Hi all, I just realised it's ben 9 months since my last post! Oops.

I haven't been doing much, this winter has been a pretty bad one for the people of Tassie - just lots of sickness, especially for those with kids, and we have had our fair share. Just getting by is all we've done, really.

However, I now have spring fever and have managed to overhaul the upstairs of our house (sounds impressive but it's actually just our bedroom and ensuite) cleaning all the boring bits that we don't usually clean, or see, and getting some extra storage for the permenant piles of stuff on the floor. I now have a place for all my wool and material and it's inspired me to sew and knit some new things. I'm going to turn my mum's original 70's long skirt into a knee length one for me, and I'm knitting some cotton dishclothes for a friend who is buying her first home. I thought our home-made dishcloths weren't much good as they got holes in them and I even went and bought one again. I then realised the bought one was filled with holes much faster, and completely fell apart in a few weeks, so I now realise my home-made ones are superior!

The new things we've done include:
Lots of recycling for my son, who is now 3 and very into collage - we cut out EVERYTHING to use for collage. Some items include cardboard packaging for anything (cereal, egg cartons, etc) junk mail (we have a no junk mail sign but still manage to get some), birthday cards and postcards, wrapping paper, paintings that he's done, the nets that oranges come in, scrunched up tissue paper, anything remotely interesting or colourful gets cut up and pasted.

Sourdough - as well as making our own yoghurt and soft cheeses, I've bought a sourdough starter from a local market and have started making sourdough bread. I've read and heard that this is the healthiest of breads as the sugars are metabolised differently by the sourdough culture (as opposed to yeast-based breads) and we make ours with wholemeal flour. It is actually easier than hand-baked 'normal' bread as there's no kneading involved and it looks just like those rustic round loaves sold for loads of money in organic shops - but ours is very cheap to make!!!

We also bought a cheese making kit to make fetta and haloumi but it's a bit more involved and I haven't had the patience yet. I made quark and cream cheese with it; the cream cheese was particularly good - it has sooooo much more flavour than the shop ones, but exactly the same look and texture. I was proud of that one, however the low fat one was lumpy and watery, just shows the real thing is the best!

We bought three new chickens - hyline/isa brown crosses, becuase our Australorps go broody in summer and so we had an egg shortage. The crosses, which are bred for batteries and are good layers that don't go broody, have been a bit disappointing. Although they lay well, they have no common sense! They poo in their water, eat and drink four times what our Australorps do, wouldn't eat food scraps or forage for their own food, and peck us whenever they get the chance. Our beautiful, docile, sensible, economical Australorps are so different in comparison! And we managed to get our Australorps laying again anyway.

Our six chickens became five the other day when we realised one of the crossbreeds were sick and we had to give it the chop. Our son wanted to know what was going on and we couldn't exactly lock him in the house alone so he watched and it was a bit awkward and unconfortable, but I kept telling myself this is life (or death) and he isn't old enough to have the self-conscious, squeamish attitude that we do. We eat meat, so I think we should be able to kill an animal - plenty are killed for us - and I'm glad we could do it, but it's not exactly fun!

I'm letting my son collect eggs now; afterI dropped one, I figured he couldn't do any worse, and so far there have been no fatalities - phew! It's so cute watching him go in and say hello to the chickens. He says things like 'hello chickens, would you like to say 'bok bok' now?' and 'chickens, can you lay an egg now?' as if they will understand and obey. He likes to help feed them too and all the leftover food he doesn't eat is 'for the chickens'.

We're planting plenty of vegies this week - my son is into planting this year so the garden is going to be very ad-hoc as he just randomly sprinkles the seeds, then goes and digs them up agian, then I try to cover them, then he'll stomp all over it, etc. but a lot of them have already come up so we'll survive. I just have to bear with him while he learns. I really want him to know how to grow food and look after himself and I'm finding that finally he is trying new foods that we grow - usually he will pick the vegies and help cook them but still refuse to eat them, but I've caught him eating some of our broccoli straight from the garden, and I'm hoping we might have some success with tomatoes too. We have some new next door neighbours who also have a big vegie garden and chickens, and I'm inspired by them as theirs is doing a lot better than ours!

As an example, here is our baby broccoli - ok so it's a side shoot but the originals weren't much bigger! I bet the broccolis are bigger (and the grass greener) next door. I shall have to try harder.

