Garden Update

The garden and I aren't motivated to produce much at the moment. It seems we are preoccupied with events, heat etc. My seedlings mark II have been another dismal failure. In our last place my cucumbers took off, but in this place it seems to be much harder work. I think also have the veggie beds spread out makes it less motivating to take care of. But anyhow, here's how things are:

Strawberries

We discovered that our strawberry in pipes would have worked except we planted running strawberries rather than the regular sort. These babies love to run, but had no where to go, so Nate knocked up these awesome planter boxed out of 'acquired' pallets.

The two plants that survived are thriving and running, so we should have more soon. The plants in the other planter died, BUT some other goodies, we're not sure what yet, have sprouted from the compost!

Fruit trees

We had our first delicious nectarine the other day. It was perfectly juicy and we shared it between the three of us. There are no other fruit, but in a year or two we look forward to that tree spoiling us in Summer.

The other trees aren't ready to fruit yet, but have got lots of leaves and are doing well. A few weeks back I took some mint cuttings from Grandma's for ground cover. Quite a few weeds and other average looking plants started to make the area look shabby, but all it took was 20 minutes of editing and it went from this:

to this:

Vegetable Beds:

I have successfully grown heirloom carrots, spinach and lettuce. They are so pretty and colourful. I think we have really lost something by streamlining what colour, shape and size all vegetables should be.

Our corn is also coming along nicely and I replanted some watermelon and rockmelon (cantelope) and I see one healthy shoot! It's disappointing as I planted four, but I've got to take what I can get!!

Our grass invaded sweet corn.

Finally, a melon sprouted!

Our garden bed has got a lot of grass growing in it, so I have trialed zero weed kill directly on the grass in our garden beds to see how it goes before attempting to do it near the veggies. I'm waiting for this crop to be over before doing it. I'm also tempted to try the old boiling water trick.

Tomatoes

I caved and sent Nate to get seedlings. They have done so well and have been delicious  I'm starting to think seeds don't like me as they know I love to eat them!

Terrible photo, I know!

Not much better, but you can see the little orange glow peaking out begging to be eaten!

And that's it, our garden in the middle of Summer. How is yours going?

So it is Christmas....

I love Christmas. My family is German English and more recently Australian. We have a kind of blended festive ritual which I love.

I especially love decorating. Every year since Missy Moo was one we have made our own tree out of something recycled or something re-purposed  This years tree met it's fate on a hot day when the wall heated up and the sticky tape couldn't take it any longer. So it went from attempting to look like this:

Image from Have a Holly Jolly Christmas via Pinterest

To this:

In the past we have done a few creative ones. Last year Nate used gardening wire to make cone shaped spiral around his bass guitar decked out with fairy lights, the year before that we hung red ribbon spanning out from a single point and the year before that we cut out brown paper and stuck it on our apartment window. Next year I would like to do a stained glass window. Do you have a Christmas decoration tradition?

For our Christmas festivities we get in early on Christmas Eve with my German/English side of the family. We eat too much, we catch up, we drink and then we open gifts, KK style. It's one of my favourite evenings of the year. When we were young my Poppa would sneak off and dress as Santa to give all the gifts. It took us years to work it out! Now, we delegate it to the two youngest family members. Unfortunately for the baby boy (who is now a strapping young 18 year old) of the family has been carrying the torch for a long time. My second youngest cousin (21) was super excited when my Missy Moo came along to let her off the hook! Last year our second longest serving elf roped in her boyfriend to assist and I believe fun was had by all.

The helpfulish elves with Missy Moo

The next morning is a fairly slow start. We open gifts and stockings with our one small family. Then brunch evolves at our place with my parents, sister and her partner. 

Later that night we do Christmas dinner too! This year we are hosting Nate's parents. On the menu is prawns, turkey roll (done in the Weber - yum) and a leg of ham. We will throw in a bit of salad too for a bit of colour! For dessert I'm planning self saucing chocolate pudding. I do them in little cuppacino cups and serve with icecream. I'll try to post the recipe and a photo later.

Boxing day rolls round (well at least we do after all the food) and we have a lazy day at home or the beach. We try to be around for midday to see the start of the Sydney to Hobart. We are a yachting family and this year my parents are flying out after brunch to Sydney to go see the start of the race in person. Yes, I'm a wee bit jealous, I'll have to add that to my bucket list.

What are your plans for the holiday season? 

Summer is well and truly here

Tommy Toe Red Tomatoes from Diggers Club

It has been rather toasty in little Adelaide over the past few days. Which reminded me that I haven't posted this season's fridge cheat sheet. So here it is!

