All Good Things Must Come to an End.

7 years ago by Rod Bailey

Do they? Last week we picked our last peas for the year. Weren't they fantastic? I have really enjoyed munching on them - though maybe not as much as Indy Mae our little gardening princess has enjoyed them! Sorry I don't have a photo of her to show you the enjoyment in her eyes as she munches on Sugar Snap peas! She will miss them when she comes to the garden each Thurday with her mum and brothers... So the peas have ended. That's bad, right? Yes! But all good th...

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Spring busyness

7 years ago by Rod Bailey

"What a wondrous time is spring, when all the trees are budding; the birds begin to sing, the flowers start their blooming..." The words of that 1970's song perfectly describe life for us just at the moment - it's all happening! We could well sing, "What a busy time is spring..." This week we have spent 2 mornings picking for market, a whole day at market and another half day visiting people with deliveries, half a day in the shed cleaning up...

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Sunrise and Sunset

7 years ago by Rod Bailey

Sunrise and Sunset With all the wind that's been around recently, I have to do as much garden watering as possible late in the evening and very early in the morning to avoid the strongest wind. Quite inconvenient, but like most inconvenience, it came with a blessing. The other morning, arriving at the garden before dawn, I had a real treat. The birds in the surrounding bush were going off! Blue wrens, magpies, kookaburra's butcher birds, Jacky Winter's and all their mates...

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Musings on Oldies

7 years ago by Rod Bailey

The other day I was pulling out some brassica's who had done their dash, making way for a new generation. This little patch of curly kale has been so very productive - long, soft, luscious leaves that we have picked over 3 months or so. It was such a shame to pull them out, but they had slowed down, and a new planting was booming out of the ground and ready to fill their place. I recognised a kind of bereavement as they came out, and I somehow felt a twinge of what it must ...

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Fire ground

7 years ago by Rod Bailey

We were sitting around Jack's campfire last week getting warm and watching the bushman's TV, and I wondered why we didn't do this more often? How does a dancing fire keep our attention like it does? Why does the conversation and the camaraderie seem richer? Why does looking into a campfire make one reflective? These questions may be for the esotericists amongst us, but a very practical use of fire in the garden is a flame weeder. The flame weeder is a five...

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Potato's

7 years ago by Rod Bailey

I love spuds. Especially baked, or steamed, or boiled, or mashed, or... But not as much as our daughter Katie! She is a leginary spudaholic. In fact, her potato penchance is only matched by her pasta predilection  - so much so that Desley made her a potato/pasta cake for her 18th birthday! I love growing spuds also. The kids love using our old single row potato planter (thanks Brett and Sharon!), and there is something about the long straight rows, the shape and colour of the foliag...

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The Darnedest Thing

7 years ago by Rod Bailey

Why is it that the things we don't really want to grow often just thrive? This is a section of the garden we opened up last year, and to be kind, the soil is a bit ordinary. It is a victim of when we leveled this section of the garden and took much of it's topsoil off, with the soil now heavy, without much life yet, and a bit rocky - a work in progress.  We have grown silverbeet, cabbage, and beetroot there so far, and they really struggled. But look at this yellow dock...

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In Reverse

7 years ago by Rod Bailey

Sometimes things don't go as we plan.  Can you relate to that? Some plans never get off the ground, and we are, for the most part, pragmatic about that. Other times things are looking great, big advances are being made, goals about to be reached, rewards ripe to be reaped, dreams soon to be realised... Then comes a reversal... The worst types of reversals are in our personal relationships. These can crush the spirit and devastate hopes and dreams. They can...

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Sad Joy

8 years ago by Rod Bailey

This last week has been bitter sweet. It has been fantastic to have all of our family together again - Tom (the handsome one in the back row) has been back with us from Forbes NSW for a week or two's break from shearing, and he certainly brings some life and energy into the place!  And another high point was that we had a bit of a do with friends here at home on Saturday night with a big fire and plenty of fun and food, for Rod's 50th birthday, bu...

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Great News - New Tractor

8 years ago by Rod Bailey

We have been able to purchase a tractor! We want to thank all those who contributed to our new machine - we have so desperately needed a tractor like this for so long, and now that our smaller tractor needs an engine rebuild, it could not have come at a better time! The tractor is a Ford 6600, a 80hp 4WD machine in very good condition that cost us $12,500. We have also purchased several implements, including a 6' slasher, Yeoman's plough, scarif...

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