Busy,busy,busy....

Just quickly popping in with an update.

* Today we divided our back section ( 40m x 13m) into 3 yards using star pickets and stock wire. We have two meat lambs coming tomorrow and we will use the 3 yard system and allow them to strip graze one section before moving into the next and so on.

* I've planted a Lapin Cherry tree, a peacharine, 8 white carpet roses and some variegated grasses. Plus sown carrots, radishes, beetroot and some more lettuce.

* My employment has been insanely busy-but I'm off to a professional conference in New Zealand next week and will go over a couple of days earlier for a few days sightseeing first.


Back soon. :

Planting-how much?

When you are growing your own vegetables-how much do you need? The answer will always be variable...it will depend on factors such as whether you are aiming to supply your entire vegetable needs, or to just supplement your purchases with freshly picked salad ingredients.

I was wandering the web when I stumbled upon this very handy chart:

Asparagus: about 10-15 plants per person
Beans (Bush): about 15 plants per person
Beans (Pole): 2-4 poles of beans per person (each pole with the four strongest seedlings growing)
Beets: about 36 plants per person.
Broccoli: 3-5 plants per person
Cabbage: 2-3 plants per person
Cantaloupe: figure on about 4 fruits per plant (estimate how much your family would eat)
Carrots: about 100 seeds per person (1/4 oz would be plenty for a family of six)
Cauliflower: 2-3 plants per person
Collards: about 5 plants per person
Corn: start out with 1/2 lb. seeds for the family and adjust as needed
Cucumbers: 3-6 plants per family
Eggplant: 3-6 plants per family
Lettuce: 4-5 plants per person
Okra: 3-4 plants per person
Onions: 12-15 plants per person
Parsnips: 12-15 plants per person
Peas: about 120 plants per person
Peppers: 3-5 plants per person
Spinach: about 15 plants per person
Squash (including Zucchini): about 10 per family
Sweet Potatoes: about 75 plants per family
Tomatoes: about 20 plants per family
Turnips: about 1/4 lb (200grams or so) seeds per family
Watermelon: about 1/2 oz.(10 or 20gr) seeds per family

By using the annual recommendations above and spreading your planting across the appropriate season, you should be able to calculate what you need to plant.

I found it over at New Life On a Homestead-so make sure you pop over and check out the whole blog. :)

Home.

I've arrived home from my trip.

The place is still standing, the vegie garden survived the attack of the flying chicken ( the rooster noisily alerted His Lordship to the escapee!) and the washing basket is full.

There is no other place I would rather be.

Back later....after I've found the bottom of the washing basket and clipped some chicken wings!

Chicken yoga....

Our friend's baby has been given an interim diagnosis of Benign Neonatal Sleep Myoclunus  ; which is a great result after the stress they have undergone this week.

This morning sees little spots of green breaking the soil where I sowed seeds the other day. The rocket, lettuce and Asian greens are all showing their heads ( so to speak!) and to keep them company, I bedded in 18 odd cabbages today-made up of a mix of savoy, red & drumhead varieties.

 The peas are also swelling and sprouting....

 Some of the ladies are taking serious steps to ensure that they stay in fine form this winter-no battle of the bulge for Roxy as she takes up a form of yoga!

 

Some of the other girls should perhaps take some pointers..... I'm looking at you Lucy!

 

Whereas Twinkle has her mind on other things...like some privacy please!

Friday.

This is my morning walk......

 

Overnight it has been raining-a week's worth of wet weather now. The 7 days prior had been warm- a glorious Indian Summer. The two combined have caused plants to celebrate-to deepen their colours and burst into growth.

 

I step from the patio and stop to smell the roses....

 

 

 

After crossing the regions of the backyard, I enter the vegetable garden-on my left the newly planted raspberry canes ( yes, I braved the weather yesterday to get them in-dedicated or delusional, I'm not sure which!)

 

 

I check on the two beds planted with seeds- the one in the background has been laid solely with broad beans; after harvest these will be used as green manure for Spring planting. The bed in the foreground has had peas, spring onions, lettuce mix, black Kale & red pak choy planted-you can see the divisions roughly laid out by the stakes & scrap pieces of wood.

 

Onto the orchard gate-where the Committee Of Management await. They worship me as Bringer of the Bucket-as it is I who brings the scraps they so desire!

