Banana Choc Chip Muffins

We made muffins today. Jordy is a super egg breaker now and can crack them with no help and no shell… except he waves around the empty shell after he has cracked it as if he has no clue what to do with it. Just put it down!!! Goose.
And, of course, Darcy wants to copy but he is a dead-set shocker when it comes to breaking eggs. Actually, not true, he breaks eggs very well…. it’s just that it is usually on the floor or just scrunched in his hand.
But the muffins were super moist and tasty.

 

in the doghouse

i don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or throw things.

With all the rain everything is soaked, the front patio is even totally drenched and so Bundy (my german shephard) has nowhere warm and dry to sleep. Which, i have to say does not bother me all that much. She’s a dog. She has heaps of room under the house, a soft (albeit damp) bed on the patio, an actual canvas doghouse under the eaves…

But Dad made me feel all guilty so i laid out some of my nice towels over her wet bed (which she scratched at and dragged off anyway) and made her another dry bed up on the back deck. Now the back deck is where the kids play and has previously been dog-free cos she has dirty feet and far too much fluffy fur. But, with Dad carrying on about her being cold (she has a friggin fur coat!) i called her up and put her food bowl up here.

Fine.

Now the other day cos my seedlings were getting drenched outside i had carried the trays up and had them on the deck (the same deck now populated by a big dog) and cos i had not wanted the kids to play in the seedling trays i had put them up on the outdoor table. All good.

Dad is here and says “you’ll wreck your nice table with those seedling boxes.” I explained that they were getting drowned in the rain. “Put them on the floor” he says. “Bundy will get them!” i reply…. but no, see, i listen to my father…..

So we put the boxes on the floor.

Had to go into town for a bit today. I was gone a couple of hours. I got back home, walked out the back on to the deck….. and i will honestly admit that tears welled up. My seedlings!!!! Friggin BUNDY!!!!!

With the rain and the cloudy days the seedlings had seemed to thrive and i had been planning to plant them once we had some fine days to dry the soil up a bit. Some of them i had intended to put in pots as xmas gifts for family. Now they had been reduced to green flecks of broken leaf amongst the upturned soil marked with suspiciously dog-claw looking scratch marks.

So, i took what i could and planted them out into the garden. I have no idea what i planted where- half of them were stems with a few roots and no leaves attached. I can’t imagine many will survive. While i was searching for survivors i allowed myself a moments doubt. “Perhaps it was a bird?” (a bloody big footed bird, but, maybe…. it might NOT have been Bundy…” And then, amongt the last of the cape gooseberrys i discover a half-eaten bone-shaped dog biscuit. BLOODY BUNDY!!!!!!

So i smoothed over the seedraising mix ready to plant some more seeds tomorrow and start all over again.

And then put Bundy’s food bowl back downstairs and locked the gate. She can sleep in the rain.

 

river views

here is the current view from my back deck.

and here is a shot of Darcy. Blurry! but funny. He found the hook thing himself, just decided to stick it on his nose, and then wandered out of the bedroom to show me. ??

 

thank you, rain, i’ve had enough now.

I have not gone out to check but i imagine my little seedlings have drowned.

And my sawdust paths did not have a chance to settle and are being washed away! Damn you!!!!!

My new potato bed is totally under water.

I can’t see the chickens anywhere.

The neighbour’s lower paddock is all flooded, and the farmland out the back now has a decent river running through it!

The water out of my bathroom tap (but not my kitchen tap) is decidedly yellow in colour and i have no idea why.

I wish i had a bigger rain water tank.

 

harvesting

The wonderful people that owned the property here before me had a vegie garden that was already well established so i am discovering all these wonderful vegies that just keep popping up. A few weeks ago zucchini seedlings came up out of nowhere, and lots of cherry tomatoes… but a week ago i discovered i have potatoes!! I harvested about a dozen over the last several days. And they are so super creamy to eat- delicious!

Yesterday i discovered sweet potato! I dug up two big tubers and ate one for dinner. I think they will be super tasty baked. It’s a funny white sweet potato and tastes a little different to the pink/orange ones i usually buy.