Until next time... happy reading/cooking/gardening/making
x Gayle

Summer

Wow, it seems Tassie has become the tropics! We have had lots of unusually hot, still weather and some great storms this year. I'm hoping this means that we have a good season for things that are normally fickle in Tassie - tomatoes, capsicums, corn, etc. Since I've been so slack with this blog, I'll have to compartmentalise this post...

Garden:
We had 3 apricots from our tree this year, the first ones to survive to adulthood! They were gorgeous, so I'm hoping for more next year. We got lots of blackcurants and I made the best jelly with them, using the super duper machine to get rid of the pips and skins. I also used less sugar so you could really taste the fruit. I also discovered rhubarb and strawberry jam this year and if I didn't have over 20 jars of jam left over from last year (oops) I would make more this season!
I am successfully growing rhubarb for the first time ever. It is MASSIVE and has taken over its entire corner of the world, obliterating all the other plants there. I will forgive it when I can start harvesting rhubarb - apparently you're not supposed to in the first year. Our blueberries were smothered by broad bean plants I stupidly placed in the blueberry section, so we didn't get as many as I hoped. Lesson learned!!! We also had a few raspberries, and they were so fresh and perfect, I'll plant more of them for next year too.

As for the vegies, I impulse bought 3 punnets of onions over winter and they took up so much room we couldn't plant much this summer. I still have a lot to learn with planning and planting what we need - not too much of one thing. I only had a few peas and corn (our favourites) as a result, and the onions went to seed which means there was a lot of stem and not much actual onion, so again I learnt my lesson.
I found an amazing companion plant - calendula. They're pretty flowers and don't take up much room (they grow up, not out) and I've picked some for inside and found the stems absolutely covered in bugs - little flies, aphids, whatever, and they're all dead! The stems are sticky and I think the bugs are attracted to the flowers, then get stuck and that's it. I've planted the flowers in the tomato bed and they're a sort of living sticky fly paper which is great.
I'm experimenting with borlotti beans this year, I use dried beans a lot, although when reading about how to dry them I've discovered that using them fresh is much easier and tastier. I haven't tried any yet, need some spare time.
We got a zillion potatoes this year after planting more than 3 times what we could realistically eat. We've given more than half away and eat potatoes every day, and we still have a third of them to dig up! We've experimented with freezing home-made gnocchi and were successful, so we can stock pile one day when we have time and use up some more. The up-side is that I found Nicola potatoes are much more prolific in our garden than pinkeyes and they are also very tasty and versatile - I'll stick to them next year. The pinkeyes are nice too, of course, and we are yet to taste our King Edwards.

The 'baby'
Well the baby is now two and a half, and really more of a child than a toddler now. He was obsessed with picking broad beans for a few weeks and was very disappointed when they finished. I personally don't like broad beans but will keep growing them for his sake. It kept him entertained for hours, trying to get them off the bush (which is twice his size) then bringing the pod to me to split open, then he'd get the beans out, comment on their size, and either eat them or put them in a container. They finished about a month ago and he still asks for them. He's also really getting into camping and the beach this year, which is fun. He potters with buckets and toy trucks and loads and unloads them for ages. He still has no interest in cooking, but loves food so there's hope.

The chickens
Our chickens have been broody on and off (mainly on) since September. At the moment, all 3 of them are broody, so they sit around all day, barely touch the kitchen scraps and certianly don't lay any eggs. I've tried everything and am told that it should have worked, but they're very determined! I've decided to buy more chickens. White leghorns are apparently good layers and tend not to go broody, so I'm waiting on 3 of them to come of age. If that stirs up our chickens then great, and if it doesn't, ours will get the chop! I love Australorps, for a few months they were very good layers and they're docile and beautiful birds, but I'm very frustrated with the lack of eggs so I wouldn't get them again.

We have lost our next door neighbours who were very experienced with gardening, cooking and keeping chooks. They have moved to the next suburb so not lost and gone forever, but it was handy having them around. Fortunately, they have been replaced - on the other side - by new neighbours who also have children, chickens, and are making a start on a fantastic vegie patch, so it looks like we'll still have someone to share ideas with!

I'm off to buy tomatoes now, we found some very cheap ones and have a year's worth of tomato sauce, relish and pasta sauce to make - I'm exhausted just thinking about it, but it's soooo yummy.

Happy living everyone, and if you need potatoes, you know where to come.
xx