A feast for the birds (and Shadow Shot Sunday - December 13, 2015)

I wrote about my bumper crop of apricots last year. You can read about it here. It's a very different story this year. There are not as much fruit on the tree and the birds have certainly found what is there. I have managed to pick some and give some away again and if I'm quick I will get some more as they ripen but nothing like last year's crop. 

Getting the garden growing once again

Getting the garden growing once again. 

There hasn't been a lot of action in the garden patch of late. The tomatoes, zucchini, strawberries and cucumbers didn't do so well over Summer with some bouts of heat and less water when I was away for a couple of weeks. Today, the unseasonably warm weather of the past week has gone and been replaced by rain. With the rain has come the appearance of a few snails as well. I have planted a few things in the last couple of weeks so this bout of rain should really help, provided the snails don't get too greedy. 

The last remaining zucchini plant. I have had a few zucchinis from this one, the only plant of a few that survived the couple of weeks in January with little water. 

My latest rescue mission from Bunnings - Thai Basil. After a slow start these seedlings are starting to look quite healthy. 

The Silverbeet and Joi Choi have settled into their new surroundings quite well, although the Joi Choi seems to have had some visitors. 

The Kale hasn't settle in quite yet. 

The lettuce is growing very well. 

With the rain, comes the snails! Last year they had quite a feast. I hope to save more from their munching this year. I have removed a few of them today. Keeping on top of the weeding around the garden beds should help a lot too. 

A new garden and a snail

A new garden and a snail. 

Today I enjoyed some delicious wood oven pizza at the launch of the 2012 Magic Harvest Program in the Hackham area. Yum! Magic Harvest is a program based on the book One Magic Square by Lolo Houbein. A group of people meet regularly in hubs to learn how to grow their own food at home and share their skills and produce. I will be in a group which will meet fortnightly for about an hour to share our gardening adventures and also establish and maintain a small community garden. There will also be workshops throughout the year to learn gardening and cooking skills and we will have the opportunity to visit each others gardens. It feels like it's going to be a lot of fun. 

Today, as well as the yummy pizza, a couple of members of another hub gave a small demonstration on planting a garden in a polystyrene box. Then it was raffled off and I was lucky enough to win it! Yay! I was planning to go to Bunnings to see if there were any seedlings I could rescue but I was saved the trip. The box contains lettuce, celery, silverbeet and chives seedlings. All things I had been planning to get in the garden soon. I've told my daughter the snail she got at the community market we went to this morning is not welcome in the garden! 

Shadow Shot Sunday - February 5th, 2012

Taking some tiny steps back into my blogging life after a short break for various reasons. Here's a couple of photos for Shadow Shot Sunday. 

When I got back from a recent short holiday I found the cucumber plants that had been planted from seed and were growing well had not survived the bout of hot weather while we were away. This is one of a few seedlings I got from Bunnings to replace them. Maybe next year I can grow some from seed...

And here's a shot of our cat, Chester. It's really hard to get a good photo of him as he is either running away or getting too close to the camera so I was pleased to get this one, complete with shadow. 

Six Word Saturday - December 24th, 2011

Cucumbers! Just in time for Christmas. 

A couple of months ago I bought a punnet of four apple cucumber seedlings. Three didn't survive due to the abundance of snails around the garden this year. The fourth plant was almost eaten. The snails had a good munch of the stalk but it managed to hold one. I have eaten a couple of cucumbers already. They were very tasty, just a little bitter. Today these four were ready to pick. Yum! 

and a bonus six words from me for today: 

Sending Merry Christmas wishes to you! 

I hope you have a good day tomorrow however you spend it. 

Six Word Saturday - November 12th, 2011

Beans. Parsley. Onion. From my garden. 

I'm on a bit of a quest to eat healthier. My diet hasn't been the best lately. It feels good to get some better food in to me. I'm particularly impressed with my efforts tonight. I picked some broad beans and some parsley, added some onion I picked recently and lemon juice from a lemon I picked from a nearby tree recently. Ingredients bought from the shop and added were cucumber, tomato, some cumin and olive oil. The result - a very yummy salad! Hopefully it won't be long until I can also use tomatoes and cucumbers I have grown myself. But by then the broad beans won't be in season anymore. Oh well, maybe I will substitute something else.  

Shadow Shot Sunday - October 9th, 2011

Shadow Shot Sunday is hosted by Hey Harriet. Head over to her blog to see many more great shadow shots. 

Two very different photos from me today, both from my backyard. 

Shadow Shot Sunday - September 25th, 2011

Shadow Shot Sunday is hosted by Hey Harriet. Head over to her blog to see many more great shadow shots. 

There's something very calming about the search for shadows and the stillness required to capture them. I have been out in the garden this morning and took my shadow shots while there. I think a garden update post as well as one about all of the gorgeous flowers around the yard will be coming soon! 

Six Word Saturday - September 10th, 2011

Sometimes space is needed for growth. 

These six words are rather important to me today for a few different reasons. 