I want lots more of them so i picked all the shoots off the side and have them in water at the moment. Apparently after a few days they will develop lots of roots and can be re-planted. yay!

My seedlings are going sooooooooo slow at the moment. I am getting impatient. I planted the seeds a month ago and this is all i have to show for it. The seedlings are lucky to be about an inch tall. Ridiculous.

 

painting

Lala left a present for the boys when she visited a while back and I had promised Jordy we could get it out today and do some painting. He scoffed his breakfast and was outside waiting (not at all patiently) for me to get the paints ready about 15min after he woke up. Darcy did not even get a chance to eat (or get out of his jammies) before he was out there too.

The paint quickly went from multi-coloured to brown and once the aeroplane was finished Darcy started painting himself. Lots of fun!

It is probably a good thing that the finished product was not quite in the ‘masterpiece’ catagory cos Darcy decided to try to fly it by giving it a good throw. It plummeted to the ground rather rapidly and is now a broken wreck left abandoned on the deck.

Thanks, Lala!

 

starting to take shape

I shovelled a heap of sawdust onto the path areas this morning and i am REALLY happy with how things are looking in the garden now. It has its shape and is looking a little tidier. Over half the beds are planted out, and more seedlings waiting to be transplanted soon in a couple more beds.

Now it’s just a matter of time and a bit of trial and error as i learn what works and it should be all green and lovely and productive super soon…

Here is me giving you a tour of what has been done so far…
done

I just put Darcy to bed and glanced out the window to take a proud look at the garden and there was a BLOODY CHICKEN in there! I ran out the door and through the gate and into the yard… aaarrrrrgggghhhhh!!!! How long had it been there? How much had it eaten?!?!? Thankfully not long, and not much. The stupid thing chose the smallest corn seedling to eat and that was it by the look of it… no scratched areas where my seeds are, just the one corn plant missing. Lucky!

I spent the next hour putting in extra star-pickets and flattening down the base of the fence. That will keep them out.

 

beans and corn

Susan and i made a bean tripod thing today out of the bamboo i have growing around the edge of the chook yard. I think it needs to be pushed into the soil a bit deeper (will do that after rain) and perhaps a strong stake or star-picket to anchor it on one side. But it should do the job, we reckon.

I did not have a lot of success with some of my seed trays. I think the mix was too high in compost and may have burnt the seedlings. I only got about a third of the sweet corn come up, and not enough for successful pollination, so i planted out what i had, added old cow pats to my mix, and planted more seeds. Hopefully these will do better and only be a few weeks behind the first batch and not be too late to aid pollination.

One tray of seedlings looks ok (not great, but ok!), the leeks are also doing ok. But the tray of basil, chia, rosella…. uuummm, not sure what else, one full tray anyway has had virtually nothing come up. Will give it a bit longer but i think i will replant those varieties in a new tray next weekend.

 

jumping, jumping!

Darcy has been trying to jump for a month or two now and he finally did it!!!
His first really proper jump was on Friday and Susan kept seeing it but i always missed it! Typical! But i saw it last night.
done

 

yay for friends!

One of my favourite people is visiting at the moment, and what better way to say “i love you” and “thanks for coming to visit!” than to rope them into shovelling close on 2 tonne of compost! yay! I think Susan was hoping for some more civilised gardening… like planting seedlings. But no [insert evel laugh] i gave her a million newspapers to lay out and a truck full of dirt instead!

We busted our arses yesterday. I seriously need better garden tools…. or perhaps a tractor! But we managed to shovel out the compost and complete the last two garden beds (i now how all seven circles done so my mandala is complete!) and put lots more compost around the edges and in a couple of little mini inner-plots for some of my longer term plants like asparagus and ginger etc down the track. Oh, and those daylilies! They are still in their pot…. got to get them in the ground today!

