Jess's Garden

New Years - champagne risotto

2010-01-01T16:43:00.142+11:00

Champagne Risotto
Please, whatever you do, don’t open a bottle of champagne specifically for this. I mean, not unless you want to, and drink the other half of the bottle as you eat, as a wallowing-in-luxury way to welcome in the New Year, in bed preferably. Nigella

Well my first "Feast" attempt was for New Years. There were a few other recipes which I would love to try, but as New Years is very quiet in our house as Miki always works, I decided the champagne risotto was the way for us to celebrate. I did have to open a bottle, but it was one that had been sitting in our "beer" fridge for months.

The one complication I had was the recipe is for two people and I knew with Saana eating as well and miki's big appetite I would need to make more. Instead of doubling it, I made 1/2 more again and this was a mistake.There was really too much maths and I know I made a couple of mistakes. Next time I will just double it and have it for leftovers.

I collected all the ingredients, and then realised I didn't have any celery, or leeks. So a shopping list was written for these and for the ingredients for the split pea and frankfurt soup which I was planning to cook for new years day.

I rushed up to the local coles, only to discover that they didn't have leeks so I chose a bunch of lovely spring onions instead.

Here are all the ingredients layed out. The Bubbly is missing. Note the special fancy rice I brought.

Here is the champagne

Step one: Cooking the onions and celery. I don't think I cooked them long enough, when we were eating it, the celery still had a chewy-chrunch which didn't seem right. It was here that I made my first mistake with the quanity of butter. I still don't know if I used too much or too little, but it didn't seem to make much difference.

Step two: Add the rice to the vegetable mix and cook. While you are doing this you heat up the chicken stock with most of the champage mixed into it.

Step three: Add some of the champagne and stir though.

Step four: Slowly add the stock-champagne mix to the rice and stir constantly.

While cooking, I enjoyed the last bit of the bubbly to myself. THis quickly went to my head and I need to grab out the cheese samplers left over from a friend visit before christmas.

This is a photo of the risotto about half cooked. I really enjoyed the stirring. I don't often cook risotto properly, I tend to just cook rice using the absorption method, and using stock. This is good enough for us usually, but I enjoyed the challenge of adding stock and stirring. I find it hard to tell when to add the next ladle, but felt I was getting the hang of it by the end.

We dished up two bowls for us and a plate for Saana.

REVIEW
Miki - It's nice.
Saana- Ate most of it.
Me - I liked it, I think I should have cooked the celery longer before moving onto the next steps.
It was really nice, but like Nigella says I don't I would bother making this unless I had an open bottle of bubbly or white wine that needs to be used up.

Will I make it again - Yes. I would even make it again for New Years, I could see it becoming a tradition for us. RECIPE

Nigella Lawson - Feast

2009-12-29T14:06:00.003+11:00

For years now I have been following the blog "Mouthfuls of Heaven"
Last year I got thinking about Nigella's book Feast and thinking I would love to try and cook something from each of the "special events" in the book.
I have decided this is the year. I don't know how many actual recipes I will cook, but it will begin with New Years!

Feast is not just about big-deal special occasions: it’s about the way we use food to celebrate life.

‘Pleasures and Principles of Good Food’ to celebrations from feast days to familiar rites of passage.

Essentially about families and food, about public holidays and private passions, about how to celebrate the small everyday pleasures as well as the big occasions, it includes everything from Christmas, Thanksgiving , Hanukah and Eid, to Passover and Easter; from Valentine’s Day to that first breakfast in bed and Sunday lunch fit for the In-Laws; from a seasonal pumpkin feast to the ultimate Chocolate Cake Hall of Fame; from weddings to funerals, from Georgian and Venetian feasts to children’s favourites; from Carbfeast to a final post New Year fast…

So I am looking forward to a year of cooking for my family and friends, both special occasion and simple meals which celebrate our relationships and time together.

You Capture - Lines

2009-12-11T13:15:00.000+11:00

I finally got organised to get back into my blog and the first thing I did was to visit ishouldbefoldinglaundry and find out the next You Capture theme. Guess What? It was lines.

I was taking my daily photo of Saana (see future post for further info) when I noticed the curtins behind her made beautiful lines hanging down. I began to wonder if I could capture that for this week.

Then I wander out onto the deck to see if I could get I photo of the deck poles all lined up. After taking the photo I realised the deck was full of lines. Looking at this photo afterward I wished I had cleared the deck of all the junk, but I didn't have time to do it again.

While outside I started thinking, that lines didn't have to mean straight lines so I took some photos of the curved iron work on the arch. After taking the photos of the iron work, I had great fun playing around the the colours and other stuff of these photos

Thank you for Beth from You should be folding laundry for this challenge.

Click HERE to see more photos of Lines

13 for thursday - Garden

2009-12-10T16:34:00.111+11:00

I decided today to take a walk and take some photos of what is growing in the garden at the moment.

1. Lots and lots of tomato plants.

2 Green Zebras. I chose these because they are meant to be low acid which will be good for Saana.

2 Tigerellas. I chose these because the look so pretty and I suspect they are also lower in acid.

1 Amish ox-heart. I had two of these but I gave one to mum. I kind of wish I had brought another one.

Lots of bush tomatoes in the back bed.

4 Tumbling cherry tomatoes in hanging pots and one in the ground. I transfered the one in the ground because it wasn't doing well and I needed the pot for the next tomatos. I think I brought 3 red and 2 yellow, but I'm not sure.

2 Siberian cherry tomatoes. These are meant to be good for hanging pots and the cold climate. I'm looking forward to seeing how they go.

2. Lots of corn

2 different types of sweet corn

2 punnets of baby corn These are a lovely red colour on the stems

Under the seedlings I put the seeds of

3 different types of beans

cucumber
Balinese sweetcorn
Yellow Empress sunflowers

3. Fruit

My New Passionfruit Strawberries Rhubarb

4. Herbs
basil, coriander, dill, chervil, 2 types of thyme, lemon balm, lemon grass, sage, rosemary, marjoram, oregano, chinese salad leaves, curry plant, garlic and normal chives, mint

5. Carrots and beetroot.

I also planted parsnips but they didn't come up.

6. Capsicums and Chilies
Normal capsicums
Banana capsicums
Jalapenos
Cayenne pepper
Haberno
Some of these are from punnets and some are from larger seedings which we put into paper bags and wrapped in paper for a few weeks before planting out.

7. Beans
normal blue lake climbing beans
dwarf beans - butter
Purple King - climbing beans These look so pretty already, you can see them at the back

8. Eggplants
A normal eggplant ( I think, I lost the tag)
Listada di Gandia This is a diggers eggplant, it is stripy.

9. Lots of lettuce

10. Silverbeet

11. Alliums
Leeks
spring onions
red onions
garlic

12. Self Sown

Peas

cucumber or squash

13. Grapevine

WG's first go in a ball pit.

2009-12-09T07:39:00.000+11:00

IMG_6279
Originally uploaded by jess64_canberra

IMG_6282
Originally uploaded by jess64_canberra

You Capture - Peace

2009-08-19T12:43:00.003+10:00

Here is my daughter sleeping.
When I read this week's theme of peace. That was what I thought of straight away. She looks so peacefully when she is sleeping. But it is also my peace time.

Thank you to "I should be folding laundy"

Saturday's Paper

2009-08-16T13:11:00.008+10:00

I have decided to create a weekly post to record what I have ripped out of the paper each week, rather than keeping the pieces of paper.

This week I read an article in the Canberra times about illustrators of children's books and some new books for young children. The four books they reviewed were

Anthony browne's "Little beauty"
I love Anthony browne's books and I was pleased that we could book this one out from the library straight away. So I have reversed it and hopefully it will be waiting for us at the local library soon.

Margret Wild's "Piglet and Granny" illustrated by Stephen king.
This wasn't available at the libary, but another one of the same series called "Piglet and Mama" was available so I have reserved that book.

Clem always could! I hadn't heard of Sarah Watt before, but apparently she has worked on animated films and is the wife of William McInnes. This wasn't available at the library, but I will keep my eye opened for it, because the story sounds good and the illustrations appear to look stunning.

My Silent World by Nette Hilton and Vincent Agostino
This books sounds really interesting, I love the idea of using pictures books to expose my daughter to different people and different lives.

Also in the Canberra times I found two websites of interest

Green Garbage Project From their site it states

For one year, from July 6, 2009 to July 6, 2010, we aim to live without producing garbage that winds up in a landfill. You can find all the details about our challenge on this site, so check back often to see how we’re doing.