 

 

Follow the Great Bringer of the Bucket girls-quickly now, displease her not!

 

 

Oh leaving are you? Well, we have this lush section of damp, worm ridden soil to investigate......so, please excuse us if we don't follow you back. Have your people call our people and we will see what we can do about chatting another time ..........maybe....................

 

 

 

Enjoy your weekend.

 

Vege out.....

This weekend was a productive one for His Lordship and I-we finally managed to finish laying out and edging the vegetable garden beds as we have been planning for waaayyyy too long. In recent times we have been too busy on weekends to get anything done-so this was a satisfying couple of days!


 The centre section of beds gives us 10 large beds with pathways to access all. We also have deep beds running along the boundary fences-these hold the blueberry bushes, asparagus crowns ( more to be planted this year), rhubarb and will also have raspberry canes ( I have to replace the ones we had after they were drowned due to water flooding from next door last year-our neighbours have done some drainage work so hopefully that issue is resolved!).

 

Above: Standing in the Eastern corner with our home just showing on the left. The covered bed in the bottom right of the photo is one of our 3 raised strawberry beds.

Above: Looking to the left ( North) as you walk through the gate. Chicken shed in the background, with chickens wandering through the orchard.

His Lordship and I also took the opportunity to head across to Port Fairy and walk around Griffith Island and stop at the lighthouse there. The walk is a comfortable hour long trek-and this time we spotted 6 wallabies, a number of raptors-plus a lot of shearwaters ( mainly the dead ones!).

 

We live in a gorgeous area and taking the time to act like "tourists" in our local towns is not only a refreshing recreational activity, but is also nice and frugal too!

 

How about you-what thrifty activities do you have in your area?

Perusing the property.....

Some updated photos of the productive area of our acre:

To the Eastern side of the vegie garden ( neighbours shed under construction in the background)

 

 

To the Northern side-this side is being allowed to lie fallow until next season. We have layered manure & straw-which will be turned over in 6 months or so. You can see the chicken coop-the chooks are allowed to freerange through the orchard during the day and are locked up at night.

 

 

I've netted the strawberry beds today- there is a lot of fruit and the birds are starting to show an interest!

 





We have a broody hen at the moment- Miss Millie is in a "fowl" mood! I'm not sure how many eggs are under her-there is at least one. I've decided to let her sit and see what eventuates!

 

Our rooster-Sir Bebe Le Pew!

 

Miss Betty doing some of her best posing!

 

As I was wandering around this morning I found this nest-and not far away from it this broken blue egg. Now I have no idea whether it was blown down during the storm last night or if the ravens have raided it and dropped it. I have sprayed it in case of mites etc and will find a home in our dining area for it I think.

 

 

 

Planting & planning...

It's a mid spring day here and we have had a blast of wintry weather! I've been a tad slow to get much in the vegie garden going this season ( work, work, work-it soooo gets in the way of life!)-so I scheduled this morning to remedy that. It has been too wet & windy to head out with the camera-so it's words only today I'm afraid!

In the ground went 4 zucchini plants ( I LOVE zucchini!), 8 chilli seedlings and assorted lettuce seedlings. They have joined the rocket, basil & tomato seedlings ( which were direct sown a couple of weeks back), whereas the onion & parsnips have been doing their thing for a while now.

Fruit trees are looking good and the strawberry beds are just about at the point of being netted from the plethora of birdlife we have in residence! Raspberries & blueberries are starting to set fruit and we have already had some of the rhubarb & asparagus this year ( not together though!).

We are having Christmas here this year-so I'm planning to plant enough salad greens to provide for the 25 or so people who will be here.

How's your garden growing?

Greetings and gratitude....

Thankyou for all the thoughts whilst I was unwell. I'm back in the land of the living-it's taken a double bactch of antibiotics though!

I still have a hacking cough-although I am no longer scaring small children with it!

The next few days will be spent catching up on household chores and layering more manure and straw into the garden beds to prepare for Spring plantings.

Thursday thrift.......

I'm sitting at my desk, gazing out across our backyard at all the trees and plants and I realized last night that I have planted each and every one! At the time I wasn't thinking about that fact, instead I was focused on transforming our bare acre from pasture land into an area which would feed and nurture us.

Now that everything is growing I have been able to begin to appreciate the planning and thought put into that transformation. Our garden is but a baby-18 months old; yet it is already a place of fulfillment.

