Planted the winter garden

My stash arrived from Diggers and I very excitedly went through it all:

I had wanted to get it in the ground straight away, but a comedy of errors prevented me from doing so until today. I wrote out my guide with some help from a friend (who actually knows what he is doing) and my new comanion planting chart:

All my seeds are tucked away under some fine earth stolen from the chook pen, and I am being very patient waiting for them to grow. I know they will take more than a day - but I will look anyway!

Tomorrow's priority one job is to get the dog fence up to make sure Bonnie doesn't decide my lovely winter garden is a good toilet or spot to bury her bones...

We are planning to form the beds for the summer garden and pop in a row of broad beans - as that is about all that will grow there in winter. I am going to have a go at growing oats as a green manure. Hopefully they will keep down the weeds as well.

I wanted to form up the gardens with some off-cuts from the local saw mill (Bowerbird) but they don't do it on Saturdays (I had thought they DID do it Saturdays and had been waiting all week....). So we have used what we can find and will make bigger beds next year. I will do the summer gardens with the timber this week while we still have the use of a friend's trailer.

I still have a heap of Nashis to dry/poach/stew. I poached some the other morning and they were delish! I am keen to get the bottling happening while I have the loan of a friend's Fowlers set. I have ordered a container of seconds' tomatoes as the school garden did not put out the huge number of last year. I need to get my Passata and relish stocks done before I runb out of time!

Winter Garden

I recently had some help with the positioning of my winter garden. Good thing to - where I was planning is good for braod beans, but that is about it! So, I have put in two teraces and mixed mushroom compost in with the clay I have for soil. I am now waiting for my Diggers order to arrive and I can put it all in the ground. I will have to get a few local seedlings, but the rest I should be able to get in before it is too late.

The chooks are safe. My daughter is quite happy to report each morning that 'Foxy Loxy went hungry again last night.' I am now working on getting the tractor organised so that I can move them around the garden. I want to get them onto the lawn as there isn't much for them to eat in their fenced area (except for mozzies!). I am keen to get them out and about in the garden, but it will be a slow introductory period until the dog gets used to them.
I am still watching the birds get most of my fruit. But the lungs have recovered and I am hoping to get out and collect as much as I can.
The Nashis have not kept in the house well. I didn't get them under the house though - so it might be different if they went straight into cold storage. Next year we will be ready!

Sick and sorry

Well all my good intentions got wasted by a nasty little cold that is moving through the school at the moment! I have hardly enough energy to get out of bed. I was watching the peaches fall off the tree when I thought to ring a friend. She came around and took most of those ready on the tree to bottle at home. I then got the kids to pick up all those on the ground. I sat at the kitchen table and cut out the good bits and put the rest into the chook bucket. We had beautiful fresh peaches for desert and I am stewing the rest. I'freeze this lot and use them for crumble next week when the folks are here.

Well, Foxy Loxy got to the chooks. She had a huge dinner of three! One of our Isa Browns and two baby silkies. The up side to being sick was the other half had to stay at home to look after the kids - so the chook shed is now fox-proof. Foxy Loxy went hungry last night, and hopefully for many more nights to come (or at least she might turn her attention to rats or something...).

So, the Nashis are being eaten away byt he birds. I stil look out and wish I had the energy to pick them all and then, at least, slowly stew my way through them. Nashi crumble is amazung!!!

Fingers crossed I am better by Friday!

Wow - dried Nashis

We were so impressed by the dried Nashis! They are amazing. So sweet. The Nashi crumble got a thumbs all up at the working bee today. I even managed to pick up a stack of the apple storage trays from the local fruit and veg shop. All I need now is for the other half to make me the shelf to stack them all on. The birds managed to get inside my netting, so I am going to have to just pick the remainder and get them processed in one way or another as quickly as I can.

Chookshed - still not done! I am picking up three new chooks tomorrow. I now have to decide between the felting circle tomorrow, beating the birds to the Nashi tree and fox-proofing the chookshed....???

Nashis

We have moved into a house with the most amazing Nashi tree out the back. It is laden with Nashis, and the Rainbow Lorrikeets think they have every right to strip the tree. I have been watching as they started at the top and have slowly been making their way down... A couple of days ago, I tried to net the tree, but my net wasn't really big enough and the tree has not been pruned for somewhile. Branches growning at odd angles and back into the centre made this near imporrible.

The only solution I could come up with was to pick the Nashis and beat the birds at their own game. Today was the day. I have washed and dried about 200 Nashis. They are ready for storing under the house as soon as I con my man into building rat proof shelves (that should provide some interesting google searches!). I have also tried stewing them - moderately succcessful and drying them - OMG!!!! They are amazing dried. So sweet! The poor dehydrater doesn't know what has hit it. It has has a rest and I will do another lot overnight - I just need to work out how to store them now....

Tomorrow I will try poaching them and if that is a success I will have thousands of smallish bottles of cinnamon Nashi ready for porridge throughout winter!

PS The chookshed is closer but still not finished....

The very beginning

It all started a few houses ago when I decided to cut down on how much rubbish I put out. I was always running out of room in the bin before bin day, so I decided to DO something about it! I am now down to about half a bin by bin day and the bin at this current house is a lot smaller than the one I had when I first started this mission. So I think I can give it a big tick. I would really like to cut down the necessity for anything outward going, but from here to there will be a slow road, which needs to be started by enlisting the help of the other members of the household.

I have tried gardening a few times. The first was a poor effort. This was mainly due to 2 factors - my complete lack of knowledge, and my limited time. Now that my man is no longer studying and my baby has grown up a lot, I have more time. I also have a fabulous new landlord who is very happy for me to 'do whatever I want with the garden'. This weekend, (weekend number four in the house) I will be turning my attention to the garden preparation.

My attention thus-far, has been taken by esablishing a chook house. I have made the area that the chooks inhabit Bonnie-proof (Bonnie is our dog), but have not quite fiinshed foxproofing their sleeping quarters. I got the door done today (made from scratch from a metal frame I found in the rubbish and some wire). I will finish one wall tomorrow and then the other on the weekend after purchasing 3 more star pickets. Sooooo close!