Exciting happenings

Welcome to the New Year!

It has been so hot here over the last couple of months, and with a complete lack of decent rain, my garden is really struggling. As I stood watering the veggie garden at dusk last night and looking over our main food production area, I became so depressed and disappointed with what I saw. I'm starting to get a little ticked off watching the rain approach us on the BOM radar, seeing it on the nearby hills, smelling the beautiful rain but watching it fizzle out or miss us completely. It didn't help that we went on holidays for two and half weeks over a very hot period. Although our veggie garden was looked after, everything else was not, and I almost cried when I saw it. Due to the lack of moisture, we have lost the majority of our raspberry, olive, blueberry, and plum crops for this year, and the remaining fruit trees have either dropped a substantial amount of their fruit or their fruit are quite small. We almost lost some of the newer fruit trees we planted last year but they seem to be hanging in there now. This bleak and negative outlook is not a fantastic way to start the year so I am going to share some of the exciting things that have been happening over the last couple of months.

The first awesome piece of news is we finally harvested some of our own honey!!! 

Very, very exciting for us! We have waited a long couple of years to harvest, and watched enviously as numerous urban beekeeper friends extracted their honey and honeycomb from hives that benefited from all the flower gardens in the city. But that first taste of our own honey...Just.Awesome! All up we harvested approx 2kgs in honeycomb and approx 6kgs in honey from five frames from the one hive. We now have five hives on our place thanks to a few free swarms, so hopefully will be able to harvest more in the future.

The next exciting thing has been the commencement of our rec room near the pool. This is going to be an ongoing project for us this year as we endeavour to learn more Reno skills and do most of the work we can do ourselves, and get specialists in for the things we can't. Hubby is off to do a 'Pergola and Decking' course over the next month, so after we get the doors on he is going to commence the deck. By sending him on this course I am also hoping for him to erect a pergola over the western side of the house so I can grow some deciduous vines over it to shade the summer sun. All part of my permaculture retrofit to our place :)

And more permaculture retrofit news - I now have swales in my orchard! Very very exciting stuff! Hubby built me an A-bob thingy and off we went to mark out the swales in such a way that we missed most of the major trees.

A couple of the smaller ones will need to be moved over winter, and once it gets cooler, I have some nitrogen fixers such as tagasaste, acacias and even (fingers crossed) a couple of silk trees that I germinated from seeds from my mum. These trees, once grown, will provide shade for the swale and the soil, nutrients for the surrounding fruit trees, shade for my berries from the hot afternoon sun and hopefully dissipate the flow of frost in winter as they are evergreen. A couple of jobs still to do are mulch the swales and direct the overflow from the tank into them. I'd like to mulch with lucerne bales but most of the local bales, even rubbish stuff, is being used to feed stock. As you can see from the pics we have zero topsoil but I am working to try and improve this :)

The last bit of good news story is that I have a fence around my veggie garden to keep the chooks out. I love my girls dearly but jeez they make a mess.  They learned to 'bounce' on the netting I had over the gardens to make it go saggy then they could eat my veggies. I added a bird bath and small flower garden in the middle of the yard to encourage good insects into the garden. We have also found that the local bird population as well as our bees have been relying on this and the pond in the orchard for fresh water in this dry hot weather.

Next blog I hope to share some of the harvest pics and preserving I have been doing lately.

Stay cool and lets hope we get some rain soon!

A time of firsts

First plum blossoms

 

The first day of spring came around and what a morning it was! Very close to -8C, the coldest morning we have had since moving out here - and the water tank pipes froze! So that meant no water for us. Our youngest daughter came running into our bedroom and flung the curtains back to excitedly exclaim 'SNOW!' at the top of her lungs.  Must admit it looked very close to snow. Hubby braved the cold (OK I pushed him out!) to go over to our other tank to fill up the kettle for a cuppa and he reported back that there were actual icicles coming out of the hose!

