Back to Update 4 and new chickies!

Its been a while since I last put a post up, the weeks have really been flying by and I didn't realise it's almost a month since the last post! Slack me.

We have been busy in this time and alot has been going on, nothing too exciting but busy, busy, busy!
These are 2 of our 4 new young chooks, we had to cull a couple of our old girls who got really sick, so it was time to bring some new life into the chook house, hopefully these little cuties will boost our egg production in Spring when they get a bit older.
The chookie above is a very inquisitive girl who was intrigued with the camera and I thought it was funny how 'in my face' she was. ( Shame she is not in focus - sorry)
The kids are really happy with our new arrivals and they seem to have all settled in ok, not much harassment from the old girls.

Back to basics update 4

Harvesting
Tomatoes
Chinese greens
Beans
Carrots
Lettuce


Sowing
Broccoli -4 different types
Cauliflower
Red Cabbage
Kale - 2 types
Pak Choy
Savoy Cabbage
Silverbeet
Lettuce - Cos
Lettuce - Australian Yellow Leaf
Kohl Rabi - Green and Purple
Sweetpeas
Snowpeas
Stocks
Calendulas
Broadbeans
Spring onions
Onions - Barletta


Maintenance
Cleaned out hot house (in photo below) ready for big sowing session (see above)
Removed golden robinia from front garden in preparation for new edible borders
Had black wattle that was taking all the moisture from vegie patch taken out , this area is now much lighter and hopefully things will grow alot better without the competition from the tree.
Also planted 200 garlic corms saved from last year's harvest (saved the biggest fattest corms for replanting) after preparing a bed with compost and horse poo and dolomite.




Planning for future
Some friends and I are starting a "buying group" for our fruit and vege, buying in bulk from our local green grocer and dividing the produce between us. Hopefully will save some money and also get really fresh top quality produce to supplement the harvest from my garden and the Community garden.
Have been reassessing our financial situation, looking for ways to economize so we have some money left at the end of the year for a holiday.

Working for future
Have been trying to complete lots of little things around the house and garden eg. tidy up around 'derelict' areas of backyard, keep Kikuyu under control around vegie patches(an on going job!)
Have knitted a doll for my nieces 4 birthday, and actually finished it 6 weeks in advance, a rare achievement with me! ( see photo, I have also made a little jacket to go with it since the photo was taken) I hope she likes it. I am trying to make more of the gifts I give people this year, so this is a start.




Building Community
Worked in Community Garden.
Had group of girlfriends and their kids over for catch up on school holidays. Good fun for all.

New skills.
Learnt more advanced knitting techniques
Made hot cross buns from scratch (see photo - they were very yummy )
Made homemade marshmallows - Kids loved them.









What else has been happening?
It has been school holidays here for the past 2 weeks , so I have been doing things with the boys and seeing alot of their cousins and friends. It has been a nice quiet holiday , Gary was home for the Easter break so it was good to just hang out and work around the house.


I just picked these vegies for our dinner tonight , we are having a nice chicken stir fry with all these Chinese greens and tatsoi, beans, broccoli and snowpeas. I will use the tomatoes to make a batch of tomato sauce, as I have another basket full of ripe ones waiting to be cooked.
They look delicious don't they? I love seeing the garden bounty like this!



Cheers everyone!

Back to Basics update 3 and garden stuff.

These are some of the great pumpkins we have grown at the Crib Point Community Garden, these ones are Australian Butter pumpkins and are really big and heavy, I hope they taste as good as they look!



There seems to be alot longer than one week between my updates, so it might look like I have been busy, but I will try and put in everything I can remember since the last update.

Back to Basics Update 3

Harvest (Mostly from the community garden)
Beans
Zucchini
Tomatoes
Cucumbers
Silverbeet
Last of sweetcorn

Sowing
Lots of Autumn things (see older posts)

Maintenence
Fed lime tree.
Worked on garden bed outside our back door, pulled out dead things, weeded and dug it over to aerate it a bit, added chicken and horse poo and mulched with lucerne.
Trying to keep on top of the cabbage moths, killing quite a few with the squash racquet.

Planting
Lots of snowpeas, kales, broccoli, lettuce, spinach, and silverbeet seedlings, also celery seedlings.


Observations
Lime tree has really perked up with lots of flowers and tiny fruit setting. Lets hope all the extra poo and water it has received will give us a good crop of limes for the first time in 5 years.

Rain on the weekend has half filled the tank, so we can start watering in earnest again. The roof area provided by the new extension has really increased our catchment area, it won't take a lot of rain to fill up the tank now, which is great. Time for another tank!

Dahlias that I thought had died in the heat wave, have all reshooted and are looking really healthy! I don't think they will flower now though, it might be too late in the season.

