Grow baby grow.......

The garden is growing like crazy, we have had the odd drop of rain, and the high organic content in the soil retains moisture really well......

The big picture..... lots of recycled materials to make the beds and supports..... not so pretty on the eye but soothing to the soull..... think I'm turning into a greenie lol....

The tyres have pumpkins, melons and rockmelons......

Above are my beans, theres a few peas in there too and some carrots still to come up....
Corn, lettuce and a trellis with crystal apple cucumbers starting to climb......

Love this 5 colour silverbeet, yummmmm

Zucchinis, I have six plants so we have heaps!

And just for fun my lovely gourds......

Clever composting

My brother Nick and his wife Kirsten have a great site with loads of cool links for organic gardening and permaculture. Check out their how to make compost video, isn't Kirsten just so cute? I just wanna put her in my pocket and take her home! Then she can turn my compost for me lol........ Nick (clever boy) has designed a compost calculator to make it easy to work out how much of each type of material to add to your compostto ensure success. Check it out, definately worth a look.....

Nick's serious pose

Love that hat K!

Harvest....

I just love eating from our garden....... Here's a sample of recent harvests.....

Broadbeans, snowpeas, peas, radishes, carrots and lettuce
Shelled peas and broadbeans
More carrots, beans and snowpeas + multi-coloured silverbeet and broccolli.

I also have pak-choy, rocket and herbs ready to eat, and have loads of seedlings in. The kids can't wait for the watermelons and rockmelons, but aren't so keen on the idea of pumpkins lol...... The beans are up, and the tomatoes are starting to flower, zucchini are fruiting, and everything has just taken off with the warmer weather. I am busy seed saving radish seeds for sprouts, and chive and onion seeds for future plantings.... very satisfying to sit back at the end of the day and survey our efforts. Hmmmm, now what's for tea?

Worms, worms, worms.........

A wonderful way to compost organic matter is to make a worm farm. Of course you could buy one ready made but as usual we decided to make our own lol... luckily we had an old laundry twin-tub sink that we could use. We covered the drainage holes with mesh to prevent escapees.

Cut a hole for a PVC "tunnel" between the two sinks and used silicone to seal it.
Added lots of bedding, we used straw and horse dung, other alternatives are shredded paper etc....Bought some composting worms, these are not the same as garden worms, and are great little workers.

Added some food and the worms to the sinks and covered with damp hessian. I have spared you the pics of the food as we are using our worm farm to dispose of dog poo! This means we won't be able to use the castings or worm wee on our vegies, but it will be fine to use on the flower garden. A great way to fertilise the garden, clean up the yard and reduce flies.
A lick of paint so it is less visible in the yard and a piece of tin for a lid and it's all done! The cupboard below provides great storage for the bucket to collect the worm wee. Shame I forgot that dog wormer kills all worms, so I will have to wait for a while before feeding the worms their special food.... until then it's kitchen scraps!

Gourdgeous!

I looooove these..... I was passing the second hand bookshop last week when I noticed some gourds in the window. I got these beauties for just 50c each! The lady who grew them didn't have enough water to clean them properly so I will have to get the bleach and a scrubbing brush onto them. I have no idea what to do with them, I just love their shapes and colour. I have three gourd vines growing at the moment, I had a dozen seedlings but most didn't survive the transplant shock or the dreadful drying winds we've had. Hopefully my seeds will arrive soon and I can plant some more direct now that the weather is warmer.

And so it grows on.......

Yum, yum, yum.......... I can't believe how easy and successful this no-dig gardening is........I found my first pea-pod today, can't wait to munch on those, and have been nibbling my baby carrots (some call it thinning lol....). We had a gorgeous salad of chillean lettuce, parsley and chives drizzled with Mum and Dad's homegrown olive oil and some balsamic vinegar with our dinner last night. It was delish.... of course the yummy quiche made from our free range eggs wasn't bad either! Wonder what the poor people are doing........ After checking the supermarket prices for veg today I am soooo glad we have started our garden, who wants to pay the ridiculous prices they are asking when you can grow your own and eat salad that's been picked 5 minutes ago? Added another layer of tyres to our potatoes today, and planted out our 5 colour silverbeet and coriander....always something to do lately.........

Peas

Chillean lettuce

Chives

Broad beans

Spring has sprung!

My Mum always says this every Spring....

"Spring has sprung,

The grass is ris,

I wonder where the birdies is?"

Well, the grass has risen here, and there are so many birds about. It's a hoot watching the grass parrots, magpies, rosellas, galahs and king parrots. They are all very passionate at the moment! There are lots of noisy squabbles over nesting sites. The garden has gone mad, everything is starting to erupt with flowers. It is sooo much fun this time of year......

My first Sweetpea flower

Not sure what this bush is but it sure is pretty!
We planted two of these dwarf peach trees on the weekend, hopefully they will do ok, must mulch them....
Mum's elderly neighbour gave me some cuttings of this plant, once again don't know what it is, but it must be happy living in my rusty old clawfoot bath.....

