Category: Garden

Hello! How is everyone today? We had two summer days in a row!! Score!
So – while my newsfeed on facebook is full of people dashing about shops, Jeff and I thought our time better spent in the notorious Duck-Yard to sort out our weeds (again!)
(Seriously – this time of year I only venture into the shops if I am desperate! Even in a small country town the Christmas crowds can be a bit much!)

So pleased with these heirloom beefsteak tomato plants. My sister, Michelle, gave me the seeds. First time I have successfully raised tomatoes from seed!! I’ll call it a double success if I get tomatoes.

Was a pretty huge day – my arms are feeling it a bit!
We still have a bit more to sort out, but we had to quit, as there was still the watering to do and some raspberries ready for picking – and we wanted dinner sometime before midnight!

Sooooo – into the raspberry patch I go

We also got our first cucumber! Salads are becoming more interesting!

We really enjoyed dinner tonight – Ok – we skipped lunch and worked up an appetite, but still… I did some teriyaki chicken, with steamed new potatoes and a lovely fresh salad – lettuce, snow peas, cucumber, basil & a bit of cheese.
Dessert? Home made strawberry ice cream topped with fresh raspberries.
We are totally living the Good Life

Cheers!

Hello!
Today was really a super day. Hardly any wind and clear blue skies! Felt like it might have actually been summer!!

Today I popped down to one of the local churches who are putting on a free Christmas dinner for about 70 people on Friday night. I made them some pavlovas last year and they asked if I would do it again. Sure.
Haven’t made a pav in a while, but they looked like they turned out ok!

I still have another one to make so I can take it to Ruby’s for Christmas Lunch Dessert. Although it will probably be topped with strawberries this year since the raspberries are still twiddling their thumbs…

Back home it was beetroot relocation day. I really don’t have room!! The poor things all need thinning out badly. The garlic should have been harvested a couple of weeks ago – and freeing up a lot of garden space. But still waiting there

I dug and spaced out one row – I guess its a start. I used the spare space in the lettuce bed for now

Jeff and I decided that it was time to get the kayaks out of hibernation.

My other little camera (the one that fits in a ziplock and has less chance of being drowned and is also easily replaceable $$ wise) was out of battery charge completely! How annoying. So I can’t show you how lovely it was out on the water this evening!
Here is a reminder shot from earlier this year:

Looking forward to a lot more paddling over summer!
Hope everyone has had a lovely day!!
Cheers!

Hello! How is everyone doing during the lead up to the festive season? Christmas and end of year parties happening? I did some posting (real mail not internet) and shopping. I have a few pavlovas to make up for Christmas lunch.

I popped down to the garden for some lettuce late this afternoon and got carried away. I don’t know how someone accidentally starts digging for potatoes. 🙂

Some more of the garlic is forming up into bulbs, so maybe it won’t be a total loss for the garlic this year. I wish it would get on with it – I could really use the space in the garden!

Lots of cucumber doing their thing… getting bigger daily noticeably

Apparently sunflowers and cucumbers are good companions. I have a sunflower right next to the cucumbers, so I wonder if they will taste better??

Looks like these aren’t far away from showing us their faces!

The Russian Black tomato in progress

Something had been ravaging the tomato plant – think its one of those green hiding grubs!!

Its really hard to find grubs in the dense foliage – but I did find two that had spun up a bed

I smashed them. I will have to spend some more time looking to see if I have missed any. They have had quite the feast!

And lastly… two cherries! Actually I think the tree has a grand total of about 7.

Cheers!

Was so good to have a few more new potatoes on the plate tonight. Along with home grown salad, some sausages from a local farm & with some home made sauces…. was a good dinner!

Looks like we might be adding cucumbers to our salads in the near future.

Oh – I don’t have a photo, but I did a batch of strawberry ice-cream. Bliss!! I might have been recently standing at the freezer with a spoon to re-sample it.
I have the ice-cream maker container back in the freezer as I absolutely want to make a lot of this!!

Anyway – Seaweed

Finally the ocean washed up a good section of seaweed so I hooked up the trailer, grabbed all the feed bags I could find and headed on down.

I think I have filled and distributed close to 40 bags today!

The first load I took around to Ruby’s and dumped it all in a big pile so I can go back sometime and start spreading it out over wherever I have weeded.

The second load I took home and mulched everything in sight

I finally got back into the raspberry patch to graze on a couple of berries but also get a bit more newspaper and mulch down. I will need another load of seaweed to complete that job!!!

Hope everyone has a great weeks ending!

Cheers!

Well – last night I put the fire on because it was cold.
Today I think I got a bit sunburned… 🙂

Anyway – perfect day to be outside getting a few of the jobs ticked off the list.

Since the snowball bush (Gilder rose) has finished flowering we thought it time to cut back some of it to clear the pathway again

I wasn’t doing a good job here so I got fired and moved on to power tools and sorting out some of the fence palings!! 🙂

Wanted to turn all of Ruby’s old fence into kindling for next season. I cut them all into reasonable lengths, then split them by hand.

Meanwhile:

Jeff finished up path maintenance and came to help me split some wood, when the second stray dog in the last couple of weeks came in to visit!!

A beautiful (but grubby and hungry) border collie. Jeff got her some water. I found her a lamb bone.  She was so hungry though!! I also fed her some leftover chicken burrito and a sausage!!!
She was a lovely natured girl. No collar, no id. We called the pound to come and collect her. I might have welled up a bit to put her in the car!!
I hope she finds her home.