Lucerne is a wonder mulch, everything that I have mulched with it has taken off fantastically!

Planning for the future
I have decided that the front yard needs to become the next area for an "edible overhaul"
It is looking very tired and drab so I am going to create some beautiful edible borders and fill it with food and herb plants.
A few crafty friends and I have decided to work towards an 'open house' Christmas sale in November to earn some extra cash at an expensive time of year, so I am dusting off the sewing machine and getting out the knitting needles to make some cute things to sell.

Working for the future
Sowed new seed for market stalls.
Had new antenna put on roof for new room.
Finished painting new room.
Organised new carpet to complete house renovations. (Yay!!!!)

Community
Created a weekly craft group with some friends to meet and complete half finished projects.
Worked at community garden working bee.
Had a stall at the Seaford Farmers Market with my seedlings (Living Larder Productive Plants) and 'networked' (had a chat) with Regina from the Frankston Community Garden.
Volunteered at school in the garden and kitchen for the Kitchen Garden Program they run.




What else has been going on.

I spent the morning yesterday and today planting out my patch at the Community garden, it took me 2 days because I took the boys with me yesterday and they find the garden interesting for a very small amount of time , so we came home with half the job done. I went on my own today and it was much more peaceful. I have taken a few photos of the garden to show you what's been happening down there recently.



This is a view of the main garden areas with the 10 communal beds to the rear and a few of the individual beds in the foreground. The tomatoes are just on the way out and there are a few beds with root crops on the right hand side.


This is looking from the main vegie area to our little orchard, it's a bit hard to see, but there are about 15 different fruit trees and a large raspberry row, we are also slowly building up freeform vegie areas around the outside of this area. In the foreground are pumpkins and zucchinis.




This is my individual plot at the Community Garden, just planted with sugar peas, snowpeas, broccoli, cauliflower,kale and some lettuces. My space finishes just behind the pea teepee. The broccoli at the back of my bed belongs to my neighbour Troy.
I love being involved in the community garden, there is so much growing there, and the other members are lovely and have so much knowledge to share, there is just a great vibe when you go there. ( Even though it is usually pretty quiet there as we don't have a huge amount of members.) They are doing a big renovation on the old community house next to the garden, so when that is all finished and people are back visiting the house, hopefully they will be so impressed by the garden that we will have a heap of new members!



We tried the first glass of my homemade ginger beer today, Gary thought it smelt disgusting but tasted very good. It did have a sour lemony smell mixed with a gingery aroma that was not very pleasant. I think the lemon juice I added to the mix changed the smell, because the plant was smelling great (nice and gingery) before I bottled it. Any hoo, I thought it tasted great and was quite fizzy which I was very happy with. I will start another plant soon for batch no.2. (Stupid me didn't realise I could keep that plant going, so it ended up on the compost heap, so I will start from scratch again.)



I was reading Rhonda's blog about the return of the homemaker, and it really struck a chord with me. I feel that skills that can make you more independant and self sufficient are so important, and are just not valued enough in today's consumer society, so it was great to read that other people are feeling the same way. I often feel that I have to make excuses for why I haven't gone out to work and am a stay at home mum, especially now my children are all at school. I sometimes think there must be something lacking in my personality, in that I don't have a strong desire for a career and lots of money, I am quite happy to get by on our one wage and live within the limits of our budget. I like being around my children and family and friends, I like to take them to their afterschool stuff and just chat with them as they come in from school, I like cooking our meals from scratch and having the time to do so, I like growing our vegies and keeping our chickens and riding my bike around when I can. Housework may not be my strong point, but I muddle through and am making a big effort to be more consistant with laundry and cleaning efforts!
There has been such a huge move towards everybody working and most homes have 2 incomes these days, that I guess it is unusual to spend your days at home, but I think what we stay at home types do is also important and a valid life or 'career' choice. I just wish I didn't always feel like a dumb freak when people ask me 'what I do', and were not so embarrassed to answer I stay at home.
My son was saying the other day that he thought we (I) were too old fashioned and low tech, I tried to explain that a lot of my hobbys like knitting, cooking, gardening, sewing and "family stuff" are really quite hip these days and I'm really a pretty modern mother! I don't know if he appreciated the point!

Anyway, enough of my raving on. Happy days for everyone!

back to basics update 2

We have had a slightly cooler last few days, which has been really nice. It has been warm enough for the boys to enjoy their outdoor swimming lessons, but not too hot, so I feel like I'm actually achieving some progress in the garden preparations for Autumn planting.


What I've been up to recently - Back to Basic Challenge Update 2.