MetaFilter
Apparently this is a site that daily lists 10 things on the web that are worth "having a look at". Not sure if it is for me, but I'll check it out at sometime.

Finally - also from the canberra times an article on this book
I heard Roger McDonald speaking on the radio and the book sounds wonderful. Full of extraordinary photos of Australian landscape from across the last 100 years. I love the idea that many of the photos were taken for different purposes, from how they are seen today. McDonlad also discussed how all but one of the photos don't have any people in them, but there would always be one person standing behind the camera. An interesting thought, but how we view landscape photos.

So that is all I have so far from the Saturday papers, but then again I haven't read all of them, that will take me all week.

1st Annual 'Save The Frogs Day

2009-04-28T13:55:00.002+10:00

As brought to my attention by Stuart today is the 1st Annual 'Save The Frogs Day .

I have been considering how I can attract frogs into my garden. We already have a pond, but it was not very frog friendly due to being
* Deep
* Steep
* Close to the house and a long way from the gardens.
* Goldfish donated by a friend
I have been working to add things to the pond to make it more friendly. There are now ways for the frogs to climb in and out of the pond, and we have extended the garden so it comes right up to the pond. Now I just have to lose the goldfish, not sure how to go about that.
I am currently creating a wildlife friendly native garden at the back of the yard and I'm looking into how to create a bog garden, which will hopefully increase the frog friendliness of our overall garden.

Why still Jess's Garden

2009-04-27T13:46:00.000+10:00

Over the last year I've been playing with a range of blogs about my changing life, but I have decided that I can't maintain multiple blogs and I'm in the processing of bringing the posts from the other blogs over to this blog.
When I orginally started this blog I wrote this post, which basically discussed the idea that I was a beginning gardener, but I didn't outline why I had chosen the name "Jess's Garden".
As I think about it now, I chose the name because I garden to create a space that I want to share with my family. (Jess is my dog) This is still the case, this blog is about me trying to create a home and family. Creating a garden is a key part of that process, but it is not the only part, so I feel the different parts of this blog are all congruent to the same goal.

Sage flowers

2009-04-26T20:11:00.003+10:00

Join

I wanted to post pictures of the garden, but the everytime I went outside with the camera, the rain started again and I couldn't get any photos I wanted. So instead here is a photo of the sage in flower from before christmas. I love the purple flowers.

Yes that's how I feel

2009-04-26T19:34:00.002+10:00

As I drove out to pick up DH this morning I happened upon a radio interview on radio national with Peter Sculthorpe I must admit I don’t know anything about him, from the interiew I know he is an Australian composer. I caught the tail end of the interview and he managed to give such a good summary about how I feel about religion, spirituality and life in general.

QUOTE FROM TRANSCRIPT

Peter Thompson: You gave up on talking about God because people misunderstood what you meant, is that right?

Peter Sculthorpe: No, that was when people would ask me what sort of a composer are you, and I'd say, Well I'm a religious composer, and people would say, Oh, really? What, Catholic, Anglican, Methodist? But by religious composer I meant that almost all my music seeks the sacred in nature, and if that's not being a religious composer, what is, if one is seeking what is sacred.

Peter Thompson: But you're very attached to that saying that Pandit Nehru, former Prime Minister of India, used in describing Bali that Bali is the morning of the earth, the morning of the world.

Peter Sculthorpe: Right, yes.

Peter Thompson: That's what you're describing, aren't you? That God in nature?
Peter Sculthorpe: Yes, God in nature, yes, which is related of course to Shintoism, Japan, which is to do with the sacredness that is in all things, in all nature.

END QUOTE

The idea of scared in nature is how I feel about my spirituality. I find it such a hard thing to define for myself or others and there I was sitting in the car going. “YES, that’s it.”
I’m now off to see if I can find any of his music to see how it makes me feel.
( I really should listen to RN more often, the interviews and discussions are so often thought provoking.)

My poor husband

2009-04-25T14:03:00.000+10:00

Sometimes, (just sometimes mind you)I feel sorry for my husband. Just now he goes out and brings in all the wet washing on the line. The weather has been wet, windy and plain weathery and thus the washing hasn't dried for several days. I'm feeling very behind in the washing and today's load of nappies has been sitting in the machine because there is not much else I can do with them.
Any way instead of being grateful for my husband dealing with the washing I get cranky because my LOOPY mind decides he is making implications about my inability to deal with the washing.
What is with that!!!! He was helping and I'm cranky and letting my own guilt obsurce his helpfulness and caring.
Oh well, I'm loving the wet weather must make the most of it.

Diet update

2008-07-28T17:47:00.000+10:00

We are still working our way through the food challenges.
Since my last post about the diet we have tested
* Goats milk
* Amines
* Nitrates

I think the goats milk had a mild reaction, but it just made her a bit spewy. So I'm not completely sure that it was the goats milk. But I hated the taste so much of the goats milk that I couldn't be bothered continuing the test.

The amines seemed OK, but again the test required eating 3 bananas a day and I don't like bananas. I'm now eating foods with amines but monitoring it carefully. I must admit there wasn't that much I could add that had amines but not Salicylates, so I'm not to worried about them.

In the last few days we have tested nitrates, this has meant eating bacon and ham. YAY!!! I've really missed these. Thankfully they don't seem to have reacted, but I'll keep monitoring for the next few days.

I'm not sure what I will test next, it will either be milk or soy. I'm thinking soy as I'm pretty sure the milk will react and we'll need a few days afterwards to recover.

Flavours in Breastmilk

2008-07-27T17:46:00.000+10:00

I found this article very interesting. The fact that their research showed that it only takes at the most 8 hours for the taste to disappear is interesting in relation to Saana's response to food I've eaten.
When doing the food challenges I can always tell if there is a problem with the food within 12-18 hours. IF she hasn't reacted after 24 hours I can pretty much be assured that the food is not a problem for her.
I must admit I've always suspected that breastfeeding helps develop a babies tolerance to flavours. I also think that a broad diet while pregnant help to develop the babies tolerance to different foods, but I don't know how you would research that idea.

Diet update

2008-07-14T17:45:00.000+10:00

I've lost track of exactly how long we've been doing the diet now. Miki has been very grateful for all the foods I cooked and froze before Saana was born, I don't think he would have coped on the diet. Each time he eats my food he comments how bland it is. But that's life.
We have tested several different foods
She no reaction to
• Wheat
• Yeast
• Eggs
Her nappy rash flares up if I have lots of yeast, but generally OK.

But last thursday I tested Salicylates and we knew about it by that night.
Over the day I ate
• 150gm of canned peaches
• 1 granny smith apple
• Pumpkin soup (cumin & onion)
• 150 ml of freshly squeezed apple juice
• Half a mango

Approximately 10 hours after first food was consumed she started to react. Our evening and night ran like this
• Noisy reflux sounds but very little vomit
• Started making her “I’m in pain” cry
• Would start to fall asleep then wake up with a jerk and start crying again
• The strong reflux occurred for her evening foods on the 10th and her overnight/morning feeds the next day.
• Her day feeds on the Friday still had reflux, but wasn’t as intense.
• Friday afternoon and Saturday she appeared to have colicky tummy pain
• On Friday her stools had blood in them
• By Saturday evening she was pretty much better.

So now I've accepted that for now I'm not eating anything with even moderate salicylates> After we have finished all the other food challenges I will test her tolerance levels.

Diet update

2008-06-17T17:44:00.000+10:00

oday I had an appointment with a nutritions, after the MACH nurse recommended I see her to check that my diet is OK while on the elimination diet.
Well the nutritions suggested I go the whole hog and do the complete elimination diet recommended by the Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney. I was pretty overwhelmed by it all when I left. The diet combined with what I have already eliminated doesn't leave me with that much to eat. As I was driving home I was sure I wasn't going to do it, but I've changed my mind now.
If I'm going to do this it is worth doing well. So now I'm learning all about Salicylates (I can't even say it yet), Amines and other natural food chemicals. I've found at lot of information and resources at Sue Dengates website. So we'll see how it goes.

Sling, Pappose or carrier

2008-06-11T17:43:00.000+10:00

Hi. My name is Sally and I'm a sling-o-holic!

I now have 3 slings and I love them all. Let me tell you about them.

