Belinda's challenge July 2010

Well 'tis Friday and I'm ready to update after my long absence.

Sowing seed or Planting - More kale seed.  I'm a firm believer that your family will never starve if you grow plenty of kale.


Sowing (direct) - bulbs 350 jonquils, hyacyths, gladies, anaemones around the herb spiral

Harvest- Kale.  Picking enough for at least three meals a week for a family of six.  Snowpeas are also coming in now, I have three lots of snow peas and two lots of peas so hopefully 'twill be a good supply.  Parsley coming out of my ears, which is funny as we really don't eat parsley.  Should start back on green smoothies again to use it up.  Lots of lettuces and mustard greens as well.

Planning for The Future - Asparagus.  I have the site almost prepared and am ordering 20 plants.  Should be enough for us.  The big thing which the Teen and myself decided last night was that all gifts for the next 12 months will be handmade.  Some can be bought from LOCAL artisans/friends provided they are handmade.  The majority will be made by our own little paws.

Working for the Future - Need to crank up my bottling.  Overhaul the laundry in the next few months and sort out more storage. 

Building Community - I'm friends with a group of women now who have a huge range of skills.  Keeping it local is still the main focus of my life (The Husband still struggles with this one, in fact we just this minute had a 'discussion' about Big Corporations v's Hippies.   Sigh.....

Learn a new Skill:  Suggest one to me.  I can knit, sew, cook from scratch, crochet, bottle, fillet a fish brilliantly and on occasion have even been known to dust.  What do you think I should learn next?
 
Ok, am going to hit 'post' now, but as soon as The Teen wakes up I will add pics of the things I have made recently;  gauntlets, a Granddad vest (was for the Husband but I forgot to use smaller needles with a thicker ply wool so it's mine now),  and curtains for the alcove window.

Getting my priorities right!

Just planted my first coffee shrub! I am drooling in advance thinking about the aroma of roasting beans :)

We have also just planted a nashi fruit, a josephine pear (it's pollinator), and a lychee.

Did anyone in Perth get hit by the massive storm we just had? I decided to get out of the garden five minutes before the rain belted down and the thunder woke all of the tots. We had a huge amount of rain, just perfect for soaking in my new trees.

Now that I have bought my coffee shrub, let me share where I bought it from

http://www.tass1trees.com.au/index.php

They have curry plants for $5! I have seen these in other nurseries for over $15. Joe's selection of tropicals is just wonderful and I have my eye on starfruits, more roseapples and hawaiian guavas. There are also brazillian cherries and jackfruit which are on the Crone's wishlist ;)

A book I have just taken out of the library is 'Laurel's kitchen'. Going to see if I can find a secondhand copy around somewhere because it has the most amazing vegetarian recipes.

A recipe I have just discovered (from an sbs cooking show about two weeks ago) is turkish carrot dip.

Fry up a finely diced onion in some olive oil
Chuck in some grated carrot when the onion is nice and soft
when the carrot is nicely wilted, add some salt to taste.
Cool.
Mix in some natural yoghourt (enough to make it look dippy)

We all love this dip and snack on this with homemade pitta bread.

Bush Tucker here we come!

Oh I am so thrilled! I went to the local nursery this morning, 'just to window shop' as I'm not supposed to be buying anything at the moment (LOL, right!). Anyway they had a sad bench filled with Native Plants! Better yet, they were all ones that attract wildlife and their nectar is bush tucker!

Did I mention that I am filling the front garden with Bush Tucker? Part of my reason for that is to restore a small part of my local area to local plantlife, the other reason is to have food out the front which the bogan neighbours would never recognise as a food source...well if it doesn't come in plastic with it's own little sticker...;)

I also found a Midyimberry (found, bought and planted!) It was covered in berries and you know what, they taste like a cross between a blueberry and aniseed! I love them. I write 'was covered' because two of the tots have stripped the plant bare of fruit! That's ok, because it's better that the plant works on it's roots right now rather than it's fruit.

