a beautiful day

Hello friends,

I had a great day today. I spent most of the morning inside doing chores, ran some errands around 11am, then after lunch went outside to spend the rest of the day in the beautiful sunshine.

Morning smoko...

Out back there is water in the salt lake from recent rain.  This is slowly drying up though. The lake is directly behind our block.

I almost lost this geranium in summer, but after giving it a good haircut it has come back as good as ever.

The veggie patch is looking a bit daggy, but hoping to keep the ice out.  Another frost due tonight.

I found one last eggplant.

Close up of amaranth flower containing tons of seeds to save. Do you know the health benefits of amaranth? Not just a pretty plant...

Under the grapefruit tree you can see all the compost bins. I am going to relocate some of these and put them under other fruit trees. At the moment I am only using the square sulo bin one and it is almost full. Looks a bit messy, so tomorrow I will be tidying up this area.

The big orange flowers are forming on the aloe.

Not sure about the name of this succulent but this is a very unusual flower.

 The star jasmine is flowering.

As are the spider lilies...

Pinwheel chrysanthemum...mum gave me this one in a pot.

 Tulip geranium...

Bird of paradise...

In the patch I planted out more seedings/seeds and garlic. I am now addicted to growing my own garlic since it was so successful last year.

It would be nice to get a bit more rain to give these plants a boost, but it is not looking likely at this stage.

gourmet lettuce mix...

A couple beds of Kale...

There are not many quandongs on the trees this year. It was a bumper crop last year so I still have plenty in the freezer and dried. Just as well I did this, because this year for the first time since planting the trees, they are not producing much fruit. This would be because of the drought.

Then it was back inside for a cuppa and some garden planning...

While inside I finally put the saved seeds into their packets and popped them in my seed box.

I found some sweet pea seeds at the bottom of the box, so decided to plant them outside in pots. They were slightly out of date, but we will see if they germinate.

The dried basil is finally in the jar...

 
I had time for some more outside work, so I topped up the little barrow out the front with some aged horse poo and soil. The anemone bulbs are starting to shoot up once again this year. I had forgotten about them and planted some pieces of succulent in there. I will see if I can find somewhere else to plant these.

I gave the girls a treat today by dragging around some hay for them to destroy. And let me say they do not take long to do this!

The bougainvillea is looking nice and bright against the blue skies...

Here is another plant that I would like help with to identify.  This one came up in a potted plant I picked up from somewhere. It is unusual and pretty, almost poinsettia like...Any ideas? Hoping its not a weed as I have a few volunteer plants growing around the place. It would have to be the most neglected plant ever, but still it grows...

So that was my day. Its supposed to 1C tonight and 17C tomorrow, and usually pleasant days follow overnight frosts so I look forward to getting outside with my hands in the dirt again.

I have made it through one week since posting about blogging regularly here. Thank you to all who are leaving comments, I really appreciate it. Your kind words make my day, they really do...

Have a lovely night,

xTania

today

Good evening friends,

Tonight is really cold with our first frost due, so today I have been out in the garden covering up any sensitive veggies like tomatoes, capsicums and sweet potato. That chill was here again, the wind was freezing!

I bought some of this frost block in Adelaide recently to give it a try.

Time will tell if it is going to work successfully. Has anyone used this?

So here they all are rugged up for the frosty night.  I will check on the plants first thing in the morning. I didnt use the frost block on everything, just the main veggies I would like to keep alive...

So glad to have rain water on tap in the patch now. The veggies do so much better with rain water.

Robyn {in Ceduna}, this pic is for you. I have this geranium/pelargonium growing in a hanging pot. It has gotten quite big, but has only flowered once, so I am thinking I will move it more toward the light.

Sourdough was baked...

As was coffee cake...

Made a batch of pumpkin soup...

This basil is finally dry enough to be put into jars. The inside fire dried the leaves out beautifully.

 We had pumpkin soup followed by linguine for tea...delicious!

Only a short post tonight, see you all again tomorrow.

xTania

an ordinary day

Good evening all,

Not a lot to report on today. It was wash day for me and this took longer than anticipated because the grandies came to visit and left two hours later. They love visiting Nan. These two are like whirl winds when they come here...they walk in, eat me out of house and home, make a huge mess as they drag every last toy out {and not only toys!}, then leave Nan exhausted lol! But I wouldn't have it any other way!!

Sweet bundles of energy...

and full of cheekiness.

I did get to hang some pots out.  We picked up hooks while in Adelaide, but we didn't get enough.  We only grabbed a few to check to see if they would fit over the rails under the shade. We will get more when we go back down there next week.

I also bought some of these for hanging pots under the shaded area and out in the veggie patch.

There was a special delivery for me today...

Soon I will have two greenhouses.

We decided to invest in these because of the harsh conditions we get here weather wise. They are made from aluminium and polycarbonate. Poly carb is strong {basically unbreakable} and is a great insulator so I think they will be quite successful. 

Now to wait for these to get erected...

  

 Easy tea tonight, leftover curry and rice made into delicious pies.

Followed by quandong crumble.

I fed some sourdough starter today, and at the moment it is being prepped to make into two loaves to be baked tomorrow. This is the only bread we eat nowadays.

I will leave you with a recent video from Mark @self sufficient me on youtube. This is titled Looming recession? How growing food can help. Mark's garden area is fantastic and he is one of my favourites to watch.  Enjoy!

A very cold day here today, with the wind blowing straight off the Antartic! The fire is on and the house is cosy.

See you soon,

xTania