Making Up for Lost Time.

After going through my massive pile of photos I have decided to break them up into a couple of  folders and make several posts rather than try to use them all at once.
Some friends of ours, Marg and George  have been trialing wicking beds in their garden and invited us to come and have a look and so we decided to make some,albeit on a much smaller scale.
We had a couple of old laundry baths and bathtubs that we decided would be useful for that purpose.

First Brian sealed the washtubs to make them waterproof and then added
 poly pipe that had holes drilled  along the  horizontal length.

He then added scoria rock to about 20 odd centimetres

A hole was drilled to act as a run off water release in case of over watering from rain.
We purchased a roll of Terra Firma ( white geo tex fabric) and we placed a layer over the scoria before adding the potting mix/soil mix.

We then fill the vertical pipe section with water(the scoria section acts as a water well)

These beds now only require  watering every few days and up to a week in cooler or wet weather.
When the plants are initially put in they require a slight watering for a few days until the wicking process kicks in.

We planted cucumbers and basil in these two tubs and have been picking wonderful quantities of  both over the last few weeks.
We then decided to use up a few old bathtubs that we had saved and  after using the same process  have planted them with spinach and jalapeno chillies. Our granddaughter was here to help her Pop with these two beds. They also are coming along nicely.
We are slowly going to convert all our existing beds over to this  style of gardens, but we will wait until each  crop finishes and change over before we replant.

Towards the end of October we travelled to Dubbo to celebrate my Mother's 94th birthday.

Mum is doing really well, living independently ,I am very proud of her.
All of my siblings were there plus a few of the  extended family and we had a lovely night out.

About 8 weeks ago  we noticed that a stray cat was hanging around, so Brian put out the cage trap  and we managed to catch this sweet little grey female cat.

She very quickly made herself at home, sadly it looked like someone had dumped her near our place.

She has weedeled her way into our hearts very quickly, and the next thing we know a week later she delivered 3 very sweet little babies.(Yes I know we were gullible and should have known better)

We advertised the kittens on our local buy swap and sell to go for free to people and we were lucky to immediatly find homes for two of them. The little grey kitten has just left here today at 6-7 weeks of age. One of the tabbies will go to it's new home after Christmas.
We still have to find a home for a female tabby, we have decided to keep the mother cat and have her desexed, she has such a lovely nature, we love her.
Brian has been busy fixing lots of little jobs around the place, he recently put up a couple of stained glass cupboard doors that a friend had given me when she dismantled her kitchen  when replacing it.

I love them as outdoor art on our walls, I also found an old  piece that used to be on our house on the coast and we put it on our metre box, when I find the  house numbers in their safe hiding place we will add them too.

Our garden as small as it is ,is producing well,

Our beautiful chickens are producing well, and we sell our surplus eggs at our local craft shop.

I recently have had two market  days, one a church boot sale and the other a show and shine car show.
I had stalls at both events,

This one above is at the boot sale and below is at the show and shine.I sold Chilly Mango sauce, chilly tomato sauce, chilly jellies and mustard pickles.I had quite successful days at both days.

Our friend Rob that comes out to help Brian with the bees came and after checking them decided not to rob the hive this time. As it has been so dry there is a lack of flowers and pollen, and he suggested that it would be wise to leave the bees as they were and if things don't improve soon we may actually have to return some  previously sourced honey to them as feed.

I have been making  carry bags from our poultry feed bags, they are not beautiful but they are  certainly heavy duty and practicle and can carry good heavy weights.

I am hoping that I may be able to market these at our local craft shop along with our eggs and sauces ect.They are basic and I am not the worlds greatest sewer, so we will just see where it goes.
I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas, we are heading to the coast  over Christmas to spend time with our kids and grandkids , we are really looking forward to it.
Take care until we catch up again,
Take care,
Cheer
Jane and Brian.