Welcome to Wordless Wednesday. This is the beginning of a weekly series in which I will post a random photograph. I would encourage you to comment, guess, give your thoughts, likes or dislikes in the comments section. I look forward to hearing from you soon.
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.
Here is a post from 3 years ago when I first tried my hand at making Tabasco sauce. It was a great success and the quantity lasted for a couple of years.
Unfortunately, the chilli bush did not survive the changes to the vegie garden area so we bought another one in the middle of last year.
Today I am making more sauce and using just half of the quantity stated in the original recipe. This has to be one of the simplest preserving recipes around. I am looking forward to having a bottle on hand so that I can add a couple of drops to various dishes that I make.
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.
And 15 minutes later, dinner was ready.
Do you have a favourite takeaway meal at home?I am sure it is still Friday somewhere – my apologies for the lateness of this post – it is Saturday morning here.
How do we feed ourselves? Food prices keep increasing, labelling laws are ambiguous, processed foods contain unfamiliar additives and food allergies appear to be on the rise. Add to this, a desire to eat organically-grown food which I believe is better for my health and the health of the planet and it starts to feel a bit overwhelming. While we are at it, the wasteful packaging needs to be minimised as well as transport costs, both monetary and environmental. Don’t forget ‘food security’ – the latest catch-cry. This is the ability for us, as a nation, to feed ourselves in the event of natural disasters or major changes to the world order.
Have you thrown up your hands in despair? Fear not. You can begin to solve all of these issues with a single action – grow some of your own food.
The Duke and I have a somewhat neglected but productive garden which sometimes surprises us with its bounty. We both work full-time and have minimal time to spend on tending a garden. We try to grow some annual vegetables but the real secret is in growing trees and perennials. We have an avocado, peach, fig and several citrus trees. There are blueberry bushes as well as self sown cherry tomatoes and pumpkins. The clump of parsley has been in one spot for so long that it has a stalk that looks like the trunk of a tree.
It may seem obvious but it is also important to eat (or preserve) what you grow. Do not let the harvest go to waste.
Keep your eyes open for food producing plants in your neighbourhood that are not being harvested. Don’t be afraid to ask if you may have some. There are many reasons that people do not harvest – lack of time, knowledge or health are but a few.
The last few weeks we have had access to the following (either fresh or frozen) from our own property or nearby – corn, blueberries, avocadoes, mangoes, figs, lemons, beans, pumpkins, and pineapples. At times I have felt overwhelmed by the excess on the kitchen bench but I have endeavoured to make sure it was used or stored for later use.
Last weekend I kept track of what we ate.
SATURDAY
Breakfast – buckwheat blueberry pancakes
Lunch – platter of cheese, cherry tomatoes, avocado, dried figs and mango chutney
Dinner – Salmon with mango salsa and vegetables – everything came from the garden except the salmon and onion which I used in the salsa.
SUNDAY
Breakfast – mango and pineapple smoothie
Lunch – Pumpkin soup
Dinner – grilled chicken with cherry tomatoes and mango/avocado salad
We certainly will never be completely self-sufficient but being able to produce at least some of the food that we eat goes a long way to addressing the myriad of issues that I identified in the first paragraph. Eating local food also gives you an appreciation for what is in season in your area. I really look forward to the new crop of things such as figs which have a short season. We eat them constantly while in season then it is but a distant memory until next year.
You do not need a huge amount of space and even though you could not grow some of the thing that we do in your climate, the reverse is also true. What do you grow?
Having a productive garden entails more work than just planting, watering and harvesting the crops.
The next step is to make sure that the produce is used wisely. It is difficult not to have some wastage, especially when there is a glut.
At the moment we have an over-abundance of lemons and grapefruit and are doing the best we can to deal with them.
On Saturday evening, The Duke and I juiced and froze about 3 litres of lemon juice and a litre of grapefruit juice. Most of the lemon juice is in 1 litre quantities so that I can thaw it and make cordial when required. However, I did put some into ice-cube trays for those moments when I just need a tablespoon or so of juice. We have 2 lemon trees and it is only a rare time when there are no fresh lemons available but it is best to be safe and have some on hand.
You can also see more beans and carrots that we picked on Saturday.
What are you harvesting at the moment?
Our weekends are usually full of activity at home because we are at work all week. This one was no exception and I have to admit that it is great to get to Sunday evening and feel a real sense of achievement.
Of course there are all of the basics to be done so I had 2 loads of washing done and hung out on Friday evening. The weather has been fine and dry for the past few days so the washing almost dried overnight. This meant that I could do the ironing on Saturday morning.
Our first job was to split and stack some more firewood.
We will probably not use the fire much more this winter so there is now plenty of wood split and ready for next year.
There was a huge pile of logs that needed splitting and they are almost all gone now. Just lots of smaller pieces to be sorted and stacked into boxes. It was great to get this done as we will be keeping the woodshed but dismantling the adjacent chicken house before long. That is because we a building a new run for the chickens.