I love daffodils, I have a variety of them planted around the base of trees, they are gorgeous...

Just for fun, some wormwood planted in hubby's old workboots.....

Wherever you are, enjoy the seasons, I know I do!

Pictures, yay!

I'm still on my darlin's computer, but I've worked out how to load my pics. So here's Pearl at the beauty salon lol. For those that are wondering why we trim her wool like this, it stops her from getting grass etc caught in her wool near her eyes, and keeps her rear end clean to stop the flies harassing her.

The "before" shot, cute but oh so woolly!

Pa, my Dad doing the hairdressing. He breeds stud sheep so he has the gear and know-how. Thanks Pa!

After - my baby looks so grown up now!

Today I planted the first of my heirloom potatoes - in tyres. I have never grown potatoes before so it should be a bit of fun. I have Sapphires, King Edwards, Desirees, Brownells, Red Stars, Royal Blue and Nicolas. The Sapphires are purple all the way through, should make for interesting mash lol. I laid the tyres on top of newspapers, half filled them with hay, added some compost and threw in 2 potatoes per tyre. Then I covered them with a thick layer of hay - now to wait for them to emerge so I can add another layer until each stack is about 4 tyres high. Should have heaps of yummy potatoes for Christmas........ For any Aussies looking for heirloom vegies go to http://www.diggers.com.au/

My seed potatoes are busting to get into the ground, look at those shoots!

The first layer, all done.

After dragging carts of hay up the paddock and chucking tyres over the fence I'm pooped, who's for a home brew?

M.I.A.

I have been absent from blogging this week as my new laptop shorted out! I am now using hubby's work computer which I can only get onto in the evenings. I am suffering withdrawals, but I'm getting loads done lol..... Hopefully my computer will be back in action in a few days as I can't add new pics on this computer.

I have been busy planting seeds in punnets in my temporary glasshouse. This gorgeous structure consists of 2 glass doors leaning against the Northern side of the house. I have onion, and spring onion seeedlings growing nicely. Today I planted the following in punnets:-

Mixed cherry tomatoes

5 colours of tomatoes

Ornamental gourds

Mixed chillis

Jalapeno chillis

Capsicums

Coriander

5 colour silverbeet

I also planted some more radishes direct in the tank garden. I can't resist them so I am eating as many as I plant! Victor the goat and Rabbit (the paint horse) love them too lol...

And the exciting news for the week is that my broad beans are flowering and my sweetpeas have buds - YAY! Oh, and my chookies are laying 2 eggs a day, that's 100% increase lol, so they may be coming back on the lay.

Pearl the lamb had a haircut on the weekend, my Dad cut the wool around her face and crutched her. I will post a pic ASAP, she looks hilarious..... Dad also vaccinated and drenched Pearl and Victor, I think they were glad to see him leave lol.....

We are currently nursing Vixen the drafthorse, she went through a barb wire fence and grazed her inside leg really badly - more vet bills, but she'll be ok. Thank goodness drafties are so placid, she just stood there and waited for us to get her out.

Have a great week everyone!

Some pics from the garden........

The sweetpeas are galloping up the wires, the carrots, broadbeans, radishes and lettuces have gone mad and everything is growing, growing, growing! We have had gorgeous weather here the past week, still frosty in the morning but glorious all day, great growing weather. Hopefully the warmer weather will last for a while so Ian can build my shade/glass house...... I need somewhere to raise my spring vegie seedlings......

Sweetpeas

Peas and Chillean Lettuces

Broadbeans and Radishes

Carrots

Rhubarb.

A friend gave me this plant, a "pup" of a plant grown by his Dad since 1953!

It has two lovely new leaves...........

Parsley

Strawberries

Daffodils starting to come up

Merlin deep in thought.....

A tad chilly!

It's been a little chilly here of late with many days below freezing....the kids thought it was hilarious watching our outside cat Rascal trying to get a drink from the horse's trough this morning, poor boy was ice-skating lol........

Blossom and Vixen proving the theory that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence - or should that be whiter?

Poor Victor shivering... he does have a little house to go in I promise!

My vegie garden, thank goodness I planted frost hardy vegies lol.......

All these pics were taken through my windows, I wasn't going out, too cold for me!

Tomato heaven.......

This year Ian and I planted a Black Russian tomato for the first time, and boy did it pay off! We ate gorgeous dark red juicy sweet tomatoes for months. I had so many I ended up making semi-dried tomatoes using my dehydrator, yummo they were delish! Eventually the frosts came. Even though the bush was still flowering and producing, we pulled it up. We had been told that hanging it upside down would allow the fruit to ripen. Well a couple of weeks later the fruit was still green. I harvested over three kilograms of green tomatoes from the bush and then had to find a recipe to make something out of them......So I made Green Tomato Pickles. We now have ten jars of yummy pickles, a stash that is quickly diminishing mind you lol..... We have been enjoying them with crusty bread, chunks of cheese and thick slices of ham.......

So yummy, doused in homemade olive oil and accompanied by a lovely glass of red.......


My sweetie with ONE bush of Black Russian tomatoes!