I've been finding lately I've been in a rut with preparing meals, so hopefully this cheat sheet will give me some inspiration to cook with this season's goodies.

Tomato's are in season, which is fantastic as meals taste so much better with fresh tomatoes rather than canned. I still haven't had heaps of luck with tomato seedlings, but I'm hoping to plant out the ones I do have today. Fingers crossed they survive the weekend.

What are some of the successes in your garden?

Rainbow Birthday Party

It's been a while, I know! But I have had the delight of planning a Rainbow themed Birthday Party for our Missy Moo who turns 5 just before Christmas.

After weeks of planning, and trawling the shops for all things rainbow Sunday was the big day! In my previous life I worked in events, in fact kids events, so the pressure was on to pull this off!

Decorations for me were the draw card to a rainbow theme. I figured anything colourful was fair game and was more gender neutral than princesses and fairies! As it was warm we shaded the carport with a rainbow of crepe paper. Although it blew down by the end of the party, it shaded the food from the sun and was a great talking point. Also to keep Missy Moo occupied before the party we let her decorate our driveway with directions on how to get into our overly private house. It was a win win as Missy Moo felt she had an important job to do and it added a bit of fun as soon as people arrived. I also left the chalk out for a quiet activity for those who wanted a break from all the excitement!

I organised a stack of activities that kids could join in when and if they wanted, rather than organised games. We got some great rainbow colouring in sheets from here and here. I also had a ball toss game, totem tennis and coloured wooden bead necklaces. Hubby also made some ribbon wands that the girls danced around with.

Food was surprisingly easy. We had a plate of veggies and dip displayed as a rainbow, (artificial colour free) rainbow jelly, fruit skewers, popcorn, smartie cookies and grain waves chips. For drinks I caved and got juice (Missy Moo can get rather hyped on juice for some unexplained reason) and T2 Strawberries and Cream with Turkish Apple iced tea, YUM!

The party ended with a bang, well two in fact... I managed to find a number 5 rainbow pinata (you could imagine my excitement in Spotlight) which we filled with coloured bouncy balls and chocolate coins. The kids were rather into it with most having a red hot go at smashing it as hard as they could. Here is our Missy Moo in full swing, literally!

The second bang was the rainbow pinata cake. This cake had more food colouring than anything I have ever seen, but I guess that's what you get when you outsource to the 'cool' Godmother with no kids! This cake was a master piece and I did feel a twinge of guilt letting Missy Moo smash it. When I gave her the rolling pin she looked at me to see if I was serious.... needless to say it didn't take her long to be convinced.

How not to kill seedlings...

This nifty $1.95 gadget could have saved 64 lives...

[Source: Diggers Club]

After our tragic family loss, 64 seedlings, I am pulling all my strength together to do it all again!

I visited my beloved Diggers Garden Shop today and got some advice on what went so horribly wrong. From my studies and expert advice, here's what not to do:

1. Drown in water love. Be that watering the babies too fast and too much or leaving them to soak in a tray of water for days, either is going to end in rotted seedlings, not a great ending for anyone involved.
2. Close the vents on the incubator! If it's a sunny day like we've had, those incubators will cook your little seedling babies!
3. Leave your seedlings out over night. In the harsh, windy, cold elements. You get the drift, it's obvious!

Thanks to the wonderful man at diggers here's some hot tips on how to get your seedlings flourishing:

New look Green Lifestyle Mag!

1. Give them the best start in a nutrients rich soil, especially tomatoes. The new look Green lifestyle mag this month has a great little article called Tricks with Tomatoes. It is written by Kirsten Bradley from milkwood permaculture and gives you the formula to winning soil for growing tomatoes.
2. Water them by soaking the seedling tray in water for about 15 minutes. This will let the roots draw up the water they need.
3. Water then let it start to dry out. Weather is a cycle and in nature plants are rarely kept constantly wet. Watering every few days by soaking is better than drowning! If it's particularly hot and the darlings are looking like they need a drink every day then do so, but don't water everyday just to keep them wet. If you feel they need a water from the top or you want to get the kids involved this nifty little watering bottle top is the answer! 
4. Seedlings need warmth, but don't cook them! Make sure the soil can heat up but make sure they aren't getting burnt. At night bring them in to somewhere out of the elements, you don't want  a midnight trip out to save them from filling up with rain!

