Diggers on the loose.

Yesterday, on the most gloriously sunny Tuesday, I visited Heronswood at Dromana with my beautiful Mum and the littles. Mum bought me a Diggers membership for my birthday last week to help kickstart my plans to turn our garden into a largely edible one.


The grounds of Heronswood are so beautiful with inspiration galore for novice gardeners (like me!).


I found the organic and sustainable approach particularly inspiring. The archways above are that steel that you see on building sites to reinforce concrete. They are perfect for growing climbers but I reckon they'd also keep the deer off the vegie patch.



I have a thing for ginkgo that harks back to my Herbal Medicine days. And that view! I'd trade my mountain for it. How fickle am I!

And of course we had to have a bit of beach time seeing as we were so close to it.


Thanks for the awesome present Mum, as well as your kid wrangling assistance and your excellent company. Let's go again in Autumn and go crazy on heirloom vegie seedlings...

Pink

I'm celebrating the hot pink awesomeness in my garden. Never thought I'd say that.

More words soon.

Yellow for A

Today was the second anniversary of the death of a little friend of ours. He would have turned ten next month. I can't help but think how fundamentally altered his parents lives are from losing him. Two years must still feel so raw.

My eldest girl who was so tuned in to his mum's feelings around the time of his death has recently proclaimed her favourite colour to be yellow. Until now, she has never wavered from pink. She doesn't know it but it was his favourite too.

The daffodils in our garden are blooming splendidly. Perhaps they know too.

The Magic of Mushrooms

There's a space under our house which I call 'the cave'. When I first went in there the rich, earthy smell evoked thoughts of the delicious fruits of the earth that would grow and thrive there.

Several weeks ago we went to St. Andrews market and picked up a mushroom kit to get our little funghi crop started.

Everything we needed was contained in the kit. All we needed to provide was a dark space and a daily spray of water. At that point I ditched the plans to grow our 'shrooms in the cave and for lack of better judgment put the box in the linen cupboard.

Within days, tiny white spots began to appear in the soil.

Black spots appeared throughout the linen cupboard.

I re-housed the mushroom box to a spot under the kitchen sink and washed my towels and sheets.


And we've had a plentiful supply of fresh, buttery swiss brown and white mushrooms ever since!




For now the cave remains empty, but may well come in handy when I can get my hands on some shiitakes.

Happy, er, third day of spring!

Daffodils

Sorry about the daggy formatting but here's some snaps of what's been popping up in my garden since the sun decided to shine a little with the change of season. The palette of blooms appears to mainly be pinks and reds, not my first choice for flowers, but I will embrace wholeheartedly and add my favourite blues and whites, and silvery foliage as I go. The the ususal mountains suspects - Camellias a'plenty, the ubiquitous Rhody and Azalias - all of which I've never grown before.

Grape Hyacinth

Hellebores 'Ruffled Lady' (I only know that because I saw them a t the nursery)

Azalea

Azalea

Rhododendron

Camellia

Not quite sure

Snow drops - not onion weed

Camellia bud



Lavender
Camellia


The first day of Spring involved a first trip to the 'famous' lolly shop up the road. It was aimed to be a minor celebration of Spring but also a bribe to the the elder of the two littles out for a walk. So much wet and cold weather and indoor days had led to a bit of a stand off regarding outdoor activity and use of the legs. Said oldest little was given $2 to choose something in the shop and I was so curious to see where she'd go with that.


The little sweetheart chose the most modest and plain little lollypop for 50 cents and was quite happy to pay and leave it at that. It was she giving me the hurry up once her treat had been selected as I was nostalgically sniffing in the scent of musk sticks and wine gums and sherbets and all sorts of sugary goodness that once cost about a cent per sweet - or less. (For some beautiful and colourful photos of confectionary have a look at what Shula's been up to over at Poppalina).

The previously sweet-treat deprived small child carried her "ollypop" in it's wrapping all the way home and devoured it in the Spring sunshine once we got home.

That Little Tart

Geez it's windy outside! It sounds like I'm by the ocean, not a forest. Spring schming! This weather's just weird. I'm home alone with the littles tonight and despite the spooky wind tunnel hoo hoo noises and the likelihood of another power failure I'm feeling quite cosy here in my little cubbyhouse.

That brings me to comfort food. If the weather doesn't become a little more conducive to outside activities soon, I fear that just as Winnie the Pooh found himself confined to Rabbit's burrow after consuming too many honeypots, I too may need to liberate myself via extreme fasting.



This particular lemon tart recipe has not helped matters. When I spied it on Leonie's blog I practically ran to the kitchen to whip it together. The photos are of the second attempt at baking this ridiculously yummy dessert, not because the first was a failure, but because the first one was pretty much inhaled out of the oven and scarfed before my camera had a chance to admire it.

Actually that's a bit of a lie. Leonie's lemon tart looked way prettier than mine, which was kind of goopy. But tasted good.



Needless to say, in the not too distant future, (ie. after I've tried out a few more bodacious baking recipes) I will boot away the Winter blues and big bellies with a decent Spring cleanse. I just hope I can convince my coinhabitants to do the same...

All the Pretty Little Peonies

Peony flower / timelapse from munich timelapse on Vimeo.

I spied this on Pia's beautiful blog which is always full of pretty things which inspire and are full of soul.

I fully intend to dabble in the art of peony growing in this mountain patch of mine. Lovely.