When I was pregnant my mum brought me a baba-sling.
I used this when Saana was very little and she could lie in it. She would often fall asleep while in it and it was so easy to get on and off while she was tiny. I must admit that as she became bigger it became uncomfortable to wear and she didn't seem to like it much either. I now keep it in the car for when I want to duck into a shop or something and I want at least one free hand.

Then my dad brought me an ergo. I think this one will be a favourite for a long time. It is great for walking and outside things. The only time it is not perfect is for around the home which brings me to my third sling.

I brought myself a hug-a-bub. This one is for around the home, while wearing Saana is the HAB I can cook, clean, deal with washing etc. I think this is Saana's favourite because she can face outwards and see everything that is going on. It took me awhile to get the hang of putting it on, but it gets easier pretty quickly.

Now I've written all this, I'm going to go and put Saana into the HAB because she is sik of playing on the foor or sitting in my lap.

sally

Diet & Breastfeeding

2008-06-10T17:42:00.000+10:00

I have decided to do an elimination diet to try and see if what I'm eating is triggering Saana's reflux. Before her UTI and kidney infection were diagnosed I stopped eating anything with caffeine, including chocolate :( and tomatoes.
We've now cut out
* dairy
* wheat/gluten
* soy
* rye
* eggs
* Plus all the original things.
I'm planning to do this for at least 2 weeks and then I'll start testing foods.

feeling a bit better

2008-06-07T17:41:00.000+10:00

Well 24 hours on and we are all feeling much better.
DD slept for 7 hours last night, I woke up with milk running every where but feeling much rested.
I tried the 2 hours between feeds and I do think it has helped a bit. I posted on the ABA forum and one girl made the suggestion that maybe I was over-stimulating her when I thought I was settling her. I had a thought about this and I think it might be right. Instead of doing lots of things I just held her tight on my chest while sitting in the rocker, she slowly stopped crying and went to sleep, that happened twice today.

My big realization today was how the 45mins sleep cycle works. Because I was tracking time for the 2 hourly feed breaks, I noticed that on her first sleep today she woke after a 45 min sleep.
On her 2nd sleep she stirred after 45 mins, but settled back to sleep, I suspect before I would have gone to her and she would have woken up. this happen twice and she ended up sleeping for 3 45 min cycles before waking for a feed.
I'm waiting with baited breath to see how it all goes tomorrow.

Breastfeeding & returning work

2008-06-02T17:37:00.000+10:00

I'm breastfeeding at the moment and wondering what I'm going to do when I go back to work. On the whole I"m enjoying breastfeeding even though it has meant changing my diet.

The questions I'm asking myself are
* Will I try and express
* I'm trying to find out as much information about expressing as possible.
* Not sure if I should if i should buy an electric pump or just stick to my manual pump.
* How will I feel if expressing doesn't work

Baby discussions

2008-05-25T17:32:00.001+10:00

This blog has been running around in my head for the last few days. Until I fell pregnant I was doing my gardening blog. The garden has been in standby mode now for nearly 12 months, I will get back to it, and the blog but for now I need to start writing about learning to be mum.
I find myself going to mothers group and generally talking to other mums and when I walk away I find I'm questioning what I'm doing with my beautiful daughter. I have always found writing a good way to sort my thoughts and if I blog then someone else might also gain a benefit. So for the moment this blog is going to have a baby focus as that is what is going on in my head.

I'm feeling lost

2008-05-05T17:36:00.000+10:00

We had our 6-8 week check today, it was actually 9 weeks. I have had trouble getting Saana to sleep during the day if she has one short sleep usually between 10 mins and an hour in the day I"m happy. We have tried so many different things to try and get her to sleep and I really wanted some new ideas. The things we have tried are
* ergo
* holding her on our outdoor swing
* fit ball
* feeding to sleep, this works in the evening eventually
* bouncer
* baby swing

When I asked the nurse about this she suggested the following
* Not feeding again until 2 hours from the start of the last feed
* Putting DD into her cot while she is still awake (Both DH and I heartily disagree with this, it might work for some, but it just doesn't work for us. )

I don't really understand what the benefits might be of waiting 2 hours between feeds and it seems like such an arbitrary number.
I'm going to try it until Friday when I can go back, for one reason only. I think Saana might have reflux and the nurse indicated that babies become upset about 20 mins after a feed if they have reflux and if I actually record the time she stops feeding and wait I should be able to check if this is happening.

Mostly she is happy being held, but doesn't sleep and then get crankier & crankier over the day as she gets over tried, if she drifts off, she seems to wake as something hurts, sorry to off load here, but I'm feeling very hopeless & overwhelmed tonight.
I went for help and came away feeling worse.
Sally

OH and I think most of this advice stems from her wanting to stop me feeding her to sleep. I really don't think this is the problem I just want her to go to sleep in general.
This post feels really garbled, but I'm going to stop now before I start crying again.

Sick baby

2008-04-17T17:34:00.000+10:00

Things have been a bit crazy here. 3 to 4 weeks ago Saana started to get cranky and crying lots. At first we thought it was just 3 week crying as we had been told by lots of people that babies change at 3 weeks. Then we thought it was colic, tried all the treatments suggested, even went to an osteopath.
It was the osteopath who insisted that we go to the doctors, he even rang my GP and got us an emergency appointment.
The GP thought everything was OK, but did a urine test as a precautionary method. The test came back sort of positive so we did 2nd test. That came back positive and last friday Saana ended up in hospital to have antibiotics through an IV. She was in hospital until Sunday afternoon and she is now home on oral antibiotics.
She now has to have an ultrasound to see if there is anything wrong with her kidneys.
I got to stay in hospital with her which meant I could keep breastfeeding.
While she is now on the mend I would not wish our experience on anybody. We sat in emergency for most of friday and I had to hold her down so they could take blood and put in the IV while she screamed the house down. I'm hoping the worst is over and the ultrasound doesn't show any problems with her kidneys. Because if they do, she will have to have a test done with a catheter.
She is on the mend now, the only time she cries now is when the antibiotics give her a tummy ache.

Birth of DD

2008-03-27T17:33:00.000+11:00

Saana was born on the 4/3/08 by Caesarian because she was breech. Below is the account I wrote of her birth about week after she was born.

Mum dropped us off at the hospital at 11am and we went up to day surgery. We were quickly taken into the main section where we had to change into hospital clothes and scrubs. I got to wear paper undies, hospital gown and hospital dressing gown. Plus those special booties and hat. Miki had to put on the blue scrubs over his clothes and shoes etc. I wanted a photo, but he wouldnâ€™t let me.
The doctor then sat and went through all our details and put the bands etc on my wrist.
We then had to wait in another waiting room until it was time for the surgery. I ended up sitting there until 1:45 in paper underwear.
At 1:45 they took us through to the â€œholding areaâ€� where I got put on a bed and they checked my paper work again. Miki had to stay there while they took me around to the theatre. I remember thinking he would never find me as we seemed to wind through about 100 corridors.
The anesthetist came and explained what would happen and I was then left in the theatre waiting room, while they finished the girl ahead of me and cleaned up the theatre. Finally I was wheeled into the theatre, I had to sit on the edge of the bed, curled over while an orderly or ward clerk (or someone similar, Sascha probably knows) held my shoulders so I couldnâ€™t squirm or move. The anaesthetist then put in a local and then the spinal block. I was surprise how little it all hurt and I had no problem staying still for the spinal block ( I think it took two goes to get it in straight).
They then helped me line down and started to put in the other drips on left hand and the monitors on the right hand.
IT was then that they let Miki come into the theatre. And I must say I was really glad to see him, and he said the same. He said it was really hard waiting in the holding area not knowing what was happening.
They sat him down on a chair next to my head and he was allowed to hold my hand. They then started cutting, but I didnâ€™t know that. I then started to feel sick, I founded out later that my blood pressure dropped and that combine with the pressure on my spine from the baby made me feel sick. I ended up throwing up (quite scary when you are flat on your back), but then I felt much better.
It was at about that point they were trying to get her out, but she kept pulling away and pushing her head up high into my chest. I could actually feel that and the dr told us what was happening.
The next thing miki said â€œSheâ€™s blue.â€� As he saw her feet as she was pulled out. But it turned out only her feet and hands were blue. They showed her to us over the curtain and then took her to be checked etc. Miki went with her and the midwife, but they stayed in the theatre.
While they stitched me up, they put Saana next to my head. I was too scared to move at first but the nurses helped me move both hands so I could touch her and almost hold her next to me. Then they gave her to Miki to hold for a while.
Once they were nearly finished stitching the midwife took Miki and Saana back to post-natal so they could weigh and measure her. They wheeled me to recovery and started setting up the next lot of drips and attaching a personal pain control thingy.
One of the nurses asked where my baby was and I said I hoped with my husband and she teased me about losing my baby already.
Then the midwife and Miki came back to recovery with Saana and she was put on my chest and I was encouraged to try and feed her. I don't remember if she actually feed, but it was a wonderful experience just lying there with my new daughter on my chest.

