That handy pile of junk.

Every one has one.  That large pile of rubbish the other half decides "will come in handy"  one day..... expect often that day never comes or if it does the pile has been stacked so badly you can't actually find that handy piece of junk you needed!
Yesterday we lost a rabbit, we have a pen they run in but its not fool proof and occasionally they escape to the paddock and ALWAYS make that beeline for the junk pile and know we can't get them out and its a long waiting game!  I decided we needed to completely overhaul the pile and restack everything.  It took 2 hours and 2 of my helpful boys assisted while we transformed all this useful wood/bricks/aggie pipes and we moved all old useless lengths of wood to a pile to be chopped for firewood at some later stage. First pic is the once pulled apart picture, I wish I had taken an initial picture as it was so messy and I am so proud or the effort the boys put in as I don't lift too many heavy items.   Sadly we did not find the rabbit no sign today of her either.  :(

                                                             
                                                                         During                 

                                                                     During

                                                                  After and tidy

                                                                               Even better!                                       
 

Spring Garden Flowers 2013

I do love Spring but it sneaks up on me!  Just when I think I have done all the weeding - we use no poison at all here so all paths, garden beds, veggie beds and around the fruit trees on 3/4's of an acre,  I look around and see the weed growth is manic and taking over the garden!  I was spending an hour each day for about 10 days trying to get on top of the school garden weeds and one day returned home and realised I need to get serious about my own weeding for a few weeks!  Lucky for me its school holidays so a little more time to dedicate to my garden.  I do all the weeding in this garden as hubby is not a terribly keen gardener but also has his own garden project happening in building a new retaining wall, a lot of work as all the garden plants and fencing around it needed to be removed and will need to be replaced once complete. Its intense and time consuming but all weeds get fed to the chooks and they are finally laying eggs again so the cycle goes on!

That aside the good thing about forced gardening and being on you knees tugging the weeds out is that you can inhale the scents of all the pretty Spring flowers.  Time can stand still as you smell Freesia's and immediately the Olfactory system kicks in and your transported back to childhood where my home garden had literally hundreds of Freesia's in bloom.  Or the waft of Boronia hits you from 10 metres away and you stopped by the intensity of it and search for the plant which is often quite a distance from the sweet perfume.  There is a Buddleigh in flower near a park I walk around, you can smell the scent for a good 500 metres away, its delightful and an old variety no longer available in Nurseries.  I seem to have planted lots of different Daffodils, a surprise as I don't remember when I planted them!

Here are some of my favourite flower pictures, enjoy.  :)

Potato Planting

smwalker1970's photostream on Flickr.

Today we decided to plant our Potato's a different way and use the wire method. I saw this on Gardening Australia or possibly Better Homes & Gardens anyway its a fantastic way to save space and grow a crop of Potato's. I had my eldest child search the yard for 3 steel posts, I found the chicken wire - in the chook pen and I already had straw and potting mix, and Sheep manure. I had previously brought the seed potato's and there were 14 in the pack so I will be interested to see how many we get once harvested. Basically you build you Potato pen, lay some manure at the base then straw and then a bit of potting mix and manure, then your seed Potato's, then more potting mix and cover with straw. As your Potato's grow you keep up the layering and water as required. It took about 20 minutes to build I am super happy with the end result. :)

The 30 minute garden blitz

After saying in my last post that I have a lot of time I actually manage to fill it pretty well and although I would LOVE to spend an entire day gardening that rarely happens as I LOVE exercise too and have dogs to work kids to tend too and well I don't need to explain life to anyone we are all I the same boat! But the weather has been divine for Victorian Winter and I have been determined to get in 30 minutes of gardening the occasional morning and 30 minutes every night sometimes its right before dark but never the less I grab the opportunity and usually have a plan of what I want to achieve and its amazing what I can get weeded in that time. I have my garden tools out all over the yard for easy access although sometimes remembering where I have left them can be a bit tricky! A couple of days ago as soon as I exited the car before I went in side I managed to hoe little drains in the front beds then hoe the paths and rake the leaves off the path and it looked fantastic! I usually weed most afternoon 30 minute slots as I can try and get all the Vitamin D I can from the sun - its so rare in Ballarat Winters! I have included some before and after shots of how much you can get done doing little bursts of gardening. :) Also I posted this a month ago - now the weather is arctic but still if its not raining I can often manage to get out there after the kids get home from school for at least 30 minutes.

