Garden – Page 8 – Head in the Clouds

Room Ready!

Hello there!
I am still fussing about doing this and that in preparation for the girls arriving.
We managed to get the room finished with the extra bed made up (I think I mentioned before that we got an extra student because one of the host families fell through)

I think there is still plenty of room for them to spread out with their stuff even though we put an extra bed in!

I cleared out some of the shelves so they can put things there if they need to.
Our Japanese boys ignored this completely and had an impressive spread of stuff all over the room!!! 😀

I have spare blankets, hot water bottles and a collection of extra scarves and beanies for them to use as necessary.

Back out to the fallen tree!
Jeff got out the chainsaw and made a fabulous dint in the cleanup process

I’ll eventually work my way through the smaller pieces to clean up and put aside as kindling – which will last us for the next millennia!

My garden is slowly being unearthed!

Apparently the macrocarpa burns long and hot! It will take about 6 months in the drying process, but it will be great to have.

One of our new young hens lays a perfect little brown egg daily! I used a couple tonight and the yolks are lovely, big and yellow!

Well… thats midweek done and dusted!!
Raining a LOT at the moment!
Time to snuggle into bed with a book!
Cheers

Beetroot Search & Rescue

Well! Forget anymore housework! Perfect winters day!
Time to get out there and so some real work! Yay!

Can you see my beetroot?
Its under there somewhere.

After a bit of cutting and hauling…

I rescued quite a good number of beetroot. Basically they had just been covered and not pulverised.

Some of the wood was struck into the ground like javelins!

Its so messy and tangled! My aim was to cut and remove all the smaller bits that I could to make it an easy task to get back in with the chain saw to cut away the bigger pieces.

Couple of pieces of my rebar were a bit bent!

I extracted them in the end and I am sure they will straighten out again.

I was beginning to see a lot more ground

Some surprising things survived – like this little fennel plant I found

I was quite heart-broken to see my beautiful sprinkler that my best mate made for me had been flattened

I was really delighted that when I cleared away all the branches, it came out intact with only a little bend to one of the feet!

All the connections look good too! Amazing!

By the time 3.30/4pm rolled around I had some nice big piles of branches made and some space in my veggie patch created. By then it was getting quite chilly so I gave up, went in and cleaned out the fire and started it anew.

Hoping to get back into it tomorrow if Jeff stays awake after his nightshift. (Sometimes he does sometimes he just can’t! 🙂 )

Enjoy your weekends!
Cheers

Spruced Up

Did I mention that Kirrily, our boarder is an apprentice hairdresser?
She gets chances to have clients in so she can practice and today was the first chance I have had all year. It was lovely to get my hair washed, dried and fancied up!
Lovely way to start the day! (Photo taken after battling through the rain, so not too bad!!!)

A typical winters day – dark and lots of rain, thankfully no more crazy wind.

Can’t get used to seeing this mess every time I go down to visit the chooks.
We haven’t had a chance to get back into doing anything since the first day. We did cut off some of the mess and remove it out of my garden.

One of these new girls is laying! A cute little brown egg. Three so far. Very proud!!

The white garlic patch has started to show green shoots! Will probably be another couple of weeks before they will be up high enough to mulch.
The early garlic is going along beautifully and the seaweed is keeping the weeds at bay

Oh and the cabbages!! Getting nice hearts on them!

Signs of spring already. I am seeing the bulbs from the daffies starting to pop up, also the tulips and today I noticed the day lilies!

Even though I pulled up most of it, the onion grass still persists in returning. It is rather sweet though.

Plenty of new buds on the Protea too!

Another couple of ‘single’ cuffs! I very much like the colours on the above glove.
Eventually I will get mates done for them although I knitted a completely new and unrelated cuff tonight.

A lot of today consisted of driving Jeff to an appointment (when he comes off a night shift sometimes its better I do the driving!!) and a few things in town before buckling down to finish a bit of tidying up and cake baking.
The coordinator for the international students is due in tomorrow morning to see if our place passes muster to host them. There is also an information night tomorrow night to go along to.