Now what other Native Perth plants can I find?

Checking out my seed stash

It's time for me to see just what I have in my seed stash so that I can plant, plan and acquire.

Oakleaf lettuces (my own gathered seeds)
Riesentraube tomatoes
Amaranth
Purple carrots
Edible Chrysanthemum
Scotch Kale
Kohl rabi
Beetroot
Shallots
Kang Kong
Mizuna
Lockyer onion
Gladalan Onions
asparagus
something called edible rape
Chinese white radish

I will check out the moon planting guide on Nature Witches blog for the times to plant successfully. I also found some galangal in the grocery store yesterday so have bunged that in a pot. Let's see if that will grow for the growing challenge :)

Gardening Dreams

You know the drill; "I had a Dream..."

Deep in the land of Nod and some bloke appears and takes me to a classroom. Now this is not my usual type of 'bloke' dream, Johnny Depp is more my thing.

This was some old bloke and he was giving a group of us gardening lessons or to be more precise, he was stuffing manure in some kind of horn and telling us we had to bury them in our gardens, to be used later.

Off to Google "burying manure"

Thank you Karen for that link! I sort of knew which direction my dream was leading too and that link is fantastic.

Boy have I had a busy day today; I have just put a heap of recipes on at the Crone's Cauldron, knitted in a picot hem on Tot 2's knitted dress (Note: Knitted in, not hemmed up! This is major stuff for a novice knitter!) Did my usual clean up after the mad weekend mess here at Wit's End and am now sitting down smelling my homemade asparagus soup in the crock pot. I can't believe that we are still getting lots of spears every day. When we lived in Canberra the season was only a few weeks long. These plants are throwing up spears every day!

Cheese toasties and cream of asparagus soup tonight, followed by leftover sticky date pudding. Life is good isn't it!

hehehe, forgot to add that I planted an Indian Guava and a celeriac plant today for the growing challenge.

I'll be eating Chrysanthemums!

I went shopping with The Husband today in one of his secret Asian haunts. Hiding near the counter I found a packet of Edible Chrysanthemums.

I bought them because they looked unusual although I had no idea what the writing on the packet said. The Husband said

"Just plant them when it's cool, they grow fast"

Okaaaay.

Came home and checked on Eden Seeds and yes, The Husband is right (Male Angelic Chorus can start singing now), plant when cool and harvest in 30 or so days.

Another one for the growing challenge and hopefully a famine type food which the neighbours would ignore!

Have I mentioned that I'm tired?

I don't know whether it's me getting older, running around after three tots, or dealing with the Graves Disease (did I mention that I have this?) but I am getting really tired lately.

I know that it's not because I am vegetarian because my blood work (blood tests every month) shows that my iron levels are brilliant so I am going to pin the blame on the tots!

The Teen was a total love today. She babysat for me for the entire morning while I played in the garden. I have planted, weeded and spread sheep manure. I also managed to prune some of my 'nurse' trees so that more light and air can circulate now that summer has gone.

So what did I plant?

A blueberry
Climbing Spinach (This is for my growing challenge this week!)
Chard
Artichokes (Thank you Hardworking Hippy for the inspiration, you can never have enough artichokes!)
A nectarine
More Spinach

I also put a heap of sheep manure over the potato bed to prepare for planting on the weekend. Tot 1 helped me scatter some collard green seeds around the beds 'just to see what happens', and a dear friend gave me a bucket full of plants for the pond.

Now I think about it, perhaps it's just hard work that has made me feel ten years older than god.

Taro

I just planted (LOL - I dug a hole and bunged it in!) a Taro. Never planted one before, come to think of it, I have never eaten one before! but I'm not letting that stop me.

I just checked at Daleys and they say that they look like Elephants ears so they should be quite pretty as well as edible.

One more plant for the growing challenge!

I also made a batch of 'mead' to see how it goes. It looks interesting.

