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Lambing and Planting

19/8/2013

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The last few weeks have been insanely busy! Added to everything else, it's lambing time, which has had it's own challenges. I've had very little time to do much in the garden.

As readers will be aware, I've been trying to plant mostly according to the moon calendar. This month, the main planting dates are Aug 9-19, but a combination of weather, visitors, lambing and illness has prevented me doing any planting so far. On Saturday I had planned to plant as much as possible - but an earthquake on Friday caused a leaking drain in our wall which needed urgent attention, we woke to torrential rain, and that morning my youngest ewe gave birth to twins, but had no milk so I spent most of the day getting them feeding (she's now managing to feed the boy twin, but I'm having to bottle feed the girl). The ones pictured above are another set of twins, born on Wednesday morning. They're a boy and girl too - so cute! My last ewe gave birth this morning to a hefty male lamb - that makes 2 singles and 5 sets of twins this year.

Yesterday we had visitors, and so today is planting day, no excuses! I've got 3 Chilean Guavas to plant, along with a bunch of polyanthus. I'm also going to soak some peas and plant them this afternoon, clean out my seed trays and start seeds of everything possible. It's technically still winter here, though very mild, but I have to assume we'll get more hard frosts, so will be starting seeds and keeping them covered for now (except the peas which will go right in the garden). I also have some celery seedlings I've been nursing over winter - I'm going to go ahead and put them out in the garden and see what happens.

In addition, I need to dig and create a new garden bed and then transplant my raspberry canes into it, and also another one for my boysenberries. I also intend to create a bed and transplant the black current plants that have been quietly growing from cuttings I was given last year.

I'm needing to add sides to my impromptu compost bin, and then dig out the main chicken run and refresh it with new sawdust. I treated those hens for worms a couple of days ago, so now is the time to do it. The loose stuff from the top will go in the compost, the old rotted sawdust/manure will go straight into the new garden beds.

So, all in all a full day ahead.

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1st August Garden Photos and Update

6/8/2013

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I'm going to keep the garden photos short this month, because to be honest, the garden mostly looks much the same as last month, except that the plants have gotten bigger. So I'll just tell you about what's different.

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I planted another 50 strawberry plants in the strawberry bed, bringing the total to something like 70. Now I need to think about something to hold up bird netting, because I'm not sharing with the birds!

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The leaf lettuce in the tyre are looking great!

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My mother kindly gave me a garden centre gift voucher for my birthday in June, so I bought a triple grafted apple tree which is now planted at the end of the herb patch. Each of three branches are a different variety of apple - Gala, Braeburn, and Granny Smith.

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The celery seedlings I grew out of season are growing slowly in my plastic bin - looking forward to planting them in the garden. I've also bought 3 Chilean Guavas and some Polyanthus seedlings which I will plant as soon as possible.

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I've acquired 5 new hens from a neighbour who is moving house, and I've put them in a moveable run and house on the front of the section to begin clearing ground for a potato patch. This is the part of the garden where the corn patches were - I've finally cleared them and chopped the stalks up for the compost pile.

Turned out there were huge numbers of ladybirds wintering in the corn stalks. Next summer I'm going to plant some corn and other vege and flower plants in a corner of the garden and leave it "wild" specifically to encourage and shelter beneficial insects.


My other chickens have been getting very naughty about flying over the fence and into my garden, so have had to put netting over their run and start keeping them contained. My chicken flock numbers 40 now - some headed for the freezer in the near future.

The carrots have started to sprout, and the onions I planted haven't really taken, so have planted parsley seedlings among the brussel sprouts.
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Chicken Waldorf Salad - Meals from My Homestead 2

4/8/2013

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With all the produce I'm growing, plus eggs and meat from our chickens and sheep, the kids get pretty excited about us eating meals prepared completely from ingredients we've grown or raised ourselves. This salad is a family favourite - ingredients can be varied depending what you have on hand. The following is the original recipe. The photo above is what I made using our own home-grown food (and in a much larger quantity than the recipe).

Chicken Waldorf Salad
1/4 cup (about) mayonnaise (I use either Budget salad dressing, or a home-made dressing)
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
1 apple
Extra lemon juice
1/2 cup diced, cooked chicken
1/2 cup diced celery
1/4 cup flaked coconut, toasted (I've never used coconut in this recipe)
1 small carrot, cut into thin strips (I seldom use carrot)
Spinach leaves or salad greens (I usually use lots of lettuce leaves, preferably of mixed varieties)

Combine mayonnaise, sugar and lemon juice in a bowl. Cut half apple into slices, dip in additional lemon juice and set aside. Dice remaining apple. Stir diced apple, chicken, celery and 3 TBSP coconut into the mayonnaise mixture. Serve on crisp spinach leaves, garnish with carrot sticks, apple slices and remaining coconut. Makes 1.5 cups or one entrée serving.
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July Garden Harvest Totals

2/8/2013

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July's garden harvest totalled 37.563 kgs, bringing the year-to-date total to 605.837 kgs! Whoo-hoo, passed another 100 kg mark!

July's haul from the garden included:
15.95 kg tomatoes
1.292 kg silverbeet
776 g carrots
1.735 kg broccoli
1.062 kg cauliflower
336 g beetroot
5.605 kg lettuce and herbs
220 g lemons
6.19 kg yacon tubers
2.822 kg buk choy and brassica greens

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    Author

    This page is my blog formerly known as Kiwi Urban Homestead.

    I'm a Kiwi homeschooling mother of 5 living in a small town. After growing 1000 kg of produce in my back yard in 2013, I'm now expanding my edible gardens even further.

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