Harvest
*Cherry tomatoes
*Potatoes
*Zucchini

Sowing Seed/ Planting
*Sowed seed of 5 different kales, broccoli - Albert, Green sprouting Calabrese, Cauliflower -Early Glory, Cabbage - Sugarloaf, Snowpeas - Oregon

Garden Maintenence
*Weeding out empty garden beds
*Mowing around vegie beds
*Mulch up sweetcorn plants burnt in heatwave, add to compost heap

Planning for the future
*Worked out a priority list for what we want to do to this place this year
*Got a quote for the painting of the extension.

Working for the future
*Bought 2m of compost to top up summer beds for autumn planting
*Bought 4 bales of mulching lucerne to spread over brassica beds
*Mowed Community Garden and used some grass clippings for the chicken yard deep litter

Building Community
*Made donations to fire appeal
*Joined the Parents and Friends group at Jesse's high school
*Worked in Community Garden

Learn a new Skill
Didn't learn a specific skill, but did buy a moon planting guide for 2009 and figure out how to use it (I'm going to use it for future sowings for the market stalls)


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I am having a bit of trouble at the moment with one of my goals for this year - saving some money and becoming a bit more frugal. I feel like I am bleeding money and I feel a bit guilty when I see how much some of my friends live on. I think we are going ok on food spending , which has reduced; but it is all the other little incidental things, the boys activities, socialising, and yes, I have to admit my garden is taking it's fair share of the booty.
I think it is time for a spending audit. I am going to try and track where our money goes, and really try to get rid of some of the unneccesary buying that we (I) do. I think we have a lot of "treat" spending, that might need some adjusting, starting with myself - NO BOOKS!
I am a sucker for a beautiful book, or an interesting gardening/self sufficiency/cook/knitting book and will have to be disciplined to resist the lure of the bookshop!
I must use the library more!!!!!!


I am really inspired by a lot of the fantastic blogs I read who have great information, and have been living simply and richly and having great life experiences along the way. I am going to keep trying to lighten our lifestyle, it is slow going, but each day brings a new joy to be thankful for, and I think we are getting somewhere!!!
I am going to try to add some links to some blogs that inspire me. ( Still not very techno savvy so will see how we go)

Down to earth
Simple Green Frugal Co Op
The Compostbin
One Green Generation
Towards Sustainability

Seed to seed update and back to basics challenge

I have joined The Growing Challenge from Seed to Seed, which is an extended version of the normal challenge to grow your own food, where you try to save your own seeds from the best of your plants. It should be fun!


SEED TO SEED UPDATE #1 :

* I have saved about 30 seeds from this gorgeous crimson flowering broadbean I grew in Spring.
The pack of seed I bought originally only had 12 seeds in it so I am slowly increasing my seed so one day I can put this everywhere in my garden just for it's decorative value, the braodbeans are an added bonus!

* I have decided to let the rest of my bean crop go for seed. The heatwave last week really savaged my bean plants and the beans are not much good for eating now, they have gone all rubbery and soft, so I will let them dry out and save the biggest, fattest pods for seed.

* I have found a few spinach plants that have gone completely to seed, so I will collect it and have a go at growing it again later in the year. I have heard that spinach doesn't set fertile seed very often, so it will be interesting to see if it germinates or not.



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I have also joined up for Belinda's Back to Basics Challenge
This is a challenge to basically get organised and record your progress for a variety of different focuses.

Back to basics update #1

Sowing seeds or planting - Bought some silverbeet seedlings to plant as soon as we have a cooler day.

Harvest - Zucchini, Bok Choy, Beetroot, Beans, Carrots (Community Garden) Spring onions (Com. Garden) Eggs, Apples, Apricots

Maintenence - Spread sugarcane mulch around corn and cucumbers. Tried to keep things watered through heatwave.

Observing - The garden suffered badly through the heat, and I think I've lost the early beans which were cropping well. Other things seem to have bounced back ok. The sweetcorn leaves are totally burnt to a crisp, but I can see new growth, so will see how they perform for the rest of the season. The apple tree in the front yard seems to have suffered the worst, with badly burnt leaves and sunburnt fruit, I guess the chooks will get most of them.


Planning for the future - Have decided to look into getting some solar panels for electricity.
With all the blackouts due to the heat, it would be good to have our own source of energy.
Same thing with another water tank, we have 9000 ltrs, but I need more if I'm going to grow alot of our food.

Working for the future - I made apricot jam with some of the apricots. I cleaned out the chicken pen (delightful work, I must say) to form the basis of a new compost heap for the winter veg.

Building Community - Organised our tennis team for the summer season. Had coffee with a group of school mum friends to mark the return to school. Supplied eggs to a friend. Picked up tickets for a group of friends to see The Waifs.

Learn a new skill - I made jam for the first time!