See you in a week

Hi all,
I'm off to scrapbooking camp tonight so won't be posting until I get back next week. Have a good week everyone

Growing growing growing

It's so good to be outside doing stuff. Now that daylight saving's is upon us there's no time like the present. I've managed to replant my second strawberry plant - man the roots have really grown over winter - wasn't expecting that considering how little attention I paid to them.

I've planted a few of my low acidic tomatoes and I won't plant the rest until I have sorted out the weed jungle and created a raised bed for them to grow in. I'm hoping to do some cauliflower after I get back from camp. Al wants to do a working bee on the Monday after - we shall see how awake I am then.

This arvo we went to pick up Cannon from Sue's and she had made a mini green house out of large, very large container with a old aluminium door - way cool idea, might have to talk to the brother in law if they have anything similiar at his work just taking up space. Although I'm sure if I look around here hard enough my dad would have one in his "building stash"

Watering Can/Bottle

Last year I had brought a watering can but wasn't fully satisfied with it's performance sooo this year I wanted to spend zero dollars. A few weeks ago I used by water bottle to give them a drink and thought...mmmm this is pretty good, I control the flow and it's easy to hold.

Wouldn't be better to save this plastic bottle recycling bin(for now anyways) I punched holes into the lid and took it for a test run. Woo hoo - I am so good to go.

Update - I showed my mum and she is going to do the same thing

You beauty...

Despite the bad weather over the past couple of weeks, these little buggers have started sprouting. I have 4 rows of shoots - Peas and Lettuce, the tomatoes are yet to push through the soil.

I brought some punnets from Pak n Save (Mt.Albert) 2 for $5.00 and got some rolly polly carrots and some low acidic tomatoes. I managed to plant all 6 rolly's and have repotted one of my strawberry plants.

It's tiring work mixing old potting mix and compost together. I'm using a 3 part potting mix and 1 part compost. Not sure if it's the right composition but we shall see.

Not much growing going on

Haven't done anything over the past few days. Garden still looks pathetic but I did buy some new pavers - real cheap too, good if you know someone - wink wink.

Egg Trays

no time like the present....I've started sowing my seeds...haw haw haw. Lucky I saved all those egg trays over the past few weeks, they have become very handy. I've sowed two rows of tomotoes, lettuce and peas. I'll have to wait another 14days before they start to germinate and hopefully i'll have some ready to put in the buckets by the time labour weekend comes around or maybe a bit earlier weather dependent.

I do have some cauliflower and hope to find the packet of brocolli I brought last year.

New link added

I thought it would be a good idea to add the "simple savings" website, if you pay for a subscription you have a whole vault of ideas at your finger tips and I'll be reading the Garden section to get some good ideas. The subscription is reasonable and you really do get value for money

Click on the link and check it out for yourself

I'm on my way

Got off to a good start yesterday, stopped into the local hammer hardware store and purchased some seeds - tomatoes, mesclun mix(lettuce)and dwarf massey peas, I also brought a bag of compost for $6.90(x 3 = $18) and they also have 3 bags of 40L potting mix for $20.00 - pretty good.

Last year I decided to use my local stores to get supplies from, I figured by the time I spent money on petrol it may not be cost effective to chase "specials" all over town. So only if it's on the way will I stop at a plant store if I HAVE to go out of my way I need to see if there is anything else I can do while out that way to justify the cost.

I also might find myself going to garage sales/fairs or car boot sales to make my dollar stretch further. But I need to be smart - take a list of what I need and a set amount of cash in my pocket.

I'll let you know how I go

Can't wait

I'm baacckkk,
Summer is knocking on my vege garden door, I've been dreaming about this year's crop and what it is going to look like. I'll be doing what grew well last year - tomatoes, pototoes, peas,lettuces and anything else that grabs my fancy.

Today I've started to attacked my weed ridden buckets and poured last season's potting mix into a huge steel container supplied by the neighbour across the road. They had chucked it out and it had been there for a couple of weeks. Soooo in the dead of night I got Cannon to go over and grab it - geez I can be embarrassing; but it was a good score. The plan is to add compost to it, mix it up and use it for my crops. I know it sounds dodgy but i'm giving it a go.

I'm going to grow my own plants from seeds - mmmm..... i hear yah!!! BUT if I put some potting mix in egg trays with some seed and i'll be good to go. I won't be able to afford to many plants this year so i'm trying to carbon footprint friendly as well as using what I have available.

I'm also going to try my hand at making jams etc...got this COOL book by Isobel Webb - 5minute microwave bottling through Avon a couple of months back...yumm!!!

Recently as some of you know my father in law passed away suddenly and in memory of him I'm going to (along with my inlaws) get his garden up and running we the view to supply our family summer backyard barbies and picnic's at the beach. So you can expect to see pictures of my bucket garden as well his.