Anyway, I really need to not be up all night (again) My sleeping habits are ridiculous!!
Hope everyone had a fantastic day!
Cheers

Bits and Pieces

Hello! Start of the week again.
Desperate times at Norwich House. We were nearly out of sweet chilli sauce!
I was waiting for Jeff to get up to tell me where he stashed his handsaw so I could tackle the garden, so I started on cooking. Took me hours and never got back to the garden. A double batch takes forever and I still think its probably too runny. Oh well.
It used some chillis out of the freezer and a heap of the garlic and the house smells pretty good. Also meant that I cleaned out some of my bottles from the cupboard. (Stern words to myself for putting them away with their old labels on them so that added a heap of time to my job)

In a much less arduous task, I made up a new batch of laundry liquid.

Yesterday’s wood gathering activities were slowed up when I found a new resident in my work gloves.

It was quite at home and in no hurry to come out!

I eventually relocated him/her to a pot of parsley.

The potted garlic are looking quite happy! I am torn between planting more or just dehydrating the lot that’s left.

The rescued leek! Now will have to look up a decent recipe to make use of all of these!! I have cleaned and cut them and they are in the fridge waiting their turn!

The local gift shop hasn’t sold any of my berets, but can’t keep up with gloves! So putting a few together to try my luck there.

This pair I just finished I really like so am trying to sell via my facebook first before putting them into the shop where I will lose 30% commission. Pure wool so really cosy and I quite like the slight mismatch of them.
Anyway… will see what happens.

That’s about all from me – been on my feet too long today! Will be nice to snuggle into bed with a book
Cheers!

Extreme Mulching!

Hello! Wow… this post was going to be about crochet and lizards.
However…
I suppose you recall me whinging about the weather recently? Including rather severe winds? (like everyday for a week haha)
Well… above is my main vegetable garden!! Several tons of Macrocarpa have obliterated it.
Mistress of Understatement, Kirrily comes in to say there is a ‘branch’ down come and see!!

We weren’t prepared to see this!

These trees are absolute monsters. The big worry now is that the whole stand would be unstablised now that a big swathe off the front has fallen.

Two of the raised beds survived, along with the asparagus and celery. No sign of the third raised bed & lettuce (I don’t hold out high hopes to be honest) and the beetroot is slightly buried. Will try a rescue mission tomorrow.
Salvaged the leek. (somewhat broken)

While top branches hit the far fence and sent the gate off kilter, we were lucky in so many ways.
Firstly, because its all about me, I was lucky I am a sook about working outside in high winds. Not because I feel in danger (although from now I might) but because it just drives me batty. So I am pretty grateful I am not dead.
Secondly, apart from some guttering on the shed and a long disused aerial that was sheared off, the shed and cars were missed.
Thirdly – it fell into our yard and not over the highway

We are really going to have to look at getting them taken out much as it pains me. (Not least the thought of the potential cost) However – now the whole system is probably unstable and we don’t want to be responsible for major accidents/deaths.

Raised bed and bean trellis under there somewhere

Once the winds dropped we went out for a closer look and started to cut and move the more manageable pieces. (Ahhh the sign!!)

This is no mere ‘branch’ !!

It was a tragic moment to realise that Jeff’s wonderful new gate is now a twisted wreckage 🙁

Most of the pallet fence survived! Just a few sections flattened.

On the bright side, Macrocarpa is quite a valuable timber. There is a lot of millable wood in there so we will be looking to salvage some out of the main trunk. Of course, there will be some firewood in there somewhere too I guess!!

The above photo is looking back from the top corner of my garden. Lots of parsley has survived…

Did I need a new hobby? Not really.
Getting my veggie patch prepped for spring has brought up a whole new set of challenges far beyond weeding!!

Kirrily sitting pretty on top of the wreckage!