Bunny Chick Liqued Poo Tea :)

I have had much time on my hands with 4 weeks forced leave of massage work! So I have been able to do things I've had little time to do for years and Chick Bunny poo tea is one of them. My father in law taught me this one as a farmer from years back, I am altering the method slightly as I don't want any chance of contact with the poo! He used to get very technical with the ratios of poo to water and use a hessian bag to strain the poo, I don't do this and I feel my way is much easier. Basically I have gathered large amounts of poo from the chooks - easy to do as they aren't terribly bright and instead of laying eggs in their nice hay filled lay boxes they kick all the warmth out leave it bare and sleep there leaving copious amount of poo behind so easy to gather transfer to a large bucket fill with water and leave for about 10 days. I then pour the lot into a open ended watering can - forget the ones with spouts it gets too blocked, you then use liquid as a tea for my newly planted veggies. Its the same deal with the bunny poo, as a rule the rabbits will always poo in the one spot making it easy together, most of the time its directly put on either Roses or the fruit trees but the tea works well directly poured over the leaves for a easier uptake for the plants. I probably wouldn't do this right before harvesting....its really just to kick off growth, anyway its working well and plants are thriving. I have a picture here of our Bok Choy and this was planted about 5 weeks ago and is getting harvested now so it really does make for very fast growth.

Autumn 2013

Hi all, having some huge changes around the yard this year, as I found over Summer and goodness Summer went until April this year which I loved but for the garden it was a nightmare. I had 10 Veggie beds and really I could not keep up the water to any of them so lots died and then we ran out water and I found it such a time guzzler having to do all that watering particularly as this Summer I was kayaking up to 4 times a week always in the evenings - when I needed to be watering! Because I feel one problem was the beds were not raised enough (about 6 inches) I have reduced the number of veggie beds to only 3 and doubled the height of those 3 beds. As I have moved all beds up to the fruit tree area where there is tons of Winter sun I am going to use the old veggie garden area to plant a few more fruit trees, a Peach tree, Nashi and another Apricot. I have just moved my Rhubarb crowns to the old veggie area and my middle child made brick grass guards around them Summer we extended the chook pen its massive now and I will plant a Lemon tree and perhaps a Lime in the pen too. I like that Iv'e moved the new beds closer to my rabbitry area as the bunnies often get time out and its cute watching them run all over the place while I work out there. I am no longer breeding or showing and only have 5 left now so they all get time out with me in the paddock while I am working, have a picture of my gorgeous Siamese Sable on here. In Winter only draw back is the kids keep asking me to kick the footy with them while I am gardening and best to do that or risk ball to the head! Our little chick born last November that I swore was a girl, ended up being a boy and starting crowing right on 6 months and was rehomed today. Bummer so I am now waiting on 2 lovely Sussex chicks from a soup bus friend and cannot wait to meet those girls as I need regular eggs! Have been busy removing all the front yard plants on the eastern wall of our home to create my own little sensory garden and herb area and we are growing; Coriander, Flat leaf and Curly Parsley, Sage, Oregano, Sweet Basil, Lemon Thyme, Thyme, Aloe, Citronella and Lavender in there, have already been using the produce most I brought from the wonderful Talbot market. Today I have planted out the 3 veggie beds with Leeks, Red Onions (lots of them), Winter lettuce, Pak Choy, Brussel Sprouts and Broccoli. Each day I am moving a massive pile of gum leaves around the border of our place to supress the weeds have about 220 metres to cover I think I will still have left over leaves! Until next time....:)

Home Made Ice-cream!

As a Christmas present for the kids I brought a $25 ice cream maker and have been delighted with the results! In this house we try very hard to avoid additives, colours and preservatives in our food and although we don't generally eat a great deal of ice cream we do like something frozen to cool us on those 35 plus degree days. We started with Strawberry and used a punnet of Strawberries, 100 ml of cream and a 100gms of sugar as per the instructions, its all poured in together mixed for around 20-30 minutes by the machine and then frozen for around 8 hours. It was absolutely delicious although somewhat sweet! There was really only enough for a small scoup in a cone - there are 5 of us so we decided to make the next batch a little bigger. The next batch Raspberries were on special so we used a punnet of those 300 mls of cream this time and we reduced the ratio of sugar it was meant to be 300 gms however we only put 100 gms in, sadly this batch didn't turn out as well although I really liked it 2 of the kids found it too sweet to eat as some of the sugar had not been mixed in properly. Our third batch was a massive success, this time we chopped up a whole large Mango, again used 300 mls of cream and then added only 80 gms of sugar this time and it was a hit, it almost seemed to double in size, we let it mix for a lot longer and it was so tasty it lasted us all 2 nights this time so an added bonus! Vanilla icecream has been our biggest project as we needed Vanilla pods, egg yolks, cream, sugar,mill so a little more work cooking the pods but the taste the next day was delicious! Although not as healthy as our Mango ice cream!