Salvaged and Spread

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Posted on April 18, 2015

Now that the weather has finally moderated it is a great time to be out in the garden.

We took the ute up to the neighbour’s place to collect the first of 2 loads of mulch that they had kindly offered to us. This was from when they had some trees trimmed and mulched about a month ago. Although we have had some light rain in the past day or two the ground was not too wet and GMan was able to bring the ute close to where we wanted to use the mulch.

The newspaper collection has been replenished somewhat, thanks to the generosity of friends and also some that GMan collected from his office.

Once again, the newspaper and mulch covered pretty much the same area. We now have more than half of the front garden deeply mulched.

Here are the first of the sweet pea seedling peeking their heads through the soil. There are also some almost microscopic seedlings which I suspect are the snapdragon or heartsease that I sprinkled in front of the sweet peas. I am very excited at the prospect of growing some old-fashioned flowers.

These are some of the flowers on one of the hibiscus shrubs in the front garden. It is in the part that is yet to be mulched.

It was 4.30pm and I had just finished photographing the garden handiwork when I noticed that this sunshower. It is the regular rain and relatively warm climate that we enjoy which keeps everything lush and green. Of course, the rich, volanic soil helps, too.

Permaculture Principles or Plain Commonsense

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Posted on April 6, 2015

Whatever you want to call them, there are things we can do in the garden that will save money and resources.

Here are a couple of projects we have been working on this weekend.

When we came here there were numerous shrubs/small trees planted close to the front verandah. They provided some screening and privacy from the road. Over time we planted a screening hedge of native shrubs along the boundary so the ones closer to the house became less important from a privacy point of view. We extended the area in front of the verandah and slightly reduced the amount of lawn. The shrubs have been pruned several times to try to keep the blow the level of the gutter.

Last year I decided on the final format for this area. We will have a selection of flowering hibiscus in front of the verandah. We bought 5 hibiscus at the Garden Expo in July last year and they have been progressing well. However, one of them was beginning to struggle and we realised that it was being shaded by one of the grevilleas. We cut down the three remaining shrubs, mulched everything that was small enough to go through the mulcher and cut the bigger branches into manageable lengths.

While Gman was mulching Istarted laying out newspapers (usually about 6 sheets at a time) and hosing them down to stop them blowing away. The we piled the mulch we had made at one end.

This shows a close-up of the small logs that we used to create the back edge of the area to be mulched.

Here is the mulch spread out. It was convenient that we ran out of mulch and newspapers at about the same time. We are going to bring home whatever newspapers we can collect from work in order to continue our project. There is still quite a bit to do as you can see from the next photo.

You can also see some of the hibiscus. They seem to really be enjoying the full sun now that the overhanging shrubs have been cut down. We have been offered a huge pile of mulch from the neighbours so that will go towards completing the mulching of this area. The next job will be to buy some more hibiscus.

Finally, I wanted to show you the garden bed that I started last weekend. It is now dug over, edged with rocks and seeds planted. We have no shortage of rocks as they are everywhere on the block in all shapes and sizes. I have planted sweet pea, snapdragon and heartsease seeds in the hope of having a border of colourful spring flowers. The sweet peas are in a furrow close to the fence which will do double duty of keeping unwanted animals out of the vegie garden and being a trellis for the sweet peas.

Progress in The Patch

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Posted on March 28, 2015

Our vegetable garden area has been a work in progress for several years and continues to be so. However, I feel as though we have taken a giant leap forward today.

We had a load of soil delivered yesterday.

This was the view of the area yesterday.

The three beds in the foreground have been established for some time and the top one currently has lettuce and bok choy and the bottom one has beans and bok choy while the middle one is empty after having cleared out the remnants of tomato and cucumber plants. This bed needs topping up with additional soil. In the background towards the chicken coop is a clump of sweet potato growing in a small cut-down rainwater tank. Of course, it has overflowed and is growing across the ground towards the fence.

The lower two beds in the background have a small amount of leaf litter and mulch but are yet to be used. At the top of the second row is the sixth raised bed partially built. We still need to finish cutting the iron to size and attach the sides.