They then wheeled me to post-natal (Saana stayed on my chest the whole time). Once we got to post-natal she was put in the crib while they checked me and changed the sheets because I had bled all over the sheets. Miki went to make phone calls to family and send text messages.

My mum and Miki's parents came in that night to see us and have a hold of our precious daughter. I started to feel sick after everyone had left and before I knew it, I had thrown up in the bed and the nurses had to change the sheets again. I kept throwing up for the first half of the night and I know Miki was very torn between helping me and looking after Saana who kept crying every time I threw up. I had to feed Saana several times while I was sick and poor Miki was on standby to grab her when I needed to throw up. I finally started to feel better about midnight and we then settled down to have our first night together as a family. The room had a sofa bed for miki to sleep on, but I don't think it was very comfortable and he didn't have a pillow.

By the next morning I was feeling better and was allowed up to have a shower and get dressed in real clothes. After that I felt we really started our time as a family.

Maybe I'm back

2007-11-03T07:48:00.000+11:00

Well am I back or not? The answer remains to be seen. I have finally finished uni and am finding I have slightly more time to garden, read etc. All those things that normal people do. It is spring and I have very little time left to get my summer vegetable garden going. Have to get DH to help me drag the baths so I can refill them and give them a solid drink.
I have now turned half my back lawn into a flower bed. Well it was going to be a flower bed, I threw heaps of seeds on the no-dig garden I had made and waited for them to come up. Many have grown but out of the compost which I used in the no-dig I seem to have things such as pumpkins, zucchini, tomatoes and maybe beans. I used pea-straw for the straw in the no-dig garden and I have lots and lots of little pea plants growing, which I am happy because I know they actually get pretty flowers. I don't have photos at the moment, but I will pop out and take some soon. I have been really lucky that after I made that garden we have been have regular, if light rain which has helped.
Oh in the new flower garden I have also planted rhubarb and globe artichokes and I'm planning to put herbs as well when I get organised.
That will do for now, but fingers crossed everybody that I start posting more regularly again.

General thoughts

2007-06-07T19:23:00.000+10:00

Time is getting away from me, I have lots of blogs in draft form, which I'm not ready to post yet, but I don't ever seem to have time to sit down and write them properly and add in the photos etc. Too busy writing assignments and stuff I suppose. Not much is happening in the garden at the moment, I've got some cyclamens going in my bedroom now and I will post more about them soon. Two weekends ago I replanted some plants, my first real attempt at this, and I feel like I"m starting to get my head around it. What was particularly special was replanting my Nana's African violets, that will be a post soon too.
Tonight was special, I'm about to make omelettes for tea and I went to the garden and pick a leek, silver beet and parsley for my omelettes. The leek was the first I've picked, my mum told me to cut it off at ground level and it will grow again. So that is what I did, I hope it grows. If the leeks do go well, I will plant more next year as I love them and have a lovely leek and chickpea soup I would love to make with my own leeks. The silver beet is a dream, it grows with very little love and attention and every time I get a craving for green veges I go and pick some and steam it, to have with my dinner. No more rotting veges in the fridge.
Early autumn I got very excited and planted broccoli, Brussel sprouts and mini cabbage. They all got eaten by caterpillars and with my busy schedule I gave up on them and decided to do it next year. But some have come back, but now I have no idea what they are. Hopefully they will grow and I will find out.
Better go and cook those leeks and DH is starting to look hungry.

Spathiphyllum

2007-05-28T14:25:00.000+10:00

After my last post I decided to do a search and find out exactly what is a Spathiphyllum. I search in google and found this link to Wikipedia entry. As soon as a saw the picture, my mind went "Oohh, one of those." So now I know that it is called a Spathiphyllum.

Are you a green thumb gardener?

2007-05-28T12:38:00.000+10:00

On Stuarts page, he had put links to some older posts, one on African Violets I will post about soon, but I thought this little quiz gave an interesting outlook on where I'm at on the scale of becoming a green thumb gardener.

Are you a green thumb gardener?

So you've been pottering around with a couple of plants, got your hands dirty in a bag of potting mix and even removed the odd snail that was molesting your cabbages. Does that make you a green thumb gardener?

Let me paint a couple of scenarios for you and see how you fair.

1. You visit a friend's house and notice that their spathiphyllum is wilting on the window sill. Do you;

a). Immediately grab a container of water and pour it onto the plant
b). Point out to your friend that their plant is not as healthy as it could be
c). Mourn over the loss of another indoor plant
d). Type "Spathiphyllum" into Google to see what it is

As much as I would like to chose something higher, I would not be game to comment to a friend and I certainly wouldn't water it for them. OK I admit it, I'm off to actaually search to find out was a "Spathiphyllum" is on google. Make that a D. :(

2. You have heard that composting is a great way to recycle your garden refuse. Do you;

a). Build your own compost bins and start filling it with garden waste
b). Head to your local hardware store and purchase a manufactured compost bin
c). Feel bad when you put the next lot of garden waste in the garbage bin
d). Wonder if it's okay to put some of the kid's toys in the compost

I'm so excited, that's exactly what I did. OK maybe lining a few bricks up (I didn't use mortor or anything) is not quite building. But it is working, I love my compost.

3. There is a gardening fair coming up on the weekend. Do you;

a). Schedule your weekend around attending it
b). Phone your neighbour to see if they're interested
c). Stay at home thinking that it would have been a great idea to go
d). Buy tickets to the football

And if you are me, travel 3 hours to sydney, stay in a hotel and wander around for two whole days. Yes I was in heaven at the ABC gardening expo last year and I am waiting with baited breath for this years. That reminds me, have to book the hotel.

4. Your friend has just purchased a "Wollemi Pine" and invites you to come and help plant it. Do you;

a). Drop everything and rush over - even if you had to wake the baby
b). Try and schedule a better time during the week
c). Tell them that you intend buying your own Wollemi Pine and you'll check there's out next time you're visiting
d). Type "Wollemi Pine" into Google to see what it is

Especially because they are cool. But also because I'm still earning how to plant trees and it would be a great learning experience. Now I just have to find a friend who would buy a wollemi pine. Oh and a baby.

5. You find some snails in the garden eating your lettuces. Do you;

a). Instinctively know how to eliminate them organically
b). Pick each one off by hand
c). Reach for the Bayer snail pellets
d). Remove the lettuces because you think they're a weed

Time consuming I know, but is there a better way. Better go and search on google :), so I know how to instinctively eliminate them organically.

6. As you flick through the channels on your TV you come across a gardening show. Do you;

a). Make yourself a herbal tea and cancel every other appointment to watch it
b). Make sure nothing else is on the other channels
c). Note the time and channel so you can watch it next week
d). Write a letter of complaint to the broadcasting tribunal

I will watch most gardening shows, I also marked C, because I would want to know so I can watch it next week and the week after. My favourite show will always be Gardening Australia on the ABC, and I'm slowly teaching my husband that 6:30 on Saturday is quiet time in our house.

7. Your children get inspired to garden and want to help you. Do you;

a). Find creative ways to educate them about gardening
b). Give them a packet of seeds to plant
c). Get them to pull out all the weeds in the veggie patch
d). Give them your gardening tools and go and watch TV

Let's be honest here, I would definitely try and find creative ways to get them involved in garden, such as the ideas given the Gardening Australia magazine each month. But I would also get them to plant seeds and plants in the garden, and yes I would get them to help me in the vegetable garden. Now I just need to get myself some kids, maybe I could steal some nieces and nephews sometime.

So how did I go I got A= 5/7 B=1/7 and C=1/7 Does that equate to an A or a B. I think at the moment I'm more a B, but with time I hope to become an A, which equals a Green Thumb Gardener. I'll let you know when I get there.