Tomorrow I'm replanting in my incubators:

• capsicum
• celery
• eggplant
• leeks
• zucchinis
• tommy toe tomatoes (cherry tomatoes)
• grosse lisse tomatoes (salad tomatoes)

I'm also planting direct into my garden beds:

• more carrots (the first lot seem to be doing well, and I'm planting more as we go through heaps!)
• lettuce
• Lebanese cucumbers, (my first lot haven't come up, but I did plant a bit early and I'm worried they dried out).

Today I got hanging baskets! I'm hoping to stock them full of tumbling red tomatoes as a bit of an experiment. I've heard a few reports that you get a big crop, so here's hoping! I've got the smallest basket possibly for tomatoes (30cm) so we are going to have to keep them hydrated. Hmmmm... hopefully I'm not setting myself up for another disaster.

Feel like joining me in the garden? What are you planting?

Open plan entertaining...

Our lounge, complete with amazing Swedish Rug from Etienne (one of my fav Adelaide stores) but also available from here and here.

Photography and styling in this photos & all below by the always fabulous Katie Dawson

This room only needed a coat of paint, especially on the skirting boards, door and window frames. However we also changed the light fittings as they were just paper lanterns and the ugly pink Venetian blinds! This room also needs new flooring, but we refrained from doing this as some people like carpet and some like hard floors, so the new buyer can choose (and install).

Our house has an unusual layout with a double narrow carpeted entrance and room next to the kitchen/family room. It makes no sense to have two living spaces in the one room and it's awkward to make it into one large lounge room due to it's narrowness and fire place orientation. So styling is was a challenge for Katie, but as usual she made it welcoming yet stylish. Our dream was to put bamboo floors through this space. I don't get dining rooms over carpet in family homes, everyone knows it's only going to end in disaster, but it's the only logical way to create two living spaces.

Our own dining table and chairs from home. We are currently eating on our old dilapidated blue couches (you know how I feel about blue). 

The thing I love about this room is our amazing couches. We designed them at the manufacturer. We literally called Beilby's and popped into their workshop. Lou the owner was great and we chose a general style and then negotiated measurements of every component of the the couch. We widened and lowered the arm rests so they would be easier to operate a computer mouse on and comfortable to lie down on. Then the huge decision of fabric! This took us a while, but in the end we decided we loved the two dark fabrics we had narrowed it down to so either way we would be happy. The greatest feature of the couches is the life time warranty on the cushions, yes lifetime. It's made out of this awesome better-than-foam type stuff that lasts. It's a really environmental choice as foam isn't great to create or throw out, so I'm glad it's going to last.

Our fabulous life time guarantee (cushions, 10 years on frame) couches from Beilby's. 

Cushions from Freedom, Ikea and Target.

Nest of tables from Freedom.

Plates and bowl from Freedom.

Candle holders from Ikea.

Do you have any styling successes that you would like to share?

Spring is here!

Okay, it was 25 days ago.... but the air is undeniably filled with spring!

I've been a bit preoccupied with a certain renovation of ours, but after looking at our carrots springing through (as well as the grass in my veggie bed...grrr) I thought I better get to this season's fridge cheat sheet so that I can share the seasonal goodies.

One Small Orchard's Spring Cheat Sheet

I'll do a longer garden update in a few days, but the long story short I have lost most of my spring seedlings :(. The seeds put straight into the garden seem to be going well. So I'm hoping the spring edible garden can be revived!

Hope your spring planting is going better!

A trip down Kitchen Renovation memory lane...

Our very blue and dysfunctional kitchen

Before we moved out of our family home we replaced our hideous blue lino with bamboo floating floors and while we were at it I snuck in a new kitchen too.

No more blue! And relatively eco friendly too!

After... our fresh blueless kitchen!

Photography & styling by Katie Dawson

The complete kitchen, don't touch, I don't want to get it dirty!

Photography, styling & cheeky photoshop chalk by Katie Dawson 

This kitchen was put in when I was pregnant, not the best time to renovate! At 8.5 months I insisted on sitting on the sink and painting the window frame. Clearly nesting as Missy Moo came a few days later!

We are very lucky to have a super handy dad. My dad is a cabinet maker by trade and allowed me to design exactly what I wanted with out a scrap of measuring! I literally got out EVERYTHING I owned in my kitchen and put it into piles on the floor to work out where I would like it stored it so it would be in easy reach of where I would use it. I made a preparation, cooking and cleaning zone and thankfully it has really worked. This kitchen is the only thing I have missed since moving from this house, which is why I thought I would show it off first!

Stay tuned for more rooms soon!

What would be in your ideal kitchen? Colours, style, practical items? Thermomix? ;)

We're selling!

I know, it's been a while... but I do have a good excuse and some lovely photos over the next few days to show you! 

