Gorgeous potting shed practical and so cute!

Ah how cute is this! I have the nicest, most homespun potting shed. I am so, so happy with it!
For weeks I have been researching photos of potting sheds on pinterest for inspiration.  I scoured op shops for bits and pieces to make it even cuter.

Then in just one day, Howard and I turned it from the dumping ground under the verandah:

to this organised and pretty potting shed.

Howard chopped the top off our old entertainment unit to make me a new potting bench. It was a lovely piece of furniture in its day: retractable doors to cover the TV, a glass door to cover the stereo. But in this day of flat screen TVs it was redundant, heavy and bulky. It has a new lease of life here as you can see. The shelves on the right were here when we moved in: a steel frame with vinyl covered chip board shelves that were all swollen and disgusting.  Howard fit left over, recycled flooring to make shiny new shelves.

I washed all the pots before replacing them, organised by size, on my new shelves. I know exactly where everything is for the first time in gardening history. The blackboard is an old picture frame I bought for next to nothing without glass and painted with chalk board paint. 

The quote is from the sublime Audrey Hepburn: Those who garden believe in tomorrow.  

The tray holding gardening tools came from an op shop, the tea pot with succulent from the lovely Laura. 

I bought new galvanised bins for chicken feed. Originally I misguidedly bought plastic ones but the local rodents ate right through the lids. Take it from me, go steel and ensure the lids fit tightly.  

The rest we had, just cleaned and recycled.

I love gardening so much more now that I have a space to potter. I potted up some seedlings after dinner one evening. I can even clean and trim vegetables before bringing them up to the kitchen. 

A little planning, a lot of recycling and a lot of courage and look what you can do.

New home for our chickens: a great garden compound

Howard and I are holidays for a week. Applause please!

We are spending a week at home working in the garden. 

Despite rain we are going well on our to do list.

One of our top priorities was to move the chicken coop from the back garden into a spot 

along the side of the house.

The near side fence and gate has been here all along. Today Howard added a second gate higher up the path.  This little corner has just been wasted space up until now.  We put up mesh under the house and voila the chickens have a new compound.  Benny is checking it out.

We gave the coop a huge spring clean, emptied, scrubbed, sprayed with eucalyptus oil and moved it to its new home.  They have clean shredded paper in the egg box, sawdust in the straw yard, a sparkling clean water bottle.  And so many green weeds to eat and scratch out. 

We could take bets on how quickly they get rid of it all!  First job done.

Another job that has waited years was pruning this monster waratah. It has gotten taller and taller over the years until, as you can see it towers over the house.  We had two but the other collapsed one wet, windy weekend. This one was at risk of the same fate. It has finished flowering and is yet to produce buds so now was the time. Howard sawed this down by hand!  The biggest job is still to come as we chop up and mulch the smaller bits tomorrow. The bigger bits will become firewood one day.

Here's the new view from our verandah: Kate and Scully enjoying their new home and the shorter waratah that will quickly thicken up and give us beautiful blooms to enjoy.

Good day's work!

Exeter open gardens

Today we went to the four open gardens at Exeter, here in the Southern Highlands, completing the trifecta of gardens at Robertson and Bundanoon.

Sadly they were mostly disappointing.  The last however made up for the others and I am glad we did experience it last, to end the trek on  high note.

A large garden called Allways was truly delightful.  And the volunteers on the gate were friendly and kind and offered to mind Benny so he didn't have to stay in the car.  My photos do not do it justice.

I now believe in UFOs

Isn't this an amazing cloud! There was a bunch of them floating over the paddocks of Bowral but this was the most spectacular. I believe it is called a lenticular cloud, but come on, surely this added to the UFO legend.

Stuffed cabbage rolls

A new tradition: preparing Tuesday night's dinner on Monday night.
This week it is Savoy cabbage rolls stuffed with spicy lentils and topped ith a tangy tomato sauce.
The cabbage came from my neighbour's spectacular vegetable garden.

Why the tradition? Howard works Monday nights so I ususally just have left overs or something on toast. Tuesday nights I go to a dance class and get home late. It helps to have something ready to pop into the oven. 

Getting home late today - homespun dinner is all prepped

I get home late tonight so dinner is all prepped and just needs to go in the oven. I am excited about this dinner: spinach and quinoa bake as its almost all harvested from my garden.

It contains spinahc, silverbeet and mustard greens, garlic, onions, leek, dill, fresh asparagus and an egg.
The only bought ingredients are butter, milk, quinoa and the cheese topping.

I sauteed the greens, onion and herbs lightly in a little butter, which I mixed together with cooked quinoa, an egg and a dash of milk. Pressed into a lightly gerased baking dish, topped with asparagus spears and cheese.

It should be golden brown and bubbly on top when I walk in the door. A little home preserved peach relish on the side and dinner is ready to eat.

I'll let you know how it goes.

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.