After watching Grace’s elf video several times over the last two days, Sarah and Hannah also want to get in on the act. So, without further ado…
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Add comment December 23rd, 2008
A bit of Christmas silliness…
Add comment December 20th, 2008
Today was a huge family bonding day, although we didn’t all spend it together.
Megan and Grace went up to Sydney with the Peterborough school for the Rotary Club of Turramurra and Pathfinders Jumbo Flight. Qantas donated the use of a jumbo jet, pilots and cabin crew donated their time, and Rotarian volunteers provided ground support in the terminal to allow a plane full of disabled kids and their carers to enjoy a 90-minute flight/party over Sydney.
Meanwhile, Darren took Sarah and Hannah to the Ss Peter and Paul Catholic Primary School fete.
As if that wasn’t enough, Darren and the girls then went up to Glengarry Cottage at Kembla Grange for their gala day.
Sarah still wasn’t done when we got home (Hannah had fallen asleep by this stage), so we then had to make a scarecrow.
On a personal note, there’s something strangely satisfying about making a scarecrow from your mother-in-law’s clothes!
Add comment November 8th, 2008
We have signed up for the Sustainable Illawarra Super Challenge, and Monday night was the official launch of the programme.
The idea is for 120 households across the Illawarra to spend the next 12 months moving towards a more sustainable lifestyle. Sustainable Illawarra provides participants with information, workshops, guidance and resources (as well as some nice discounts and freebies from local businesses!) to help them achieve the goals they’ve set for themselves. In return, Sustainable Illawarra will learn what the issues are for local families, and they’ll also get some stories and case studies they can use in getting the message out to the wider community.
To keep track of what our family is doing and how far we’ve come, we’ve set up a new blog: Green-Change.com. Feel free to have a read, leave some comments, and send us suggestions!
Add comment November 6th, 2008
Here’s one I haven’t tried yet, but I do have a lot of mint and parsley at the moment so maybe I will soon.
In a food processor, combine mint, parsley and garlic. Slowly add oils until emulsified. Serve at room temperature.
3 comments October 23rd, 2008
NOTE: I have moved this post to my other blog, Green-Change.com, as it fits in better with that blog’s theme of suburban sustainability. For futher updates check out Wicking Beds - Water Efficient Gardening.
A wicking garden bed uses a waterproof container or layer below the soil surface to form an underground reservoir of water. There is enough soil above the reservoir so that the plants don’t get “wet feet”. Plant roots then draw up this sub-surface water via capillary action.
Because they are watered from below, wicking beds lose very little water to evaporation. They are reportedly extremely water-efficient, and so are very well suited to low-rainfall areas (isn’t that most of Australia?!). You can also leave them for a week or two without any watering, and your plants will be fine.
This page aims to collect links to information on wicking beds:
Wicking boxes are an adaptation of the wicking bed design to container gardening. Here are some links:
2 comments September 8th, 2008
What I love most about this photo is that Sarah actually disappeared into her bedroom to get dressed for gardening, and this is what she came out in. Click to embiggen.
1 comment September 7th, 2008
In July I took my trailer up to the mushroom farm to get a load of mushroom compost. It was $2.60/bag, and I got 16 bags for $40. I was really just thinking of using it on the garden as a mulch layer at that stage.
When I got home, though, I realised there were actually a lot of mushrooms on top of the bags. I picked them off and put them in the fridge. I wasn’t really ready to use the bags just yet, so I thought I’d put them under the house and see if any more mushrooms might sprout.
And sprout they did!
I kept a tally of how much mushrooms I got from the bags. All weights are after trimming stems for use:
The mushroom compost bags are now starting to be overrun by some kind of fluffy white fungus. It’s killing the mushrooms, so I think that’s pretty much the end of the harvest. Time to get the bags out from under the house and into the compost heap.
So, 10.5 kg of mushrooms plus 16 bags of compost for the garden. Not bad for $40!
Add comment September 6th, 2008
I recently bought a soil blocker from Peddler’s Wagon with some birthday money. It was way cheaper to get it sent from the US than to buy it in Australia - like 40% cheaper. Aussie sellers need to learn to be less of a rip-off now that we have access to a world-wide market.
By the way, the Peddler’s Wagon people are great to deal with. Highly recommended. You can read more about their Little Homestead In The City, where they’re growing 6000+ lbs of food per year on 1/10th of an acre of land. Incredible!
It’s been a few weeks, but today I finally got around to making up some blocks.
But first, some resources for making soil blocks:
Using the above recipes as guidance, I made up a mix from what I had lying around in the garage and yard. I used:
I mixed it all up thoroughly in the wheelbarrow, adding water to keep the mix nice and moist. It really needs to be fairly wet to form nice blocks.
Then you just plunge the block maker into the mix and squeeze the blocks out. I laid the blocks out on wooden boards in potting trays.
From these quantities I got 88 blocks, and I only used slightly more than half of the soil mix. I’ve put the rest in a container to make up some more blocks next week.
Later tonight I’ll plant out some seeds into the blocks. I’m not sure yet what will go in!
Add comment September 4th, 2008
An updated version of this post is available over on my suburban green living blog, Green Change: Chicken Ark Plans
When thinking about a coop for our chickens to live in, we wanted something practical, non-permanent, and space-efficient. Looking around the net, the ‘chicken ark’ or ‘chicken tractor’ concept seemed the best for our needs.
To get some idea of the number of variations on the basic chicken tractor, check out this chicken tractor gallery.
There are heaps of resources for building chicken arks:
There are commercial options, too:
Of course, none of these were exactly what we wanted :-). There were lots of good ideas, though, and we got a good sense of the features we wanted in our own ark. After a few nights spent researching and sketching, measuring and planning, we came up with our final design.
To be continued…
3 comments August 3rd, 2008
