Still getting my hands dirty

I love growing potatoes in tyres it was the first vegetable gardening I ever did about 20 years ago and I have put some in every year since.

Most years I just used the ones I bought commercially that sprouted at the bottom of the vege drawer now I buy them certified organic from diggers, green harvest or The Tasmanian Potato Assoc.

The ones in here are from a friend of mine - they are colibans (he thinks) I will heap some more soil on them this afternoon, and some more mulch so that just the tops of those shoots are visible and then in a week or so I will add another tyre on top and top up the soil and mulch again. Last year some of my stacks got to four tyres high but mostly they top out at three. Once they flower and die down I leave them for a few weeks - although I read today in frost free climates you should cover the tops with a thick layer of mulch first to stop them re shooting - then knock over the tyres and pull out the potatoes.

This year I am also trialling a bed made up of hay bale sides and a deep deep soil - we will see what proves the best and easiest. I have used the rest of my tyres to plant out garlic, we will see if they like warm feet.

Here is the other vege bed (old vege garden site) you can see the corn, with more seeds coming up in front. Some tomatoes around the stakes at the back, broccoli and cabbage, this is where the kale and first rows of beetroot are as well.

These photos were taken early in the morning just as the first rays of the sun were hitting the garden. I love to wander out there with a cup of tea and pull out a few weeds or just look and dream and plan what I will do next or better, or differently.

For example next time this garden gets planted out I am going to only plant one thing in the whole space not loads like i do now - it works but I don't think I get the yeilds I should get.

We need loads of food for our lot so the garden bed above for summer will just be planted out the lettuce continuously one row a week across the bed until the autumn. And I want another bed for just tomaotes, one for cucumber, one for squash, my potatoes tyres will fit anywhere where the sun is so they are always easy and becasue they are moveable the soil is changed every planting season which I only found out today is another potato thing. you shouldn't grow potatoes in soil where potatoes have grown for three years !

Okay off to get some clothes folded and pressed for the week ahead we spent last night in Toowoomba for my BIL brithday party, coffee with friends this morning and then home to do some gardening - so try as I might can't put off the washing basket and ironing basket any longer!!

Daisymum

Strawberries, Squash and Thank yous............

Just to prove I actually have been doing something over the last few weeks here is the vegie patch.

All planted out with snow peas, yellow squash, and in the corner my pineapple top!

This Wheelbarrow became home to a punnet of Strawberries I got in exchange for doing some hems on one of my clients pants.

Now that I have closed the business, I don't feel I can take money for doing sewing jobs - (too lazy to keep track and put in the tax return) so am working on a bartering system. So far three hems equals one punnet of strawberry runners, and two punnets of capsisum seedlings - this customer has an organic no synthetic chemical garden and I have been the lucky recipient in the past of his preserved chillies - fantastic for adding to all sorts of dishes.

Finally my bean trellis yeah a bit of wire strung between the pine trees!! Maybe beans like the acidity of the pine needles either way I picked about a kilo of beans off the Purple King plants yesterday and the other beans I planted a few weeks later are fast catching up.

I am not as technical as I should be with the vegie patch I don't check the ph and all that I just add manure and dig and dig and then plant and pray!!

I am learning though and right here I want to acknowledge one of my greatest inspirations is Stewart from My Veggie Garden a great bloke who has a sense of humour and endless patience and expertise that he is willing to share in the form of email answers to questions about the vegetable garden.

There are times when a whole packets of seeds just never come up for who knows what reason and every time I think oh it is easier to buy seedlings I read one of Stewart posts and I think - one more time - and now I am having more successes than failures.

So to Stewart thank you thank you thank you.

Okay enough soppy stuff off to work have a Fantastic Friday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

daisymum

Tuesday

Yesterday when I got home from work I got into the paddock and put some lucerne bales (wet ones that are no good for feed ) around the vege garden then filled them with some more soil and manure that I had mixed together.

In went the carrots, parsnips and beetroot. I put in some cucumbers, and one of my sons bought home a half corrugated iron rain water tank (small) so I planted that out with some more corn (you can never have enough corn).

