ALS members Blogs

I have had some awesome luck with my little punnet of Tomatoes brought and planted only late November! I added Sheep manure to the mix prior to planting and have this awesome crop coming with lots of little green Tomatoes coming along and the growth of the plant is massive, I did wonder if that was the nitrogen in the manure and I would not end up getting so much fruit just all be plant but I think not!In other news our little chick is growing up and looks to be a girl so good news and if a male it would not be allowed to stay have a look at the shots of this girl born only 6 weeks ago! Her father is a pure Cochin and the mother is a half Barnvelder and a half Cochin - I just love her legs!Original link...

This year I have been a very sparodic blogger, it has been hugely busy with my eldest child starting high school and my activities and work becoming much busier. I am hoping that 2013 can be a year for doing much less - better! I think I wanted that for this year but sadly it did not eventuate.This year we have had some pretty big highs and lows and find we go out of the year fairly tired actually but grateful for so much. We nearly changed the boys schools but in the end decided to stay with the one we are at, had some house issues but our health is good so much to be grateful for.I have been busy all year helping my youngest 2 boys Primary School with their Environmental group as my middle child was an Environmental monitor for the year, we have maintained...

Last week end on my daily walk to get the paper, I went past a house across the road only 5 blocks up from my home to see a garage sale was on. Not one to refuse a look to see if there any decent gardening gear.I have lived here for 16 years now and I am pretty sure the person in that house has been here the entire time. I have never seen him. He was elderly, they lawn was always cut, the place tiny and neat, the men's shed HUGE, so I assume he spend most of the time in that.All the people manning the sale looked to be in their 60's-70's and I hesitantly asked what happened to the man.He had passed away. I guilty left feeling like the worst neighbour ever, how is it possible to not even talk to your neighbour, to not have clue...

Today we had our fruit tree planting day and as a nice touch one of the teachers had brought some pansies to put around some of the older more established trees, we had our normal crew of year 4 kids in the Environmental group and also some older grade 6 helpers.We were lucky in that its been pouring the past few days but the rain held off for pretty much the entire 2 hours we planted so here is what we put in the Orchard area:1 x Royal Gala Apple Tree1 x Golden Delicious Apple Tree1 x Granny Smith Apple Tree1 x Josephine Pear Tree1 x Mariposa Plum Tree1 x Satsuma Plum Tree1 x Flavourcrest Peach Tree1 x Preston Prolific FigWe also planted in another area as feature trees;1 x Moorpark Apricot1 x Hick Fancy Red MulberryThe soil was shocking, just pure clay probably pushed over to the site from...

I have been very remiss in updating my blog of late but very busy at my massage work, my Philosophy Course, book clubs and attending children's sports! I am also advising my sons Primary School - just as a help to the 2 teachers that run it on Environmental Studies. We have planted out the School veggie garden too with donations from many, although I do note the plants I donated are doing so much better tin the school garden than my own - I feel from community spirit of the children attending to the gardens! We have started a Worm farm from old re used boxes and started a compost and its all coming along well but tomorrow we plant a whole Orchard with 10 fruit trees, if the school allows I shall do a blog page on that also. Also been spending a lot of much deserved time...

Today I took the teen to the Talbot Market, & how I love that term and being the parent of a teenager for one whole week!! It was a gorgeous day here in Ballarat and I had heard there was a lady there that had organic seeds (Green Circle Organics) and the food there is divine so after only hearing the night before that it was on we made an inpromteu decision to go.Didn't regret it one bit! I brought a some treats for the family - A belt for hubby after sizing up a slightly overweight man and asking him his size so I could work out hubbies ;) a wallet as hubbies has also seen better days. A couple of pkts of Pokemon cards for the boys - that is the latest phase, some Yellowbox honey, a Jade plant, some chocolate liquorice - well you do need sustenance,...

Sorry I haven't had much time to post of late, work has been flat out, however after a lovely evening walk while Ken was putting together a desk for one of my boys we I snuck out to the garden and make some hot houses. I usually use the Bunnings brought greenhouses to grow my seeds, but they don't last I don't really mind a couple of years use and then use the frames to hold the seedling trays however last year it was 4 months use before the plastic tore in a storm so the whole thing was useless and this year decided to take some valuable advise from the Ballarat Permaculture Facebook people and built my own! I got the idea from a link given to me by them;http://www.urbanfoodgarden.org/main/seed-planting-and-propagation/seedlings/styrofoam-propagation-box-advantages-disadvantages.htmI have been to a talk by John a few years ago and a tour of his garden and did...