Venturing hesitantly down the quilting path...

A group of cronies have been learning to quilt. We all challenged each other to start and have been supporting each others efforts with praise and accolades.

I chose a bunch of fabrics in Earthy tones with the intent to make a wall hanging for above my bed as a present to myself. The pattern chosen was a simple basket weave block one.

I cut super carefully (apart from the one block where I got distracted and cut a 10" instead of 11")
I sewed more carefully than I have ever sewn before with my 1/4" foot...
So why the hell didn't the blocks line up properly? Am I just really really pernickety about seams meeting and matching? Are they meant to match up?

I love a glorious haphazard riot in the garden but not with my sewing!
Argghhhhhhh!

Here it is...

On the gardening front:

Today I planted some violets (for my soul), some more cape gooseberries, a ferny thing The Husband wanted, a red passionfruit and some more silverbeet. I have decided that I need to plant things for my soul as well as edibles for my body. The World needs beauty as well as practicality!

Oh and a huge surprise for me the other day which I forgot to post about; Soy bean pods are furry!

Strawbale bed update: Less than a month in and we are picking greens to eat for all of our dinners now. The Husband is impressed.

The day The Cat decided to earn his biscuits.

Or the day The Cat made his first kill.

I wandered out into the backgarden this morning with my large cup of coffee to appreciate my domain and what did I see?

The Cat (black and named Felix by the Teen. However, The Cat keeps telling me that his name is Phoenix!) was playing with his first kill (that we know of)

It looked like a large black rat. I yelled at the Teen to come and praise her baby and she hurried out to view his trophy.

Dead. Silence. Followed by

"Felix!" and a strangled scream.

"Mum, he's killed a guineapig!"

There's no tail (or head for that matter anymore) and the fur is long and silky with a gorgeous white patch on the chest.

How/where/WHY did he get hold of a guinea pig? Was it someone's escaped pet? Will I see 'Lost/Reward' posters up at the local shops? Was it a feral Guinea Pig? Is there such a thing? Are my lettuces going to be ravaged by invading hordes of nocturnal nibblers? Should I be worried?

Ok, guilt for the Guinea Pig aside; I have bought three Inga's for the growing challenge. Now they are fast growing, nitrogen fixing 'trees' so I figured that they would be great for the soil at Wit's End. However I have since found at Daleys that they come with a weed warning. Great, so I now have the potential of invasive ice cream bean trees and Guinea Pigs!


Now for some pics for the Growing challenge to update how fast things are growing here!


The soybeans

The strawbale bed after just two weeks growth! Check out how much the beans have grown!

I have noticed a lot of settling in the mushroom compost and put this down to the breakdown of the sublayer of my own compost which I used as the base. When this lot have finished cropping I will put more mushroom compost in to top it up.

And below, just one week after planting, my kales, collards and broad bean seeds!

And this little piggy

Built a bed of straw :)

I am going to pour some pee from the tot's potty onto the straw bales each day as well as give them a good soaking. That way I will be able to plant into the bales, leaving a couple free to sit on and rest! I got this idea from The Wild backyard blog.

And now a few of the promised pics for the Gardening Challenge;



Rocket seedlings emerging



Soybeans!

And the bean which has decided to climb up onto the pergola

You will notice throughout my garden beds cheap tan bark mulch and pebbly mulchy things. This is because the people who lived here before put yellow builders sand on top of the native WA sand, topped that off with the pebbly mulch and /or tan bark.

I have scrapped off as much of the builders sand and mulches as possible but it still turns up like a bad penny.

They literally only planted six palm trees and cooch grass! Sigh.

Seeds and more seeds!

Just ordered some more seeds for the growing challenge. The only ones I have grown before are kale, so this should be interesting.

I have no idea what Kohl Rabi even tastes like but it kind of looks cute on farmgirl's blog.