The new chicken run has been a considerable time in the planning and preparation but now you can actually see some progress. We have dug the holes and set the 4 corner posts in concrete. There are another 4 intermediate ones done, too.
There are still 6 more holes and posts to do so we are hoping that the fine weather continues so that we can do them next weekend.
The garden is looking really good at the moment as you can see.
The lemon tree is groaning with the crop.
Vegetables are growing well. We need to have bok choy with a few meals this week before it completely overwhelms everything else.
The azalea is looking particularly pretty.
In between the outdoor work, I managed to do the shopping at the local Co-op, fruit and vegetable stall and Aldi as well as host some guests through AirBnB last night.
Here is a final shot looking down from the verandah of the area which will be the chicken run. There will need to be some re-arranging of some of the plants that fall within the area, although I think the mango tree will probably stay. This was taken late in the afternoon but you can see the peach tree on the left of the photo which is already starting to blossom. In another couple of weeks it will be in full flower.
All in all, it has been a fun and productive weekend. How was yours?
Last night when we got home we discovered that another large limb had come off the poinciana tree. The tree is close to our boundary and this has fallen across the fence and into the neighbour’s ‘paddock’ near the front of their block. Undoubtedly, the wild weather of the past few days has contributed to this latest loss.
There have been at least 3 other occasions where sizeable branches have fallen from this tree and we had decided that it really needed to go and were planning to have it lopped later in the year. This latest incident has forced us to re-think our plans and move them forward so I have contacted a tree lopper. He is going to come next week to give us a quote.
As well as having the tree lopped, we also plan to get it mulched so that we can use this in our landscaping. We have decided that we can better utilise the mulch than making more firewood as we really have plenty and this type of tree does not burn well. I am hoping they will be able to grind the stump so that we can then decide what we will plant in this area.
I took these photos today. You can see that I am very thankful that no people or property were in close proximity.
This afternoon I went down to the garden and picked a bucketful of oranges, some mandarins, limes, perennial onions, grapefruit, chili and avocadoes as well as collecting 16 eggs.
Here is some of the haul.
Mandarins
Eggs
Ornages , limes, grapefruit, onions and chili in this bucket.
I set the oranges out ready to juice them.
These yielded 3.5 litres of juice and enough pulp to make 2 dozen orange and poppyseed muffins.
The juice is frozen in single serve (250ml) portions.
Here is the orange juice packaged and ready to freeze. Once it is frozen I will remove it from the containers and place in double plastic bags for ease of storage.
I took a pack of grated zucchini (from the garden last summer) from the freezer and made a zucchini quiche for dinner. While this was in the oven I made the muffins and a Lemon Delicious for dessert as well as roasting some sliced pumpkin ready to use on home-made pizzas tomorrow night.
The 2 grapefruit are prepared for The Duke for his breakfasts and the mandarins will be used in packed lunches.
The avocadoes are in the fruit bowl as they will take about a week to ripen.
I chopped the chili and onions and added to some cold rice. Lime juice, oil and pepper made a dressing to toss through the rice and we had this and some carrot sticks and sliced mushroom with the quiche for dinner.
I used 9 eggs in my cooking and am left with 34 in the refrigerator. Must be time to give some more away.
We are lucky to have a productive garden so it is important to make sure that we use what is available and store any excess so that it does not get wasted.
Most of the sewing I have been doing recently has been clothes for various members of the family but I have been doing other things as well.
This bundle of fabric has been in my sewing room for a couple of years since I bought it at the op shop with the vague idea of using it to exclude fruit fly from the stone fruit. We have since removed the peach and 2 nectarine trees that we planted because, although they produced heaps of wonderful fruit the fruit fly infestation was just too awful to contemplate.
However, we did keep the dwarf peach as it seemed less vulnerable to attack by the fruit fly and also it would be easier to manage some sort of exclusion since it is a relatively compact tree.
I had hoped to use this fine mesh curtaining to cover the whole tree but that was not an option so I have been making bags to cover at least some of the fruit.
I sewed the bags and then threaded kitchen string through the mesh using a large, curved needle to make a drawstring.
The finished bag ready to be used.
Here is the peach tree and the photo below shows a close-up of some of the fruit. I hope I am not not late in covering the fruit. I do know that I will have all my resources prepared and ready for next spring.
Here are some of the bags in place protecting the fruit. I am looking forward to a harvest of unblemished fruit.
I have about 12 bags on the tree so far and about another 20 to finish making. Some will be a sleeve with drawstring openings at each end so that I can slide them over the branch where there are a lot of fruit along the length of the branch.
We are very lucky in our garden as we generally do not have extremes of temperature, frosts or long periods without rain. Too much rain and fruit fly are our only real challenges. What pests and hazards do you have to cope with in your garden?
organised castle 