A few weeks ago we made the decision to sell our house, not the one we live in, we rent, but our former dream family home. It was the dream family home, near the beach, open plan, interesting features, towering ceilings... until our dream of family changed. Originally we had planned to have more children, however having children can alter your dreams as the reality of day to day living plays out. We also became too focused on creating a great space that we spent all our time renovating and missed out on what was important, spending time with friends and family. So we bailed on the four bedroom family home in the suburbs and moved into a two bedroom apartment in the heart of the city, selling a vast majority of our 'stuff' along the way.We had the best year of our lives, hanging out, being spontaneous and saying 'yes' to joining in with things happening in the city... it was bliss. We moved a stack of times since then and are now very settled in our one small orchard, walking distance to our beloved old apartment. 

The decision to sell our former home was made in one evening over a short conversation. It was easy as we aren't attached and it just made sense. The next morning I called the agent who sold us the house and I met him that afternoon. 

Then came the obvious list of things that needed to be done. We had tenants that were mostly great, but there was the inevitable damage to walls etc. that needed patching, which leads to painting, lots of painting. All of a sudden our lofty ceilings were a curse, not a blessing. Six or so weeks later (returning to our former obsessed renovating lifestyle) we are finished! We've:

• painted inside & out
• done endless amounts of patching on a range of surfaces, liquid nails and no more gaps are my new besties! 
• installed new curtains
• tiled the bathroom
• installed a new bench, basin, taps and lights in the bathroom
• installed new light fittings
• my dad created shelving to hide a bodge job of bare wall that a former owner created
• installed a range of fittings
• and removed a mountain of hooks (another former owners were into feng shui)
• shopped and styled, okay this wasn't a chore, but it did take a lot of time and research ;)

 I only have iPhone or really old photos of the exterior at the moment, but I'm going to share them anyway as I painted a majority of the exterior of the house by myself.... it wasn't as easy or as quick as I thought! Never the less, I finally got my dream of transforming our mission brown house to the ironbank grey it deserves! And I'm kind of proud of my efforts....

What would you love to do to transform the front of your home?

A quick reminder

Don't forget to spray your fruit trees for curly leaf! It's best to spray them in the first and third week in August. You can check out our friends at Perry's for the details on what to do. I sprayed mine this morning for the first time (I'm running a bit late!) so thought I would remind others too!

Also the blog will be a bit sparse for the next few weeks as we are finishing renovating our home in Hallett Cove to sell! I may even take some photo's to give you updates as we go.

Gardening in August!

It's August - last month of winter, to state the obvious, but I'm excited as there is heaps of fun stuff to do in August. If you are in coastal SA (i.e. not inland) this is what we can be doing in August. Melbournites you can join us too!

Things to sow into punnets in August*:

• Late Onions (eg. creamgold and ever green spring onions
• Capsicums (we're planting 7 colour Heirloom)
• Leeks (some fancy French Heirloom Jaune du Poitou!)
• Tomato (this year we are trying Tommy Toe Red & Gross Lisse)
• Celery 
• Kale
• Asparagus (check out FAT BASTARD!)

We use a seedling tray in a little green house (less than $8 from Bunnings) and put it out in the sun when it's out and keep them in the laundry when it's not.

Straight into the garden you can sow*:

• Lettuce Heirloom Mix (any time of the year!)
• Carrot Heirloom Mix (July to March in warm climate)
• Silverbeet, why not try the spectacular 5 colour mix which can be grown at any time of the year and adds a pop of colour!
• Spinach

General gardening

• A trick some people do is to cover their soil with black plastic or newspaper to warm it up.
• You can spread well rotted compost or manure if you haven't already.

Fruit trees

• If you are lucky enough to have fruit trees now is the time to protect them from leaf curl. You can do this by spraying copper or lime sulfate. For more info check out the experts here and here.

* I'm in a warm coastal area where we get 150-240 growing days per year. Your local nursery will help you with when you can plant based on your local climate conditions.

Go to meal #3 Chicken dos capas

Laura from Eviedear is amazing at making up meals I would never think of. The other day she made up this great burrito mix that she worked out based on smell! Evie and my Missy Moo find the store bought burrito mix too spicy. The girls demolished this as a side to the vegetable 'tasting plate' we made up of vegetables we found in the fridge!

1 tablespoon of each of the following:
Oregano
Cumin
Paprika
Onion powder
And a dash of salt

Source: littlelioness - check out their review of Zambrero's yumminess!

