It Seems, Not Today

It's been busy, busy, busy and I have been going, going, going and I think my 8:30 crash last night is a pretty strong signal that I need to slow things down.

Best Wishes for the harvest season. I'll be back as soon as I can.

Kind Regards
Belinda

Mudbrick Palace Back to Basics - Week 17, Yr 2

Firstly I just wanted to say a big Thanks to those that were involved with the "Doing Party".

I hope all had an interesting day picking up a few new skills along the way. We are extremely grateful to have spent the day in the company of such wonderful people and are impressed at what was achieved.

Sowing seed or Planting -

Harvesting

• 300g Tomatoes
• 2kg Marrow (overgrown zucchini)

Sowing

• 8 spinach Winter Giant
• 8 Spinach Virolay
• 4 Spinach American Curled

Planting Out (it was raining so I didn't note exactly what A and I was getting in the ground but it's at least half of the potting table)

• 4 Cauliflower (Violet Sicilian)
• 6 Brussel Sprout
  
• Lots Cabbage (both head and Sugarloaf)
  
• 16 Broccoli (mixed varieties)
  
• 8 Cauliflower (Early snow)
  

Planning for The Future -

• Weekly work plan
• Menu Plan
  

Working for the Future -

• 10 jars Tomato Kasundi
  
• 7 jars Fig Jam
  

Building Community -

• Ran a working bee through the Sherbrooke Community Harvest Project
• Worked the Mt Districts Permaculture Pancake Fund raiser at Petty's Orchard
  

Learn a new Skill -

• Continued breathing when everything is just a little too chaotic for my liking.
• Fig Jam
  

Gearing up to Wind Down

Just as the spring summer harvest starts to slow down it's not yet time to put your feet up if you are an all season gardener. In fact it's the time where you are actively planting for the lean season. All those seeds you planted in January and February are now jumping out of their pots fully ready to go into the ground.

The problem of course is that it's also the season of the White Cabbage Butterfly. As a lot of the seedlings you are looking to nestle into the soil are part of the cabbage family this makes things pretty challenging. I have solved the problem for the moment in the germination area by using shade cloth at the bottom and op shop sheer curtains over the top. Problem is that such strict control once you get out into the garden is a lot more challenging.

Either you need to find a way to cover your newly planted seedlings or you get the unrelenting joy of caterpillar patrol. Generally I end up doing caterpillar patrol and accepting I will loose plants I don't want to loose. Even those that survive will be set back and grow a lot slower than possible which considering that everything stops growing at the height of our winter growing season isn't optimal.

This year I am planning to do a combination of both. Between sheer curtains and some old greenhouse hoops I hope to be able to rig up some cover for at least a small amount of them. This should give me a staggered harvest through the winter which will be further supported by my focus on succession planting.

This year I am also trying something new. I have set up onion nursery boxes. Onions hate competing with weeds and my garden beds at this time of year are generally full of verdant green growths, much of that the weed variety. By setting up germination boxes for the onions most of the people I have talked to consider the germination rate much better.

At this point I am quite impressed with what is happening in the onion stakes. The germination rate on this year's seed looks extremely good, last year's seed is abysmal but that is to be expected. I will have to see how they transplant out before I am totally convinced but right now this technique is looking very positive.

How is everyone else doing on their winter planting?

Sometimes From Chaos Comes..... Order

Who knows maybe it's just my house but noticed when you tidy, things get almost instantly ordered, to clean it's like a bomb exploded before it gets better?

Anyway late last week when I was playing dance of the safety switch my life was already in chaos. The day before I woke up to a non working fridge and freezer everything had been pulled out of the pantry. Now this is a MAJOR deal, my pantry is huge and I subsequently keep lots of food in it so I don't empty this space lightly.

The thing is, since I have been preserving the fact that the shelf spacing left a whole lot of wasted space was causing frustration. Sure I had done quite a bit of preserving this year but it wasn't actually an excessive amount, still less than a years worth of pasta sauce if you calculate on one meal a week. I was running out of space. It was getting to the point I was considering boxing things into other rooms. With the size of the pantry that just shouldn't be necessary.

As the shelving is a modular system, although it seems that some of the sizing may have changed in the last couple of years, A and I decided to spend the money to buy new shelves to put in. Of course this meant for them to go in everything else needed to come out. Pulling everything out of there and packing it into boxes took over 2 hours, in the end I ran out of day.

Unfortunately I packed much of it onto the closest strong horizontal surface. Yep, that's right it went onto the top of the chest freezer. Goes to show you simply can't make a good decision sometimes.

Thankfully A came home after a long day of work on my day of frustrations and put the shelves in. His efforts then allowed me to spend much of the next day creating order from chaos. Even better once I had finished putting everything back in there is still quite a bit of space for expansion, luckily as I haven't started on the jams yet.

It may have been a stressful time but now I can look at it and truly feel gratitude for the job being complete. Between the two of us we have created a wonderful, functional space that will support our needs now and into the future. More importantly creating order from chaos brings a glow of achievement and a mental relief from clutter than is indescribable.

