Never a home without flowers or love

I promised myself that I would never again live in a house that didn't have flowers or love.

So I have a dog. And I have managed to keep flowers alive in the house ever since I moved in here during early April.

In winter, it's all about the soil.

I've just moved into a place that doesn't have much soil, and what it has is not very pretty. It's typical Adelaide red soil. That can be great as long as you have fixed it up.

So the first thing I did was put a full bag of gypsum into my little 2 metres squared of soil. In the basic area I planted broad beans which, during winter, will get their roots through the soil and begin to bring it to life.

In the special area where I hope to get a little bit of my own stuff I have just throw in some organic matter over the top and progressively overwinter I will add more gypsum and organic matter and worm castings and compost. Buy spring the soil will be alive and ready to take whatever it is I have to plant.

In the meantime I'll have to make do with containers and make the soil is fertile as I can in there as well full stop when it is exodus time at least I will have nicely established plants for my new place.

If it can't be a compost heap, then let's make it a worm farm

I'm still feeling a sense of loss. I moved out of my quarter acre in Norwood that had everything into my two bedroom unit in Plympton.

Almost everything is great about Plympton but my detachment from the ground, in particular my

piece of ground, it's devastating.

As we haven't sold the place yet I will go back and redeem some compost that has been producing for over two years.

But in order to keep the circle of life running here in Plympton I suppose it's a worm farm. This is been running for about 5 weeks now. I can report highly encouraging results.

Worms are nicely populating the worm mat and I'm seeing worm liquid coming out the bottom.

A jade plant in intensive care

My sister and myself have a perfect synergy.

I love the garden, and I am good at it. My sister, at the moment, has not made gardening her priority and so I can give her a hand there. Especially now she's really enjoying seeing the green.

So there's a jade plant that I gave her a couple of years ago. it was doing it fairly tough at her place and I took it back a couple of weeks ago.

My sister'ss jade plant is now in at the intensive care unit. And responding well to treatment.

A sliver of gardening space, but I will make it work

I have a tiny piece of real estate that I can use to keep life ticking over. This will be the most productive 4 square metres of suburbia that anyone has ever seen.

Rebuild in a new way

Change of life means that I have given away a quarter acre with a half-dozen fruit trees for grape vines and a sprawling garden with a chicken shed.

But where there's life there's hope. And to begin with, chives and coriander aren't a bad start. I think a Bay tree may be next.

Fridge defrosting ice sculpture

Every three or so months I need to do this.

It's not so bad.

Using early season basil

Bruschetta in the making

Lamb Chops for Mia

Mia missed out the other night when I cooked for a bunch of mates. Not tonight, though.

Haloumi on Light Rye with a little Avocado

Fermented Red Cabbage with Chicken Pie and Avocado

Fermented Red Cabbage with eggs

Fermented Red Cabbage

Forget me not?

Haloumi

Halloumi, in that magical moment before it's time to turn.

Summer is on the way

I love this time of year. I think it's called an urchin cactus but every year I get at least one flower and it tells me that summer is on its way.

Ripstick gave us value for money

When our oldest boy was about 9 years old he out laid a huge amount of money for a thing called a RipStik which was a self propelling skateboard.

13 years later and after our youngest son using it like crazy, the toy finally gave up the ghost. But boy did we get value out of it.

Such an unexpected win.

Homemade minestrone!

How good is this! I bought a roast chicken the other week because Sylvia put it on the shopping list and sure we've had chicken breast for sandwiches and salads all week but the leftover bones and bits ended up being a stock this morning.

And then I thought to myself "what should I do with this stock?"

After finding a recipe for minestrone I spent a little while putting this together and I have fantastic ready to go lunch meals for a week or so.

I love cooking.

Back in the bumnuts business

When the weather gets cold, the chickens tend to either spend all their energy in metabolism - keeping warm - or growing feathers. But at some point in winter they are all feathered up and go back on the lay. And I think we are back in the eggs business again.