I just really, really wanted to share (show off) some photos of the vegie garden I put together over the last week with the 'help' of Wonderboy. It's a "no dig" garden, which is kinda interesting to put together, and certainly saves on the backbreaking labour of digging up lawn with a mattock (I wouldn't recommend this; I tried it last year to plant some fruit trees and didn't get far. Then I tried filling in the hole I'd started and didn't get far with that, so now we just have a hole in the middle of the backyard. Pete isn't impressed). There's a good article on the "no dig" garden at Gardening Australia, and their DVD, "Patch From Scratch" was really helpful, too. I love that show - Peter Cundall is so cool! Never has there been a man more excited by manure.
About half the crops were able to be directly planted in (snow peas, pak choy, beetroot, carrot and sunflowers) and the rest (lettuces, broccoli, onions, cabbages, chives and sage) are currently sprouting in seedling trays in my sunroom. No joke - it took all of a week for some of these to come up!
(Top left) Soaked newspaper, recycled timber edging and recycled pavers to divide four small garden beds (I'm going to be doing vegies on a crop rotation basis);
(Top right) Lucerne mulch, roughly ten to twenty centimetres thick;
(Bottom left) Blood 'n' Bone liberally added, plus rotted chook manure;
(Bottom right) Very thick layer of straw, about twenty centimetres thick.
I didn't manage to take photos, but you can probably guess how it looked - the next layer was more chook manure, then several barrows-full of compost to plant into. When the seeds have sprouted, I'll be mulching with another thick layer of straw and Blood 'n' Bone to keep them damp.
Wonderboy does not yet have his sandpit set up and unfortunately viewed my freshly-assembled garden as a prime digging site. Thankfully, he was easily distracted by being able to help me plant sunflower seeds. With help, he was able to pop one in each hole and pat it over, saying "Night-night, seed!" as he went. Here he is, helping me wet all the newspaper down for the first layer.
His gumboots still aren't quite dry.
All in all, it's a good experience for all of us: I can't wait to harvest vegies for the kitchen, and I'm so pleased Wonderboy will be able to 'grow up' in the garden, and really get into it.
In knitting-related news, the "Gypsy" mohair jumper is completed - yep, I ended up being too lazy to tool around with it. Once sewn up, it is very comfortable. A little long? Yes, but it's not overly badly-fitting. in fact, it fits quite well. So the only person who need know it's bit long is me. And anyone else who stumbles in here.
The cream baby 'surprise' was cast off and sewn up. Being quite sick of backstitch, I followed the instructions given in Stitch and Bitch, by Debbie Stoller to graft the ends together, and I'm just awed by how much better it looks and how quick the whole process was! Check this out:
And weave... and pull! It should flatten out in blocking...
I decided to make a collar for this, rather than a hood, since hoods are such a pain in the butt when you want to put a small child down for a sleep. Anything I had with a hood didn't really get used since I'd think "well, he'll need to sleep soon, so I won't use this...". Now I've just got to figure out the collar. I had one crack at it, and did way too many increases too quickly, so it's got a ruffle going through it. So it will be Frog City for collar attempt #1.
While we are touring Frog City, meet my Mother-In-Law's Christmas face washer that didn't make the cut to join other Current Projects in my new Jordana Paige knitting bag. Today I finally hauled the bugger out, frogged back to where I had twenty-one stitches per row (instead of the seventeen I found myself with on Christmas Eve... Ugh) and started up again.
I'm hoping to get that sorted out soon, cause I'm itching to start a couple more projects (another Mystery Baby Gift and a face washer, then a pair of socks are the first to jump to mind), as I feel the need to do a bit of a "Stash Slash" in order to buy lovely new yarn for at least three other projects I have floating around in my mind!
I've been so busy, trying to cram as much productivity as I can into these holidays, as I go back to work on January 28th, and I desperately want lot to show for my time at home. Getting there...
One last show off... Our beautiful purple Pineapple Lily. Considering it spends most of the year looking dead, it certainly makes up for it now!
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