As a meal we often make up these as 'dos capas' which basically means two shells. We fill a hard shell with the burrito mix (be that chicken, kangaroo or refried bean mix) and a variety of toppings and then wrap in a soft shell. It means that you still get the crunchy taco, but without all the mess! We got the idea from our regular haunt Zambrero on Rundle Street in Adelaide.

Nutella & Peanut Butter Brownie

Missy Moo checking for quality.

I'm not going to lie, these are not healthy.

A girlfriend and I share a love of eating Nutella from the jar. I know we're not the only ones, so don't judge us too harshly!

For her birthday I found this recipe and tweaked it a bit. It got such rave reviews from the girls that I thought it would be cruel not to share.

250g unsalted butter, melted
1.5 cups of raw sugar
1 tablespoon of vanilla extract
4-5 eggs pending on their size
1 cup of wholemeal plain flour
1/2 cup of cocoa
1/8 teaspoon of sea salt
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
1/2 cup of hazelnut spread (I used Nutino)
1/2 cup of crunchy peanut butter
1/2 cup of choc chips if you have no sense of care about your waist line or sugar levels!

1. Preheat oven to 180c. Line 2 pyrex or square tin with baking paper. I didn't and should have!
2. Pour in melted butter to a largish bowl. Stir in sugar and vanilla.
3. Beat in eggs one at a time.
4. Stir in flour, cocoa salt and baking powder, taste mixture to check awesomeness.
5. Melt hazelnut spread and peanut butter together until runny. Then mix thoroughly into mixture. Add chocolate chips. Taste again, awesomeness should be growing!
6. Pour mixture into dishes or tins. It doesn't need to be very deep as it's very rich so you don't need much.
7. Bake for 20-30 minutes depending on how eager your oven is. 
8. Cut after it has cooled, if you can wait.
9. Take and share with a friend and enjoy the complements, however be prepared to make this for every future party!

Taste the mixture... go on... you have my full permission.

Ready for the oven...

No, I didn't let it cool.

Do you have any decadent favourite treats?

Strawberry Vertical Pallet Garden

Ages ago we picked up a pallet off the side of the road and have been dreaming up how we were going to use it. This weekend we finally made it into a vertical wall, I know it's been done, but it works so well I thought I should share.

In our last house we had a garden bed full of heirloom strawberries that multiplied from four plants I got from the Marion Life Community Market. They were doing great, but the millipedes kept beating us to them. Nate did some research and came up with replanting them into PVC pipes with holes cut out the top and mesh gaffed on the ends. He went above and beyond and even put dripper pipes in it so we can just pour water into the pipe sticking out of the top of the end hole. It was a super simple solution and took him about an hour or so to knock up six.

Our one small family including our sponsor child. 

Next to me is 2 of the 4 original Heirloom strawberries. Within 18 months the bed was full and over flowing!

This weekend Nate pulled off the back of the pallet and slid in the two strawberry pipes. Once we get the tomatoes out of the other pipes we might plant more strawberries and nail in the other pipes.

I also wanted to make some garden beds, but the thought of buying wood is so expensive so I got googling (yes, it's totally a word) and discovered this page of inspirational pallet delights. Now I'm going to hit up the local businesses to see if I can score some free pallets!

What have you tried with pallets?

A trip to the Diggers Club

Diggers Club retail shop in the Adelaide Botanic Gardens [Source]

I was like a kid in a lolly shop! On Sunday afternoon we took a quick trip into the Botanic Gardens to play in the tree roots and visit the Diggers Club shop. They were so great there with all their heirloom veggie goodness and abundance of gardening know how. The girl working there was extra lovely and helped us with all our start up questions.

Missy Moo investigating these magnificent trees. She told me last week that she hadn't climbed a tree so I thought we better rectify the situation!

For organisation fanatics such as myself this store will take you to your happy place! All the seeds are perfectly lined up and have little tabs for those that can be sown now. This made it so easy, a little too easy, to pick up many, many seeds that I could go home and plant!

Ready to sow!

I also became a member. Which gives you 6 magazines per year, chock full of info and tempting catalogues to order seeds, trees and other gardening goodies. Membership also gives you discount on their goods, which is lucky given that I may have splurged a little.

Some of the perks of being a Diggers Club Member, these were ALL free!

I bought a fantastic book "The Australian Fruit and Vegetable Garden" by Clive Blazey & Jane Varkulevicius. The thing I LOVE about it is inside it details how you can grow ALL your own fruit and vegetables in a suburban block! We're in a duplex, but I reckon we can go a fair way to being self sufficient for fruit and vegetables with a bit (ok, A LOT) of creative planning. I'm super excited and can't wait to get into it.

Stay tuned, hopefully I'll have a garden plan soon!