A Hills Community "Doing" Party

Everyone is invited to a morning of Doing and Learning at Belinda and Andrew's home in Ferny Creek from 10am – 1pm Saturday the 27^th March. Morning tea and light lunch will be provided, lunch will occur after the 1pm knockoff. We are happy to meet any of your family and friends on the day. Any plates of food you wish to share will be extremely appreciated.

The tasks we are hoping to achieve here at the MudBrick Palace are:-

• Winter weeding and mulching in our fledgling orchard

• Lift and Division of Artichokes

• Moving a Bath down the hill for our ducks

• Transplanting citrus

• Seedling planting

Subject to equipment and time availability we would also like to prepare a new section of the block for planting next season.

The Workshops and Demonstrations planned for the day are :-

• Testing soil Ph and Clay Content

• Scything Basics

• Swales – How do you make one? Why would you use one?

BYO Gloves

Please RSVP before Friday 25th, on simply.belinda @ gmail.com or 97553010(AH), to obtain the address and allow me to have an idea of numbers for catering purposes.

It will be wonderful to see any of you that can attend.

Kind Regards
Belinda & Andrew

Mudbrick Palace Back to Basics - Week 16, Yr 2

Sowing seed or Planting -

Harvesting

• 500g Tomatoes
  

Planning for The Future -

• Weekly work plan
• Menu Plan
  

Working for the Future -

• 13 Jars of Pasta Sauce
• Remodeled and rearranged pantry shelving to ensure a better use of space and increased visual access for my preserving efforts

Building Community -

• Bought our weekly produce from local farm stalls

• Attended Herb society meeting, agreed to design a flyer for a membership drive

• Attended Mt Districts Permaculture Meeting
• Made sauce for a good friend who simply doesn't have the time right now
  

Learn a new Skill -

• Breathing when everything is just a little too chaotic for my liking.

Participant Posts
Linda at Remote Treechanger :- Sunday March 21st
Linda currently has a focus on using up all those odds and ends that haunt the corners of the pantry if left to their own devices.

One of Those Days

Sometimes you wake up shuffle into the kitchen. In a semi conscious haze you realise your feet are wet because you just muddled through a puddle on the kitchen floor. As breakfast is being cooked you put your hand on something in the fridge, then realise it isn't cold. It is at that point you open the freezer and note the peas are soft.

I am waiting on a phone call from an electrician and let's just say the dogs and chickens are eating well.

*Good Morning*

Spelt Chocolate Pepper Biscuit

This is a quick fudgy biscuit lovely if you like this type of texture but it is definitely not one that will stand up to being kept for any period of time.

Best within 10-20 minutes of being removed from the oven, within 24 hours it will soften and become mushy.

Vegan Spelt Chocolate & Pepper Biscuits
creates 16-17 Biscuits

210g whole-wheat spelt flour
25g (1/3 C) cocoa powder
1/2 tsp course black pepper
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp scant salt
6 tbsp granulated sugar
2 tbsp golden syrup
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/3 c water

Preheat oven 180C

Add all the dry ingredients down to the sugar together. Mix thoroughly to remove any lumps.

In a second bowl mix together golden syrup, olive oil, vanilla and boiling water. Mix thoroughly to combine.


Add the wet bowl to the dry and mix through so all the dry ingredients are moist. Using a tbsp measure scoop and drop the biscuits in rounded heaps onto a lined tray.

Bake for around 12 minutes.

Once out of the oven let them cool and firm a little then after a minute move onto a baking rack to cool completely.

The Doin' is More Important Than The Preachin'

Overall it's been an interesting year so far.

I really am starting to feel things move and at least in my life the shifts have been subtle but fundamental. Even better it's come down to me leading by example. The people trying new things haven't had anything to do with me pushing an agenda. It's all been about me in my own life paving the way and showing them that there are real alternatives. That anyone that wishes to can give it a go and succeed with a whole lot of motivation and a little bit of common sense.

At least one of these people has absolutely no concept about my ideas about resource depletion. We don't have that type of relationship but in the last 3 months she has put aside her preconceived ideas that it's too hard and she doesn't have enough time. It started with me talking a lot about my preserving in general, Not trying to convert, just one cook to another saving a few dollars by making sure things don't to get thrown out by preserving them. The tipping point was a recipe book sitting on my bench from the library that convinced her to try tomato relish, it was in the middle of winter so it was totally out of season but I cheered her on and supported her attempt. Now just this week she has reported back that she made a "kick ass chilli sauce" containing tomatoes from her parent's garden.

What can I say? Inside I was jumping up and down yelling YEAH.... as that reaction would seem a little out of proportion she got lots of smiles and encouragement. There was also a suggestion that anything that attempts to burn your taste buds off by the pinkie dip might be better considered a condiment rather than a sauce.

Sometimes your actions spur someone to try something they never thought of doing. At others you will just ensure the busy newish mum actually has pasta sauce for the year and the experience of being involved in making it so next year she can push forward on her own. You can never know how it might translate into their life..

Thus the Doin' is always more important than the Preachin'.