Here's what I ordered

Mizuna, Bean, Broad - Aquadulce, Collards - Georgia Southern, Kale - Scotch, Kohl Rabi - Purple Vienna, Onion - Gladalan - Onion - Lockyer Early WhitePackets.

These are to fill my new straw bale bed - pics to come tomorrow (oh the joys of waiting for the Teen to be here to do the camera to pc bit!)

When The Husband's away....

The Crone goes through his Asian grocery cupboard and cleans it out!

Surprise surprise; out of date/code products which bear a marked resemblance to a cleaning sponge!

BUT who would have thunk that The Husband would have a stash of seeds for my growing challenge!

Mung Beans!

Now I know that you can sprout them and cook them in stir fries etc but you can also grow these just like soy beans! They like sandy soils and from bean to flower take about 60 days. I am so excited about these. Mung beans are a good source of protein and flour!

All planted now and brag pictures will follow!

Warning: REDBACK IMAGE FOLLOWS!

Ok this is war!

I have just found and killed another THREE Redbacks (edited because I just found another one by my back door!).

Yesterday I was picking some strawberries and a long thin black leg popped out and stroked my finger! Talk about having a bloody heart attack!

So armed with my thick gloves and nice long stick I went a redback hunting yet again.

Now for those of you who aren't in Australia, what follows is a picture of a redback;

Image taken from www.nikkish.net/jeff/blogpics I hope that's ok to do!

I am getting very good at 'removing' these spiders now but would love to hear some of your ideas on deterring them. I have three tots here who are into everything in the garden!

Growing Challenge.

Well I have just gone and posted at the Growing Challenge site about which growing zone Wit's End is in. We are in the Australian Temperate Zone (the perfect place for raising redbacks it seems!) and this link shows what I can plant out right now

http://www.gardenate.com/zones/Australia%20-%20temperate

So far I have planted peanuts, some soybeans, ginger and garlic. Chickpeas will be planted in the next few days.

Building and filling raised beds will be my next goal in the garden. At Wit's End the soil is sand. No matter how much compost, mulch etc into this soil, it turns back to sand in a couple of months. So the answer for me is to have raised beds and to just keep adding to the sand and hope for the best.

The raised beds will have all the usuals vegetables and I hope to add some kohl rabi for the growing challenge. I have never eaten this vegetable but have been inspired by farmgirl Susan to give it a go.

It's going to be a busy day today

• Make some more laundry liquid DONE!
• Bake a monkey cake (you know, it makes me smile every time I type that!) DONE!
• Bake some potatoes for dinner (utilize the top shelf of the oven to save energy) DONE!
• Make some tortilla dough for freezing DONE!
• Bake a batch of berry muffins
• Plant up the sprouting garlic and ginger I found in the back of the cupboard as part of the growing challenge.
• Plant some more chick peas (Yeah I know you are supposed to wait until Saint Patricks day to plant peas), another let's try it for the growing challenge!
• Do a pile of washing (which means folding tonight whilst watching House) DONE!
• Clean the kitchen and bathroom (bicarb and vinegar) DONE!
• Make the Ginger Beer Plant DONE!
• Transplant some more cabbage seedlings from my starter boxes DONE!
• Flush out the huge redback from my brag cabbage and well, you know! DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE!!!!! Method applied: sprinkle a mixture of bicarb and teatree oil over cabbage. Wait. Redbacks hate this stuff and she emerged! Quick death crushed with long stick!
• Maybe make a batch of pancakes to freeze
• Just made a kilo of Chickpea dip for less than $1. I love frugal cooking!

Quiet for a reason

Last week I cut my finger along the rim of a tub of King Island double cream. I saw it in the marked down bin and thought "why not!"

This was on Thursday. Finger still hasn't healed properly and the cream wasn't any better than a cheaper variety. Lesson learned; Stick to nice safe easy to open homebrand!

Too much Stuff.

The Husband is going to China in a couple of weeks. He just asked me what he should buy over there for the kids.

