Garden

Almost been a month since the last garden update.

The veggie patch is going well. Well most of it survived the unseasonably hot spell we had about a week after we put them in. Unfortunately the Spinach bolted and the peas shrivelled up. Too precious for the hot weather. The leeks (top left corner) are getting thicker. The Capsicum (back row) are growing taller. The Salvia (bottom left) are even flowering. And the Coriander survived which was a bit touch and go there for a while.

In their stead however we have planted some baby beetroots. Just yesterday. So they haven't had time to really take off yet. We shall see how they go.

The Grosse Tomato bush that we put in has grown a lot, as have the marigolds that were around its base to attract the aphids and other nasties.

Even the Apple Cucumber plant that Pete put in has got a flower on it. Wonder if I have to hand polinate it.

We've had this Rosemary bush for over a year now, starting from just 1 spring. Unfortunately it doesn't appear to have grown an awful lot this year. I feed it but it doesn't seem to do much. Could be too wet. I'll switch to watering once a week (if it hasn't rained) and see how it goes.

We also had some silverbeet and spinach growing in this pot, it also went to seed, so we ripped it out and put in this pretty Salvia. Its called Salvia Microphylla or Heatwave Blaze. Mum has heaps of them in her garden, she's a Salvia nut, but I must admit they look quite good.

The basil has taken off, so much so that I should probably contemplate making some pesto with it. Mmmm pesto.

The Tomatoberry bushes are going well, even have fruit on them, just need them to ripen now and we'll see how they taste.

And lastly our Lemon and Olive trees. The lemon tree had a stack of flowers on it, however it doesn't look like any fruit has formed. Probably a good thing as apparently a young citrus tree shouldn't fruit in its first year as it stunts the growth.

Tarot

Inspired by my final astrology class I did a tarot reading for myself last night. The first in probably close to a year if not longer. It really didn't say anything I didn't already know deep down, just brought it forward and reinforced that everything was ok etc.

It was a Chakra reading:
7
6a 6b
5a 5b
4
3a 3b
2
1

So each card or cards had some messages about the chakras, messages from the subconcious etc. Was interesting, especially that I should be focusing on nostalgic memories.

I then followed this up wtih starting to read a book called The Circle which talks about creating your own spiritual practice, including devotions. So I did an evening one last night and a morning one this morning. Will be interesting to see how this goes.

A Veggie Patch

... well 1/2 of one.





Our backyard gets more sun that we thought it would so Pete went and bought two 1.2m square planter boxes from bunnings that we assembled during the week. Yesterday we filled up one of the boxes (11 bags of soil + lucerene mulch and newspaper for the bottom to stop the grass growing up through it all) and got some plants.

We divided the box into 16 squares of 30cm square each.

Top row left - right: Leeks, Capsicum, Capsicum, Marigolds
2nd to top row: Leeks, Garden Peas, Garden Peas, Tomatoes
3rd Row: Salvia, Cucumber, Cucumber, Marigolds
4th Row: Salvia, Spinach, Spinach, Coriander

For this box it cost us:

$60 for the box
$100 for the soil and plants
Total $160

In the other box The Husband wants to grow Cauliflower, Broccoli and Cabbage.

It will be interesting to see how these patches go in winter when they get minimal sun. If it comes to it we'll grow a tonne of potatoes.

Meet Goblin

Goblin was born on the 26th of August. We got her through a friend who knew someone who's cat had had kittens. She is tiny, weighing only 600grams.

But that doesn't stop her from causing mischeif. For example, hair is tasty and fun to catch.

So are pink things that are the same length as her body (almost).

And camera cords.

Bin surfing is lots of fun (if not a bit icky).

Lots of plastic that makes noise, and tissues that she can pounce on.

Getting down is also fun.

Garden - Old Plants

And just an update on our existing plants - the ones that survived the winter and are now growning again.

The lemon and olive trees that Katie & Andrew gave us are continuing to grow, the lemon even has flowers on it!


And the rosemary which hasn't grown much in a while but I'm hoping the fertiliser that we got today will help with that.


Interestingly, last years parsley and chives are still going strong (well maybe not strong, but are definately still going).

And the rose that we got given when Kim passed away got a trim and is now flourishing with growth again. Can't wait for the flowers. It was getting attacked by Aphids though, so we bought some pest spray today to help it out.

Garden - New Plants

Well its now well into spring and after an unsuccessful trip to the animal shelter (we wouldn't have suited any of the dogs) we went to Garden World. Ahh Garden World, so big! And inspiring! And full of lots of people doing exactly what we were doing - finding new plants for their gardens for spring and summer.

First find was a Cat Snacks pack - Cat Mint, Cat Grass and Cat Nip, all in one container. We have it inside sitting on a plate so that the water doesn't destroy the floor. Whiskers loves it and whenever we go near it she comes running over to inspect whether we have destroyed it. It was on the ground for no longer than 30 seconds before she was quite happily eating the cat grass. Consequently this photo is with the grass a fair bit shorter than it was originally.


Mum always has a pot with Lettuce going for summer salads so this year we figured we'd do the same. This pack had Lettuce, Silverbeet and Spinach. Yum! The pots were on sale for $20 each and looked a lot like cauldrons.


Next was Tomatoes. We saw a new variety on Better Homes and Gardens on friday night, a kind called Tomatoberry, little tomatoes but apparently with a lot of flavour. So we got 2 of these to use with last years trelice. Last years were a bit of a fail, I think we only got like 10 tomatoes from them. Hopefully this year will be better.


Included in the salad pack were parsley and chives so I included them in a long pot with 2 strawberry plants and 2 garlic plants. Should be interesting to see how they go. I have never grown strawberries successfully so this shall be interesting.


