Our garden

I’ve been meaning to post pics of my garden for ages. So finally, here are some as of last weekend!

This is the pots all along under the kitchen window. There’s flowers, parsley, mint, cat grass, a lemon tree, a bay tree (that’s the tiny plant in the black pot!), a pot of radishes and coriander, fruit-salad citrus tree (grafted mandarin, navel orange, valencia orange and pomelo), three avocado seeds that haven’t sprouted yet, dead basil, russian comfrey and a chilli plant.

Then there’s the hanging baskets, with snow peas, sugar snap peas and a Broad Ripple Yellow Currant tomato plant. The tomato plant is still flowering and fruiting, absolutely amazing considering it’s the middle of winter and we’re having frosts! The fruit isn’t ripening though, it’s just sitting there green… Plus the child, who seems to grow anywhere!

These are our gardens along the back fence. The frames were made by Eddie, from scavenged pallets. We filled them about one-third full of ‘vegie mix’ that our neighbours gave us. Vegie Mix is purchased soil, well, it’s sold as soil, but I think that’s exagerating! It’s mainly made from cow manure and fill, plus a bit of fertiliser, and a heap of sand to add drainage. If it dries out it becomes rock hard, and plants actually don’t grow that well in it. However, when you mix it with a heap of compost, manure, vermicast and the odd old bag of potting mix, it does very well!

I’ve been harvesting out of these gardens for about two months now. This is garden one; there’s alyssum flowers, parsley, garlic, parsnips, carrots, spring onions up the back, spinach and some coriander that hasn’t sprouted yet and a cabbage that’s being eaten by bugs. However they seem to be sticking just to that one and leaving everything else alone, so I’m happy to leave it there!

Garden two: two walking stick cabbages, alyssum, silverbeet, garlic, spinach, ordinary cabbages. The one in the front was harvested just after this photo and used for the Cortido in yesterday’s post.

Garden three: Broccoli, Cauliflower, silverbeet, beetroot, garlic, Nero de Toscana Kale.

And I can’t find the photo’s of the pumpkin patch, which is now a pile of compost, but I did find a pic of the pumpkins we harvested. The pumpkins were growing when we moved in here, we think from kitchen scraps thrown on the garden. Also in the patch was two tomato plants, one of which we were able to harvest half a dozen small tomatoes (which Dian took to school in her lunches) however the other plant didn’t ripen before winter hit.

I’m intending to put in at least another three gardens for next spring, just need more pallets and a heap more time!

Cortido

Cortido is South American Saurkraut. I made two jars today using a cabbage from our garden! I’ve noticed how much juicier the home-grown cabbages are than shop bought. They taste way better too! These two jars used almost a full miniature cabbage, plus bought carrots, onion, chilli flakes and oregano. I’ve already picked a cabbage about a month ago and made ordinary saurkraut, with just the cabbage and some fennel and caraway seeds for flavour. There’s one more cabbage that is ready to be picked now, but it will have to wait for a week until I decide what to do with it.

Ouch!!!

Another thing that doesn’t mix is polished wooden steps and slippery socks. While staying with friends I managed to (very inelegantly) fall down their internal stairs yesterday. I was about to walk down the stairs, had one foot on the top step, when my feet slipped and went flying out from under me. Landed on my butt and bounced about four times down to the bottom. Ouch!!! I’ve got black bruising all up one buttock, a very badly grazed and bruised elbow, and have jarred my hips, back, shoulders and arms. God was really looking after me, I could have so easily have hit my tailbone, spine or head. Instead I’m just a bit uncomfortable with some bad bruising.

Holbrook and I - we don’t mix…

Holbrook is a lovely country town in NSW, on the Hume highway. It has a park with an old RAN Submarine for the kids to play on, a great cafe there, and is a regular stop for us when travelling. Or was a regular stop, I think I’ll find somewhere else for a break as Holbrook seems to have something against us! LOL!

Last January, when we moved from Canberra, Holbrook was the place that I managed to leave my mobile phone on top of the car when we drove off. I realised it about an hour later, so the phone has never been seen since. I now have a new pink phone, very cute, but I lost a lot of phone numbers.

This week, while driving back to Canberra for a visit, we stopped in Holbrook for fuel. Pulled up at the pump and realised…. DH’s car, my keyring and a lockable fuel cap with no key! Argh!!! We found a friendly mechanic who demonstrated some wonderful brute strength with a screwdriver and broke the lock, were able to refuel and keep going. Doh!!! Fortunately the fuel cap is only an off the shelf one, not genuine Holden!

The fragility of Life

This happened at my neighbour’s house on tuesday. I’m in the pic, second from the left…. http://bendigo.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=news&subclass=general&story_id=569914&category=general

Welcome!

Wow, first post in my new blog. This blog will have lots of stuff about us, my family, the new healthy eating I’m working on changing to, business stuff, crafts and other minutae that may or may not be of interest to anyone but us…..