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.