If you ended up with all (a)'s then you can call yourself a Green Thumb Gardener. If you mostly answered (b) then people may suspect you have tinges of green on your thumbs and if you answered (c) for most of the scenarios then you are likely to be classified as a weekend gardener.

However, if you found that all the (d) responses were resonating with you, (as hard as it is to say this) gardening may not be your forte.

Green Thumb Sunday -Flowers

2007-05-27T19:21:00.000+10:00

When I went for a walk in my garden this afternoon, I was surprised at the number of flowers in my garden. I'm not really a flower person, my husband commented the other day, that I'm really only interested in plants I can eat. Not completely true, but close.
Near by garden pond, there is the pineapple sage with its pretty red flowers.
Also near the pond is this flower. I think the plant is called savoury, but I'm not sure. I love it's daisy like flowers.
Then there is the potato vine. I know I should prune it, but I do love the constant white flowers.

I really must begin cutting flowers and bring them inside occasionally.

Saturday Musings _ Things to do

2007-05-26T11:19:00.000+10:00

Well now I'm suddenly back into gardening, there are so many projects I'm considering.

Big Gardens
I would love to start turning the back lawn into gardens, but I think that is going to have to wait awhile. Our lawn is on very bad soil at the moment. Very compacted, But I'm planning on doing these tests soon to see just how bad the soil actually is. Very bad is my guess. I think that I will have to use a no-dig style garden over every section of the lawn, so help build up suitable soil for gardening.
The lawn is basically divided into three sections, (see the photos below) I have different plans for each section, but there are reasons, why I can't get started on them yet.
Here is a photo of the whole lawn from the back step. Please excuse the rubbish and such in the garden, I'm slowly getting better about keeping a tidy garden.

The three sections are viewed from this point.
1) The first section is the one closest to the house. The vegetable baths, drain onto this section of the lawn, (when I'm watering). For this section I would like to create a cottage style garden with lots of daisys, bulbs and other stuff I haven't discovered yet. The problem with this section is it is held up using a retaining wall, which I'm pretty sure I will need to raise so I can build up the soil using my favourite no-dig style.
2) The second section is under the clothes line, it will also need the retaining wall built up and I suspect this will be the last garden to be developed. My plan at the moment is to have a sandy style garden with mostly low ground cover and plants that have low water needs. I am planning to keep the clothes line, as much as it is ugly.
3) The third section which runs along the back fence. At the moment there is a metre strip with a pine log style border. (Which I hate by the way). We have just had the privet cut out, but there is still a lilac and a few low fleshy plants. I don't really know what they are, but maybe one day I will take photos and see if anyone can identify them. My plan for this garden is a natural habitat garden with mainly natives. I had hoped to get this garden planted this year, but it is not going to happen. I didn't get the no-dig soil set up early enough, and now it is time to plant the plants and I haven't killed of the lawn etc. I did consider starting the no-dig part now, so I could plant in spring. But I suspect with level four water restrictions on the way , I'm better waiting and planting next Autumn. I'm sure I'll survive the wait, and it gives me plenty of time to plan.
So that is the lawn projects, which are long term goals.
But what about short term projects?

African Violets

I inherited these two African Violets off my Nana, they are in pots that I made for her one christmas. But I think they are due to be re-potted, so I am in the middle of learning how to do this. All a bit scary. I promise I will do it one day. At least I now know that you can buy special potting mix for African Violets.

Inside plants
I went for a walk through our local nursery today and boy did I start drooling. I was mainly looking for indoor plants for our bedroom and the master bathroom. For the bedroom I think I'm going to get cyclamen as mentioned in an early post and these miniature bamboo ferny things, which will match the bamboo in the courtyard.
For the main bathroom I saw lots of wonderful plants, some trailing ones and the maidenhair fern looked so beautiful and delicate.

Vegetable garden
The vegetable garden is still going, but I do need to plan some more plantings. I want to plant more silver-beet and rainbow chard, which is being eaten all most every night some weeks. As I mentioned early in the Rhubarb post I am planning to set up a perennial vegetable garden down the back of the garden. I'm thinking about planting rhubarb, raspberries, aspargas and artichokes at the moment. I'm still going to plant in baths, but this time I am going to try putting sand and gravel down before I place the baths. I am hoping this will stop some of the weeds growing up around the baths.

So there are some of the projects I need to get started. I might start by looking into where I can buy sand and gravel for the perennial vegetable garden and potting mix for the African Violets.

Rhubarb

2007-05-20T13:25:00.000+10:00

One of my favourite foods has always been rhubarb. Last year I decided I needed to grow some. It has been struggling in pots, while I decide how I'm going to set up my perennial food garden beds. But yesterday I was amazed by the large leafs and the colour in the sunlight.

Photo Hunter - cooking

2007-05-19T18:42:00.000+10:00

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Today we pulled out our walk-in pantry and over the next few weeks we are going to make a laundry. But on our dining room table I ended up with all the things I use on a weekly to monthly basis to cook.
So to me all the things in this photo are the basis of all my cooking.

Herb Spiral

2007-05-18T16:44:00.001+10:00

Accidently made this post, might as well finish it. Dad has still not arrived. Very typical of him. Safely I can say that as he refuses to read my blog because he considers it a diary, which to him is very personal.
Any hoo back to the herb spiral.
While waiting for Dear Dad, I've been wandering around all the blogs down the side of my page. At sturts page I found this post about a herb-spiral
I won't post a picture, because I don't have his permisson. But it looks like a really cool way to grow herbs.
Got to rush, car just pulled into the drive way.

cyclamens

2007-05-18T16:05:00.000+10:00

It is a rainy Friday afternoon in Canberra and I'm waiting for my Dad to arrive for a visit. There is no point in me starting anything too productive, so I thought I would blog.
At the moment I have a beautiful pink cyclamen sitting on my kitchen bench between the sink and on the window. I orginally brought it for the bedroom, but I haven't found a suitable pot yet, and to be quite honest I think I would miss it now if I removed it from the kitchen bench. I just love it. I love the look of the flowers; they are so delicate looking, but somehow sturdy at the same time. But I also love the leaves, the colour and shape are so distinctive. I'm starting to think, that cyclamens are going to become a favourite of mine. My plan at the moment is to buy a couple, and put them in nice pots and rotate them between the bedroom and the courtyard. I have read that cyclamens do much better as house-plants if they get sometime outside in the cool night air. I haven't managed to take a photo of the cyclamen, my mum has taken the camera on holiday. But I have searched for some on the net.

This is very similar to the one on my kitchen bench, but mine is smaller

I searched the Gardening Australia website and found this factsheet the photo below is from the factsheet. That is a lot of cyclamen.

Mouthfuls of Heaven

2007-05-13T19:00:00.000+10:00

Following in the Steps of Nigella Lawson - One Saucy Bite At A Time

Here is the blog that has got me back into my blog, my garden and cooking.
The recipes are yum, and I'm loving reading what has been cooked each week. Love you Bells. Thanks again

Yum

Green Thumb Sunday

2007-05-13T15:30:00.000+10:00

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Well after a long break, a friend has inspired me to get back into my blog. Life has been a bit up and down recently, and the garden has been plodding along without much help from me. I've watered and I harvested most vegetables and stuff, but that was all. No new plants at all. For today's Green Thumb Sunday, I thought I would show some photos I took of my miniature harvest. We loved all the tomatos and I was so proud and happy to eat my own sweet corn. We also had lots of fun pulling up all the potatoes.

Green Thumb Sunday

2007-02-04T20:45:00.000+11:00

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After confusing marigolds and geraniums over the years, I've just discovered that I like geraniums. Though my mum tells me they are not called geraniums any more. I brought three different coloured geraniums for the window box outside my kitchen window. This is one of them.

Jess from the garden

2007-02-01T05:52:00.000+11:00

Garden Update

2007-01-31T08:47:00.000+11:00

I was just checking the lemon tree and it looks like its finally given up on trying to reproduce. For the first time since I planted it last autumn it has put out new leaves, instead of flowers. Must make sure I give it a good fertilize this weekend. The tomatoes could also do with a fertilize. The rosemary in the lemon tree pot needs to be cut back. I think this weekend I will cut it right back, some I I will use in a roast, I might freeze a heap and try and strike cuttings from the rest. With me luck with that.

