On the chain gang

I’m very tired.

Between us, the Husband and I have shifted a cubic metre of fist-sized river stone, and a cubic metre of hardwood wood chips, dug up about 7 square metres of turf, laid weed matting and got all three garden pods ready for their planting medium. It’s been warm, sunny weather, and we’ve laboured hard.

So, no gleeful exposition of finished quilts. In between times, while the Husband is getting his afternoon sleep before night shift, I get a little sewing done. But I’m usually tired, achey and my hands are sore, so I’m not making much progress.

I haven’t been entirely lacking in creativity, though:

Egglantine has now joined her earlier sisters Eggatha and Eggnes.  And that will be quite enough of that. As my friend Cath over at Wombat Quilts (http://wombatquilts.com) says, perhaps it’s time for an intervention…?  They are, after all, just egg cosies.

And I’ve made a nice heat pad from the two spare Broken Bottles blocks. Maybe I’ll send it to Yvonne with her quilt. Or maybe I’ll keep it for myself. I’ll see how generous I feel when the quilt’s ready. And speaking of Broken Bottles, the quilting is about 2/3 done. There’s one bit I have to unpick, it’s looking a bit bulgy, but it’s just a small line. For the rest, I’m pleased with how it’s going.

Off to rest my weary bones. Tomorrow is the day for getting the lucerne hay and compost for the pods, and then, finally, I can plant!

I hope you’ve all had a lovely weekend.

The Gardens of Chiconia 15

 

 It’s not too late in the year, and I’m almost ready to go!

Three raised beds of a square metre each… Let’s see: tomatoes, capsicums, bush beans, rocket, spinach, bok choy, silverbeet, zucchini. Outside the beds: a bale of hay with a hole dug in the top, filled with compost and planted with pumpkin, a potato tower made of chicken wire, another for sweet potato and a large tub with rhubarb. I already have a huge basil bush, lemon balm, oregano, sage, rosemary and curry bush. I don’t have space for brassicas, onions, leeks, beetroot or carrots, all of which take a while to grow and more space than I can afford right now.  Maybe in the future.

I’ve had to review my fish tank plan.  I was considering raising tilapia, which require little space and water which is only moderately moving.  However, the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has decided that tilapia are noxious animals and may not be kept privately or farmed in Australia. So I shall do my homework more carefully, and maybe keep something a bit more native – perhaps golden perch. And it’s not going to happen very soon, I suspect.

In the meantime, I could get some water vegetables going in there, like water chestnuts, kang kong, etc. Or maybe a pretty or two: lotus, water lily, papyrus, yellow flag.

Initially the idea was to attract frogs and dragonflies to keep the insects down, and I may yet revert to that. And I could, of course, have a few koi or goldfish to keep the mosquito larvae down – we have dengue fever here, which is mosquito-borne and it’s important to remove their sources of breeding water.

We’ve shifted half our load of rock. Half to go – and I’m strongly tempted to just tip it off the trailer and deal with it later. We need the trailer for the rest of the planting supplies.

Meanwhile, in the rest of the garden, things are growing like mad, taking advantage of the cooler weather, moderate rain and gentler winds.  Take a look at some of those colours!