Blog post 13, my favourite number.

One of my sisters has 3 as her favourite number, and 9 is extra special to her as it is 3 x 3. 13 is my favourite number, if one is superstitious it is considered unlucky, but for me it represents so many good things. Sure there are horror movies out there like the 13th floor, or the Friday the 13th series, but come on, what about a bakers dozen? Isn't that a lucky thing if you get to eat the delicious spare? Or how about the 13 full moons we admire each year? Does not the age thirteen signify a celebrated point in ones youth? What about a packet of playing cards, how it's 13 cards from ace to king each suit? My oldest daughter was born on the 13th, yesterday my youngest son turned 13 years old,  all good things, 13 can't be as ominous as it has been made out to be. 

These are my 3 crazy sons Micheal, Brendan, and Kayleb, posing for a picture with me, my poor sister was trying to get a nice picture but the oldest spawn wouldn't cooperate, I dont mind, when the spawn get together it's always fun crazy times! Add my little sister in to the mix, and this is exactly the kind of fun insanity you get, we are nuts and I love my family. We had a great night with pancakes for dinner, lots of laughter, and our 13th birthday tradition, a horror movie. Well, a tame and funny horror movie, for the most part I keep the M15+ movies as exactly that, and my spawn think I'm evil. My youngest turns eleven this year, so it won't be too long until I'm sharing all my favourite scream fest movies with them. 

In the garden things are continuing to wither and die in their own version of a horror movie, the mildew is back attacking the zucchini plants, the pumpkins still refuse to open their flowers, and the tomatoes are just managing to cling to life. The mystery melon has not brought on fruit to any sort of maturity, even though I self pollinated some of them. 

The zucchini and pumpkin/melon patch.

The greenhouse is coming along nicely though. 

These cherry tomatoes have taken off rather quickly, less than two weeks growth.

 

The growth difference in these comparison shots is a little less than two weeks. Not much on the rocket, but the perpetual spinach is growing well. 

And the capsicums are flowering after all, I don't know if I'll get any fruit, but it's exciting see anyway. I'll be doing another post soon asking for tomato advice.

I did finish Mass Effect 3, and can't tell you what I think without spoiling it, I can say I have mixed feelings and hope that the indoctrination theories are true. 

Right now I'm taking my two girls to the doctors, and tonight I'll be with my 19yo Micheal spawn, who will be designated driver for my little sisters meet the new boyfriend dinner, she's gathering her closest friends together and it's going to be hilarious fun, and I've already met him and deemed him a great fit. Plus, if he can handle my personal crazy, he'll definitely survive the group insanity. 

Bek.

How is my garden growing?

Manic Monday's are almost my least favourite day, Wednesday takes first place though, I just need to be more organised, less chaos, or at at the very least I'll settle for some organised chaos. That is one of my goals this year, along with de-cluttering, and using less resources. It's rubbish day tomorrow, and all of my bins are full with more waiting to go in, so my immediate goal, is to use less, or more importantly, waste less. Buy less packaging, start composting and make sure no food is wasted. I am giving myself 1 month to have this much in place, and putting it up here might help me stick to it. I have already started by not buying dog food, I am making 3 days worth of Murphy food at a time, and he and I are both much happier, no tins for recycling, and yummy food my dog can't wait to eat, it smells better too, at both ends. *grin*

I promised garden updates, so here they are. 

I planted these capsicums and lavender on Saturday, after attacking this clay filled garden bed and working through some organic compost and well composted cow manure, finishing off with organic sugar cane mulch. These are store bought seedlings, I had tried to grow capsicums from seeds, and feeling I'd failed bought these ones. Then I read a blog, (I can't remember which one, sorry,) that said, don't stop watering, Capsicum seeds can take a really long time to wake up, So I kept at it, watering the depressingly blank soil, and last week after 6 weeks I have a result! 

Only three of the eight made it, but I'll still take that as a win, 1 of them has only just broken the surface, maybe next week I'll have more? 

The pumpkins and some sort of melon are growing like crazy, the pumpkins were planted just after Christmas, but as of yet no flowers. I had thought I saw buds, but it was just new shoots, keeping my fingers and toes crossed, and limiting the watering, I've read that this might help.

A tiny melon and cucumber, in the absence of bees I have tried my hand at pollinating, but am also planting some bee attracting flowers and herbs, in hope of bringing them in. Every summer I have had bees all over my wattle tree, I've rarely seen one this year, their absence is troubling when I read about colony collapse disorder, which is why even though I have a white fly problem, I am avoiding any pesticide. I did see two yesterday, maybe the lavender is already doing it's job, but they seemed more interested in my clothesline. I recently dyed my bright blue hair to black as I'm allergic to bees and when I was near them, they'd buzz around my head in a threatening kind of worship. 

I didn't have any soil deep enough and completely free of stones for carrots, and am fast running out of garden beds, this 42 litre container seemed like a good solution, the carrots seeds are in the middle with herbs I've grown from seed around the outside. I have three more containers to set up, one for Parsnips, one for swedes, and the other will be brussel sprouts. My spawn love brussel sprouts, my youngest spawnlet begs loudly in the supermarket for them as if they're candy, while surrounding shoppers look at us like we've grown another head or come from another planet.

Zucchini is doing well.