Everything else in the garden is going well, I went for a walk this morning while I watered. Both the normal mint and Vietnamese mint and going overboard, in particular the Vietnamese mint, it needs cutting back too. I suppose I could freeze it too. There are more flowers on the cucumber, and one cucumber ready to eat, must make a Greek salad tonight to go with the quiche. The corn is still growing, but a worry that it is not getting enough water, but there is not much I can do about that. There are lots of watermelons in the watermelon patch. Basil is finally taking off, after the second batch I planted; don’t know what I did wrong. The tomatoes in the bath and doing better than the pots, but the hanging cherry tomatoes, near the back door are also doing really well. It is everyone’s habit to pick one or too as they walk past and have a little snack. Spinach to be eaten might have spinach pasta later this week.

I have just realised that because tomorrow is the 1st after today was the 31st we get two watering days in a row, so I think I will try and fertilize tomorrow morning after they have all had a good drink today.

The camomile in the herb garden has had beautiful flowers for weeks now and are just starting to die off, but the feverfew has come into flower with similar shaped and coloured flowers, the flowers are just a bit bigger.

I picked a heap of cherry tomatoes for breakfast, but realised I don’t have bread for toast, I think there are dried biscuits so I might use those. I love having fresh produce for our meals, I’m really beginning to understand the concepts of eating what is in season.

6 weird things about me

2007-01-29T18:06:00.000+11:00

I have been tagged by Carol and have been thinking about it for awhile. When asked Miki said there is nothing weird about me, but I think he might be biased.

1) I never wear a watch, because if I do the battery goes flat in about a week.

2) I like to listen to heavy doom music like Anathema sometimes. But I also listen to classical music, jazz and folk to name a few.

3) I married my first serious boyfriend

Ok this is getting hard now

4) I'm married, but I still live with my mum. Well Ok, she lives with me in a granny flat, but I still think that counts as weird.

5) I don't wear makeup or jewelery (Other than wedding ring).

6) I'm obsessed with "shining my sink", thanks to flylady.

That is six weird things.

I forgot to tag people, so i'm adding it in now. I tag sweetpea

Green Thumb Sunday

2007-01-28T09:36:00.000+11:00

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I have been very excited to see my corn growing, soon they will be ready to eat

Silver

2007-01-27T07:53:00.000+11:00

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When I read that Silver was this weeks photo hunt, my first thought was my wedding ring, which I think of as silver, but it is really white gold, so that didn't count. And then I thought of this

But that's not silver I hear you cry, thats wood. She mustn't know anything. But wait a minute let me open it. This box is a very precious gift from my Nana.

See this is my Nana's silver cutlery set. I love this set, and I open it on an inregulary basis just to look and touch. Some of it needs a polish, but these one's don't.

They are very shiny and I love the way the catch the light.

I wish I was brave enough to use it, but I haven't yet. Maybe one day, I will have a proper dinner party and use these, and the special tea set she gave me.

New books

2007-01-26T17:09:00.000+11:00

Yesterday I had several appointments and with an hour and a bit between them, somehow I ended up in a secondhand bookshop. I can't imagine how that happened, but luck was with me and I found a couple of very interesting books.

The first was "The country diary of an Edwardian Lady" by Edith Holden. The cover looked really interesting and when I started flicking though it, I realised it really was a diary from 1906. Very quickly I realised how close this was to being a 1906 version of a blog and I just had to buy it.

The first discovery got me excited and I kept digging :lol: and suddenly I found a bible that I had never expected to find. "Esther deans' gardening book: growing without digging"
Ether Dean created the idea of no-dig gardening which I have been using to create my gardens in the baths. The book is amazing and I now have a much better understanding of how to make the gardeners and the science and process behind the steps. For more information on Esther Dean and no-dig gardening try Gardening Australia which is how I originally learned about it.

I was very excited and kept looking. I found two small paperbacks about gardening with Australian Natives. Grow Native: Creating an Australian Bush Garden by Bill Molyneux and The Native Plant expert by John Mason. Grow Native, in particular looked interesting as a book to help me plan and develop the native local garden at the back of my yard. The funny thing was when I visited my mum to show her my purchases I was telling her about the books and my description was "I got a fairly heavy text book type on native plants and gardens." at which point she interrupted with "Bill Molneux, I've got that book." But I guess I needed to buy my own copy, as I flipped through it again I realised it was signed by the author which is pretty cool.
So that I was impulse buys for yesterday, but I have spent a lot of time since scanning, flipping and reading them all.
To all the Australians out there, I hope you have had a good Australia Day.

2007-01-24T20:00:00.000+11:00

Awhile ago Carol over at May Dreams Gardens made this post about plants that you planted and are now not part of your garden. This has encouraged me to go back to my photo journal about the pond garden to see what I planted that has survived and see if I can work out why.
The first one that jumped out at me was "the blob"(scientifically known as scleranthus uniflorus), this is a plant that has been in every family garden since I was a kid. I decided to plant one, but it died fairly quickly. I planted another one, but it died too. Thus I have given up. I still don't know why it didn't grow, but the back of the tag says "plant in very well dreained, gritty soil." and I now I'm wondering if it got too much water. I might try again in the new native garden.

The other plant that has "disappeared" is a Pratia Puberula - Alpine Pratia. The back of the label says "thrives in moist to wet soil". I can't decide if this died because the dogs walked on it to get to the lemongrass which they love eating, or wether I didn't get the water right. I don't think I'll try this again.

Storm Front

2007-01-24T19:15:00.000+11:00

Wordless Wednesday

Watermelon

2007-01-23T18:41:00.000+11:00

Well I finally gave in and picked my first watermelon. Think now it was probably not fully ripe but it was very exciting. It has lots and lots of seeds, but it does taste like watermelon.

Here is the outside of the watermelon after I sliced it

Here is the inside of the watermelon

Planning 2007

2007-01-23T17:23:00.000+11:00

Well last night I sat down and looked at my gardening scrapbook calendar. In the “what to do in January” section was make a plan for the year. So that’s what I’m doing.

What do I want to achieve is 2007 in the garden.

I want my vegetable garden to become a more constant ongoing project, rather than just starting again in spring. Ways to do that are:
• Plant my Brassicas now
• Buy more baths and get dad to help me attach the axels.
• Fertilise my plants on regular basis.
• Plan what I need to plant in advance
• Use more seeds rather than seedlings

I want to get my native garden at the backyard established
• Plan
• Set up soil. I was going to use no-dig again,
• Put in structures
• Chose plants

Skills and Habitats I would like to develop or improve
• Dead-heading flowers
• Fertilising plants (How often and What to use)
• Growing things from seeds

Other things to work on over the year for longer term goals:
I would like to start caring for and extending the garden at the front of the house.
Plant bulbs in the back and front lawn
Start planning to turn the back lawn into two separate gardens.
Start building a mini-orchard along the fence.

In relation to this I have been thinking about ways to improve the vegetable garden.

What worked well?
The baths and the watering system within the baths
Corn, beans, lettuce, spinach, tomatoes all grew well in the baths.
The Chillies did well in pots and I would do that again.
The zucchini and pumpkin did well in the small child's pools.
I think the potatoes are doing OK, but I would try for something deeper next year.

Things I would change
Next year I would like to have two baths of tomatos rather than the pots, the pots dry out to quickly and it was only in the pots that I got blossom-end rot.
The capsicum plants really need to be in a bath, so I might consider 1 bath for the capiscums or putting them in with the tomatoes.
I think I could plant the tomato plants earlier next year, in particular the tub bush tomatoes.
The grape tomatoes are yummy when fully ripe, but they are very messy and hard to stake.
I'm still not sure if I will grow watermelon again, but if I do I won't go as many seeds and aim for a a few large plants rather than lots competing. I would also put the cucumbers with the watermelon, rather than with the zucchini.

Things I'd like to grow in the vegetable garden next year that I didn't this year.
I'd like to plan to grow butternut pumpkin's rather than the golden nuggets.
I'd like to try the roma tomatoes in the bath, rather than pots.
Beetroot
Garlic and onions
Broadbeans
Brussel sprouts
Broccoli

BRING ON 2007

Green Thumb Sunday

2007-01-21T09:01:00.000+11:00

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I thought photos of pretty flowers were in order this week. I've only just got into flowers, but I brought 10 pots of summer flowers. But now I have a problem, I don't actually know what these flowers are, even though I love them. They are in all sorts of colours, dark purple, white, pink and light purple

Updated to say according to comments, I now think that is is a petunia

Photo Hunter - Wild

2007-01-20T08:34:00.000+11:00

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I tried to take some photos of wild parrots in my garden, but they flew away.
So instead I took some photos of my "wild" pumpkin plant. I certainly didn't plant this pumpkin as seeds or as seedlings. I think it must have grown from seeds in the compost. As the photo shows it even has a pumpkin on it.