I love berries and am happy to pay for them when in season although its wonderful to grow your own! Once again this year I have been picking berries Black this time as unfortunately there is a creature taking my Strawberries, it is unfortunately as my son planted them and was looking forward to them! So this weekend in between working as I have had a flood of clients all wanting Massage this week my middle son and myself got busy picking Blackberries and later in the evening I got busy making a creating with those and some brought berries :)Original link...

Very excited to see some vegies finally growing in the garden beds. We have Zucchini, Sweet Corn, Tomatoes, Onions all harvested but we are still using them, some Lettuce, and Potato's which didn't do too well although I have been able to harvest some for a soup I made. Recently we didn't get too much time to get down to the shops, we run 5 plus businesses from this house Kens 3 my 2 plus Jordan's new venture will I will blog about in the future, so sometimes things get very, very hectic around here. I have some pictures of a meal we made on the day to prevent a last minute dash to the shops and it was delicious - please enjoy the pictures.The Slap up soup recipe is as follows;Handful of Zucchini.Few Potato's.Few onions.Some water to cover.1 litre of stockCook altogether and then mulch up with a stick...

I have just been reading over last years resolutions and am quiet amazed at how many I didn't achieve and how much they have changed for this year!The things I did not do were complete 3 fun runs - in fact I didn't complete any! I possibly became more unfit although I did lose 6 kgs I rapidly gained 4 back around Xmas 2011.I didn't go on many day dates with Ken although we did get quiet a good walking routine up through Winter - they always ended with a coffee though so not so sure how much they helped with weight loss!Going on the kayak more - I didn't seem to achieve this much either but we have been on an average weekly paddle over the school holidays.I did manage to get back to Fernwood regularly, but now I am now using my gym quipment...

Today I harvested 2 beds of Onions and was pretty impressed with the yield. Counted over 100 Onions! Think we will be having onion soup for the next few weeks! I can't possibly store that many Onions so I just tie in bundles and hang up around the veggie garden, doesn't matter if they get wet as they soon dry again and don't seem to go off.Also thought I would show you another picture of my next bath of dog poo compost, it's going great looks nothing like it's former self but a rich compost with billions of worms coursing through it. I am still not game to go directly on the veggie bed although I desperately need something to add to the old now weeded Onion beds I will transfer it to another compost to break down over another 6 months.We have been renovating our bathroom and have a...

We also went to another open garden today called "Ercildoune" this is a massive property intially 73,000 acres, then sold in 1872 and sold off and I believe it is now about 28,000 acres, the gardens seem to be about 10-20 acres? There is a large walled garden on 1 acre, and many old and dilapidated houses on the property that the owners are doing up. But the gardens are stunning and the owners that have owned the land now for around the past 12 years have done a fantastic job in restoring this garden to it's former glory, it has also a hydro electric station on the property - no longer in use. I have included the link explaining way more than I can of this magnificant property and taken some pictures of out day and the gorgeous garden, we ended up taking a picnic lunch and they had...

Today we decided to take a much needed garden break and visited a couple of open gardens. The first was a 2 block Bed & breakfast place in Ripon Street, Ballarat called Ripon Cottages and the second I will need to do another post for it was massive and we spent the entire afternoon there after packing lunch and afternoon tea! Anyway this place had some lovely idea's on re using containers for the garden I would never think of such as an old pair of boots and a suitcase with the centre cut out with plants inserted some lovely wrought iron pieces and they were selling Water Irises for $2 per plant so after trying to sell our very good condition bath and not getting any nibbles I have decided to turn the bath into a pond and buy up on the Water Irises but a pump and make...

Hello all and hope you had some time in the garden! As you might recall I have been growing some Sunflowers from seed, I had hoped I would get enough to share with friends however after planting the first lot out the front I see the snails have been busy and pretty much eaten 3/4's of the leaves and completely ruined many of them. I decided it was war and have been out at all hours collecting snails popping them in a pot and after wondering what the heck I was going to do with them and getting rather a large collection I decided maybe just maybe the chooks would like them.They went mad for them the first day but I did notice they coped ok with the small baby ones but the large mumma's not so good so I am now having a snail crushing session each day I...