This afternoon I need to put up some frames and plant some peas and some eggplant. Then water everything and do some mulching.

So photos tomorrow of the new dasiy mountain vege patch.

Waiting now for the seed potatoes and some garlic to come from "green harvest online".

Gardening seems to be a lot about waiting............................

daisymum

Mess and Mindset

Sometimes I wonder whether the messy rooms in our lives are indicative of the messy parts of out lives.

A few months ago our office was a disaster area ( and had been ever since we moved into this house 6 years ago). Then I spent a day cleaning it up re organising things, and at the same time we were sorting things out, I had some regualr money coming in the bills were getting paid on time for a change. And since then the office has remained tidy and clean.

As some of you read I sold my industrial machines and closed down my alterations and mending business ( I still hope to design more patterns to sell and continue to sell the ones I have out there). And quite apart from the fact that I have had little time to sew the sewing room is tidy and seems to stay that way.

Is it that we get rid of certain hindrances to the smooth running of our lives and it manifests itself in an organised area of the home? Perhaps it only happens around Daisy Mountain. So from now on I will be watching the physical signs that something needs "tweaking".

Oh and by the way here she is second hand and an absolute bargain the 6500!! She sews beautifully and hopefully in the next day or two she will be quilting a quilt to send to the Victorian bushfire victims.

Have a Fantastic Friday!!

daisymum

They're here!!

Yay finally my seeds arrived from Diggers.

It is an overcast day and they are expecting it to stay that way so this afternoon I am planting out stage two of the new vegetable garden. By the time it is all done these will be big enough to transplant.

Don't forget to plant a seed a day in 2009 so you always have something growing and producing food.

Off to work

daisymum

New Pet

We weren't in the market for a new pet but a few months ago when we popped in to see my sister in law she was saying that their poor bird "greedy" was a bit miserable. He is a hand reared Cockatiel and he used to talk and sit on their hands etc etc but with all the kids growing up and moving out and having lives of their own he had been somewhat lonely. Somehow we ended up offering to take him.

Here he is.............................

Now I don't actually agree with the concept of caged birds although over the years I have managed to have a few thrust upon me. I think they should just fly free and be who they are - birds. However this little guy was reared for the purposes of being part of the family so letting him go would be tantamount to wringing his little neck.

Having said that I also don't like the idea of a bird, hand reared or not, flapping about in the house - I am not an animal in the house person at all and never have been. So after convincing the kids they couldn't have him in their rooms I compromised and let him stay, for the time being, on the front verandah. Eventually we will build him an aviary that is big enough for him to have a fly around in the front garden just near where we sit to have breakfast or a drink in the late afternoon. That way he can kind of be in nature without geting eaten by something or attacked by something and we will still be close by to chat to him every day.

When we bought him home we noticed he would run his beak over and over the bars of his cage so much so he has worn a groove in his beak, so we talked to him all day Sunday, we put new toys in his cage and put the cage near the front door so everyone says hello as they go past and by yesterday afternoon (Tuesday) he had finally stopped running his beak over the bars! He is also now whistling to us if we walk past without saying hello which is great.

Today will be his first day here without anyone home so we will see if the boredom behaviour returns. And i think we will be changing his name not sure what to yet but he just doesn't look like a greedy - bird - is the popular choice today although Colin was suggested by some bright spark ( Colin Thiele!!?) This family of mine is very strange.

Okay the other new member of the household will be up tomorrow for you to see.

daisymum

Tommy Teddy comes to visit

This is a photo of a very tired Daisyboy4 and his friend from prep Tommy Teddy.

Tommy goes home with a child for a few days and has to be taken everywhere and the visit recorded in photos, drawings or in words. Then when they get back to school they have to tell everyone what Tommy got up to at their place.

So Tommy got dragged to a family birthday party on Saturday night, helped clean the house, played and generally enjoyed his visit here at daisymountain. He is off back to Prep today to be taken home by another child.

I am sending the blog address to school so the kids can see him on the net.

daisymum