So far I really can’t say that 2018 has been boring hey?
I hope everybody elses Sunday has been slightly less exciting than ours!

Cheers!

New Plans

Check out this lovely big capsicum!! Not bad for the middle of winter hey? It was sweet too – I was a bit afraid it might be bitter.

I decided to keep the seeds, which are now in my net dryer in between the parsley and the thyme!

Well… more sorting today. This time we were re arranging upstairs.
I have just filled out umpteen forms and been registered officially (Working with Vulnerable People) so we can take on a couple of international students.
You know… because the house is always so empty! haha

I heard that the local schools were short a few places for some students from Taiwan to stay so I got in touch with the organisation.
Gone are the days when you just put your hand in the air, got handed a student and went home with them!!
There was quite a lot to the paperwork, even without the registration part, which is basically a background check to make sure you are not too dodgy.
Hence the difficulty in finding beds for all the students I guess.

Anyway, if all goes to plan we will be getting two students who will share our upstairs room (Teenagers love that space!) They go to school during the day, but we get to take them places over the weekend.
Dreadful time of year to visit, but its because they are in summer holidays. Fingers crossed for the appalling weather this week to get it out of its system for a while.

Our house is being ‘inspected’ next Thursday (yeah yeah – there are good reasons to my frantic domestic bliss) and an information night the same evening.

A little different to our usual hosting, but should be fun – lets hope the kids like hiking!!!

I didn’t get out much today. It was twilight the whole miserable day!! I took the chooks some warm mash which they were pretty thrilled with.
I also made pizza’s for dinner.
I was meant to take a final shot of the cooked pizza… but we ate them before I remembered!

Week is about at its end already! Amazing.
Hope your week has more sunshine than mine!
Cheers

My capsicum is a bit ‘Edvard Munch’ don’t you think?

Sea Weeding

Hello!! It was a lovely Sunday – for most of the day!
I slipped down to Wynyard Beach to see if I could get some seaweed for the garden

It was a bit scrappy – thin covering over rocks rather than the nice big banks of it!
Still… I found a reasonable place to fill up some bags

Few extra calories lost as the wet seaweed is a bit harder to haul up the beach through the soft sand.
The tide was coming in faster than I estimated so I only filled about 14 bags

Little bit of a rainbow told me some rain was about

It rained on and off for the rest of the afternoon – but I did get home and mulch that patch of garlic, then worked on the recently weeded raised beds

A slight challenge with the wind this afternoon, but eventually got there

I am hoping this makes my life a lot easier in spring.

It really got too soggy to get into another job outside today – so contented myself by doing some vacuuming and baking a cake (which I promised to take in to share with my fellow jurors tomorrow since it should be our last day!)

A small job here and there keeps the work steadily progressing.
I may be ready by the time spring gets here… you never know!

Cheers!

A Little Weeding

I must say, it was extremely nice to be out in the fresh (very fresh!!) air today instead of in windowless rooms in courthouses!
It only rained a little bit here and there, but it was the blustery winter wind that was more of the challenge! Brrrrr

My first patch of the early garlic is coming along really well! I will need to get on and restock with seaweed grass to mulch it in the near future. Its really held the weeds at bay in the cabbage patch, so I have to stir myself to get this done!

My parsley is taking over the world

So… you want to see how completely dreadful my garden is???

Its overwhelming isn’t it??
I really just have to break it down into sections and try not to look at it as one big project.
Today I thought I would go with sorting out the raised beds.

I need to top this one up with some decent compost. Still… the random potatoes that grew in here were marvellous!

Tomatoes well and truly dead. Time to salvage the stakes and ties and dig it all up! (Oh… but leaving that parsley plant alone – you know, because I don’t have enough)

This third round of late corn would have gone well if not for the abrupt change of season this year. Never mind. It was good to see how it progressed at that time of year.
I pulled everything out but the lettuce – more self seeded plants
Then I put a couple of the frames back in and covered them up to help shelter them from the crazy wind.