 

Lucky for us we had the fire going and the house was warm and toasty. After so much hassle getting this thing in and approved we were very grateful for the warmth. I fall asleep most nights in front of the fire.

 

 

We recently built our first wood shed with very kindly donated tin from our next door neighbour. This also meant that I got my greenhouse back when all the wood could be moved in.

 

 

And here is our veggie garden as of this beautiful bright sunshiny day. We recently harvested our first lot of winter veggies from the garden. It has been so cold this winter that nothing really grew much. The broccoli and shallots are from the garden and the potatoes and carrots are from the greenhouse.

 

 

In anticipation of spring, and also reviving the garden, I have been planting out some seedlings in the greenhouse.

 

 

These are my herbs - Chamomile, Thyme, Mint, Marjoram and Basil. As the Basil was closest to the wall, it actually got hit by the -8C frost we had. It didn't completely die and has started to reshoot green tips so all the work wasn't lost.

 

 

These are my pumpkin, rockmelon, watermelon and loofah seedlings, although the loofah seeds haven't come up yet.

 

 

Here are my tomato seedlings. This year I am growing Roma, Grosse Lisse, Mortgage Lifter, Money Maker, and Sweetie. *May* have gone a little bit overboard :)

 

 

In anticipation of the dream of one day getting sheep, we planted some trees at the front of the house so they will provide some shade for them when the trees get bigger. We planted three manchurian pears (I have always wanted some of these trees and finally got my wish). Although they are not edible, they still have purpose - shade for both the sheep and the front rooms of the house in summer, screening the neighbours across the road, beautiful colour in autumn as well as leaves for mulch and composting in the autumn. After much discussion, we have also planted our new little fig tree out the front as well. Hopefully for shade for the sheep and front rooms of the house and fruit as well.

 

 

And finally.....TA DA! My first loaf of bread - raisin bread! tastes yummy too!

 

Time to cross another off my New Years Resolutions:

Make bread from scratch, even if just once.  DONE!

 

 

Other firsts in the household - my youngest daughter turned the big 6, my twin bubbys turned 3 and also started preschool (big boys now *sniff*). We opened our bees for the first time since ANZAC Day and - phew! - they are still alive! I am about to embark on a permaculture design certificate in a couple of weekends time and I have almost completed my first semester back at uni and survived to tell the tale! Well - that is at the end of October and a lot can happen between now and then!

Frog Pond Stage 1

To quote Dale Kerrigan from the Australian cult movie classic 'The Castle':

"I dug a hole"

Yes, folks that's what we did today. We dug a hole. A hole for our new pond to hopefully entice the frogs out of the swimming pool and not to their untimely death. We are also hoping this little pond will encourage more beneficial insects to our little patch of dirt. And more birds and bees. Preferably those that like aphids and the Cherry/Pear slug.

We chose a site up in our orchard near some existing rocks. I am hoping to incorporate these rocks as well as the ones we picked up on Freecycle to create a little rockery and pond combo.



The chooky girls love a good digging 'cause they get a bellyful of worms.

Gotta love child labour :)

And this is where we got to this afternoon. Next on the agenda is rock placement, overlaps and design. We hope to have some fish living in here as well so will need to make sure they have some hidey holes to dive into. I already have a few water plants sitting in a bucket ready to go.  I hope this little project works!

What has been going on in our little world

So much has been happening, so much is being planned, so much has been about daydreaming and plans for the future, so much swirling around in my head. Rather than blog each individually I am going to do a summary of what has been going on in our world.

What has been started...

Our fireplace!! Woo hoo!! Although the near freezing daytime temperatures here at the moment would lean perfectly toward a red in front of a blazing fire...I shall have to wait a little longer...but maybe only about a week!

Here is the base!

Hubby has started home brewing and has done two batches so far - a pale ale and a Kilkenny-style beer. The bottling of the first batch started off horribly (faulty tap, beer all over the floor and walls, and free ranging chickens INSIDE the house with crazy screaming kids while we are trying to clean it all up!). We are bottling the second batch tonight - chicken and child free - fingers crossed. 