How does that relate to a Thursday Thrift post I hear you ask? Well, yes we have spent money on fruit trees and fencing, on shelter trees and concrete areas-but there are also plants which were free. Plants which are cuttings or divisions from others.

Much of the edging has been created from rocks which were dug up when the house was being built-and His Lordship dug out the seasonal ponds with a shovel!! The pathways winding through the garden beds have been marked and dug by me-also with a shovel!

We have used leftover colorbond from the roof for some fencing sections and leftover pallets to block areas between the watertanks. Instead of planting lawn seed or turf, we are encouraging the grass which is already in situ to spread-if it's tough enough to stand up to cows grazing it in the past, it will be tough enough to stand up to the kids & dogs which will trample all over it!

When you are creating a garden from scratch it need not be an expensive exercise-paying a small fortune for a landscaper is not necessary. Instead, allowing yourself to dream of a space which becomes your sanctuary and then gradually creating that space yourself will become a cherished part of your life-and it may only take a little digging!

Set in concrete....

We have been in the house for 1 year on Christmas Eve and have finally been able to arrange the concreting we needed out the front and back of the house.

The front of the house. A verandah will be added when finances allow! I can now finish creating the garden beds-which already have Little Gem Magnolias and two varieties of roses growing.

This section leads from the existing undercover area (which will be enclosed to make a games room)-the large pad will have a timber pergola built to enable grape vines to grow and shade the house-this area faces N-NE.

We are really please with the concretor and would recommend him to anyone in our area!

I have ended up having to spend the day at home due to my neck and shoulders being in spasm, but have found that seeing the Calendula oil seeping on the window sill ( Thanks Rhonda http://down---to---earth.blogspot.com/) gives me a lovely sense of self satisfaction! I started it seeping a couple of days ago after reading on Rhonda's blog about how to make your own Calendula salve-quite fortuitous timing as I planted calendulas ( English Marigolds) in the vegetable garden this year purely so that I could harvest the flowers to make the salve!

I've also made homemade Coffee and Chocolate liqueurs over the past couple of days to add to the hampers I'm putting together for Christmas!

Oh Christmas tree.....

I LOVE December 1st! I have always put the tree up and decorated it on the 1st. To me, it's a way of acknowledging where we have come from-although many people do not celebrate the "Christ in Christmas" and even fewer realise that Christmas day itself was originally a pagan celebration on the Winter Solstice, I enjoy the thought that what we are celebrating has been done so by generations before us!

This year there is a touch of sadness for me as I mark the last of our children to pass into adulthood-technically I am no longer responsible for bringing up any children!  However, we are blessed with being young Grandparents-we get to spend many hours running, playing and guiding the grandsons we already have and will look forward to doing so with the two babies due next year!

This is our tree this year-my apologies for the dark photo, but I had to use my phone as a certain daughter has "mislaid"my camera! We are yet to place the angel on top-our family tradition is that my husband contributes to the tree decorating by aligning the Angel when he gets home from work-whilst making some sort of silly "Dad"comment!

The past few days have seen us enjoying produce from our garden-fresh raspberries with yoghurt for breakfast and salads for dinner. The sense of achievement which comes from placing a meal on the table from your own garden cannot be surpassed in my opinion!

Role-ing along..........

OK- a pretty poor play on words in my post title, but after reading today's post at Down to Earth ( link below) I thought about how role models are another facet of the post I made on Sunday.

As I commented on the D2E blog, I don't actually have role models-people I appreciate & applaud, people whose skills I admire ( and sometimes learn myself!) but no-one whom I look at and say to myself "I need to be more like you". I've reached a point where I like who I am-mistakes, crotchety nature and all! I try to do the best by those around me, and I try to make a difference in the lives of those I have contact with-whether they know it or not.

Back to the whole Sufficiently Sufficient theme ( or garden going-ons!)- I'll be planting out some carrot & beetroot seeds shortly. I'm planning on doubling what I planted last year because the soil is much lighter than the virgin clay based stuff I had to endure a year ago! Organic matter, organic matter then yet more organic matter!

Tomorrow I'll be transplanting a couple of tiny eggplant seedlings which sprouted for me-they will live under a homemade cloche for a few weeks to ensure that temps are warm enough for them.