Wordless Wednesday

2007-01-17T07:53:00.000+11:00

Scribble Sunday - Idea

2007-01-16T10:58:00.000+11:00

Gardening is all about ideas, planning, thinking, reviewing, planning and inventing and imagining. I think that is partly why I enjoy it so much, it gives me a way to be creative that allows mistakes, changes and is very long term.
At the moment I have lots of ideas about my native bush garden I want to plant at the back of the yard. But at the moment it is just imagination, ideas and planning, but eventually over many many months and years it will be a solid form of my ideas.
The other way ideas are important in gardening is fixing problems. One of my roma tomatoes in a pot has some kind of disease. Oh dear a problem, which needs some ideas to fix it.
Research told me what the disease was and what caused it. That funny looking stuff on the end of the tomato was blossom rot and it is caused by "erratic watering". Well I know my watering has been pretty good, but we had several really really hot days, the 3rd most hot day in history in Canberra, apparently. Well I suspect that the hot weather was enough to cause the pot to dry out and cause the disease.
What could I do about it?
I didn't read much, but I got the feeling once it has started on a tomato it is not going to stop. In the end my "idea" for this year was to pick all the "bad" and "damaged" tomatoes off the plant so it can put it's energy into ripening the "good" tomatoes. To help with the watering problem I've taken to soaking the pot in the dog's pool. (Jess my dog is NOT happy about that, but we all have to make sacrifices occasionally.
OK so I've kind of solved the problem for this year, but what "ideas" can I think of to prevent it from happening next year.
Idea 1) I could just not growing any roma tomatoes, but hey I like them and I want at least one. That idea, not good enough.
Idea 2) What about growing the roma tomatoes in one of the baths? Yep that might work, that idea has potential.

So I begin to realise that being a gardener is about constantly having ideas, trying them out and seeing if they work. I don't know that I have reached a full solution to my blossom rot problem, but I'll keep thinking about ideas until I plant next November. I just have to remember to think about this problem, when I am planting next year. (It's called learning from your mistakes)

Photo Hunter

2007-01-15T13:41:00.000+11:00

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I am coming to this a bit late, but I thought I would join in and do last week's technology idea before getting into this weeks.

The technology one really inspired me because originally I started thinking about old technology and I was going to use the photo of my grandfather's barometer which I have just inherited.
But it got me thinking about how I garden and how my grandparents gardened. I also asked myself why I garden compared to why they might have gardened. I know both grandfathers and my grandmother on my mothers side were all "gardeners" and I'm sure all different. My Pa was all about food, he had a large vegetable garden at all times and grew the most amazing tomatoes. My grandfather was very organized according to mum, he liked his garden's laid out carefully, while my grandmother was the opposite apparently . One of my favorite stories of my grandmother is that she would come home in her good shoes and clothes and end up gardening even before she got the front door open.
Any way to my photos, I thought I would include photos of gardening technology.

First the barometer, that I'm sure my grandfather used to predict the weather and help with his gardening.

Next a gardening fork that both my grandparents and I use/d

Finally my solar water pump which I use in my water features, I bet my grandmother would have loved it.

Green Thumb Sunday

2007-01-14T16:40:00.000+11:00

Green Thumb Sunday

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This is my first Green Thumb Sunday blog, I have been thinking all week about what I would use for the photo. I was thinking about a zucchini flower, or maybe one of my fuschias. But when I was wandering around my garden, I found this uncurling fern frond and I thought it looked so beautiful. I love that my ferns and doing better and what a wonderful way to start my green thumb sunday. I know the photo is not great, but it has got me inspired to read my camera instruction booklet more carefully, so I can do a better job next week.

My new courtyard.

2007-01-13T16:29:00.000+11:00

Well it is not a new courtyard, but with all the new plants it feels like a new courtyard. This is the first garden that I have truly planned before buying and planting. Back in about November I suddenly realised how much I love sitting in the courtyard, and how much nicer again it would be if it was a garden, rather than a bare brick yard. Well instead of my usual rushing out and starting buying plants, I decided since it was such a small and unusual shape I would have to plan it carefully. The courtyard has the large heating unit for our central heating and earlier in the year, my mum had organised for her handyman to put in a trellis screen for us. It does a good job, but I decided that I really wanted to grow a climbing plant on it, but what? I spent time reading, talking and thinking about all the different plants I could have. I started really wanting a passionfruit, but then decided it might be a bit cold for it in Canberra. The I went through the options, potato vine (we’ve got 2 already and they do really well, safe option.) But we’ve already got 2 and I want something different. The family used to have a beach cottage called clematis cottage what if I grow clematis. I like that idea, but I really want a passionfruit. So I came full cycle back to the passionfruit, so guess what I planted a “Ned Kelly” black passionfruit today in a big brown ugly pot. My mum helped me plant it out and she insisted we put a lamb’s liver near the bottom of the pot. She says it’s important, don’t know why, but she’s usually right when it comes to gardening stuff. (Even if she’s not right about lots of other things, I know you’re reading this Queen of Misinformation). The courtyard is a triangle shape like below, the corner with the smily face, is the most difficult corner and I knew it needed a larger structural plant to fill it out. At first I thought I might have a fern tree, to go with the fern tree near the pond, but I didn’t think it would go well in a pot. So I decided I would give in to one of my longings and buy another lime tree, this time I would get a Tahitian lime for the fruit, after buying a kaffia lime last time. When I went to the garden nursery I was very excited to fine no Tahitian limes, but instead they had an Australian lime, so that now graces my courtyard.

The final key structural point of the garden was a largish rectangular window box along the wall with the star. I knew I wanted flowering plants in this and I have planted blushing butterflies, hot lips and a Christmas lily (which my nursery gave to me for free, because it was dying)
What else have I put in my courtyard? A large water pot with 2 goldfish, a pineapple guava (a thoughtful impulse buy) and a pot of black bamboo. The pineapple guava I saw in the nursery and my mum said they were nice. So I was thinking about buying one, when I saw an article about them in an old Gardening Australia magazine, that clinched the deal and off I trundled to buy one. The Bamboo Miki allowed me to buy as a Christmas tree and after it had served its job of guarding all the presents, he carefully carried it to the courtyard for me.

Photos
Here are the before and after photos of the tricky corner with the smily face. As you can see I have some pots for more planting. The brown pot is the same as I used the passion-fruit. I brought the pots because they were very cheap on special, thinking it was because they were ugly. When I got them home I realized that they were not only ugly, but very very heavy. It takes 2 people to lift them empty.

Here are the before and after photos of the other end of the courtyard with the trellis and the window box.

Last photos,
My passionfruit vine! Fingers crossed it survives and does well. The courtyard is very sheltered and doesn't seem to get frosty.

My fish, They are all hiding under an old teapot plunder than my mum gave me. The ugly green thing is a solar pump water fountain that is set into a fake lily pad. Hopefully it will look better when I add water weed from my mum.

So now I have the beginnings of my courtyard oasis.

Growing Food

2007-01-12T08:07:00.000+11:00

Last spring I decided it was time to expand my vegetable and fruit garden. The previous summer I had grown tomatos in a bath and I wanted to grow more vegetables in more baths. The trouble was moving the baths around the yard, so my Dad designed axles and wheels so that the baths can be moved like a wheelbarrow, he even made me handles. The photos below are of my dad attaching the axles to the baths I got from revolve (our recyling depot) and yes my wonderful dad drove four hours with a trailer to pick up the baths from revolve and bring them home.

I then made gardens in the baths using the no dig method, and planted them out with tomatoes, lettuce, asian veggies, peas, beans and spinach. Later on I added corn, beans, more lettuce and carrots. I also planted seed beet-root, but it didn't grow.
Then I brought from revolve, those clam shell kids pools, in those I planted potatoes, watermelon, zucchini and cucumber. In a dogs bed I planted golden nugget pumpkin. I also planted chillies and capsicum in pots.
Here is a photo of the garden I took around christmas
I love looking out on this from my kitchen window over the sink.