Things are starting to look good. I can really picture where it will be next spring after the beds have had a full season of crops and the fruit trees are established and the vines get going along the fence

Cooked up a super simple yummy egg noodle quiche for dinner. Just cooked the egg noodle for a few minutes, poked it around the quiche dish. Then 7 eggs beaten with a little (lactose free) cream, lots of chopped silverbeet, grilled capsicum, garden herbs, salt, pepper, nutmeg and a spolsh of mayonnaise… poured it over the noodle and in the oven for a bit… ta-da!

 

little seedlings

I don’t have much of a greenhouse/ propagating area set up at the moment. Not sure about it…. i know i have to keep harsh sun off the planted seeds, and strong rain presumably…. but do they need to be under a roof? The shed was not working cos when i opened the roller door the chickens walked all over the boxes trying to get the seed so to get them out of my seed raising area i have had to put my boxes on an old BBQ trolley and drape it with some shadecloth. Not sure if this is the best way to raise seeds? How does everyone else do it?

Oh, my corn took 10 days until i saw the first seedlings poke through. And everything else was a bit slower. The wongbok was next at about 12 days, and that’s the first couple of seedlings, more pop up each day. Yesterday the first zucchini made an appearance (14days) and then today there are a couple of leek, beans, a rosella, and a couple of other individual green sprouts peeking through the soil. Bit of a relief as i thought they would germinate quicker (impatient, maybe!) and i was worried that my manure compost may have burnt the shoots. Fingers crossed more pop up soon.

Got some daylillies from the Pembroke nursery today. They seem like an amazing plant. The whole plant is edible; the flowers, buds, stems, leaves, and root!! Wow! And rather nice looking at the same time! And, they multiply and divide on their own, and are easy to grow. Oh, and don’t need much water! Seems like a bit of a miracle plant if you ask me…. let’s see if they live up to expectations…

And this is how my mandala is looking so far…. i mowed the lawn this morning and cos the boys are not here today i took advantage and laid down some more newspaper to get rid of the grass around the beds which i then covered with the lawn clippings… after i finished and stood back to admire my work it dawned on me that grass clippings no doubt contain grass seeds…. hhhmmmm…. fingers crossed that once i cover with either sawdust or soil down the track that i have not just planted a shit load of grass seeds!

 

in go the fruit trees

First i have to say that it’s bloody hard work digging holes! I need a better shovel, i think. Mine is a post hole digger, but working with what i’ve got so i’ll just have to whinge about the blisters instead (oh! and poor Dad helped out and got a massive blister on his hand too! oops!).

Over the last week i have planted the plum (will self-pollinate but will do better with another plum so i’ll look at that soon), a grape vine to grow along the fence, another passionfruit for along the fence, a japoticaba inside the mandala area, a crab apple out in the chook yard and a regular tropical apple in the chook yard. I want to espalier that so will track down some lattice or something in the coming weeks… Freecycle?

The lady at the nursery at Pembroke suggested planting a piece of pipe down in the hole with the tree so that i can water down deep instead of loosing so much water in surface evaporation!! How simple a good idea is that! I’ve had a few bits of pipe laying around the place (the beauty of old houses!) so i dug them in.

Oh, the fence. My idea to move the chook dome into the main house yard to clear out an existing vegie bed that i wanted to replant only half worked. All the effort that Nardia and i went to in chasing crazy arse chickens around the place was slightly wasted cos the free-spirited little chooks did not at all like being stuck in the dome for two and a half days without a wander around. And i could not let them out in the main yard becuase all my vegies are in there and they can smell a seed a mile off! (greedy beggers!).

So my next trip into town i grabbed some chicken wire and made up a temporary fence to close off the garden (which i had intended to do down the track but not yet). I could not let the chooks inside the new mandala area cos they dig up EVERYTHING! They scratched the crap out of my mulch and sawdust and dig and kick and scatter everything all over the yard. So out they go!

And they want in real bad! I was slow closing the new gate that Dad made (when he came and fixed my temporary fence… i left the digging in of the star pickets to him!) and those chooks just RAN inside. Straight onto my new planted out bed. We were right onto them to get them out but they still managed to eat a beetroot seedling and dig and scatter who-knows how much nettle seed. hhhhmmmm…. not happy, Jan!