I have been busy over the school holidays in the garden weeding the veggie beds and the entire rest of the garden. I have a cottage garden at the front of my place and over Winter I planted a ton of Daffodils, a little late really but most have done their best to get their little shoots up and flowering for me and with the Freshia's, Jasmine and Lilac bushes out (we have 3) it has just been a delight to be in the garden with the mild weather and lovely flowery perfumes.I have weeded the Lemon and Lime fruit trees, added some rabbit manure to the bases and then some pea straw I had in the shed for some nitrogen and as a weed suppressor. Have planted some Zucchini in the greenhouse and also some Sunflowers they will be great to attract the bees and hopefully look awesome too....

I thought I would post an update on a previous post from this year on the Rhubarb. I moved from a pot where it was doing badly and really not growing at all. I transplanted it and it had no leaves at all on it was just starting to sprout really and now only 6 weeks later it is huge!! One exciting thing is that it's literally 2 feet from where the chickens sleep at night and I wonder if perhaps the manure is playing a part of the health of it. I like to think so, fortunately the wire is small and the chooks will never be able to get their beaks through to peck at it! We also transplanted a huge Elderberry which snapped at the base in the process and I wondered firstly whether it would even transplant at all and secondly how well it would grow...

Over this Fathers day weekend we decided that too much dust was coming onto the veranda and completely coating everything and mostly responsible for this was the dogs running around in area large made up of dirt. They had their kennels in this area which is partially undercover but considering they mostly sleep on their hessian stand beds which are undercover I wasn't too worried about shifting the location of their beds and turning the whole area into a herb and garden patch. We had previously fenced on an area near the chooks so I knew I was able to build a good enough fence to keep the dogs out. In the area I planted Boronia, Geraldton Wax Flowers, Lemon Balm, Paper daisy's, Bay Tree, Comfrey, Feverfew, Coriander, and Marjoram. Some things I just transplanted from other parts of the garden, also brought a water plant for the pond pot...

Recently I made some soap and some of my blog readers will already know the recipe it's just your basic coconut oil, olive oil, caustic soda, beeswax and essential oils, you need the perfect temperature for the making and it involves loads of stirring.I didn't actually keep the flyer with the recipe as once the caustic soda was explained to me I decided I would rather pay for someone else to make the soap than risk scaring on my lungs from breathing that stuff - totally no proof that happens just my overactive imagination going on overdrive, and acid burns from any spillage! I also can't see myself having the patience to be doing all that stirring as the soap melts the beeswax took ages! I now know of 2 friends who have made some soap and it looks fantastic! So anyway here is a picture of my soap some...

I have a few fruit trees in the paddock at the rear of our block, well 2 Plum trees, 2 Apple, a Lemon a Lime, 2 Pear Trees, 2 Apricot and 1 Nectarine - the other died. So 11 in total, and the all need to be weeded every year around Spring time. I decided to get in early this year and weed during the Winter, as the soil would be wetter and in theory the weeds easier to pull.Its hard work as the paddock pretty much doesn't get mowed near those fruit trees and the grass by Spring is waist high. Some of the weeds needed the Folk but most with pure Sue aggression were tugged from that ground shaken and thrown into the chicken pen. The pile has been high, the chickens have been busy fossicking for worms and eating the greenest leaves. I re-use all my rabbit...

Last weekend I planted some Desiree Potato's and thought I would share the pictures, I brought 10 potatoes and were able to cut the tubers in half some into 1/4's to make around 40 tubers to plant. Its always important to buy the virus free seed, usually easily obtainable from your local nursery. I had a gift voucher from my birthday so even cheaper I didn't have to pay a cent!! The total cost would have been around $8 though and I anticipate getting over 150 potatoes in total, just a guess though, we did do so well with the potato's last year I thought it needed to be done again although this time we have chosen to plant them in a wine barrell and some smaller pots, I really hope that works alright as if will definantly get drier in Summer, I plan to mulch with some pea straw...