As  Miss 5yo is off to school next year and the twins will be starting preschool, I have decided to head back to study with the aim of maybe becoming a teacher. Ultimately I would like to work with teaching kids how to grow and cook their own food, and maybe even work with the Stephanie Alexander program in the future. Definitely a work in progress with even a permaculture design course or horticulture course thrown in as well. Hmmm...'cause the prospect of free time with the kids at school just seemed downright quiet and boring!

My first attempt at making 'weed tea' fertiliser. Its very smelly so I am not sure I am doing it right. Need to put some fresh weeds in again and do more research on what it is supposed to look like. Have ambitions to spray this across our block to hopefully aid in soil conditioning. I can only try. 

What I have been collecting...

Free Poo! I finally got around to placing a 'Wanted: Free Poo' sign up at the local Murrumbateman noticeboard in the hope that some nice farmer would allow us to come and collect some free sheep/cow poo for our compost and veggie gardens. Someone rang! So last weekend we went around and collected some free alpaca poo and have placed it in the compost to break down.

What is being planned...

Sheep! Although my Dad has warned me away from them as they can be too much work, we are definitely in the process of turning our front area into Paddock 1, and in time when the fruit trees grow a little more, creating Paddock 2 up the back. My plan is to rotate the sheep through the two paddocks as lawn mowers but also to fertilise and condition the soil. They are not going to be named. Which means, yes, our plan is to kill them for meat. A lot of our friends are betting that we can't do it. I think we can. At this stage I would like to try and prepare the soil better (maybe through some liquid weed/compost tea fertiliser), plus plant some shade trees, and obviously build some fences. I have also been mulling over ideas for a movable sheep shelter (similar to a chook tractor concept) to move to whichever paddock the sheep are in. Nothing concrete yet.

I want some with black faces!

A cellar (or root cellar or larder). We have been considering building a 'pool house' (certainly NOT a second dwelling and hence double the rates, Mr Local Council Inspectors), which potentially a cellar underneath to store beer, wine and produce in more climate controlled conditions. We recently received a quote back from a builder - ridiculously expensive - so the planning and alternatives are shelved still being explored.

Collecting fallen leaves to attempt to make some leaf mould. I have been watching the trees at the recreation grounds and their leaves are starting to turn so it won't be long before the kiddies and I are out with the rakes.

What I have been attending...

I attended the monthly Urban Homesteader's Club last weekend, which was a Soup Swap. I love going to these meetings and speaking with like minded, passionate people. I always come away with so many ideas and suggestions and knowledge swirling around in my head. My latest ploy is to send hubby fishing for some carp to plant under my fruit trees.

What I have been reading...

'Folks, this Ain't Normal' by Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm. Been having a lot of 'Yes!' moments and thinking more about applying some principles to our little piece of dirt. About to read 'The Guernsey and Literary Potato Peel Pie Society' by Mary Anne Shaffer for Book Club.

Hubby has been reading about the health benefits and medicinal applications of honey. I hope the kids and I don't cut or graze ourselves too bad in the near future as I think we are definitely going to be lathered in honey!

What I am cooking...

I have sort of got back on my little 'chemicals are bad' bandwagon and I have been trying to cook more things from scratch. A little while ago I blogged about the frozen pastry I used to buy for my quiche and a nice reader called Jess suggested that I try Maggie Beer's sour cream pastry recipe. Well I have and it is really bloody easy!! I switched the white flour for wholemeal flour (kids can't tell the difference hee hee!). I have made it a few times now and I won't be going back to store bought pastry.

I have also been making the Taco Seasoning Recipe from Picklebum's 'Cooking from Scratch' series. Apart from a little heavy handedness with the chilli powder the first time, again really easy, and the kids have adjusted just fine. I have also started to use our own homemade tomato sauce with a few modifications for the taco sauce. Again no complaint from the kiddies.

