Berry time :)

I love berries and am happy to pay for them when in season although its wonderful to grow your own! Once again this year I have been picking berries Black this time as unfortunately there is a creature taking my Strawberries, it is unfortunately as my son planted them and was looking forward to them! So this weekend in between working as I have had a flood of clients all wanting Massage this week my middle son and myself got busy picking Blackberries and later in the evening I got busy making a creating with those and some brought berries :)

From the garden to table

Very excited to see some vegies finally growing in the garden beds. We have Zucchini, Sweet Corn, Tomatoes, Onions all harvested but we are still using them, some Lettuce, and Potato's which didn't do too well although I have been able to harvest some for a soup I made. Recently we didn't get too much time to get down to the shops, we run 5 plus businesses from this house Kens 3 my 2 plus Jordan's new venture will I will blog about in the future, so sometimes things get very, very hectic around here.

I have some pictures of a meal we made on the day to prevent a last minute dash to the shops and it was delicious - please enjoy the pictures.The Slap up soup recipe is as follows;Handful of Zucchini.Few Potato's.Few onions.Some water to cover.1 litre of stockCook altogether and then mulch up with a stick blender - enjoy

Resolutions 2012

I have just been reading over last years resolutions and am quiet amazed at how many I didn't achieve and how much they have changed for this year! The things I did not do were complete 3 fun runs - in fact I didn't complete any! I possibly became more unfit although I did lose 6 kgs I rapidly gained 4 back around Xmas 2011. I didn't go on many day dates with Ken although we did get quiet a good walking routine up through Winter - they always ended with a coffee though so not so sure how much they helped with weight loss! Going on the kayak more - I didn't seem to achieve this much either but we have been on an average weekly paddle over the school holidays. I did manage to get back to Fernwood regularly, but now I am now using my gym quipment at home and finding it's too busy with massage work and kisd schedules to be going an extra 3 times a week doing weights. So thought I would continue there but concentrte on Zumba, Bike class for when i am not riding in Winter and maybe some Yoga there and also re-start my Yoga at Absolute once DLS end as its too hard doing mcuh in teh evenings when Rylans medicatio wears off. No Ken didn't get the snip either not my fault though he won't go and see the specialist so there's another resolution down the drain! 2011 was am amazingly hard year. I think I grieved for about a year for the last little baby we lost in November 2010. Rylan was diagnosed and susequently was put on medication which was the answer to our prayers but the meds do wear off and life is still difficult at times. I am looking forward to 2012 and some special moments! After all the best moments are the ones we are in RIGHT NOW! :)

Onion Harvest & the Bath Pond

Today I harvested 2 beds of Onions and was pretty impressed with the yield. Counted over 100 Onions! Think we will be having onion soup for the next few weeks! I can't possibly store that many Onions so I just tie in bundles and hang up around the veggie garden, doesn't matter if they get wet as they soon dry again and don't seem to go off.

Also thought I would show you another picture of my next bath of dog poo compost, it's going great looks nothing like it's former self but a rich compost with billions of worms coursing through it. I am still not game to go directly on the veggie bed although I desperately need something to add to the old now weeded Onion beds I will transfer it to another compost to break down over another 6 months.

We have been renovating our bathroom and have a super deep cast iron bath not the claw foot type but just as heavy, I would estimate the weight of it at 150 kgs as we had to move it about 20 metres up 3 steps to the position I wanted it in the garden. We had tried to sell but no luck and I decided I would rather give it a second life as a pond. It took 1 hour to move it 20 metres with the entire family helping. We then brought some river stones, washed and filled, I found a guy that sold water plants and managed to score 5 plants in 6-10 inch pots. Today I brought the fish and water conditioner so all up the project cost me about $70. Possibly going to cost me time in massaging Kens back for the next 6 months also! I am really happy with it, I will be popping some pots and strappy plants in front of it, can't directly put plants in the ground because there is a brick path under the bath.