We started early today and moved the soil to fill the completed beds. This is all that was left this afternoon when we had finished.

Then it was time to add the sides to the final bed. Remember the sweet potato I pointed out in the earlier photo? We dug it all up and harvested a bucketful of decent sized sweet potatoes. There were lots of small ones but we have sacrificed them for the long-term plan. I planted several pieces of vine that had significant root growth as well as numerous potatoes that were shooting. These all went into the bottom bed. The remainder of the soil from where the sweet potatoes were growing went into the base of the last bed. We then salvaged several wheelbarrow loads of leaf mulch from behind the rainwater tank and finally added the garden soil.

Here are the 6 raised beds filled with soil and I have planted some cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and kale seedlings that we bought last weekend. There is still plenty of space so I am planning to plant some seeds as well.

The other thing I did today was to trim and tidy up the basil which has gone completely rampant. I even found some new plants so I potted some and planted others in the garden bed. I have tied the clumps of basil up to the fence to stop them spreading all over the ground. The basil are in the foreground of the photo below.

Tomorrow, I am hoping to dig another garden bed along the fenceline as it heads towards the front of our property. The plan is to plant flowers in that bed. I have bought sweet pea seeds and intend to grow them using the fence as a trellis. but more about that another day.

Autumn Activities

Sew My Stash Sunday – 8

Get Growing

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Posted on February 27, 2015

If you live in a location with a reasonably warm climate, there is one thing to grow that I cannot recommend highly enough. Sweet potato. It is a nutritious, versatile vegetable that will grow with the minimum of fuss. There is a heap of information here.

I have had them growing for a couple of years and there are almost always some available to harvest. This is my latest haul.

Sweet potato can be boiled, baked, steamed and mashed. You can make chips or soup. I grate it coarsely and stir-fry it and serve instead of rice or pasta with chicken stir-fry or bolognaise sauce. You can even use it to make chocolate brownies.

Basil Day

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Posted on February 23, 2015

Six months ago, while we were overseas, our housesitters bought a small pot of basil as it was actually cheaper than buying a bunch of basil. When we arrived home I planted it in the ground. It is now doing its best to take over the garden!!

I took this photo yesterday morning. The rain had finally stopped and the sun was shining. You can see the ‘lake’ in the background.

I knew it was collapsing everywhere so I had intended to cut it right back and use as much of the leaves as possible. When I got closer I discovered that the bees were loving the flowers so I could not destroy their fun so I have left the flowers and just picked lots of leaves. Mind you, it is hardly noticeable where I picked them from.

I could afford to be picky so I chose only the best leaves and rinsed them thoroughly.

Then spun them in the salad spinner. As an aside, I only bought this quite recently as I had never really seen the need for one. After seeing my sister use hers, I realised that a salad spinner could be quite handy and I was delighted to find one at Aldi soon after. It cost the princely sum of $6.99.

Next step was to chop the basil in the food processor.

I had about 2/3 can of chopped tomatoes in the fridge so that was added to the mix.

Then I used a small spoon to fill ice-cube trays with the basil and tomato mixture.

Finally, I double-bagged the trays in re-used bread bags and sealed them tightly before putting them in the freezer. The basil blocks will be useful for when there is no basil growing.

The Backyard & Dinner

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Posted on February 20, 2015

We have been lucky here so far because while we have had a lot of rain of the past 48 hours we have not lost power. There has been a bit of wind but nothing of any consequence so I am hoping that continues to be the case.

The rain eased off for about an hour this afternoon so I shot this video of our backyard ‘lake’. I was standing on the verandah.

The view at the beginning of the video is where the water comes out of the drain which runs under our driveway. It is not much more than a trickle when I took this but earlier in the day you could have white-water rafted from the top of our driveway to the rainwater tanks if you were feeling adventurous! While some of this water is what falls on our property, the majority comes from the top of the escarpment which forms the rear part of our property, via a couple of substantial waterfalls, then heads down the roadway until it reaches a low point – the puddle near the western boundary of our place and the neighbour’s property and thence into the lake.