Although I have yet to make a proper loaf of bread (I have all the ingredients and the loaf pan but just haven't done it), I have been making bread rolls for burgers and accompliments to soups. Miss 7yo actually prefers my rolls (yay! Big internal fist pump!).

After reading 'Sweet Poison' by David Gillespie, I have endeavoured to cut out white flour and as much sugar from our diets as possible. I have been cooking with wholemeal flour and honey and the kids are still happy. Actually they can't even tell the difference. Now I know that honey is a liquid form of sugar, but it is lower in fructose than normal sugar and hopefully we will have an abundance of it that I can use for free!

What I am daydreaming about....

Free ranging pigs on our block. And ducks on a pond that I don't have. Growing an experimental patch of wheat. Where I can fit a big potato patch to grow enough to last us through winter next year. Our first lot of honey from our bees. When it will be warm enough to go for a swim again.  

How cute do they look!

Projects and Plantings

School holidays are over and we are into Term 2 - and May! - already! The weather is getting decidedly colder here, and Mother Nature kicked it up a notch just around ANZAC Day. We held out until the night before ANZAC Day for the heater (the 'rule' around these parts is the heater doesn't come on until ANZAC Day) but we were pretty close! On the heater issue, I blogged previously about wanting a wood heater - well council approval is in, heater has been ordered and picked up and due to be installed in a couple of weeks! I am so excited at the prospect of sitting in front of the fire on a cold winter day and curling up with a book - I'll keep you all updated.

During the school holidays, Hubby and I decided to tackle a job that's been on our 'To do' list since we moved in - build a fence between the house and shed to block off the kids play area so the little kidlets won't run out into the driveway and garage. Handy hubby did all the work himself and I was the go-fer and sometime painter. We are very impressed with how it turned out :)

Who's that good looking hunk of a spunk :)

OK, only half finished the second coat of paint here but looks good!

Quick paving job

Look at my passionfruit vines! We built a trellis for them as part of the new fence. We have had one frost already this season - so far so good!

Here is the current state of my veggie garden. It looks even more bleak today as its raining. Starting in the bed closet and going clockwise we have one bed of garlic; red onions, celery and some lettuce, pak choi and parsnip seeds that haven't come up yet; a bed full of peas with a row of snow peas and broad beans; last bed in this row is brown onions and shallots filling in some gaps; next bed is empty at this stage as we just moved the chook pen onto the next bed; some old leeks that have started resprouting; and in the final bed is shallots, cabbage, broccoli, Wong bok and cauliflower.

I have plated some more veggies in the greenhouse. Now we have some mignonette and cos lettuce, rocket, some silver beet seedlings that haven't come up, carrots (in the long terracotta pots at the front, bit of an experiment), tomatoes in the round pots at the back, some strawberry off cuts growing for the kids school fete in a couple of weeks and some oregano, parsley and zucchini seeds which have yet to come up. I am also attempting to grow ginger for the first time (completely wrong season I know but thought I would give it a go) and I also have some potatoes in bags which are behind me in this picture.

So if all goes well this winter, we should have a good veggie haul to get us through :)

As I write, the rain is bucketing down on our tin roof - love it! - good for the veggies and water tank!

Hubby's Summer Project

One of the projects we wanted to achieve over the summer holiday period was to finally fit out the laundry so it had some functionality and a bit of purpose. Previously we had the washing machine with the dryer sitting on top and a flat pack cupboard we put together when we first moved in to store random stuff.

But look at it now!

Our laundry is only small (1.65m x 2.7m), so by putting the bench in, it has created much more space, and also an area to do some jobs (apparently it will be transformed from an area that handles simple dirty clothes to honey processing plant extraordinaire in spring/summer!).  Hubby also built the under cupboard bench, drilled some fancy little holes to pull the power cables through, attached the dryer to the wall and finally put up our retractable inside clothes airer. The airer is awesome! I never thought I would get so excited to actually do washing that I can hang on there but I do!