We also got mint, which got awarded its own special pot due to its take over nature.


And for a bit of colour we got some pretty colourful flowers that will theoretically be hanging somewhere - once we figure out where.

C25K - Week 4

I started C25K week 4 last night. Didn't quite manage to do it as planned.

5 min walk warm up
Run 3 mins, walk 90 sec
Run 5 mins, walk 2.5 mins
Run 3 mins, walk 90 sec
Run 3 mins (was supposed to run 5 mins here but just couldn't do it)
5 min walk cool down

I will build up that last run though. Burnt 400 calories in just under 1/2 hour doing this, which is a quite good calorie burn for me.

I stuck at week 3 for about 3 weeks so chances are I'll be at week 4 for that long. Either that or I need to be more consistent in my training.

Craft Projects 2009

To follow off from last years craft projects here is that updated list with a few new items:

To do:

1. Original Quilt (Created back in like 2002 - 2003, the top is all together, just have to do the backing quilting and binding)
2. Cross stitch given to me by K (Haven't started it yet, was focusing on the Enchantress one)

Half Done:

1. 21st Quilt - Combined the squares and it looks good. Now to do a border and then quilt it together.
2. Enchantress Cross-stitch - Have not touched it all year. Unlikely to touch it again before the end of the year.
3. Crocheted Amigurami - Need to do her shell and she's done.
4. Finish off the dress I'm making for myself. It was going to be a template for the ball in Oct, however as I found The Perfect Dress the urgency to finish it isn't there anymore.

Completed:

1. Mum's Christmas present
   
2. Crocheted a hat and scarf and gloves. They were fun.

Lemonade Scones

I haven't baked scones in a very very long time. At least 6 years I think. I was inspired to do so because K and A are coming over for afternoon tea.

I had the option of choosing my Great Aunts recipe or use a Lemonade Scones recipe from Taste.com.au. I chose the new recipe because I've never used lemonade in a scone recipe before so it was kind of exciting. As I'd been raised on my Great Aunts recipe, when I heard that you could make scones from lemonade I knew I had to try the recipe, if only because of the novelty factor.

The mixture made about 9 scones, I used a glass to cut them into circles. They were quite delicious if I do say so myself.

21st Quilt

So this is my 21st quilt placed together. Only been 5 years but its all good.

Theres a row on blank ones all around the edges then up the top you can kinda see my idea for the border: Longer strips of each of the colours all the way around the outside.

Backyard Design

I downloaded and installed Google SketchUp which is a free image design tool. With it I produced my idea for the backyard, which was a good idea apparently as once Pete looked at this he was much more open to my idea. Yes this will involve some concrete cutting and paving but I think it looks great.

The green columns will be Lilly Pillys (or neighbours begone) seeing as we have the 4 story building next door. These'll be in raised garden beds to add extra height to them. The red column is a Japanese Maple in a halfwine barrel (which Pete is desperate for).

The black box is the BBQ. The wooden thing on the right is the table and chair setting. On the left hand side will be the water tank and worm farm (if I can convinve Pete of this. His exact words were I'm not touching it or going near it).

Long time

Well there has been a big delay in between posts, almost 3 months. But I have to admit that these 3 months were probably the toughest of my life.

On the 15th of April my baby sister passed away from leukemia and the time leading up to and since then has been so hard. It wasn't unexpected but the actual occurance was a shock, we were as prepared as we could be but it was still nothing short of devestating.

This is Kim and I at her early 21st party last december. She died 10 days before her actual 21st birthday.

This is Kim and Dad at our version of Easter Camping. She was too sick to go so we had our own fire in our courtyard. This was 3 days before she died.

13 days after Kim died, my Grandmother passed away. Again this wasn't unexpected just really bad timing. I have a theory that she needed someone to show her how to do it. Also if she'd died 2 weeks before Kim it would have been impossible for us to go to her funeral as we wouldn't have left Kim.


This is Mum and Giama at my wedding in March 2008. Thats the last time I saw her and I prefer to remember her this way.

On the 1 month anniversary since Kim's death we had to put down our cat who had gotten FIP from the cat shelter before we got her. FIP is incurable and its looking like our other cat has it too though is not showing symptoms as yet.


Onyxia before she died.

So in short its been a hellish time. We've had more than our fair share of death in this last 7 weeks and the world seems less bright without them.

Soft Tam Beret

This pattern was used from

http://creativeyarn.blogspot.com/2007/10/new-soft-tam-beret.html



Took me maybe 2 hours, was so easy to do.

Renovations the first

For Christmas, Pete's parents were very generous and gave us the wood to put down our own floating floorboards. Here is the start of putting them down. We started at the front door and are working our way across. The benefits of these are we can put stuff onto them straight away (or at least thats what Pete tells me). The downside is that we've realised the house isn't exactly built square which leads to small gaps which no one but me with my perfectionism would notice.

This picture has made me realise how white the living room is. I suspect I need to put some pictures up or something. Oh just had a thought. Doing the cross stitch I did for Mum, but instead of putting each pattern going verticle, how about going horizontal. Would be different and I think it would work... Hmmm...

Cooking and Gardening

Well its been a while since I updated so I figured I'd post a couple of photos of what has been happening.

I had a 2 week break over Christmas, which wasn't as long as you would think with the preparing for Christmas and then recovering from Christmas. Here is the Ice Cream cake I made by melting down tubs of ice cream, adding things, and then putting into a spring form cake tin. Was definately a high light and has been requested again since.

A friend made a facebook status update saying he was eating ANZAC cookies, and what else was I supposed to do but get a craving for them and make my own.

And finally, here are tomatoes grown exclusively in my backyard. Very proud, though all of them are quite small, must figure out how to remedy that.