This is the tropical peach, and the bed i planted over the last few days… beetroot seedlings (a lovely gift), kipfler potatos, radish (i think!), nettle, sunflower… whoever said you should immediatley write down what you plant was right! I put little label sticks in the beds but Jordy collected them! LOL! So i forget what else is in there….

 

clearing out the overgrowth

There was a bit of a mess in one section of the garden that was totally full of old banana trees and suckers, and tall bulb-grown flowers (no clue about flowers!), and lots of old dead banana leaf and general crap…. well, as soon as Mum and Dad arrived for a visit i roped them into getting out there with me and clearing it out. With three of us (and two little helpers) it did not take long.

Mum and i dug up the bulb flowers and i knocked out the bananas i did not want and Dad mulched all sorts of stuff up in the mulcher. I now have a massive pile for compost (which i just added to my previously failed compost pile so now essentially i have a huge overflowing towering pile of old dead stuff that, i hope, will one day magically turn into soil… ok, i will work on that later! But for now i am just happy that the side of the fence is all cleared out.

I planted a couple of watermelon seeds down there…. mmmmm… not sure how they will go. Not the sunniest site. But if not then no big deal. It’s a nice path anyway.

 

the chickens and their eggs

Luckily enough the boys are both loving eating lots of eggs. And Darcy is no longer scared of the chooks which is wonderful. They are now officially happy house pets and get lots of attention and loving from both the boys.

Here is Darcy wanting to collect the eggs (but his arms won’t reach) and then getting a little concerned about the chicken poo! ROFL! done

done

And here is us in the garden

 

Darcy’s first haircut

Finally! the mullet is gone. Darcy had his first haircut this week and looks so much like a little boy now that i think it is adorable.
And Jordy’s wonderful attempt at avoiding a haircut for the rest of his life was foiled by cousin Caity who provided enough incentive to want to have a turn too! So his dreads and curls are gone (sniff!) and he looks like he may have brushed his hair sometime this week instead of sometime last year.

 

see you tomorrow, Grandma, Grandpa

this is a movie of Darcy saying “see you tomorrow, Grandma, Grandpa…” cracks me up. He is obviously looking forward to seeing them soon…done

 

green pawpaw chutney

a couple of green pawpaw fell from the tree in the wind the other day so i googled a bit and although there was not much out there i found a few clues about pawpaw jam and chutney…. so i had a go.

I made three bottles of chutney (which, upon tasting them a week later i have to say were bloody good!!!) and also two bottle of white mulberry and green pawpaw jam. Now the jam i suspect i will have to call ‘desert sauce’ LOL! cos it’s too runny for jam. But i think it will go just brilliantly on icecream

The recipe said to add water, which i did… but because i was sort of making it up as i went i think i added too much… either that or i really needed the pectin from jamsett for the pawpaw.

i am now posting this to remind me to add the recipe in later so i don’t loose it!!!

 

now time for the seeds

i would have liked to have gotten the seeds in first but was limited by the opening hours for the compost and my seeds took longer arriving than i thought they would… so Sunday afternoon and Monday morning was all about the seeds.

I made up a mix of half medium grain river sand and half cow manure compost for them… i had remembered reading that that was a good mix in Linda Woodrow’s Permaculture book…. but i got it a bit wrong!!! I knew it should be half sand and half shredded cow pats and although i had collected cow pats from the paddock next door i did not actually have a lawnmower when i was kitting up to do the seeds so i bought a bag of cow manure compost from Bunnings…. but it’s not the same thing!!!!!

Too late now. Apparently the compost is too rich and can burn the seedlings- we’ll see how they go. I have my lawn mower now so time for a fresh collection of cow pats i suppose.