The ‘lake’ exists because the driveway of the property to the east of us creates what is essentially a dam wall. In 2011 the volume of water flowing into our property exceeded the available space and overflowed down the road, damaging the surface and creating problems for properties on the low side of the road. Ah, the joys of living on the side of a mountain!

Enough of the weather and floods. It is highly likely that we will get more rain over the next couple of days but as long as we do not lose power that will be fine. I have plenty of sewing to keep me occupied.

At the end of the working week it is time for a quick and easy ‘takeaway’ meal. Here is one of the pizzas I whipped up with some home-made bases that I partly cook and freeze. A few things from the fridge and here it is ready for the oven.

And 15 minutes later, dinner was ready.

Do you have a favourite takeaway meal at home?

War on Weeds

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Posted on January 15, 2015

It is the height of summer here and over the past 4 weeks we have been blessed with warm to hot days (27 – 32C) and intermittent showers and storms. The rainfall has been over 100mm in the last fortnight. Your can almost hear the vegetation growing and everything is green and lush.

Unfortunately, the weeds are loving the weather and thriving as much as the plants that are supposed to be growing.

Since we live on an acreage, we are never going to have a pristine garden but I do prefer not to have it overgrown with weeds so it seems to be a never-ending battle to keep them at bay. The Duke tends to use a combination of whipper-snippering, glyphosate and simply pulling them out. The glyphosate is banned from anywhere near the vegetable garden but unfortunately it has been a necessary evil on other parts of the block.

I recently received some information from my friend, S, over at My Life is A Balancing Act. Although she hasn’t posted this on her blog, I think it is worthy of a mention.

Super Effective Weed Spray – Cost: $2.50 for 4 litres weed spray

4 litres white vinegar
1 cup salt
1 tbsp washing up detergent
Mix well. Spray on weeds to kill them. This is a very effective weed spray so only spray it on the things you want to kill. It is excellent for weeding paths and pavers and along the edges of garden beds.

It sounds easy and even piqued the interest of The Duke.

Before I rush out and buy a bulk quantity of vinegar I decided to test it out. There is no shortage of places to try.

This is a patch of the weeds in what can best be described as the future garden bed in front of the verandah.

We have planted several hibiscus shrubs that are the beginning of the new plantings and there are some old shrubs which will need to be removed but there is a lot of bare earth which the weeds are really enjoying!

I had 1 litre of white vinegar so made up a 1/4 mix of the recipe and filled a small spray bottle.

I sprayed weeds until I had used up all of my mix so now it is just a matter of waiting. According to S, I should see wilted and dying weeds within 24 – 48 hours.

I will be back on Saturday with an update on this project. If it shows signs of being successful, I will be looking for somewhere that I can buy a bulk quantity of vinegar and also buying a backpack sprayer as S suggested because my hand is exhausted from just spraying a small area of weeds.

Holiday Hangover

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Posted on November 30, 2014

It is now 10 weeks since we arrived back from our overseas holiday and no matter how hard I try, I just can’t seem to get properly back into the swing of blogging. With less than 4 weeks until Christmas, I suspect that it is going to be next year before I get things really back on track.

Apart from trying to get things done at home, I am finding that I am particularly busy at work. I constantly feel as though I am trying to catch my tail as there has been quite a backlog from while I was away. I have almost got that under control and now am trying to fit in a couple of additional projects which I will be working on next year.

Yesterday we attended our Christmas drinks celebration with all of our neighbours. The road we live in is about 3km in length with only about 26 houses scattered along its length. Some of the residents are permanent and others homes are weekenders so we see some of our neighbours very infrequently. The annual get-together is a fun evening and everyone brings theirs drinks and a plate of food to share. I took a bowl of Pumpkin & Feta Balls and some homemade tomato sauce for dipping. The recipe I used is here. I adapted it slightly as I used standard feta, chilli powder (1 teaspoon) and 1 teaspoon of powdered coriander. I rolled them into small balls rather than as fritters.

Today I picked 2 large bowls of cherry tomatoes. These grown wild in our garden – sometimes in rather inconvenient places. Here are some of them. I remove the stalks, discard any with blemishes, rinse them and then freeze them whole in recycled bread bags. I now have about 6 kgs in the freezer.