figured I should go and see what raspberries needed picking since I failed to get out there yesterday. I was partway through my job and Cousin Jeff pulled up with a massive trailer load of wood – then asked if we wanted it? Haha – yeah sure!
We have to stock up at some point, so why not!
Three and a half metres.
One thing is for sure. Its really hard to achieve boredom at Norwich House!

Cheers

Like that’s not going to take me forever to stack or anything!!!

Busy Bees

No day of rest for bees today. (or for people cooking plums!)
Another lovely summer day.

The sunflowers at the back veranda are such a cheerful addition to the area. The bees are also enjoying them

This fellow was easy to photograph as he was so laden with pollen, he was moving like molasses!

I went over to visit a friend today who just had major surgery. Was nice to pack a basket of fresh food to take over as a care package!

I’m not really a fan of eating beans (unless they are raw so I munch on them in the garden while I work) so its good to have friends to pass them on to. Why do I grow them? I just like having them in the garden. It seems incomplete without them!!!

Well… my hothouse whitefly population has reached biblical plague proportions, so I figured I HAD to get something done.
I made a spray – base mix of one tablespoon of dishwashing liquid and a cup of oil. Then you add one teaspoon of that to a cup of water into a spray bottle. You need to keep shaking the bottle up as you use it to keep the oil mixed.

My initial observation is that it was very much doing its job. Less whitefly flying and lots just stuck to the leaves.
I’ll give the hothouse a good watering tomorrow and give it another dose tomorrow evening. I have high hopes. Getting tired of breathing them in!

My blanket-shawl is about 5 rows from being done. And while I am excited to finish it off, I got sidetracked with berets.
So I did two of those

You are actually meant to fold under by half the band and sew it in… and add elastic if necessary. But since I have a long face, if I perch something too high on my head I look reasonably ridiculous, so I liked leaving itthem as they were.

Anyway, I am a fan of making these berets as they are pretty quick to do and when you have a shorter attention span – its perfect! Plus perhaps a good thing to get a larger stock of for a market stall (if I ever get back to those!!!)

Hope your weekend was amazing

Cheers

 

 

 

More Plums (Surprised??)

Hello! Lovely sunny day today – so different from the dark rainy day  yesterday!
Well… we currently have 14 litres (thats 3.7 gallons to the metric-challenged people 🙂 ) of plum pulp in our freezers.
There is another large pot of cooked plums on the stovetop waiting for depipping and pulping.
So the smartest thing to do today was to go out and pick another 18kg! (40lb)
I am set for jam forever!!

Our resident babies are developing fast! Real feathers now and they are pretty squashed up in the nest too!

I did a bit of bandicooting for potatoes! Most of these were scoffed down at dinner. Oh we are loving the new potatoes!!

I spent a few minutes on the back veranda shelling my snow pea seeds. It was lovely and peaceful.

But today I really needed to get out! I feel like I have been welded to the kitchen and essential tasks… So we did a lap around Anniversary Bay

The water was such a rich colour today!

Somebody got creative!!

I love random beach art!

Anyway, it was really refreshing to get out and do some exercise and enjoy the fresh air!
Hope your weekends have started well!

Cheers

All downhill from here!

Rain

Hello!
That’s Friday done and dusted. Not really dusty tho… a beautiful day of steady rain which I am sure the garden just loved!

The corn, which has been up to now slightly underwhelming in development, is finally showing signs of producing!

The hothouse is still lovely – The cucumber is taking over as usual and hiding some of its fruit!

So… I have three rockmelon plants in, all which look healthy and growing tentacles all over the place… and one rockmelon!

I have a number of chilli plants in the hothouse… all at different development stages!

The young ones I put in a couple of weeks ago are looking good… but getting swamped by self seeded tomatoes which are coming up like hairs on a cats back!

The lettuce seedlings need to hurry.

The passionfruit are unchanged. No idea how long they will take to be ready since this is the first time I have grown them without killing the plant!

I see more pesto in my immediate future.

So many plums!! Speaking of plums. I de-pipped what I cooked yesterday and turned them into pulp.
I totally wished de-pipping was as quick and as easy as pushing the cat off my lap (A totally different sort of de-Pipping)
(OK… I amused myself…)

There was still more to wash and cook but I was over doing plums this afternoon. Maybe tomorrow?

On the herb drying scene I took the leaves off the stalks of the oregano and left them in a tray to get a bit more crackly dry.
The basil is still slow in the netting and the hanging basil… well… I suppose its doing what its meant to do?

Have a great Friday and makes some awesome weekend plans!
Cheers

 

Keeping up

Hello!
I think my title should read more like ‘Not Particularly Keeping Up’
Anyway, cooked another bucket of plums, still to depip. Took a bag of plums and some eggs to Ruby (flying visit)
Had to cook the raspberries and spent ages deseeding them… I can’t ‘mooley’ them as the seeds just go through.
So I have to sieve by hand. That takes longer than it should!! But I am sadly & tragically down to one raspberry chocolate left. So I want to make some more raspberry leather and fix that problem!!
I filled the space in the fridge that the raspberries were in… with more raspberries! Have you ever picked raspberries out of slightly wild patches?? Its not a quick process!

As you can see, I brought my garlic in and hung it up in the library. The library smells pretty amazing now!!

Mostly I am not able to indulge in new projects as pretty much all my time is taken up with the essentials – watering, picking, cooking etc.
Its really great stocking up on food again and its a fabulous time even though it gets a bit relentless.

Hope your week is going along swimmingly!
Cheers!!

 

Lotsa Plums

Good Evening/Morning!
Well… the birds are getting noisier and noisier as more of them find the plum tree.
We noted a few squadrons out there this morning and decided we should get back and make a big effort to pick what we could while there were some left!

(Re photo – this is why we can’t net the tree!!)

Most we just can’t get to… but with some ladders, water tanks and a garden hoe, we did ok

Happily Jeff didn’t fall off anything as he is the only nurse we have on the property!

Tomorrow I HAVE to get cooking!

Haha – fluffy chook-bum!

I got some of the plastic that wraps the silage off one of my cousins… just laid it out on one of the patches in the duck yard to see if I can kill off the weeds. It really doesn’t look pretty…. (Its cut off the bales in an awkward way so laying it out in an ordered manner doesn’t work )

Started on making the ex-garlic patch useful. Got rid of a lot of the major weeds.

I’m not so happy with my beetroot patch in the duck yard so thought I would start another one. Plenty of time I think before the season ends.

Wanting to give it the best start… so a generous helping of mushroom compost.

And done

I finally got around to slotting in the corn seedlings to fill the gaps in the patch. I am also wondering if its too late to rip out the rest of the lettuce and plant a new batch of corn in the raised bed…

Finally got some beans!! I ate these. (Yeah I know… hands!! I’ll let you know how that goes tomorrow haha)

The outside tomatoes are coming along nicely! These are the heirloom beefsteak.

Our timing for overseas travel meant I didn’t get a lot of the snow peas… however I do now have a nice stash of new snow peas seeds!

And here is something to warm the cockles of your hearts… we have been watching a little family in our apple tree for a few weeks.
I would never have known they were hiding in there but I startled the mother one evening.
I think they might be European Goldfinches. (An introduced species)
And just to make things even more delightful, the collective noun for a group of Goldfinches, is a Charm!!

Time for bed I reckon!
Have a lovely day!
Cheers