Week 52

Well, we have been in our house for a year now. As with the rest of life it feels like it has gone quickly, yet at the same time a lot has happened in that year. I remember writing my first blog entry so clearly though. I will find it very useful to look back on those entries to know what is coming up around the place. I still remember how new it all felt back then. Now it feels very comfortable.

It is now two weeks until the summer solstice and I'm not sure summer has even arrived yet. We've had a couple of really good days lately, warm and sunny. But rain is forecast for the remainder of the week.

At least with the fine weather I was able to get out and mow the lawn which really needed it, and spray the weeds which also really needed it. The funny thing is I sprayed the weeds on Friday and they are already starting to turn yellow. Whereas during winter when I sprayed weeds it took a couple of weeks before they started to die. I guess there was a lot of moisture in the ground then or something.

Picked some of the rhubarb from the garden and made a delicious rhubarb crumble. Not much else going on in the vege garden though. This weeks total is:

Potatoes: Heaps
Strawberry: Heaps of plants, a few berries growing, a few berries eaten by something
Tomatoes: 5 (maybe 6, it looks like something is growing where the one that got killed was)
Lettuce: 2
Broccoli: 2 (the leaves on the rest of the plants have been eaten by something, don't know if heads will still grow or not)
Cucumber: 0
Zucchini: 1
Celery: 6
Rhubarb: Enough for a couple more crumbles

Overall it's not looking too good. I tried crushed eggshells around one broccoli plant (didn't have many eggs so could only do it with one plant) and that plant is still intact so it may have worked. Or maybe not, we will have to wait and see.

We still have lots of challenges ahead. For a start we still haven't done much in the way of self sufficiency. Still don't have any stock. Have been talking about getting chickens at the end of the year, it is nearly the end of the year so will have to look into it. The neighbours haven't grazed our fields for a long time and the grass is getting very long again. Waist high in places. Are considering buying some of the neighbour's lambs. Need to do some more planting in the vege garden but with the rate of death for vegetables I'm not too enthusiastic about it.

Given that the first year in the property is over, I will probably only post monthly now for the second year. I've been falling behind a little lately and finding it hard to keep up.

-M

Week 51

Haven't done much this week. It's been raining a lot again. After I got back from my holiday it seemed it had been quite dry and things were drying out. But it was just a tease and now the rain is back again.

Last week the grass looked like it could do with a mow again to keep it under control. But it was too wet. Now it definitely needs a mow but is still too wet.

Had some friends come over on Friday night. We had a wander around the vege garden and they pointed out I also have rhubarb growing there, and a gooseberry bush. There are also a lot of weeds growing, but I figure as long as they're not too big or getting in the way of the veges, I'm not going to bother with them much. We also discovered I do still have a couple of lettuces left after all, that were just hiding under the mulch.

So this week's total in the garden is:

Potatoes: Heaps
Strawberry: Heaps of plants, a few berries growing, a few berries eaten by something
Tomatoes: 5
Lettuce: 2
Broccoli: 6
Cucumber: 1 (1 got killed)
Zucchini: 2
Celery: 6
Rhubarb: Heaps

There has also been something eating the leaves of the broccoli and cucumber plants. Not rabbits, must be some kind of bug.

This week I opened the second of the jars of apple jelly I made back in April. We'd finally finished eating the first jar. There were a few spots of mould on top, but once I carefully scraped it off, it was very nice underneath. Yummy.

-M