Here's a photo of one of the new broad bean plants in my garden, thriving well after I made space to plant some seeds a few weeks ago. 

Shadow Shot Sunday - August 28th, 2011

Shadow Shot Sunday is hosted by Hey Harriet. Head over to her blog to see many more great shadow shots.



This shadow shooting is rather addictive. Again it was too hard to stop at one. There are so many great shadows this morning. Here's a selection of the many I just took.

Sunday Scribblings - August 14th, 2011

The prompt for Sunday Scribblings this week is forward. It fitted well with a piece I was thinking about writing. 




'It doesn't matter how slow you go as long as you do not stop' 

- Confucius

To move forward is often largely a matter of taking those first steps. Working out a baby step you can take and then doing so. The way it often works for me is that I worry a lot before those first steps then commit to taking a first step, telling myself that's all I need to do at that moment. More often than not that first step leads to another and another and another. 

In the past year or so I have moved forward in many ways. There have been my blogs. I never imagined what the first step of looking into how to begin a blog would blossom into and how rewarding it would turn out to be. It was the same with gardening. Planting a few seeds and seeing some success led to more and more. 

Often lots of preparation goes into deciding what a first step will be and how to take that first step. I was familiar with other people's blogs before that decision to look into starting my own. I started my gardening adventures with some radishes because they are easier to grow and I was more likely to experience success which would encourage me to try more. 

Taking the first step can set you in motion and help dramatically with moving forward with whatever you wish to move forward with. I observed this yesterday. My ten year old daughter really wanted to read a poem at a poetry group I attend. She was very keen beforehand and had definitely prepared. When it came time to begin though stage fright set in. She just couldn't seem to get started. Someone suggested to just say one word. She still couldn't do it so everyone else read and then we returned to her. She managed that first word and kept going, very quietly at first but then gradually she got louder. At the end someone asked if she could read it again in a louder voice. She did. Making the effort to get over the difficult starting point really paid off and she moved forward in a huge way. 

Of course, things don't always work out so wonderfully. I am remembering the time when I was thirteen and ready to dive from a diving board for the first time. I was so nervous but told myself that once I left the board I would just have to keep going. My style was not the best, however, and I hit the water with the hugest belly flop. In that situation I could have done a little more research before taking to the board. 

Usually though I can be prone to keep researching how to do something rather than actually doing it. This week I bought a new camera and really don't know how to use it. I could keep stressing about that and try and learn more or I could choose to begin. I chose to take some photos and experiment with some of the settings. I ended up taking some photos that I was quite pleased with and posted my first contribution to Shadow Shot Sunday. Having a go gives me the chance to learn more and keep moving forward. 

Sometimes moving forward is fast. Other times slower. Sometimes it even feels like going backwards. Sometimes it might involve pausing for a while. It is certainly okay to stop too for something you decide you no longer wish to move forward with. 

Amongst other things, this week I want to move forward with my photography skills. How about you? What would you like to move forward with? Is there a small step you can take to propel you forward? 

Shadow Shot Sunday - August 14th, 2011

Shadow Shot Sunday is hosted by Hey Harriet. Head over to her blog to see many more great shadow shots. 

The July garden update

It's the last day of the month. Just enough time to squeeze in some news about what has been happening in my garden. I haven't done an update for a while. It was already the start of July when I realised I hadn't done an update for June. I did mean to do one a little late but that didn't happen. 


Things have been going along quite well in the garden despite little input from me in July. It has been reasonably wet so I haven't needed to water quite as much. A good thing or some of the plants would be exceptionally thirsty I think. I have planted some beetroot seedlings which seem to be growing very well. I look forward to trying out some salad, dip etc recipes in the not too distant future. Yum! You can see some of them in the next photo, amongst the grass and other weeds. 

I have quite a bit of silverbeet in one of the garden beds and it is very tall. I need to find some recipes soon I think! A little while ago I picked a lot of the rainbow silverbeet and made a very yummy side dish with pine nuts and raisins. It was very tasty and super healthy too I'm sure. Here is a link to the recipe I used. 

I have masses of parsley in the garden, both the Italian parsley which self seeded from last year and the parsley I rescued from Bunnings which certainly no longer needs rescuing! 

Some of the cabbage is getting eaten by snails. It is quite interesting how the different bugs will almost completely eat one plant and yet leave another nearby alone. The Kale is next to the cabbage and not touched at all. There are also some broccoli florets starting to form. The onions I planted a long time ago are getting bigger. The lettuce is still growing well and is the biggest lettuce I have ever seen! I also have lots of rocket in the garden at various stages of growth. The last photo below is of some flowers from one of the rocket plants which has gone to seed. I really like those flowers! I hope to get some time soon to do some caring for the garden and also get some more things planted. I guess it will soon be time to plant some summer crops. Tomatoes! Yum! 

Looking back through some of my posts too, I was amazed at how much my 'Magic Harvest' plants have grown. Maybe I should post some before and after pictures soon. 

and now I am actually posting this on the first day of August. With a teenager in the house there was strong competition for the computer and I lost so the post I started yesterday wasn't posted.