I really did plant all of these too close, in this 4x4 bed I have 9 tomatoes, 8 celery, 8 broccoli, 6 green Mignette lettuces, 8 iceberg lettuce seedlings, and a few mixed lettuce seedlings. Everything seems to be happy, so I'll see how it all grows there may be some sacrifices in the near future, next time I will space things out a lot more. 

A tiny little leek, and my first bean! 

There has been a little bit of seed sowing craziness, well, maybe a little more than a little, and just about every container I can find has a hopeful seed or 20 with the original goal in mind. Using less packaging, good stuff for the compost bin I still have to get/build, and no wasting food. The benefits will be a healthier family, with hopefully a little more money saved, no running out of room in the bins before rubbish day, and less impact on our planet. 

Middle spawn cut her foot checking an aqueduct for Gerome on Saturday, last night we were in emergency as it was a tad worse than first thought. A tetanus shot and some vigorous cleaning were needed and she's fine, but no school today, I'm off to hire some crutches for the rest of this week. 

The vigorous cleaning was more like a vicious tickle, middle spawn couldn't stop laughing.

'til next time,

Bek. 

A day at home

Finally a day that I can spend at home alone, as a stay at home mum, it is surprising how little time I have at home with nowhere to be, though my youngest spawn is ten.  Maybe I'll spend some of my day catching up on laundry, tidying, and dusting, but there will be blissful uninterrupted reading. Yesterday I arrived home in the afternoon to Kalayna Price's Grave Witch in the mailbox, I bought it on an amazon recommendation, a bit like genius on iTunes. I think it serendipitous, this book arrives just in time for my first day off in almost forever, a perfect break from hectic reality.

Because I have the time, I thought I would take some photos of what's growing in my garden, firstly, because I'm proud of my first attempt at growing our food. And secondly, because it's great to have a comparison for later on.

These are my dwarf butter beans just over two weeks ago, and today.  

Zucchini, These little babies are going to make me very happy! 

My tangled tomatoes, I mistakenly planted 9 of them very close together, and next to the broccoli which is apparently not a good thing. Underneath them is my basil, I have read that not only do they taste great together, but growing them together is beneficial as well.

This is the melon of some sort, found the day I started to plan out my veggie patch, and the day before I was to plant my pumpkins. 

This is what it looked like, and I, thinking I was an expert on such things, was so sure that this surprise plant, growing from nothing I'd ever planted, was in fact a pumpkin. I'm glad I didn't rely on that, knowing now it is a melon, or I wouldn't have bought and planted the pumpkins in time. I moved it from where it was and planted it in the newly turned, weeded, manured, and mulched bed, and brought three new pumpkin plants to plant with it. 

the day after I moved it, I was sure I'd killed it...

A few weeks later it looked like this and now, it's probably the happiest plant in my yard... I am happy to hear any theories on what melon this may be, Any! The curiosity is killing me. My son Micheal is hoping for rockmelon, and has already staked his claim on the fruit, I'm thinking honey dew.

The celery, It seems to be the slowest growing thing in my backyard, I keep looking impatiently at those perfect little stalks with a predatory eye. 

Our green mignonette lettuce, these have been adding some green to the spawns sandwiches and rolls. 

Lastly, my cabbage seedlings. 

The white butterflies have been busy on these tiny leaves too, I'd better start picking those eggs off.

This is not the whole of what's growing in the garden, and the other things will have their turn too, but I think this post is past long enough, I can ramble on forever about my veg, so I'll stop for now. Plus I hear the rubbish truck, and am desperate to take out the school holiday build up of recycling. 

'til next post,

Bek.

Happy Birthday My Justin...

Today is my partners birthday and it is, in part, his fault I have started this blog. In my quest for self sufficiency, I have been reading other people's experiences on blogs such as this, all of the advice and information has been invaluable. Not that I am in anyway experienced, but I am learning. Justins thought was that I should be sharing our veggie venture, creating a sort of online journal, so that I can look back and see how it started, having a good measure for the progress we make. I love that he is enthusiastic in his encouragement of my humble beginnings in our Veggie patch. And although I don't want my blog to be predominantly about the growing of vegetables, this post is for him.

The veggie patch was a little inspired by Hugh, that infectiously enthusiastic chap from the river cottage series, oh the seed had been planted long ago, but he definitely made sure that seed germinated, and grew! As a vegetarian I can't enjoy all he does, but I respect when he slaughters an animal, he respects the animal enough to waste nothing. With this new idea of growing my own food, high on information overload gleaned from two months of non stop internet research, I went to Justin and rambled and ranted and raved about all things permaculture, and growing our own veg. Poor Justin, for all he had to listen to, watch, and read.

The first thing I did was plant pumpkin, right next to my ashamedly unused greenhouse.

 There are 3 Kent pumpkins and one melon of some sort, but that's a tale for another day. I am amazed at how fast they've grown in less than a month! We also have 2 raised garden beds and are hoping to make use of every part of the garden we can for food.

My veggies planted just before the end of the year.

The same bed this morning!

We are currently growing cabbage, tomatoes, lettuce, broccoli, cucumber, pumpkin, some sort of melon, leeks, celery, strawberries, zucchini, and butter beans. There are also various seedlings we have grown from seed, I can't wait to plant them, watch them grow and eat them.

I still have a lot of work to do, and there is so much more I will share over the coming weeks, but it's a fair start, and for Justin's dinner, tonight we ate something I'd grown, some delicious home grown Basil on some home-made pizza's.

Happy Birthday my Justin.
Bek.