Coastal Adaption...

 

It is blowing a gale tonight! I am glad I battened down the hatches earlier, pulled the tarps down to shelter the chooks and turned Lipstick around so she wasn’t facing it. Keep thinking of my poor little plants outside getting thrashed but my rule is, it either grows or it doesn’t. While I will make an impressive effort to provide shelter, sometimes it is easier to roll with nature and just see what happens. 

 I do hope my Asparagus fares well in the bluster though...since planting it out in the tub it has produced quite a few spears and while I can’t eat them yet, it’s encouraging to see.

Had to move a few of the deck plants back under the veranda tonight, just couldn’t risk any damage to them when they are growing so well. My Blackboy peach is laden with new growth and the rhubarb has made a good recovery after the last chop, the strawberries transplanted well and seem to be thriving in the planter. There was a few strawberries left over that are in a pot for now but eventually they will go somewhere in the new garden. The beans and peas I planted in the terracotta pipes are growing well and the passionfruit seems to be happy in the new spot.

The new garden is coming along with the addition of soil/compost, the chooks love scratching around in it which is good but they sure make a hell of a mess. I have a pile of bamboo that has been sitting in the basement and I think with some decent bits of driftwood, a perfectly acceptable fence-come-climbing frame could be made to keep the girls out and provide some support for the vines. I am also using all the bits of broken concrete I found up the front in a junk pile, to edge the garden and frame it. A nice beachy, rustic charm.

All the sunflowers have come up now and are about ten centimetres tall, there are so many of them that it will take a month of Sundays to plant them all. I may just plant them around the edge of the garden so they become part of the fence. The Austrian oil seed finally arrived today so tomorrow I will plant a few pots up. How awesome it will be to have fresh pumpkin and sunflower seeds to nibble on! So good for trail mix, quiches, biscuits, birdseed bars and salads...it’s going to be great having a decent supply in the pantry.

With all the peas, beans, tomatoes I have growing at the moment, I think I will dehydrate a good portion of it when it’s ready for picking and I found a great recipe for tomato paste which will be perfect for using the smaller jars I have stashed. A few of the corn have come up now, also the stringless beans which will be lovely yellow and purple colours. A couple of wire baskets I brought from the opshop the other day will give me some extra planting room under the veranda. I am going to put chain on them so they hang one above the other, great for the smaller varieties of tomato.

Oh, How Wonderful Darling...

My latest project (well, one of them) was a trial run of a Tutu for my nieces. This one I made with fabric I already had so I could make sure I got the effect I wanted before wasting resources... which is why it is bright red. I am going to add some embellishments so it tones down the wow factor but I am very pleased with the result. It is full and phoofy (is that even a word?) and so pretty. The next ones will be different colours and I am going to use a few colours swirled up in each one which I think will look lovely but I need to find a good supply of tulle first. 

 I don’t know how I find the random things I do when I am youtubing but the other night I watched a tutorial on how to make fascinators. I couldn’t help wondering just how pretty some of the girls metallic green and purple feathers would look curled into fascinating fascinator fancies. Doris’s black and white feathers would look like zebra stripes. I’m not sure that Castlecliff is ready for me to swan around in a fancy fascinator but I may make one all the same, just because I can.

A Sea Of Sunshine...

All the seeds are up now except the corn which is probably a couple more days away. Pretty much every Sunflower seed came up so I am going to have many dazzling little faces spreading sunshine around my gardens and I still have a decent sized bag with hundreds more seed in it leftover. Seeing as we have had such nice weather, I have been taking the seed trays out and putting them onto the roof of the house where they are getting a good amount of sunshine each day and then pop them back into the potting shed at night for some shelter. We are still getting a few very frosty nights so I will keep them in there a while longer.

Yesterday I split up all my strawberry plants, put the larger ones into the herb/strawberry planter and the smaller ones into one of the ceramic pots until they are a little bigger. They all seem to have survived the move and once they fill out the planter it will look fabulous and lots of yummy strawberries I hope. 

 The flowering passionfruit got a little battered by the wind in its new spot but seems to look healthy enough. I also planted some beans and peas along the fence line I mentioned earlier by putting them in terracotta pipes. They are different heights but tall enough to keep the chooks from scratching them out by accident. I have two in so far and need to drag a few more from the front of the property to add to the others. It is practical, uses a resource I already have lying around and looks quite snazzy. Once the different plants grow over the netting it should look very cool and can be picked by both sides of the fence.

Some Sunny Sunday Sugar...

There couldn’t possibly be a nicer way to start a Sunday morning than picking up the telephone and hearing a little voice on the end of it asking “Aunty, can I come down and see you and we can have some fun?” Followed by “Can Ava come too cos she wants to come as well?” A quick shower and an even quicker cup of tea and two bright smiley faces arrived at my gate ready to smother me in sugar and talk my ears off!

After smooches and cuddles (and of course Diesel wanted his share but not from me) we went down to feed the chooks, let them out and get a pile of yummies out of the garden for Lipsticks breakfast. Then we walked around the garden chatting about what seedlings were going to go where, where to put the corn, potatoes and the eighty or so giant sunflowers. We munched on fresh Broccoli from the garden before wandering down the front to consider whether the desolate corner would make a good place to smother in pumpkins or watermelon. 