"Toys?" Nope. I don't want more plastic junk in the house
"Clothes?" Nope, they have enough clothes to last them another three years (my gymboree addiction got way out of hand last year.
"Shoes for you?" Nope, China doesn't make womens shoes in Hippo size.
"Jewellry?" Nope it gets lost or broken when I garden. I'm not a trophy wife or a Christmas tree; I don't need to be decorated.

Our house is overflowing with too much stuff. I am in a major decluttering mood right now and the time has come to say goodbye to old dvd players, old laptops, and things falling out of cupboards.....ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHH.

So then he asks

"What do you want then?!?"

Straw, manure, sleepers, poly pipe and star pickets. I'm easy to please hey!

Some brilliant news!

I chucked some organic soy beans (I soak these to make my own soy milk) which I had forgotten about into a bare patch in the garden on Wednesday. Lo and behold I can see a leaf poking up here and there! I will take some pics in a couple of days when it's easier to see the leaves. This is one more "let's see what happens" for my growing challenge!

Seeds, seeds, seeds!

Yesterday I went nuts and bought a whole heap of seed! I bought;

Carrot, cosmic purple
eggplant, turkish orange
aragula
comfrey
reosentraube tomatoes
amaranth
lettuce mixed
rough d'hiver lettuce
All organic and all fast growers! Happy dance time!

I want to try and get another crop in as I lost all of my carrots last week to the really hot weather. The comfrey is to grow my own mulch and compost additive and the aragula (rocket) is because I adore it!

I feel so despondant some days when I am looking online at what other people are achieving; The Husband is a thinker not a 'do-er' so he finds my obsession with shade protection and mulch mildly amusing.

I look at all his economic papers and see a good source of toilet paper if we ever needed it ;)

One step at a time, Crone, one step at a time.

I've killed another plant through neglect.

I planted a gorgeous healthy bayleaf tree a couple of weeks ago. Of course I totally forgot about it in the nice secluded spot I chose. Let's just say that I now have a huge stash of sun dried bay leaves in my spice cupboard. :(

She's done it, by George, she's done it!

11am and according to the BOM the temp in our area is 24.9. The thermometer in our garden is reading 29.1 and the temp in my solar oven rocketed to 55 and couldn't get any higher as that was it's limit!

I need to acquire a cooking thermometer but the pot (appropriated the slow cooker innards) is too hot to handle and there is condensation and fall back droplets into the lentils I threw in this morning.

Once the bubbling action happens I will add my homegrown chillies, coriander and garlic and it will become Dhal!

Other stuff I am crowing about atm;

My peanuts are growing!

I was musing out aloud about the possibility of growing peanuts and wondering where to buy the seed. Well peanuts must need seed right?

The Husband nearly fell off of his chair laughing at this, walked to his Chinese food cupboard and pulled out a jar of raw peanuts and waved them under my nose saying

"What the hell do you think these are?"

Dumb blank look from me.

"Derrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, go plant these woman!"

Well what do you know, the ecognomist was actually right; They grew!

Off to make some more yoghourt now, move the grey water hose to my other fruit trees, make a loaf of bread and then have some buckwheat bread with homemade lahbne cheese and roast peppers.

Planting Challenge: Found some spuds with eyes in the cupboard. They are now safely tucked up in the soil and watered in.

Hunter Gathering!

I spent today gathering coriander, parsley and celery seed from my gone to seed plants. Some have been scattered around the garden and the rest bagged and labelled for later on.

I also went on a tadpole hunting spree, well I was invited to take a few tadpoles from a friend's pond. Four cute little future froggies are now swimming in my converted clamshell pond. I hope that they survive!

The husband has agreed to purchase a Solar Oven. I am sure that he has his doubts but he is being very supportive of "The little woman's hobby" SNORT!

Investigating underutalised plants right now; Never knew that you could eat Canna lilies!


Also going to check out clumping bamboo this morning. Shade, Wind breaks, building materials and bamboo shoots! Yum!