In other garden news… my leek patch doing well. Might even pick some soon!

I ate this bit of asparagus:

The couple of potatoes I put into the hothouse have sprung up well!

The tulip bulbs are poking up already!
And whats this??

I’ll find a spot to put it in to find out the old fashioned way if no-one can tell me! 🙂

Pip enjoyed a bit of a snooze in the sunshine for a while!

Its pretty chilly tonight, thats for sure. Its only about 2C but feels like -2!
Keeping the fire going and rugged up with my crochet!

Hope everybody’s weekend is fantastic
Cheers

Tip Day

Hello!
We are having some mouse issues. At least I found this one in the chook feed bin (and not in the house) bouncing about trying to get out!

Today was tip day. I love the feeling after gathering up all the bits and pieces that have accumulated over a few months and getting rid of it all!
A chance to tidy up that perpetually untidy BBQ area!

I rediscovered bags of pine needles, so quickly got onto another little task that has been on my mind – clearing the space at the base of the blueberry bushes

I used some of our free bricks to outline the area which should make keeping the weeds from taking over a little easier, as well as being able to fill with mulch and keeping the mulch from being scattered everywhere.
I gave each bush a generous covering of mushroom compost and topped it up with pine needles.

Jeff got on to some random weeding in the strawberry patch

My grand idea here though is to make another complete garden just down from the current strawberry patch. The ground slopes, so using those free besser blocks might work. That area dries out in summer and is pretty useless, so building it up into another garden seems like a decent plan. I would move all the strawberries out into the new garden, dig the old patch up completely as its quite weedy and needs a big going over anyway.
I like plans. Never mind about being in the middle of 20 unfinished ones! 😀

Still scrounging food in the garden!
Tonight I made salmon patties. They tasted really good, but I doubt I will make them again… I am all for dinners that are a lot less fiddly and time consuming. Granted, a LOT of the time was spent picking out bones. Probably why we eat more beef and chicken. Bones!
On the upside – enough mixture was made to have them again tomorrow night! Yay.
Court in the morning. Got my crochet packed in case I get picked for the jury and have to stick around all day in town!
Hope your weekends were super!
Cheers

Weekend Jobs

Quite the beautiful afternoon!
On occasions the sun would slip behind clouds and the wind would be quite chilly.

Yesterday Jeff and I got into the car port and dragged in all the remaining fence palings, pulled out nails and cut into usable sections. That frees up the trailer finally as we really need to make a tip run soon!
Today we sat down and split up a number of the pieces to fill the kindling box at the back door.

I started cleaning up around the yard. I am such a messer!! Just little things here and there that really – shouldn’t be!
I spent some time sorting out the netting that should have been done looooong ago

I actually cut off the edges of the raspberry netting to salvage the rest. Next season I am determined to put in a better system for this. The grass grows into the netting and… well… it just gets messy and awkward. I am thinking to surround the entire raspberry patch with a low wooden fence (probably made out of pallet wood) so Jeff and mow and whippersnip up to the edge on the outside and I can cover and mulch to stop the weeds on the inside, then attach the netting to the fence instead of having it sit on the ground. This all makes perfect sense in my own head 😀

Garlic progress! A number of cloves from the first lot I planted have shot up!
Two of the cloves from the recent planting popped out of the ground??

And the cabbage! I am seeing visions of Okonomiyaki and Yakisoba in my future!! (Japanese dishes that I love)

I found some potting mix so made a start on putting some oregano into pots as well as trying out some garlic. If they go well they will be a nice addition to my stall in spring where I am hoping to have a lot more seedlings for sale this year. (Yes I will do more than this)

In very exciting gardening news, I picked and ate my first spear of asparagus ever!! Actually I don’t think I have ever eaten fresh asparagus! I have no idea what I am doing with them yet… I just put them in and let them go.

Maybe in the upcoming season I will be able to make a side dish of some sort out of them!

Well… that was my Saturday!
How was yours?
Cheers!