It was then we got distracted by daisies and like any 70’s child I couldn’t resist showing the girls how to make a daisy chain, they had never seen one before...oh how times have changed. A few photos and then we took it down to Lipstick who thought the bouquet of chained daisies was just delicious! A look around the potting shed to see what was growing and would need to be planted out next and I think we needed a snack and a movie, so into the kitchen to make bacon and egg bread case pizzas for lunch and girls choice movie and drawing. 

Later on the girls went off with Mum and Dad to collect pinecones so I got myself back outside and I emptied the small garden, sadly I had to remove some vegetables in the process but the reward of being able to dig it all over and dig in all the compost from the bin will make up for any loss. 

Must be good soil because there was lots and lots of very chubby earthworms, it didn’t take long for the girls to arrive and have a scratch around either. Lola and Petunia follow me like two little shadows waiting for any tasty morsels I came across. They are actually quite good little workers and help break up any clods of soil I happen to miss, but they better not get too comfortable in there, I have lots of plans for that garden!

I Am Officially A Seed Saver...

Oh it’s so exciting! This morning when I toddled out to my new potting shed *grins* I found quite a number of the Sunflower seeds I planted that have sprouted... Wahoooo! If you have read any of my posts from last year you would know that the Sunflowers (Russian Giant) I planted had only just started to die off when I was forced to cut them or leave them at the old house when I moved. Knowing that they were very close to the end and the fact I had lovingly defended off all sorts of garden predators just to get these two to the stage they could fend for themselves, seeing the faces and hearing the oohing and ahhing from the people that seen them...the only option was to cut their heads off, try and keep them safe until we arrived at the new house, dry them and hope they would grow in the next Sunflower season. And they did. Operation: Save the Sunflower seed, was successful. The only thing I have to worry about now is Mr parking his big fluffy butt on my seed trays to sun himself but thankfully he found a more appropriate place today.

 The Urenika arrived today so that is another job I will be working on this weekend...getting something ready to put them in. I also planted the flowering Passionfruit this morning, it took awhile to untangle its vines so I could entwine them around the trellis but it looks rather nice now it is done. Just hoping it likes it there because it has produced a lot of new growth in the last month and I would love to have some summer fruits to share. I am getting two eggs a day now, Doris’s eggs seem to be getting bigger and she alternates between her favourite spot and the nesting box but that is ok, so long as I find them! Doris, Petunia, Tuktuk and Lola all come and take food by hand now which is very cool, Alfie is still shy so I just make sure she doesn’t miss out. She used to let the others take her snacks but lately she is getting very quick and whips it away before they get a chance...Go Alfie!

Yesterday I planted out some of the new seeds that arrived but on reflection I am going to need to prepare myself a little more so I have enough space for all the different types. I was thinking one of the netting fences bordering the property might be a good place for the Peas and Beans as it is a large area they can climb and sprawl. The only problem I can see is that it is the place where the girls like to hang out during the day so I will need to find a creative solution for keeping them away from the plants. All the Tomatoes have popped up so far except the chocolate ones, the parsley is slowing coming up but no sign of life from the Caper seeds as yet.

The Rain Has Arrived At Last...

And apparently we will get a few days of it and strong winds so I am quite chuffed that I have been getting a ton of jobs done and can hibernate if need be. I have done heaps of weeding in the deck garden and it is nearly clear. Once I have finished I am going to plant my Flowering Passionfruit in there to climb up the trellised concrete wall, perfect spot for lots of sun and easy to pick the fruit from the deck.

I grabbed a kitchen knife and chopped back all the lawn edges yesterday which had over grown the brick edging and were looking rather untidy. Still have more to do (joys of a huge yard) but by summer it should be looking fantastic and a great place to have some BBQs and pit fire and have a get together with friends and family. Everything is looking great!

Today Rob came down and loaned me some extra muscle so I could clear out work room stuff in the shed and move it to the workroom, then it freed me to put all my ever increasing seeding pots up in the now garden shed on my big table, shelter, light and warmth. This table was brought years ago, was first my lead lighting table, then multi craft table, then sewing table with fabric roll  storage underneath and now a growing and potting table. Best fifty dollars I spent and have definitely got my money’s worth from it. I have covered it in a place sheet and put two large bamboo stakes running along it for the trays to sit on...that way I have air circulation all around the pots.

It is wonderful to have the work room almost set up, will give me a good chance to sort out what I need and don’t. There is much more space in there also which is always a good thing for when the creative urges spew forth. And I will be able to find everything again as I have a very special mission to do very soon.

My Corn, Goji Berry, Bean, Pea, Carrot seeds arrived so those will be planted tomorrow. I just heard of a group of people trading garden produce and other items for things they need so I am thinking that might be a good way of making sure any extra I have won’t get wasted. I already have other Peas and Beans and some of the Tomatoes coming up in the first trays I potted up.

No photos tonight sorry, will try and get some without being drowned in the morning to add to the One hundredth post of Earth Love Live...Yay! Sweet dreams and Mung Beans everyone xx