Going Ons

Winter Plantings:
I tried to grow spinach from seed again with no success so ventured to the plant nursery and came home with seedlings of spinach, brocolli, silverbeet, basil, onions and leeks.
I also got a golden passionfruit. The old passionfruits have both died this past year. They lasted about 5 years and provided us with a mountain of fruit.
The seedlings were all planted in biodegradable potts. After planting out, the pots can be added to the compost and breakdown. How wonderful! Maybe these pots have been around for a while and I have only just discovered them? When we have bulk rubbish collections the main items I see being tossed are pots - those plastic ones of various sorts and sizes. I have collected a number of the larger black ones and some decent sized terracotta ones.

In The Garden:
I still have heaps of basil. Tomorrow I will make up some pesto and freeze. It seems that the more basil I pick, the more it grows. So if I pick a good bunch tomorrow I might still get some good growth from it before the weather gets too cold.
My carrot seeds have all germinated - very happy about this as I have found it hard to grow carrots from seeds before.
Citrus trees have various problems I need to deal with. The mature meyer lemon tree has some wasp gall swellings that I need to cut off and burn. Again this year there are heaps of lemons maturing on it. The mandarin tree has lots of fruit too but they are splitting before fully ripe. Must look up what this means. The infant lemon tree and orange tree have been sprayed with oil as something has been nibbling on their leaves and leaving a skeleton type track.
I have loads of lettuce, parsley and tomatoes that have sprouted from the compost heap when it was emptied onto the vege patch. The tomatoes probably wont have enought warm days to bear fruit but the parsley and lettuce are very welcome garden additions.

Reassessing Water Usage:
After getting thelatest bill - increased from the same period last year by much more than I am happy about. This year has been drier and I have used a lot more water in the garden. Our water tank ran dry part way through summer unfortunately so I had to rely on tap water. We really need another tank. Priority before next summer. Also Guitar Dude and Zippy (one a teen and one soon to be) spend way too long in the shower. There is a timer in there but it either gets forgotten or turned over and over way too much!

Community: There is going to be a community garden in my area! I am so thrilled about this and as soon as I heard about the plans sent off an email expressing interest to help in anyway. We are all meeting next week at the proposed garden site. It is still very early days but finding out who some of the eager people that are instigating this gives me great hope that the gardens will get off the ground and be a great success. One of the guys helping on the commity lives in my suburb. I don't know him at all but I walk past often to see his latest changes to his garden. First there were veges growing on his pegola roof in styrofome boxes (not sure how he got up and down to care for them), then he converted his front garden into a vegetable patch. Last week I noticed a section of the side garden fenced off and a few chickens there.
Not many of my friends are interested in sustainable living or enviromental issues so I hopefull of meeting some like minded people.
Also not too far away (just around the lake) has began a Transition Town project. I don't know too much about Transition Towns but have read a bit and the idea really appeals to me. Don't like the name though! From my understanding a Transitional Town is a locally sustainable community.

Kids: Back to school now after the holidays. Big ones not too thrilled, little one very excited! Time to get back into a routine again.
M xx