Rooty Parsnips

Here are my "rooty" parsnips. I was talking to my Mum about these at lunch yesterday and she told me it was due to too much nitrogen in the soil. So that is something I am really going to have to address.

Arent they gross though? Sneaky too, looking all good on top!!!!

August Gardening

Today (as I have said) we are having our first real rain of the month, twenty seven days into it! There have been some great successes and some failures.
On the failure side - or rather "learning experience" side we have the parsnips. The looked great, leafy with good looking tops, then I pulled a couple. They grew for about an inch then went all "rooty" for lack of a better description. I have left the others in there for another couple of weeks in the hopes of a miraculous recovery - i'm not hopefull.

Also the dwarf peas have failed to fill their pods. I am thinking that next year I will plant them in a different spot as the place they are in is very shaded. Its a learning curve. UPDATE! Today I found a few pods with peas. How long does it take for the pod to fill with peas?Happily there are lots of good stuff, onions and garlic are looking good, carrots, spinach and beetroots are giving a steady stream of yummies and the broccoli is ready to be picked. Still waiting on the purple carrots, rainbow beetroot and celery they should be good by mid September and the first cauliflower has been picked.

Time to start thinking Spring plantings. I am thinking of going for cherry tomatoes, grape and black russians. Potatoes ... maybe Desiree and Kipfler, last year the Atlantics didnt do too well at all. Going to have green and yellow zucchinis and planting the apple cucumbers again.Spring is full of possibilities, maybe even chooks if I keep working on Dave!

Spring!

After the past three days of absolute gorgeous weather today it is raining which lets me do whatever I like guilt free as I can weed in torrential downpours or do the washing - how marvellous! I have been doing a bit of mending and pottering about and its great. This week I finished my sister's toiletries bag, which has been ready to post for four days and I am definately going to do that Monday. Amelia also had book week parade on Friday where they had to come from another country, she went French! So that entailed me making a beret and hemming up a kercheif for that classic French look. It came together really well and she thought she looked pretty good tooo!And here is a bit of my applique-ing! I will end up with 25 20inch blocks for our bed. The applique bits are all things to do with our family, the kids initials, a book, a snowflake when we went to the snow, ditto for Tasmaina, a coffee pot etc. I want the quilt to be uniquely ours. I still have a couple of materials to pick out and about 8 appliques. I am loving it.

Shopping

Last weekend Dave and I plus another couple went to Toowoomba for my birthday weekend. My parents watched the kids and we left after work. Had a lush dinner at Warwick and got there at about 10.30 pm. Saturday was a great day and I was NOT very frugal at all but I have tried very hard to justify all of my purchases!!!!

I bought a pair of Summer shoes, a pair of jeans, a t-shirt and a few metres of material for my quilt (yes applique pics are coming but I have a son who keeps using my camera batteries in his XBox controllers!) and this is the exxy one - a $70 shirt. Its a really really nice shirt and I love it. However I know I didnt NEED it but I wanted it bad! I will definately wear it to death come Spring. It was not a frugal purchase but I love it.

Toowoomba is a really nice city and I am thinking of going back with the kids as I think its only a couple of hours to BrisVegas from there and you can catch the train in there too.

Back to Blogging

After a small hiatus from blogging I am back to it! I am currently obsessed about applique and will have to show you some of the squares i have done form my king size quilt. Loving it bad!

Being winter the garden is slow but steady. My lettuce is growing well and my broccoli is close to picking. Still picking silverbeet, carrots and beetroot. My wheelbarrow pansies are flowering as is the camellia out the front - gorgeous hot pink flowers.

The last couple of weeks have flown and I have been busy though not feeling like I am getting anywhere! Running on the spot so to speak. I have had a birthday so will have to update the bit about me on the side. 37.

I got some great presents and loved everything I got. I will post pics tomorrow after I get home from seeing my mum on HER birthday. We are making a lush morning tea to take.

Until tomorrow-have fun!

Landcare

Today we went to a workshop called Starting in your own Backyard that was run by our local Landcare www.gwymaclandcare.com.au . It was really interesting, hosted at a local reserve we went for a weed walk, talked about sustainability and native habitats. the guy from Primary Industries was a walking weed encyclopeadia and being able to actually see the weeds in real life is much better than a book!

i have been wanting to put native plants in my frontyard and now will do that sooner rather than later as one lady talked about how pockets of native vegetation make "stepping stones" for fauna to get to established habitats. Which makes sense but was something I had never thought about. When finishing the day they gave us all a small bag of compost and a wattle tree - isn't that great?

I also met one of the people who are trying to get a community garden off the ground. I gave my email address so i could be kept up to date on where they are at with it.