Friday, August 26, 2011

Home Sweet Home


My mother always used to say, “It’s always nice to go travelling, but it’s Oh so nice to come Home!” And it certainly is.
We had a wonderful fortnight with our dear dear friends, and I miss them terribly, but I am so glad to be home and to have my chooks, and the cat and my seedlings all in their allotted spaces again!
The seedlings have grown amazingly well under the fabulous care of my friend Alison! Look!

Before




After



And that’s despite a little late night spray with flea mixture intead of water! J

The chooks are back from their holiday with the chook sitter. They had a fabulous time with all their friends and are sulking a bit at being locked in the day facility rather than free ranging with about 25 other friends all day. Here’s a photo of them off on their big adventure.

I used the laundry basket on wheels because I’m not supposed to lift weights any more and these girls are very heavy! It works a treat but one of them always has to travel alone. She sat up the front with me and seemed very interested in all the goings on during the journey. When they arrived, they just leapt out of the basket and cage and joined in with all their new friends straight away. Hmph! Me and my empty laundry basket went home to pack …
It took nearly a week after they got home for them to forgive us before they laid any eggs. In fact, we got one lousy egg today and it's about time I think! :)  They won’t eat the laying pellets in ordinary chook mix, so now I give them mixed seed and pets mince from my favourite butcher. You should see ‘em go when they get their meat! They also get kitchen scraps, weeds, and al the snails they can eat – although I’ve noticed there aren’t too many snails around at the moment. Maybe the girls have eaten them all …

I planted carrots yesterday. I havent had any luck wth carrots for years, and the ones in my current patch are bought seedlings so who knows what shape they’ll be when I pull ‘em up. But then I was going through my very old garden diary, and saw that I’d followed this idea posted by a reader in an old Earth Garden magazine. Cover the seeds with a hessian bag and keep wet. Lift the bag after 4 – 8 days and the seedlings will have emerged! So despite Jackie French saying the soil’s too cold yet – I couldn’t wait – and planted a whole packet yesterday of red chantenay. They’re the short fat ones that it says you can plant from autumn to spring. I covered them with an old quilt cover I had been using as a kneeling cushion in the garden till I thought of putting a pillow inside a large plastic shopping bag – so comfy! I’ll let you know if I have success with the carrots.

Well, it's great to be home, and hopefully I can get back into the swing of gardening, blogging and pretending to seek a balance between that, looking after Charlie and working to pay for it all!!

See ya soon everyone
Greenie x

7 comments:

  1. The one time we've had success with carrots was with that heshian bag trick, although from memory they still dried out some and plenty of them didn't make it. But the ones that did were awesome.

    Welcome home! It is nice to get back, isn't it?

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  2. Welcome home! You've had a few big weeks and have gone so much You need a rest! :)
    Lucky your girls eat snails. My old flock ran away in sheer disgust everytime and my new girls ignore them entirely. Sigh.
    Hope your carrots grow well!

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  3. Wow your girls get a holiday. We get a house sitter since we have a cat (indoor only) dog (outdoors only) and 6 chickens 2 bantums and a rooster. I have never tried the hessian bag trick but I am planning on planting more carrots this weeks so will give it a try.
    I will also be checking out your other posts.

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  4. The sight of those chickens and the thought of them being chook-sitted gave me the giggles. How cute!

    I recently planted 32 punnets of seeds, a selection of carnations, stattice and cauliflower. I'm not sure if the seed raising mix was a bad batch, or if the seeds were duds, or even if the weather just wasn't quite right because all I've got from the 32 is a solitary cauli!

    ~S.

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  5. Great growing with the seeds. I am patiently waiting for mine to sprout, I check several times a day lol!

    I want to try carrots too, not sure how they will go though.

    Bet you have a bit of catching up to do now you are home...

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  6. Seedlings! YAY! I think I am up to 148 tomato seedlings.....think I may have over catered.

    I do approve of the chicken trolley!

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  7. Ha ha ha - thanks Duckie! I love my chicken trolley. Are you coming to the Urban Homesteaders gathering at my place on Sat'dee? Perhaps you can bring a couple of your 148 tomato seedlings to swap - diversify a little H'mmmmm? Love to see you here
    Greenie x

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