Anyway, i planted LOTS. Let’s see if i remember… leek, brocolli, beans, eggplant, sunflower, pidgon pea, cape gooseberry, tomatoes, zucchini, lettuce, rosella, chia, corn, sage, wongbok, basil… not sure what else, ok, the comfrey cuttings and some brambleberry canes. I still have more to do (watermelon, pumpkin, asparagus etc)… so now the shed is a makeshift nursery.

I need to get my propagating bench covered with some kind of shadecloth setup and make an area outside for it. Under the lemon tree might be nice and shady. Another job to add to the list. It would have been nice to be able to plant the different seeds at the right lunar cycle for them but for now it was just bang them in the dirt while i have them time!

I also did some remodelling in the vegie patch in the main yard. I moved a capsicum and some nasturtiams and some other plant that i am not sure what it is! And then Nardia and i put the chicken dome over half of a bed so the chooks can clear it for me so i can replant. I think i’ll use the area for my asparagus… not sure yet.

And i planted some carrots and parsnip in the existing beds as well. Noticed some rogue zucchini seedlings poking their heads up so that’s a nice surprise!

Getting the chickens from the chook yard and through the gate and into the dome was a comedy of errors. Jordy and Darcy were both in there saying “chook, chook, chook” with waving arms and Nardia and i were back and forth and the chickens were running in every direction except the one we wanted them to go it. Took some tactics but in the end we got them!

Oh, and i put a tropical peach tree in. Already laden with fruit!!! I’ll have to find out if i should remove some of the fruit to put less stress on it being transplanted…?? Do you do that? There is a plum tree on the back of the truck waiting for me for tomorrow.

 

Sunday morning at Timbertown

Nardia insisted on getting out of the house this morning so instead of more gardening we headed to Timbertown. We met up with Al and Caitlyn, and the kids had a ball. Jordy enjoyed it more than i thought he would and had a melt-down when we had to leave cos he wanted to stay and look at all the old buildings some more!! The train was not working which was disappointing. Some crap about insurance and the local council not covering it… fair dinkum! They shut all the other attractions for kids in the area! Just let the damn train run, idiots!!!!
Anyway, we just sat in the train and had a ride on the horse and carriage instead

Had a hard time dragging Darcy away from the animals. He kept trying to feed them leaves and yelling “Hello Donkey” “Sheep” “Cow” “Moo” at them. And he learnt about “bullocks”.

And although this is nothing to do with Timbertown i had to include this photo from later in the day. If it doesn’t make you chuckle then something is wrong

 

more action in the mandala garden

Nardia is here to visit so while she entertains the kids all day i can play in the garden!! Lots to do.

Before she arrived i had already done more newspaper covering. I had a big area (probably a third of the full mandala) covered in newspaper with mulch just all chucked on top to keep it from blowing away.

Friday morning I got a load of sawdust from the local sawmill. Free if you shovel/load it yourself. Not as hard as i thought it would be. I got about a small trailer load and headed home. Then i started to separate the mulch areas and form up the central circle. I pushed it into the right sized circle to suit the dome and then shovelled the first part of the sawdust around it.

Then i kept going with each of the other circles, adding more newspaper as i went to get the sizing right and shovelling sawdust around the path areas.

Saturday morning time for a trip to the local tip where they sell compost. I was pretty happy with 1tonne for $42!!! (think the bloke gave me a bit of a bargain). I started on the central circle and after covering it with compost i stuck the chicken dome on it. I wanted to see how it fit, but i also wanted to lock the bloody chooks in there cos they kept scratching up the mulch and compost and kicking it all over the place!

My back was killing me by the end of the day but i shovelled it all over the five circles i had formed up so far. I still have two circles to go to complete the mandala but i ran out of mulch and energy and while i could have gotten more mulch just a 5min drive down the highway i was totally clear out of energy! LOL! You can see the chicken dome here marks the spot where another circle will go and again in the clear space to the bottom left.

Lastly i scattered some Green Manure seeds over one of the circles (one that i am not going to plant out straight away) and then sprinkled with some mowed over leaf material for some light mulch and Ta-Da! Not bad for a day’s work.