A homespun day working in the vegetable garden

I have had a very homespun day at home today.  I am exhausted but satisfied with what I have achieved.

My vegetable garden is all weeded and mulched at last. I used a hoe to pull up all the weeds, laid newspaper and lucerne to suppress any new ones from appearing. This area will be planted out with tomatoes and corn before long.

The garden is starting to fill out as plants grow. Today I added borage to enhance my companion planting of flowers, herbs and vegetables all mixed in together. And I am beginning to harvest: today I came in with onions, herbs, a few peas and arm fulls of silverbeet and mustard greens.

The greens have self seeded all over the garden. I dug most of them up, transplanted some in other areas of the garden. The rest I have planted in pots, to give away and to nurture the smaller ones for staggered plantings later on.  There are still a few in between the paving stones of the path that I need to get to. I made a new batch of seed raising mix: all my planting this weekend used up the last of my store.

My mini greenhouse is full of seedlings: tomato seedlings donated by a colleague now all planted out into individual pots; Rouge d'hiver and Amish deer lettuce; mixed heirloom beetroots, Paris market carrots small enough to grow in pots; zucchini; Australian butter pumpkin; Asian vitamin green, wormwood, mustard greens and I can't remember what else.

I have made yoghurt, and dinner for tonight and the next two nights.  All the laundry is done. Now it time to head back into the working week.

yoghurt update

The yoghurt set! Yay, I won.

I feel very homespun again today. I ate homemade bread for breakfast with a poached, freshly laid egg, and have homemade yoghurt and muesli for morning tea.

I hope you are eating well today too.

Yoghurt challenge

I am finding making yoghurt a challenge. I am determined to not let it beat me though. Naturally.

I bought a yoghurt maker. It is like a big thermos that you fill with boiling water. A jar goes inside with the powdered yogurt and water. Leave it 10 hours and hey presto, yoghurt.

Well, in theory.

A couple of times this has been the case. One time it was kind of stringy. Othertimes still runny.
We definately don't want to get sick so we're very cautious. These attempts have been thrown out.

So back to the drawing board...

The instructions say cool water. Well research has suggested this could be more tepid-cool, even body temperature, just not warm. Seriously just give me a temperature!

I measured the temp of our tap water: 10 degrees Celcius. Well that's borderline cold not cool. I have added a little hot water and brought it up to 28 degrees. That still felt cool really.

Last time I left the thermos on the kitchen bench, next to a window, closed but, we're getting down to 2-5 degrees overnight. I have moved it into the lounge.

I'll let you know what I find in the morning. Wish me luck!