Garlic

Nearly all of the heads of garlic I am buying have a few sprouting cloves. I am popping these in the ground where ever I can. We get Australian garlic and local whenever it is available. I am hoping many of these come up. I have now planted about 50 cloves. That should just about do me for a whole year!!! I can't wait to plait them up!

Starting the summer garden

Well the winter garden is chugging along. I love that when you turn over earth that has been used before all sorts of things crop up! I have found about six lettuces in amongst the other vegies in my winter garden. So I have moved them up closer to the house into the picking garden (well it will be once things have grown). So far in this little area I have six lettuces and some tine baby parsley. I also have a sage that we brought around from the old house. I am keen to get a few more winter greens into it, but just haven't as I am still fighting this nasty bug.

So, how is the winter garden looking? It looks great! I am really happy with it. I have heaps of veg popping up everywhere (none that I can eat yet) and even my parsnip is happy.

Don't look too closely, there are lots of little weeds that I am making an effort with.

So the next step is to start to prepare the summer garden. I was going to put in a crop of green manure, but I think I may have missed the boat. There is, however, still time for me to turn the soil over and put some gypsum down. So I tidied up the area and pushed all the vine back over the fence from whence it came.

I love the fence that was exposed. I really love eclectic items like that! I think I will grow my own vine - but soemthing that will provide food for the fam! So, the plan is to have four meter wide veg gardens in this space. I have been doing a little bit as often as I can. Just getting out and turning over the soil slowly working my way from the back. I have been finding a lot of river pebbles and tossing them over to the side near the shed. If I find enough, I can use them for the paths... Then I hit something hard not quite a shovel depth down. I hoped it was a large rock and tried to work around it with the following result:

As you can see it was a rock - of sorts! A little slab of concrete in the middle of my summer veg garden. Oh, what to do? I am slowly excavating it to find out how large it is. A friend has a jackhammer, so I could break it up and get rid of it. I will just have to see how we go. Of course, the other option is to build a garden up above it - but I really don't like the idea of my little plot sitting on top of concrete. I would so much prefer it to be on the mother earth...! So, I am trying to enlist the kids' help to 'excavate' as I am still so short on breath!

On other fronts, Dan is purchasing a chainsaw this weekend in order for us to gather our own wood. $15 from the state forest or a friend said we could come up to their farm. They have a few fallen trees. The in-laws farm could also do with a tidy up on the fallen tree front. So there are plenty of options for wood.

Now that winter is here and the cold is seeping into the house, I have been waiting for the sun to raise its head to ensure the house and windows are getting max exposure. This was certainly not the case, so I have been trimming the 'hedge' out the front to assist with the thermal heating option. Again, this venture is somewhat hampered by my inability to breathe, but the kids love sitting in the hammock as I slowly expose them to the sun. They love yelling advice regarding which branch is next to come down (usually one I can't reach!). Our house is very daughty, so we are turning our attention to trying to eliminate heat loss. I found the box of curtains and we are looking at putting up two sets at each window. There are a coulple of windows with vertical wooden blinds that I think need more insultation than these blinds are offering. I am trying to come up with a simple and elegant solution.

That's about us for the moment.