Lately I have caught myself deliberately leaving the door open, just so I can walk past and go 'ahhhhh' (similar to that guy on the colorbond roof ad where he just stops and stares at his roof with serenading music in the background!).

Welcome to the New Year!

Wow! I just realised how long it has been since I last blogged! Man time goes fast over the silly season.

We have been busy, busy, busy prepping for Christmas and end of school year, heading off on our annual holiday to the beach (which most of the time ended up being in jumpers with the rain pouring down), the over eating that is Christmas Day with relatives, and finally back home to start on the massive list of 'to-do jobs' that needed to be completed/started around the place. And now, it is the downward stretch to when school goes back...time is seriously flying already!

But during my time off/away from blog land, I have been doing some cooking and creative/building stuff that we are pretty proud of.

This year I decided to make the Teacher's Christmas presents so they all got some Rocky Road from the kids - I think it is a bit nicer to have something made than something bought from the shops.

I also made the kids Christmas presents from us this year - notice boards (as they have been bugging me to hang things on the walls) and personalised boxes to store their precious 'stuff'. These are the notice boards I did for the boys, the girls got a yellow and purple one.

Previously I was a bit unsure what to do with the beetroot I had grown, so with this years crop I decided to make Roasted Beetroot Dip (recipe from Nov/Dec 2011 Organic Gardener magazine). Turned out pretty good with some crackers!

On our 'to do' list, was to create another shelf in the pantry to *hopefully* store all the jams and sauces I was going to make with all the lovely produce from our garden. Ahem, yes well.......at the least the shelf has been built in anticipation! Adds SO much more room in the pantry - its great! (It was just the top shelf in this pic)

We are also finally getting around to fitting out the laundry into a more functional space...will include some photos soon.

So, being a new year and all, I guess I should have some goals to achieve this year. Only small ones so I actually have some hope of actually achieving them!

•  I think the main one for us is to SAVE this year  - save money from cutting down on our trips to Bunnings/nurseries and the like (hubby, yes this applies to you too!), save money by stretching our grocery trips out to at least once a fortnight, hopefully more (currently up to about a week and a half), and save on buying food by trying to grow more at home especially since I will have my greenhouse up and running from the beginning of the cool season this year.
• Make bread from scratch, even if just once.
• Run in at least one 10km event  - looking at either Mothers Day Classic (May) or try again for Canberra Fun Run (September). Anyone up for it? :-)
• Start writing!

But I guess the more pressing issue is to tackle my veggie patch and actually find the veggies amongst the weeds!

MM xox

Parties and 'To-do' lists

Phew! What a weekend!

First, my eldest daughter turned 7! (that went by crazily fast! Hubby pointed out she is almost halfway to getting her licence! Crap!). We had a Star Wars party and thankfully the rain held off (we had 3 inches in the previous 48hrs leading up to the party). I always like to make the kids' birthday cakes and although this one was a compromise (she wanted a light sabre but I just wasn't creative enough for that one) I think it still turned out OK. My hands are still stained black from the icing though.

So with the party out of the way and a couple of hours of sunshine we were able to mow the forest of weeds that we affectionately call 'the lawn' and didn't get the mower bogged in the process - double yay!

Sunday, after a leisurely breakfast of fresh homegrown scrambled eggs (yum!), we were out to cross some jobs off our 'to-do' list. First was to net the fruit trees as the birds had already gobbled up all the cherries  (grrrrrr). We we were too slow getting around to those ones. So netted at the moment are the three apple trees, plum, nectarine and almond. HOPEFULLY we will win against the birds this year :)

Next I finally planted out the beans I have been meaning to do for weeks, and am trying to grow red kidney beans for the first time.  I also planted the tomatillo plant that a friend gave me, along with a great salsa recipe for the fruit. It looks much happier now it is in the ground and out of the greenhouse.

Next we finally strung up the onion and garlic harvest that had previously been sitting on the shed floor. The onions were substantially heavier than what we thought, so hubby came up with this idea to use the trailer frame to hang them off. Works pretty good I think! Just as long we don't need the trailer frame in the next little while I guess!

