Training pool.

Before they took on the blue shell pool, they practised their swimming strokes in a small plastic container.

Before some were killed. When they were still so tiny.

Sam xox

Moving into Spring.

Last weekend in New South Wales we turned our clocks forward one hour for daylight savings, officially moving us into the warmer months. Thanks to daylight savings, this week I have enjoyed an additional hour of sunlight in the evenings. For me, this has been a real gardening morale boost. Last week I was arriving home from work at 6:15pm, and trying to squeeze watering, weeding and harvesting tasks into the final few moments of light. This week I now have an entire hour to potter around my garden beds upon my return home at the end of the day. And the daylight is going to get even longer still!

~ Salad greens surrounding a zucchini, with potatoes growing beside ~

~ Ducklings playing amongst the nasturtiums ~

~ The beginning of my carrot harvest ~

~ Potatoes ~

~ Zucchini surrounded by rocket and lettuce ~

~ Broad beans coming on ~

~ So much lettuce ~

~ Garlic before harvesting ~

Sam xox

Garlic.

I am so excited right now! I have just harvested my first lot of home grown garlic!

These bulbs began as single cloves planted out about 6 months ago, from two organic Australian garlic bulb.

Twenty-five cloves has now yielded twenty-five of the most magnificent smelling, purple stained bulbs.

Now, to let them dry out. And then to plait.

Honestly, these were the easiest to grow, and you don't need any special seeds. Simply buy the healthiest looking Australian organic garlic you can find, separate the bulb into its individual cloves (don't peal them), then plant each one 'bottom' end down into your soil. Note: This will not work for imported garlics that have been heavily sprayed, or those nasty little white bulbs that have been bleached.

Sam xox

Nature can also be unkind.

~ Poor little Chippy ~

I have had this post saved for almost a week, and it was to be focused on our duckling we named Chippenham, or Chippy for short. His nasty run-in with one of the chickens three days after hatching left him missing half of his top beak. When I discovered his injury I cried and took Chippy inside. Nursing him on my bathroom floor the duckling and I Skyped my father in law (a retired agriculture teacher) who assessed Chippy's injury and gently explained to me the little ducklings prognosis. He explained that it was unlikely Chippy would survive given the nature of the injury. We talked about the likely hood of him starving to death, and what method I could use to kill the duckling in the most humane way.

~ Two weeks on, Chippy's beak is now strong and appears to have grown a little ~

Neither Jamie nor I could bring ourselves to complete the task, even though we knew that starving to death would be a horrible way for this little one to die. We gave it back to its mother and allowed nature to take its course.

~ A bundle of energy ~

Nature was kind to Chippy. He has grown at exactly the same rate as his brothers and sisters, is able to drink and eat, swim and clean himself. Nature was indeed kind to him.

But today, nature was not kind to three others. Jamie arrived home from work to discover three ducklings unaccounted for. Cambridge was swimming in the shell pool with four of her brood, but he couldn't find the other three anywhere. Sadly, they were finally found at the bottom of the pond in Oxford's pen. We believe they got into the pond somehow and he has drowned them. We have seen him displaying aggressive behaviours towards the others previously so we assume it was him that drowned them.

Jamie buried them in the garden.

Nature was not so kind today.

Sam xox

* Chippy is named after the English town of Chippenham, in Wiltshire, from where my maternal family originate.

Like a duckling to water.

Gosh they are getting so big now!

Sam xox

Our farm.

farm/färm/

Noun:

An area of land and its buildings used for growing crops and rearing animals, typically under the control of one owner or manager

Spring has well and truly arrived in our part of the world, bringing with it warmer weather, a thriving garden, and a bundle of baby ducks. The winter crops are nearing their end. I am in the process of harvesting the final few beetroot as their leaves are beginning to wilt in the warming sun. The snow peas have finished, the vines being pulled from the garden and piled onto the compost heap. The abundance of cauliflower all coming on at once has meant I have had to resort to pegging leaves together to protect the florets from the damaging sun light.

My seedlings are being dug into the soil, with five varieties of tomato now having been planted, and an abundance of lettuce varieties being sown. A selection of climbing beans have established themselves and their rapid growth is promising.

I am also considering building a second compost bin using an old plastic bin inverted with the bottom cut out of it - as shown to me by my local friend. I just need to find the correct plastic cutting tool. I have a decent pile of winter crop plant bits ready and waiting to be broken down into lovely dark compost!

Having built a much sturdier fence now around the 'second' veggie patch (paved area of the garden), I decided to buy a metal arch to frame the gate and to act as a support for a climbing bean crop. Either end of the arch sits in a pot of soil, and planted around the bases are some bean seedlings. Once they begin to really take off I may have to attach some chicken wire to the arch to give the beans some added support.

My dear friend Michelle visited over the weekend and she gave me a hand with a number of jobs in the yard.  First on the list was relocating the chicken coop (I will post some photos about that another day). We also put a wire fence around the strawberries in the bathtub as one of my chickens has been making a meal of anything I plant in there. She also helped me with some fencing - even learning how to hammer in a star picket! I now have three "paddocks" in the yard keeping our flocks in order.

~ They broke into the garlic plot! ~

Sam xox