Brass monkey weather.

Am I going to make it into the veggie garden this Sunday? I'm hoping so.

I've missed the last three Sunday's firstly due to misadventure and then to a badish reaction to a flu shot and then Sunday just gone it rained last and the weather forecast for this coming Sunday is for showers with the chance of a storm in the afternoon. But with some luck I might get the morning in at least.

Needless to say the veggie garden is getting a bit ratty looking (I'd like to apoligize in advance to any Rats out there that may take offence to my previous remark, no harm was intended).

However having said that the rain has kept everything growing and looking very happy and despite the weather's best efforts to freeze the balls off a brass monkey I still have some potatoes and tomatoes growing, albeit slowly.

I took this photo of the Savoy cabbage that was attacked mercilessly by cabbage moth grubs which, after a fair bit of attention on my part, has survived to grow into the magnificent specimen you see before you and is looking like it will contribute to a bumper coleslaw in the very near future.

Cheers for now and fingers crossed for Sunday.

Stewart

Five planet Earths

Found this little fun fact today in a copy of the Australian Homespun magazine under the title of 'Homespun Curio' and it says....

We would need the resources of five planet Earths to sustain our current population if everyone around the globe lived like the average North American. If everyone lived like the average European, we'd need three Earths.
Unfortunately we only have one.

I'll leave you with that cheery thought and see you next time. Cheers

Stewart

Say cheese

The early bird may get the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese.

Honey, It's a gas

Lovin' this.
For years now every now and than as a night driving Taxi operator I'd drive past a house in Friend Street that had a sign up saying fresh Honey for sale. Now being a honey fan I always promised myself to go and check it out the next day and come the next day promptly forget until I drove past the house again at a later date and after giving myself a mental kick up the bum for forgetting made the same promise again and so the cycle continued right up until just the other 'day'.
I've always liked working nights in the cab but lately it has been getting all a bit ho hum, samey even, so when the opportunity came up to drive days I decided to give it a go and after a couple of weeks at driving days a lady hopped in the cab and asked for 12 Friend street and after checking with her that she wanted Friend street and not French street we were on our way.
At this stage the thought of honey was the furthermost thing from my mind seeing as it had been ages since I'd been up or anywhere near Friend street and spotted the honey for sale sign, so you can imagine my surprise and delight when I pulled the Taxi into the driveway of 12 Friend street and it turned out to be the same house as the one with the Honey for sale sign.
So not being one to let and opportunity go past I swapped the honey harvester a $5.00 note for a kilo of honey. Happy days.
I was talking to Maxine (the honey harvester who sold me the honey) and she said they got involved through their son who started bee keeping at 15 years of age (I think she said he is 32 now) and that when he grew up he got a job as a interstate truck driver and asked his parents if they would mind them while he was away and now it is a full time hobby for them as well.

I'm in the honey

So Honey in my tummy makes me funny.

Cheers and happy Honey on your crumpets for Mother's Day to you.

Stewart

My progress.

My progress with the Lettuce Reine Des'glaces the French variety Iceberg type lettuce. This is my second go as the first lot bolted to seed from the heat of summer after a mildish rainy period. This lot is growing along very well and I harvested one yesterday for a couple of sandwiches and a salad and they were lovely.

 Still plenty of growing left in them and with six left I'll be right for lettuce for a little while now but I'll be making another planting soon so as to make sure I have some coming on after these guys are all gone.

A follow up to the last potato post. I've since mulched/hilled them again with a mixture of chicken pen straw and some more aged horse manure. They are still looking good right now and I'm keen to see what the potatoes they produce will be like but all in good time.

 I'm getting excited about these two as well. Just your average garden variety of cauliflower but growing along at a cracking pace. They are about to start producing their head so I'm thinking a small dose of potash and some Searl's 5 in1 plus some compost and aged horse manure should see them through to the end.

And last but not least, Parsley. You can never have to much parsley so I planted a few more seeds and in a couple of weeks they'll be heading for the garden proper.


There's heaps more happening in the garden at the moment but it'll have to wait for another day because a friend dropped off a pumpkin and it just so happened that a few days ago Hazel Dene posted a recipe for a pumpkin risotto, so it's off to the kitchen for me. Well there's that and the giant storm outside telling me to turn my computer off just in case things get nasty.

Cheers

Stewart.

Scarlet Bracket Fungus

Scarlet Bracket Fungus (Pycnoporus coccineus) Found this growing on a plum tree branch while I was working in the veggie garden this morning. Well that's what I think it is after my five minuites of research on the internet.

Groovy huh?