Mudbrick Palace Back to Basics - Week 15, Yr 2

Sowing seed or Planting -

Harvesting

• 1.5kg Zucchini
• 200g Squash
  
• 700g Tomatoes

Observing

• The Teraline curtains I am using for cabbage butterfly control took some damage in the hail.. thus I have some caterpillar damage on the new seedlings that were eggs laid before the darning was finished.
  

Planning for The Future -

• Menu Plan

• Weekly work plan

Working for the Future -

• 6 Bottles of Rosemary & Garlic Pasta Sauce
• 9 Jars Joan's Spicy Tomato Relish
  
• 9 Jars Salsa (Mod)
  

Building Community -

• Bought our weekly produce from local farm stalls
• Attended Upwey Garden Club meeting
  

Learn a new Skill -

• Learned A's mothers spicy tomato chutney recipe
  

Buried Under a Pile of Tomatoes

I'll be back when I dig my way out.....

Thank You.. The Sunshine Award

The lovely Linda over at Remote Treechanger awarded me this beautiful Sunshine award.

After a bit of research I found that "The Sunshine Award is awarded to bloggers whose positivity & creativity inspires others in the blog world".

I feel really privileged that someone felt my writing measures up to this statement.

Thank you Linda, I really appreciate you acknowledging me in this way.

.... Now on to the guidelines:

1. Post the award

2. Pass on to 12 bloggers that brighten your day

3. Link to nominees

4. Link back to givers.

My Nominees are:-

GreenFumb @ FootPrint Reduction in the Burbs
Stewart @ My Veggie Garden
Caitlyn Nicholas
Gavin @ Greening of Gavin
Tricia @ Little Eco Footprints
Kelly @ Taurus Rising
The Crone @ Wits End
Shelly Davis @ Little Sparrow
Julie @ Towards Sustainability
Lela @ It's All Good
Daharja @ ClutterCut
Kathy @ Two Frog Home

Mudbrick Palace Back to Basics - Week 14, Yr 2

Sowing seed or Planting -

Harvesting

• 1.2kg Zucchini
• 535g Squash
  
• 2.2kg Tomatoes

Sewing

• Onion Belvedere
• Onion Cremegold
  

Potting Up

• 14 Broccoli DiCicillio
  
• 10 Cauliflower Early Snow
  
• 5 Cabbage Sugar Loaf
• 5 Rainbow Chard
• 9 Broccoli Violet Sicilian
• 6 Brussel Sprout Oliver
• 8 Summer Savoury
  
• 7 Chamomile

Observing

• The hail hit the big leaf plants (zucchini, squash, pumpkin) hardest
  
• First round tomato crops are definitely slowing down

Planning for The Future -

• Menu Plan

• Weekly work plan

Working for the Future -

• 15 Jars Arrabitta Pasta sauce
• 5 Jars Basic herb pasta sauce
• 9 Jars Salsa
• 5 Jars Pickled Squash
  

Building Community -

• Bought our weekly produce from local farm stalls
• Attended a Community Harvest Pasta Sauce workshop to get new ideas
  

Learn a new Skill -

• Basic Pickling

Participant Posts

Kylie's Crafts - Monday 8th March
Kylie is a return participant who moved state at the end of last year. She is new to planting in a subtropical climate so if anyone has experience or advice please pop over and give her some support.

**Edited to correct the Linked Address

Mudbrick Palace Back to Basics - Week 13, Yr 2

Hi Everyone,
This will probably be the only post you will see from me this week. As you can see from the harvest numbers for this week, harvest is in full swing so I really need to focus on getting stuff shelf stable before I start loosing produce. Change of season in the garden is also in the wind with today being the first day of Autumn, although the actual equinox isn't until the 21st, so let's just say time is of the essence.

On top of that I am just pulling my head above water after getting sick last week and having multiple less than productive days. Thus I decided that less deadlines were better than more and blogging had to give.

Hope you all have a great week
Kind Regards
Belinda

Sowing seed or Planting -

Harvesting

• 330g zucchini
• 141g squash
  
• 39g Purple Tomatillo
• 2.1kg Tomatoes

Potting Up

• 6 Broccoli Purple Sprouting
• 12 Cauliflower Violet Sicillian
• 12 Cabbage Sugar Loaf
• 9 Rainbow Chard
• 6 Red Russian Kale
• 5 Cauliflower Green Macerata
• 7 Cauliflower Self Blanche
• 8 Cabbage Early Jersey Wakefield
• 9 Broccoli Romanesque
  

Observing

• The Early Long Eggplant looks like it has set at least a couple of fruit
• The Banana Capsicum has also set a few fruit
• The first round tomatoes probably peaked this week, plants are starting to look a lot worse for wear even though they still have quite a bit of unripe fruit
  
• The first round zucchini is starting to form a little sooty mould
  
• 
  

Planning for The Future -

• Menu Plan
• Weekly work plan

Working for the Future -

• Made up a round of oven dried tomatoes with home grown produce

Building Community -

• Bought our weekly produce from local farm stalls
• Talked extensively with one of the community garden group about the vision statement we are preparing.

Learn a new Skill -

• N/A