This was last weeks dog, Benji:

Happily Benji had a collar and phone number, and we were able to return him directly to the neighbours down the road a bit!

Break time, an ice block and a sit down seemed in order after our emotional parting…

Back to work – Finished cutting and splitting, clean up time.

All the rest of the cut-to-size-but-not-split wood went into our other big kindling box. Job for another day.

A few gardens got a bit of a weed-overhaul by Jeff

Was good to get out into the sun today!

But for now – time to step back into the kitchen and make up part one of the strawberry ice cream I am planning!

Cheers!

Hello! Midweek been and gone!
Not much happening today at Norwich House! The wind was insane – it was hard to work outside. I get skittish!
I did manage to pick another 600 grams of strawberries! Some of them were pretty big too!!

I had to do an emergency netting yesterday – then went back and re weighted it down as the wind was blowing it everywhere

A few of the corn stalks had been nibbled (Probably one of our possums) so I needed to try to protect them a bit more

The zucchini and pumpkins are getting to be a much better size… I am even seeing some flowers

Must get back into the ever needed weeding tomorrow (in between strawberry milkshakes!! 🙂  )

Cheers

Apologies for the grotty gardeners hands, but I was a bit excited to pick the first raspberry! There nearly wasn’t a photo – I wanted to scoff it down straight away! 🙂
Happily when I did get around to scoffing, it tasted fantastic!

I had a nice time this afternoon picking a few things from the garden

It takes me ages to pick the snow peas. They are like Ninja’s – they hide in plain sight!!
Half of them went into the salad tonight. I hadn’t realised how much I had missed fresh crunchy salads!

Today was another market day, and my friend Maureen kindly said I could bring along some more lettuce to sell. So I took down 8 – they were bigger than pictured above as this was taken in November – It was quite the box of leafy greens!! I got a lot of ‘oooh’s and aaaah’s’ from people as I walked through the market!! 🙂
By the time I went home, had brekkie, and returned, they all had sold!
I also accidentally sold several calendars as well (I was delivering Maureen her calendar  – she liked it so much she bought more as well as another lady who saw and bought 4!!)
Its not often I go to the market, not have a stall and come home with nearly $150!!!! (How much closer to Texas does that get me I wonder??)

I just finished cooking up some fresh strawberry jam (as one does at nearly midnight) so I will leave you with a couple of garden photos and then trot off to bed!

Enjoy what is left of your weekend!

Cheers

Oh it was bliss tonight! The first new potatoes were on the dinner plates for tea tonight!! I bandicooted around the base of one of the advanced plants and came up with these little beauties! They tasted so good too!! We have been missing our potatoes. It might be a little while before the next lot will be ready, but we enjoyed this treat very much.

My snow pea harvest doubled today! haha
And I got almost half a kilo more of strawberries.
I am taking a leaf out of Mavis’s book (over at 100 Dollars a Month) and started to weigh what I pick. Just out of curiosity. Lets see how long that bit of dedication lasts!! 🙂

This afternoon it stopped raining – still cool and the wind was annoying, but it seemed like a good time to go and get another couple of hours in at Ruby’s garden.

She is really happy with her ‘Christmas peas’. I am sure they will be ready for the dinner table on Christmas day.

Like everywhere else… the slightly warmer weather and all the rain has meant weeds going mad.  Jeff and I did some major weeding/clearing a few days ago (Jeff brought along his whipper snipper and sheared off all the tall grasses/weeds that were going to seed. It really helped.

Today I thought I would concentrate on this plot. The oxalis is rampant. The two remaining silverbeet raced to seed, so I wanted to replace them as well as make some space to thin out and replant a lot of the beetroot.

I only dug up one row of the over crowded beetroot, but it filled the space I weeded easily. I will have to weed another plot if I am going to space all the rest out!

Felt good to make a bit of overdue progress in here (And have a cuppa afterwards of course!)

On a different note, my Texas Fund is now $653.50
I think I am well on track there 🙂

Have a fabulous day

Cheers

What a miserable day out there today!! Tonight we put the fire on and parked ourselves in front of the TV.
I worked out where our summer went. I read how the past few weeks the North Pole has been on average 22 degrees Celsius higher than usual!!!!  Not 2 point 2. No typo. Twenty two. Thats nearly 76 Deg Fahrenheit for those that can’t be bothered googling.
Not real good.

I am wondering what kind of produce we will end up with this year if the warmer weather doesn’t come and stay put for a while??
I am actually a lot disappointed in my garlic. The bulbs don’t seem to be forming up like they should have by now. They really look like they need harvesting, but I will give them a couple more weeks. It was about this time last year that I harvested them…. but this is a weird season.
I love my garlic and it will be really sad not to have a big decent crop! Oh well… gardening has its wins and losses.

Happily the snow peas are just starting to produce! Lots of flowers… and today I made the huge harvest of five… 🙂

And some lettuce on the table for dinner too

One of the tomatoes in the hot house is doing especially well

Yesterday I spent a bit of time in the herb garden cutting back the oregano and lemon balm. I really don’t want them going to seed just yet!

Unfortunately tomorrow the weather calls for more of the same misery. I think I will pick more strawberries and indulge in a few more milkshakes!! Thats bound to cheer me up!

Hope your day was great!

Cheers