Expanding the pond garden

2007-01-05T12:32:00.000+11:00

It has been a long while since I updated this blog. I want to get the older information out of the way so I can start talking more about what I'm doing now. Awhile after finishing the first half of the pond garden I realised I wanted to expand it so the whole corner was turned into garden. Using the end patio post and the corner of the brick work to create a line to finish the garden.
The layout
Both myself and my mother were using the grass as a pathway between her house and mine, so I knew when I made the garden I wanted to put in a path. I decided to use cheaper square pavers. We lay news paper on the ground and then covered it with sand. DH helped lay all the pavers and we were both very proud to make a curved path with very little wobbling. Dh used a leftover paver to make a step at the end of the path. I used a large rectangular pot and a platic square one with bulbs already planted to create the boundary and then lay compost and potting mix to create a planting medium. The camomile I had planted earlier was the start of the new garden.
Plants
To be honest it is so long ago I can't remember what I planted originally, but I know the savory plant, some beet-root which are now replaced with lettuce. In the big rectangle pot which created the boundary of the garden I put mint and parsley. Later on I found out that they shouldn't be planted together so I put the mint in a seperate pot and they have both been happier since. The last spring I add italian parsley lemon balm in a pot. And in the garden I added more parsley and Marjoram.
Photos
This shows the garden when I first planted it, looking down the new path.

Next shows the garden now from a similar angle.

This shows the garden looking up the path at the time of planting

Same angle taken recently

References

2006-12-12T19:05:00.000+11:00

Teaming with Microbes: A Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web [ILLUSTRATED] (Hardcover)
by Jeff Lowenfels, Wayne Lewis "GIVEN ITS VITAL IMPORTANCE to our hobby, it is amazing that most of us don't venture beyond the understanding that good soil supports plant life,..." (more)

Two Gardeners: Katharine S. White & Elizabeth Lawrence--A Friendship in Letters (Paperback)
by Emily Herring Wilson (Editor)

my first real garden

2006-12-10T14:01:00.000+11:00

My mum decided that we needed to have a working bee and clean up the garden around the pond. By the end of the day I had the start of a herb garden planted onto paper and then potting mix. Below are a run of photos that show how that garden developed.

This photo shows what it looked liked before I turned it into a garden. Old dried grass and dirt. This is not were the garden is placed as I forgot to take a pre-photo.

The next two photos show what the garden looked like just after planting. I planted, lemon grass, Vietnamese mint, chives, coriander, oregano, crawling thyme and baby tears.

So what went well in the new garden. The baby tears really took off and are still slowly spreading themselves out into the garden. The Vietnamese mint is still going strong and I use it sometimes in my cooking. The coriander didn't do very well and this year I have it growing in a pot to much more success. The lemon-grass did really well and I loved cooking with it, but mum and I tried to divide it at the end of summer and killed it. But I'll try again when I find more lemon-grass. The chives didn't do very well and I expect they didn't get enough water. The oregano and thyme went well and are still growing, but I must admit I have added in an ordinary thyme as well now. Next I want lemon thyme. I really like the herbs as I can cook with them as well.
Below is a photo of the garden after summer.

The following photo is after I added in some new plants, such as sage and I can't remember what else at the moment.

Because I have been watering this garden and the weeper hose runs behind the pond and near the ferns; the ferns have really taken off which hopefully you can see in the following photo of the garden which I took today.

The next project was to dig up the lawn on the other side of the path to the pond, which I'll show next time.

Watering and wandering

2006-12-07T19:51:00.000+11:00

Well tonight I went out to the shed to get something from the freezer, but on the way I got sidetracked by the fact that the garden needed watering. Before I knew it, I was adding more watering systems, fixing hoses and rescuing seedings sitting in punnets. On a side note I was really cross about the seedlings, I should know better than to buy plants mid-week. I brought them tuesday afternoon, but didn't get them planted. In the hot weather we've been having they've completely dried out, hopefully a soak overnight will save them. Otherwise I have waste nearly $50, better not tell DH.
Back to the watering, I spent nearly an hour pottering around my garden, and dinner is still not cooked. Oh well.

A bath anyone?

2006-12-02T10:52:00.000+11:00

As I've said, a lot of the backyard is concrete. I really wanted a vegetable garden (in particular tomatoes), but DH said I wasn't to did up the lawn or the concrete until we had been in the house a few years. So how could I have a veggie garden on concrete? As fate would have it, I saw an episode on Gardening Australia about no dig garden's, which seemed suitable, but I would need something to contain the "soil". Somewhere I got the idea of using bathtubs, my DH's parent's had an old bathtub from when they renovated their bathroom, which they kindly donated to the cause. Follow the instructions from the gardening australia website see instructions here , I made the no dig recipe in the bathtub. I also included the weeper hose about half way down the bath for watering. In this with some compost I planted tomatoes, and basil. Very quickly after watering we had stinky brown watering running down the concrete. DH was not happy and tried to create a way for it to drain to the grass, didn't work so the bath got moved until it hung over the grass. The next problem was that the bath stank to high heaven. Everyone noticed and made comments. In hindsight, I realise now that I put way too much manure in the no-dig mix. It said "sprinkle" and I really made a layer of manure. The rest of the baths have been much better. So the bath was relegated to the back of the yard, where the tomatoes and basil grew beautifully and were enjoyed most of the summer. I was very proud of the end result and my perseverance to find solutions to problems.
This first photo gives an idea of how the bath looked as the plants started to grow. The rest of the photos are from the same time.

The next photo is of one of the tomato plants.

The next photo is of the basil. It was so yummy in pesto.

The last photo is of the cherry tomato plant. It was a weeping tomato and it hung over the bath and spread around on the ground as it grew more.

The Pond photos

2006-12-02T07:01:00.000+11:00

This is a photo of the pond very soon after moving in, I'm not sure if I had added the fish at the time of the photo.

Here is a photo of the tall pond from about the same place, you can see how the tall leaves plant has grown.

Here is a photo looking at the water right after I added the plants. I like the angle on this photo.

The Pond

2006-12-02T06:49:00.000+11:00

The first thing I did in the garden after moving in was buy some fish for the pond. Very quickly I realised that the fish were hot and scared because there was no protection over the pond. The water was a bit hot because the sun could shine on it and there were very few places to hide from people or birds. So off I went to look for water plants. I heard about a nursery, that focussed on water plants and off I trundled. In the end I brought a plant with tall leaves that stick out of the water and a discounted water lily because they didn't know what colour the flowers would be. The one with the tall leaves is still going strong, but the lily never flowered and didn't survive the first year.

Photo Hunters

2006-11-30T13:09:00.000+11:00

Wordless Wednesday

2006-11-30T08:01:00.000+11:00

Green Thumb Sunday

2006-11-29T16:24:00.000+11:00

Layout of the garden

2006-11-26T18:21:00.001+11:00

I'll try and describe what I have to work with. Above is a very simple picture of our block. It is not to scale. The Black rectangle, with the square coming off at the top is our house. (that square is our sunken master bedroom) The black square at the bottom/side is my mother's Dawdy house. The pink lines are the fences.
The 2 green triangles are two small fully paved and walled courtyards, both with gates to the front. One (on the right of pic) is a triangle courtyard off our master bedroom, with full glass windows and sliding doors for nearly the whole length of the wall. The other courtyard (left in pic) is the entrance to the front door.
At the front of the house is a large nature strip lawn with several mature trees and a small cottage garden style garden that was there when we moved in.
There is a large garage/shed in the backyard and a carport on the left side of the picture next to the house. The backyard was a mixture of beautiful lawn and concrete when we moved in with a hills hoist clothes line. By 6 months I had killed the lawn through neglect and I'm still trying to resolve that problem.
The final point of interest is the blue in the corner between the house and flat which is a deep when designed fully filtered fish pond which was there when we moved in.
Lots of background info on the yard, and I'll start to explain what we have done since we moved in next time.

The Beginning

2006-11-26T15:27:00.000+11:00

Well the question is why have I given in and started a Blog. I am learning to garden and I've tried keep a journal, I've tried a photo journal. These worked well, but now I'm trying this. 18 months ago DH, myself and my mother brought a 4 bedroom house with a granny flat (better known as the Dawdy house). My mum is a keen gardener and has slowly been trying to convert me, though I had begun before she started. The last few years in our old house I was going tomatoes in pots.
After 12 months of gardening I'm now fully engaged and beginning to plan a whole house/garden outline. Over the next few posts I'll show and explain what I have done in the last few months and then I'll beginning showing where to now.

2006-08-16T14:40:00.002+10:00

2006-05-13T18:47:00.000+10:00

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