Open Garden - Ercildoune

We also went to another open garden today called "Ercildoune" this is a massive property intially 73,000 acres, then sold in 1872 and sold off and I believe it is now about 28,000 acres, the gardens seem to be about 10-20 acres? There is a large walled garden on 1 acre, and many old and dilapidated houses on the property that the owners are doing up. But the gardens are stunning and the owners that have owned the land now for around the past 12 years have done a fantastic job in restoring this garden to it's former glory, it has also a hydro electric station on the property - no longer in use. I have included the link explaining way more than I can of this magnificant property and taken some pictures of out day and the gorgeous garden, we ended up taking a picnic lunch and they had people selling tea and coffee which we took advantage of too. I found the brickwork to be intricate and believe they had a kiln on the property and the initial house was built by the sons at the time in their teens!!! They also had at one stage their own hydro-electric plant on of only a few private ones in the Country and it did actually work although is no longer working to this day. http://www.ercildoune.com.au/ Enjoy the pictures, this place is simply amazing and I hope sometime you get too visit the lovely gardens too!

Open Garden No 1 - Ripon Cottages

Today we decided to take a much needed garden break and visited a couple of open gardens. The first was a 2 block Bed & breakfast place in Ripon Street, Ballarat called Ripon Cottages and the second I will need to do another post for it was massive and we spent the entire afternoon there after packing lunch and afternoon tea! Anyway this place had some lovely idea's on re using containers for the garden I would never think of such as an old pair of boots and a suitcase with the centre cut out with plants inserted some lovely wrought iron pieces and they were selling Water Irises for $2 per plant so after trying to sell our very good condition bath and not getting any nibbles I have decided to turn the bath into a pond and buy up on the Water Irises but a pump and make a decent water feature from it. Stay tuned for pictures of that conversion over the next few months!

Here are some pictures from the first open garden, they also had some chooks and ducks and looked to be running them on a section where they are going to possibly put a veggie garden? Had a chat to the owner too who was very garden savvy and funnily enough I knew many of the people wandering around the garden from gym - not really such a coincidence as I did pick the flyer up from Fernwood! The monies raised all went to a Relay for life - Children's Cancer cause so your always left feeling good you've not only gotten to look at a lovely garden but also helped with a great cause.

Here is a link to the cottages; http://www.ballarat.com/riponcottages/index.htm

Putting snails to use!

Hello all and hope you had some time in the garden! As you might recall I have been growing some Sunflowers from seed, I had hoped I would get enough to share with friends however after planting the first lot out the front I see the snails have been busy and pretty much eaten 3/4's of the leaves and completely ruined many of them. I decided it was war and have been out at all hours collecting snails popping them in a pot and after wondering what the heck I was going to do with them and getting rather a large collection I decided maybe just maybe the chooks would like them.

They went mad for them the first day but I did notice they coped ok with the small baby ones but the large mumma's not so good so I am now having a snail crushing session each day I do this in the chicken pen it's totally against my animal ethos to be crushing something live but I figure it's recycling and that has to be good! It's also somewhat remedial to the mind almost therapeutic in fact to crush a few snails daily......
Something I was excited about whilst looking for the snails was a little frog hiding under a plant I took a picture of him in in situ and on the letter box see if you can spot him in the ground pic he's quiet well hidden.

Ok back on track the Zucchini is SO ready to be planted it's huge but the moon has just moved into the gardening phase of resting so I cannot plant for about another week - I like to use the moon gardening cycle planting guide so will just wait it will be enormous by then.

We have many, many Broccoli florets and oh boy will I need to think of some uses for cooking it! Maybe LOADS of stir frys! Soup?? Not sure but the crop is bountiful this year!

Have about another 3 weeks and then I would like to plant the corn I have grown from seed and looks like I should have a good 20 plants to grow this year, it's sprouting and looking very healthy.

I have tons of Lemon Balm too growing all over the place (Melissa) this herb is traditionally used for stress - oh how appropriate right now! You make a tea from it so I have certainly been using that a lot of late! Very calming at night and way better than my normal choice of coffee.