yums and noms!

Korn... sorry... corn and kale - early days. Now it looks like a jungle as the pumpkin patch (and watermelon, zucchini and rockmelon) has gone wild.

Kale chips - yummy!

Onions popping through the catnip.

Spinach, silverbeet and basil. That silver mixing bowl is 200mm in diameter. 

Spuds 'n' beetroot - yummy roasts coming right up!

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Back yard: more changes

 

Sorry for the blurry photo! This view is from the back steps (gate coming next week!) looking over to Gwen's side, and you can see our fancy chicken coop. The girls get to run around outside quite  lot, so they are very happy well-fed chooks. The pearlwort, in between the pavers, is starting to grow and spread. It's slow-growing but oh-so-soft and lovely to touch, so it'll be worth it.

"Fig Corner" - the second passionfruit is finally taking off, the wormwood was given a severe pruning because it was doing very well, the fig and olive are both looking very healthy, but the vanilla bean is still pretty dormant. The bare lawn patch - where the boys were mixing up concrete and where soil/gravel mix was dumped - is slowly getting smaller. 

View up to the side driveway, where you can see the next retaining wall taking shape. Vegas is on the timber inspecting the quality, as you can see, or maybe just its scratchability. New pawpaws in place, and we're waiting for the bananas to arrive (all government/quarantined approved) to go in front of the pawpaws, on the lower level.

Side view showing the two new fence sections finished as of the weekend. Nice to close off the view to the neighbours' various cars and trailers.

Redheads in the house!

D was determined he was going to have chickens, and chickens he would have... as soon as K left the city for a short break, three other women entered his life.

Butter (is best of course)(top), Tikka and Korma - invariably known as Tweedledee / Tweedledum, or the Ugly Stepsisters - have joined The Farm to add to the environmental (re)cycle.

Garden growth...

Plumbing and pipes and dirt, oh my!

Jay slaved away digging the trenches, in the mud, in the clay, in the rain - with some blood, sweat and probably blisters - and created the best pipe trenches our plumber Ben had ever seen! This was no small feat as he encountered broken tiles throughout, random pipes that stopped and started and weren't part of the working system. Such good preparation meant Ben could hook into replacing the old pipes with the new, including the extension to the new rubble pit, and have it all done and dusted in a few hours. Of course, there's still hours more work for Drew and Jay, with many wheelbarrows of gravel and dirt in their future.

Vege Patch v2.0

Well, this is it... the beginning of our second vege patch, the winter crop. We've got:

VEGES: red onion, white onion, asparagus, spinach, cos lettuce, beetroot, leek, silverbeet, tomatoes (cherry, roma, egg), broccoli

HERBS & COMPANIONS: marigolds, aloe vera, oregano, nasturtium, sage, pyrethrum, lavender, sunflowers, basil, thyme, chili, catnip, mint, parsley, coriander, dill

Pipe dreams...

Jay needs some new toolboxes - great for us, because we need some hard manual labour digging trenches in preparation for the re-plumbing! He put in some back-breaking hours and we're lucky to have him (wanting some cashola!). There's some crazy pipe criss-crossing - even Super Mario would be scratching his head, huh?

The vege patch begins anew!

It's taken a while to get back to it, but we've learnt a lot in the interim, so it'll be interesting to see how successful we are this time. We've done more soil prep, know more about companion planting and not to sow everything in neat rows, what should be next to other plants (or not) and so on. We're also planting to the seasonal guide instead of just what we wanted (and happened to be on sale regardless of the right season!). Looking forward to some yummy results!

The farm begins... Bottom Terrace

...to back

... and progress with the rear steps from the bottom terrace out to the park area. It's a tad bigger than Drew initially envisioned, but eh, doesn't matter! When it's only 2mm out overall, he was pretty happy with it.

front...

Work has started on the front vege patch with Drew tilling up the soil with his new eBay-purchased rotary tiller - rahrrr, more power tools!!

another catch-up pic...

Bottom terrace...

Catch-up pics!

I've missed posting a few pics of our progress - a result of smartphones / Facebook as I forget about the blog! So here's a few catch-up pics:

Cats relaxing in the backyard, on the newly-laid turf. Hard work for some!
The turfin' surfers at work! Vlad and Drew breaking their backs laying turf on the newly-levelled bottom terrace.
 
Drew spent eight hours on the dingo - and has the blisters to prove it! He levelled the bottom terrace section - enabling us to get a start on getting some plants in the ground!

Back fence...

Next up was putting up the rails and the shiplapped palings for the back fence. The fence is set back a bit from the boundary line, so we can soften up the back retaining wall with some pig-face (Carpobrotus glaucescens) or other trailing plant. The house side of the fence will eventually be hidden by all the plants and landscaping.

All of this progress enticed us to go fruit tree shopping on the weekend, and we've got a bush lemon (Citrus limon), tahitian lime (Citrus aurantifolia), blood orange (Citrus sinensis), imperial mandarin (Citrus reticulata), and an angel peach (Prunus persica) tree all ready to be planted along the back fence line - exciting!

Second retaining wall goes in...

Well, 2012 is certainly going to be Year of the House [revisited] as we make good progress into some long-awaited projects. Drew found some likely lads - Mark and Jay - who were keen to earn some weekend dosh in exchange for blood and sweat and muscle. Under Drew's direction for his landscaping vision, Mark and Jay knuckled down and have done some big hours which has seen some really positive development in the backyard.

First was the posthole digger action to set posts for the second terrace retaining wall, and the eventual fencing all round the back end of the block. Then the boys started on the retaining wall, three sleepers high...

Maggies give seal of approval...

Nice to see the local maggie family (mum, dad, juvie) enjoying the garden too (eating our lawn grubs!)