Then we made some more paper bricks but I'll do a more detailed blog about that later.

Kids were still happy playing outside at this stage so we thought we would finally start planting out our mountain of dirt left over from the pool excavations. I picked up some native tube stock a while ago for a couple of dollars each but they have been sitting in the bottom of the greenhouse waiting to be planted. Poor plants must feel neglected in there! Anyhoo still have a long way to go - like some edging and mulch would be good!- but its a start. We planted grevilleas, bottlebrushes, banksias and some westringias that I had left over from the hedge around the pool.

I know I blogged previously that we were going to plant the pumpkins on the hill this year but I didn't feel that the soil had been prepared right so we decided to plant then on the front bank and let them grow down towards the tank. This year I have planted QLD Blue, Kent, Butternut and a vegetable spaghetti. I planted the watermelon and rockmelon seedlings here as well but they are sort of behind me in this pic.

(OK pic is not the best, and we need to mulch here again too, but you can just make out the bamboo stakes!)

After that we had a BBQ dinner with salad from the garden - and the kidlets got to have the first cherry tomatoes of the season.

Hubby and I were both exhausted but happy we were able to cross some things off our very long 'to-do' list.

Upskilling the Husband

When we first moved out here, my dear hubby was very keen to get his hands dirty and do some jobs around the place.

First on that list, was to create his dream man cave with every power tool and gadget known to man. As cautious as I was about this, I did encourage him by purchasing a very cool drop saw for Fathers Day for him, with the proviso that he only use it when I was close at hand with the First Aid kit and tourniquet in easy grasp and the phone at the ready to call 000.

I must say he surprised me and built with the help of his Dad, a very sturdy workbench, that I am absolutely sure would survive the wildest of storms or the strongest of earthquakes. And given its thickness, probably most severe bushfires as well.

Next on his list was building our raised veggie garden beds and extending the small chook cage we bought off eBay to fit over the gardens (although not shown in the pic below). Job well done I think. We have since expanded this to add another two big garden beds, and also gravelled the whole area after Mr Whopping Big Brown Snake visited last year!

Before

After

He then got busy and built the kids their play area, complete with sandpit, cubby with attached garage, fort, flagpole and climbing wall! I never had this as a kid! Again, mighty impressed with his carpentry skills in creating this one.



Recently we have put together a greenhouse, a present for my birthday this year. I helped, with my expert ability to become 'one' with the end frame of the house and blow in the wind. I, being the expert assistant that I am, added no end of helpful suggestions as to how to assemble the thing off the 'Can you believe these instructions are briefer than Ikea's!?!' instruction manual. Needless to say, he saved the day again, made the whole thing come together and also added guttering and a rainwater tank! By this stage, I am getting majorly impressed with his expanding repertoire of handyman skills, that I was struggling to keep the ball rolling with jobs to keep him occupied.

And he made my really cool potting bench in here too...

After receiving quotes for paving and fencing our new pool, it was time to start upskilling the husband again. No way was I going to pay those exorbitant prices, he would just have to learn how to do it instead! After a couple of YouTube videos under his belt, and some skim reading of a 'How-to' manual, he proclaimed that he was unable to achieve these tasks. Too hard. Can't do it. We'll get someone in to do. Nonsense, I thought. So after a little more coaxing, emphasizing the benefits, the self satisfaction, the perfection with which he attends to his work, yadda yadda yadda...he agreed to give it a go. Silly me, forgot to realise with all this talk of doing it ourselves, that I would be the labourer! I am in a love-hate relationship with the wheelbarrow and shovel after digging and dumping countless barrow-full loads of dirt, road base, and sand to prepare the area. I now have 'man-muscles', ie I actually have definition in my little Muppet arms! But after numerous weekends and help from our wonderful family and friends, we are almost finished, and I think the results (and bank balance!) definitely speak for themselves.

So here is to my wonderfully upskilled husband! Now it is time to just chill for a while :)