Daylesford - First visit.

In the past week, I have been to Daylesford twice, I live about 25 minutes from there and for those that are not aware Daylesford is full of mineral springs and surrounded by forest and is the spa capital of Victoria really with lots of massage therapists and alternate shops and great cafes.

Last Sunday I went to the market there and took my eldest and youngest child and also stopped in at a beautiful open garden there called Wombat Hill.

I brought this gorgeous embroidered hanging that has been made in Nepal.

A felt handbag I just love!

This is the house of the lovely open gardens we went too.  One person lives here!

I love the Ivy on the house, the colours were magnificent.

Are they not amazing?

I like this idea.

Love Autumn colour!

Fluffy seed pods.

Perhaps an old grand aviary?

Best part I didn't have to drive, my eldest son has his learners so I could sit back and relax, in that tense way you do while being the teacher driver. 😉

Changes.

I was chatting to an acquaintance this weekend about our old neighbourhood and I made the mistake of googling my old address. I was suprised to see the house was gone.  This is what is used to look like although much more overgrown than when my parents owned it.

It's not on a corner but it seems the picture has been taken with a panoramic lense.

Now it looks like this;

It's very sad.  I need some time to process it all, so many beautiful trees and heritage plants.  50 year old Roses all gone.

This week a bobcat arrived at the block next door to us.  No permit been applied for as yet but it only a matter of time.  This is now my view from my veggie garden.

Pretty awful really, I am taking solace in working a lot in my garden while it's quiet over this weekend.  Lots of pruning, weeding, raking and tidying so at least my own place looks nice.  The development next door has the potential to ruin my business. 

I collected 6 bags of fallen leaves  to spead around my veggie beds and suppress the weeds.  I shall collect another 12 bags this week to put under the fruit trees.

Also baked a pretty awesome Apple crumble with apples I collected from the Dentist's overflowing Apple tree.  It was delicious!

Autumn in my garden

I am loving the Autumn weather and my favourite day is when the clocks turn back and I get 1 hour extra to potter.   I have been doing lots of bike riding with my eldest son over the school holidays and focusing in increasing my yoga practise my son has taken up bike racing, so needs a lot of training. Enjoying getting out and about on the cold mornings enjoying the colour changes on the trees while on the bike, saving lots of fuel too!

I have planted my Winter garden all but for the red onions which shall in when the Zucchini is completely finished which shall be soon.  In the beds pictured I have;

English Spinich

Broccolini

Lettuce

Kale

Silverbeet

Rocket

Broad Beans (even though I really dislike them)

Celery

Mustard.

Yesterday I went to a market and brought this;

Can you guess what it is?

I had previously been to the open garden show and brought these;

I planted the Dutch Irises in the garden and the Tulips in here;

Something exciting to look out for in Spring!

I treated myself to this beautiful Orchid Friday. Feel special to own this!

Next on the agenda is the grass as you can it needs a lot of work, there's none there!  Brahma is being my grass model. He is very concerned we have no grass but then perhaps if he stopped burying his bones in there...!!

Summer Garden Flower Pictures

I have taken many pictures of the lovely flowers I have managed to grow over Summer but keep forgetting to post them so here goes;

Projects and Plants

Finally I have finished my project I saw on Pintrest.  It said it would take 45 minutes and I did cut in half to make 2 and even with that modification i think it actually took about 4 hours.  I had to wait for paint to dry and I'm fairly busy so it took a good month for me.

I had spare pallets lying around so I did think why not?

Got the tiles on top from Bunnings they were only about $3.50 and the paint we had also stored from another project.

Hubby thinks they look like pallets with tiles on top....I love them!!

I may have posted about this, I'm tired from my new hobby, bushwalking!  I brought the plants from Freshwater Creek Cottages plant sale.  The birdbath was leaking so I figured perfect planter.

This is flowering and positioned right where I can see it as I drive in.  

Monty and the smallest child.

Summer Jam & Produce

This is my second year of making jam and we had a bumper crop of Apricots and plums, I made a really yummy apricot jam with these. Not enough though as we ate so many of the tree.

Overall I collected about 3 baskets this size of plums.

I made about 4 kilos of jam and the first batch was small and came out well.

The second batch a disaster I made too much at once and I ran out of jars so I had to go to shops reboil jam and sterilise new jars and then add jamsetta more lemon and sugar and hope for the best and it was great really firm now.

The aroma of jam is so nice!  I added Apple to it as well for added pectin.

They are very large jars so there is quiet a lot there. It's delicious now too.

I harvested about 3 times this picture of red onions and have them all over the place on drying racks.

I always have a helper in my garden....

These were so tasty of course we made kilos of jam but ate kilos too!

I am loving the Kale smoothies each day.

It's that time of year when I get thousands of Zucchini's.

The cooler weather has the chooks laying again too.

This week my lovely friend Heidi brought me a gift and it was so unexpected! I am just delighted, it made me want to get straight out into the garden so I could write something in it!