Tears of joy [ img ]

Is that a euphamism?

Just checked the pumpkin seeds and they have germinated already...only sown on Saturday although one variety is ahead of the others, these seeds are a bit over two years old so I didn't hold much hope of many germinating...thought if I got one pumpkin that would give me more seed for next time and I would have been happy with that. Fingers crossed I might be having Curry Pumpkin Soup next winter...yippee!!

Cool change has arrived today after several days of 30+ and as I bought lawn seed yesterday I've just sown a small patch that I sprayed with glyphosate a couple of weeks ago. I like to leave the dead weeds/grass/etc in place as they give the seed some protection.

Cooler weather predicted for the next few days so the vegie garden will continue, although vegies are always a 'work in progress' aren't they?

Now that sounds like a great plan.
Be very selective which lawn seed brands you choose and which varieties you use. Most sold aren't very suited to Australia and require heaps of water to stay green.

Much more sense to use water on growing food and off setting water costs with savings on groceries.

Let us know how things come along.

Thanks Fu. What really p****s me off if that all neighbours have Kikuyu (because it's the cheapest and therefore what developers use) and it runs under fences everywhere. Hate the stuff and have never had it at any house I've owned, it needs lots of maintenance to look good as well as lots of water...every afternoon as soon as they arrive home from work you can hear all the sprinklers around here...choof/choof/choof/choof most have spearpoints (although not all) and it seems to be a competition as to who can put the most water into their lawn. Absolutely crazy, imho!! then again they probably think I'm crazy because I never water lawn except when freshly sown, but once established it has to stand on it's own two feet!! Lawn, as well as other plants, will send roots deeper looking for moisture but if they are molly-coddled via a sprinkler every day they are shallow rooted and more easily affected by heat and that's when trees fall over in the first little breeze.

Otoh, I don't shy away from watering a vegie garden although still don't do it to excess and in the cooler part of the day...not MID afternoon when it's still way too hot.

I've had a productive weekend in the garden

Yesterday I built a wire frame/arch over the top of my chicken coop to grow Star Jasmine over it to provide the chicken coop with some much needed shade - oh and it smells AWESOME!
Last weekend I set out to build it but had a bit of a setback when one of the star pickets I was using fell down and hit me in the head which resulted in concussion.

Yesterday I got the job finished! It took about 2.5 hrs to get it done and I must say I'm actually happy with the resulting look, I just hope that it's strong enough to stay in place.

I got given the wire from a friend, it was sitting behind his mum's garage and it was just going to be thrown out - awesome! It was about 10-11m long and 70cm wide, so to cover the entire width of the chicken coop I had to cut 2x4m lengths and then join them side by side to make it 1.4m wide.
After doing that I then had to figure out how I was going to get the wire up onto the star pickets, on my own, which are at a height of 1.8m - string was the answer I came up with. I ended up running string between the star pickets to make a kind of net to try hold the wire up where I needed it until I had secured it to the star pickets. It worked wonderfully

After I had secured the wire in place and tried to re-shape it a bit I then had to work out where I was going to plant the two Star Jasmine plants so that they wouldn't be in the way of being able to clean the chicken coop and then run some more wire down to that spot to provide a climbing path up to the rest of the wire. That done and then the plants planted and this is the result

It was a bit hard to try to get photo's as the wire blends into the background a bit, which is good but you can see the star pickets to see how big it is
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I didn't want the main bit of wire going all the way to the ground so that both myself and the chooks could get underneath it and that was mostly so that I still had room to clean out the coop
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Star Jasmine
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Chooks checking out the new plants and scratching around the pea straw mulch
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My clothing after yesterdays efforts - nice and clean
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Today I decided that I was going to do more gardening - not really surprising is it I decided I was going to make more garden beds for more vegies and get a half wine barrel for my horseradish to grow in.

I ended up buying some sweet corn, capsicums, zucchini and spring onions

Here is the finished product of the Horseradish in the half wine barrel - I decided to put it in a half wine barrel so that it didn't take over my garden. I think I will also add some spring onions to it this week too
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Here is the horseradish in the pot that my friend Chris gave me - holes in the leaves courtesy of the chooks
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Before I could put soil in the half wine barrel, I had to drill plenty of drainage holes
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I also cleaned up the area that I put the half wine barrel and moved my herbs in pots to the area too
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After that I needed to decide where I was going to plant the next lot of vegies, here are some before shots
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I then spent a while turning over the soil in the area and trying to pull out some of the weeds too. I sprayed all the weeds yesterday so they are in the process of dying anyway.

When I was digging I found lots of really BIG wormies
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And also 2 of these which I thought might have been witchety grubs but might also be white curl grub?? Whatever they are, the chooks enjoyed eating them
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Here is my corn planted, 11 plants I think and spring onions all up the right hand side
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Capsicums - 8 plants
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4 Zucchini plants
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Chook proofed!
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It didn't stop the chooks trying to check it all out though - they are a bit miffed about the barrier
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I just cried with joy.. again. I'm all emotional.

I'm just giving stuff a go - anyone can do it i they want to

Phew ... I feel worn out looking at what you achieved over one weekend ... great stuff - lucky chooks!!

Thanks Guys - I've definitely come back to the office for a 'break' lol!

I love being able to look around at all the things I've done

I think the greatest achievements this shows is that you can do a heap more than stare at an empty yard having just built. This is all done by being clever with money and materials.

Cost are kept to a minimum and food bills are offset by growing things your self.

Most readers will be in new areas and scrap building materials are readily found that can be turned into something far more useful than land fill.

I'm really chuffed to see you tackle so much your self. You're a wonderful inspiration.
Now get those grubby clothes of the bed.

Thanks Fu, building a new house on my own has meant that I don't have as much available money as some other people and has made me think outside the square a bit more BUT I enjoy it! I enjoy finding different ways to recycle things and I'm happy with the outcome and that's all that really matters.

Yesterday morning I was looking at the area's I had marked for garden beds but hadn't really decided what to do with it yet so I figured why not plant some vegies! Even if they are only there for one lot of growing - it's better than growing weeds or nothing!

I must say that a lot of work I did 18-24 months or so ago has really paid off now - when I moved I dug everything up ( all clay!) with a rotary hoe and I got a heap of GOOD QUALITY soil delivered and spread out, I dug it over and watered with powerfeed and the results are there today - digging up these new patches are not that difficult, it's the weeds that are annoying more than anything now - they grow so well.

At the end of a day at work nothing much beats walking out to the backyard, seeing and talking to the chooks and picking my own vegies for dinner

I tackle it all on my own cos I am on my own - I don't have the mind set that I can't do something just cos I am one person doing the work - it just takes a bit longer. Sometimes it takes some planning but that isn't a bad thing really, I just try to figure out a way of doing it on my own - It's only a garden - of course I can do it - why wouldn't I be able to?

Love your attitude Lisanne

I have a slight snail problem, see - this was taken after today's rain

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I put my snail stomping gumboots on and squished them all! At first I didn't really like it but then got into it thinking about how they ruin my vegies by eating them!!

My chooks also seemed to really LOVE the rain and weren't at all phased by the storm and they didn't want to go in their home, as a result I have some very wet chooks!

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Our chooks stay out in the rain too-and they love snails!

I think they like to get the bugs etc that come out in the rain. Mine don't seem to eat the snails - very disappointed by that, maybe with time?

Have you tried throwing to them like food? I collect any snails I can, then toss them and the girls go nuts for them!