Big weekend in the garden

This weekend had stunning weather. Our winter was warm and short and a lot less freezing than our first one last year. This first weekend of Spring experienced gorgeous weather - we ended up in T-shirts at one point with a temperature around 15 degrees. I have finished the vege gardens in the front yard and finished the first plantings of Rocket, Spinach and Lettuce and added some Beetroot to the back garden beds with Carrots. My peas and Potatoes which I planted about 3 weeks ago have started to appear and so far they are looking heatlhy!. The front vege patch can now be accessed by a new set of stairs and gate from our deck which A spent all weekend building. So we have a fully functional home in all four corners now. Very exciting.

climber

We have a climber outside my studio which was fairly woody and not very high when we moved in over a year ago. With Mum's help we have brought her back to life, pruning and generally looking after. She has now flowered. Hopefully we will identify it soon.

From Garden early September & new beds

Spring is almost here

It's my birthday today and Spring is almost here. For my birthday A gave me 4 tonne of topsoil mix with mushroom compost. So I am getting my spring planting plans ready and getting ready for my second year of fruit and vege planting. Hopefully it will yield more produce than last year! Below is a slide show of little buds of spring taking off.

Yummy food

It's been a while since i posted - the onset of Winter. It seems to stall....life a bit.

Well I just wanted to share this wonderful site I found through Design*Sponge. It's a website by a couple of guys who like to cook. Some yummy recipes to be found here. I promise you this is worth it - check it out here: http://www.lottieanddoof.com/ Lottie and Doof.

Mrs Fatso has died

It seems my skin is getting thicker the longer I live up here in the mountains. The current count of animals is currently 5 chooks, 3 dogs, a mouse, 3 gold fish.
So far fatalaties are 1 chook (stolen or eaten), 3 chooks slaughtered by fox, 2 gold fish (killed by me as far as I can tell - bad pond habits...getting better) we also recently buried one of the kids guinea pigs (but the guinea pig resided elsewhere, we just took it in on it's last very sick day). The Guinea pig is buried under rock by the fish pond at the 9 yr olds request.

But the most recent, awful death was that of the old time chook Mrs Fatso. She of "I have survived 3 fox attacks". She of "I am the boss - get out of my way". She of "You will not put flee dust on my bottom or I will have a heart attack and die!" protest. And she did. She was old. She didn't move much. And we suspect she was not well, as, like and old dog she would wander across the yard..have a sit down...wander more...have another sit down.... So A decided to dust all the chooks, and while the others fluttered and put up with it...Mrs Fatso fluttered...then fluttered less...then quite gradually her neck started flopping. The kids and I were watching...then kind of worried. Then A looked at me - and oh dear...Mrs Fatso was having a heart attack! She died pretty much there and then. But the wonderful way the children dealt with it was to come up with the appropriate burial theme (rocks, wooden sticks for cross and a few flowers - all totally creeped me out!) So she was duely buried in a very sombre ceremony - and I barely cried. Thus my skin is getting thicker. I'm not sure how I have lived over 40 years and never had a burial in the backyard. Then in the space of 1 year have have had two! Interesting times ahead. I love every mintue of it.

I trust as the years are moved through, I will plant better crops, raise lots of animals and just become part of the fabric of living in regional Australia. A say's it's not exactly country, but it is. My country anyway.

New growth and my special carrot

Well I have had my very first carrot harvest. There were two and they were about the size of a marble. (granted they were the button carrots - not long ones). But still. Another grand failure in this wonderful first year attempting gardening. I am hoping of course that the massive carrot plot that I have planted will yield greater produce - however I can give you a tip about that plot - of the 30 or 40 I planted along each row - then thinned out - there about 4 or 5 left. I am not sure what happened to them all - but I suspect the same thing may have happened to them as the fantastic 17 bean stalks (now just one) - birds. There is a slide show below - including the carrot, as well as the echinacea plant (3 flowers!) the every growing herb garden and my passionfruit. I have also included a shot of our chooks in free range mode. We have tested with complete success letting them wander around the back yard with the dogs. The dogs, including the mad kelpie just look and occassionally threaten to round them up in good farm dog fashion. But they are all friends for the most part. The chooks just completely ignore them.

If you want to view the slide show in full screen mode click on the big play arrow in the middle of the screen - then click on the icon on the bottom right corner of the slide show, then when you want to come back just hit the "escape" button".

Echinacea

Echinacea
Originally uploaded by Catch That Mountain View

The wonderful thing about starting from scratch is we are almost randomly learning what works in this cool mountain climate and what doesn't. So gradually over many springtimes we will enjoy here, our garden will hopefully, slowly, start having lots of vibrant living life in it, rather than some fairly poorly looking sad droops. One which has absolutely thrived without much help was a small tube stock plant - Echinacea. I have a small dream of having various medicinal plants around the place to slowly work through their various benefits and the echnicea plant was a good obvious one to start with. Well! It took off and quickly. It's now well over a foot tall with the wonderful purple flower at the top. A & I have decided somewhere to make a little feature row or garden of these lovely herbs.