Gumboot Garden

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Wish I had these legs

Anyone for a gumboot garden?

No...it's not a garden full of gumboots it's more a garden with a fetish for gumboots. 

I know this 'cos my vege garden is sooo boggy that I'm not game to enter without my gumboots on but believe it or not I'm still growing CHAMPION pumpkins. 

HUH !! Go figure!!

Can't drown pumpkin vines apparently.

AND THIS FOLKS SAYS IT ALL

I Dunno 'bout the Good Life Part

All I know for sure is it's wet!!!!!

On the other hand I've figured out why electricity and phones were invented.  I reckon I know why the mobile phone was invented also.

Wanna know how I figured it out......well Newton's wife looked out her window and realised the washing wasn't getting dry anytime soon outside not point in having a clothers dryer without electricity to run it VIOLA electricity is invented.  Maybe Bell's wifes dryer blew up and she needed to get another one but they were flooded in......VIOLA her hubby invents the telephone.......fast forward a few more years and Martin Coopers phone stopped working 'cos the rain got into the underground lines and the phone company counldn't fix it until the rain cleared up cos of the flooding VIOLA mobile phones.

See how simple history is.

All ya gotta know is what the catalyst was for all this.

Want me to whisper it ???  Huh ???  Do ya ???

(rain)

Peter, peter pumpkin eater

If ya can kill a Jap pumpkin vine here in Central Queensland then ya probably shouldn't garden.


Yip....plain and simple - I've stood all over mine - sometimes stomped on it but now we have oodles and oodles of pumpkins AGAIN that we are now harvesting

Why don't chickens eat pumpkin seeds...all of our vines come from the compost out of the chookrun.  Same thing with tomatoes but I'm not whinging 'bout them 'coz they aint growing just yet...give it time !!!

Luckily we like pumpkin and it is soo versatile.

The sweet potatoes have taken off and the beds have now been muclhed up with cow poop that we collected and crumbled.......yes it was dry and hard so it wasn't unpleasant.  I'm sure I heard the worms singing as I walked past the vege garden last week.

One thing's for sure here.....if ever there is a world food shortage we'll still have pumpkins.


oh yeah p.s I tried making some cheese this week based on a very old and faded memory of many years ago.  I tried maltese pepper cheese and aside from not quite enough salt it's actually not too bad.  I've researched [googled] cheese making and found out that feta [yum yum] and mozerella is made the same basic way soo I'll try them after the rennet arrives in the mail.  I used junket tablets and the result is okay but I believe I'll get a better result with actual rennet.  Keep ya posted 'bout that one.

Body Wax

I made a pot of body wax yesterday.

Yip body wax............homemade and highly successful.

Recipe - 2 cups of sugar, 1/4 cup of lemon juice, 1/4 cup of water.  Boil the billyo out of it until it resemble amber.  This doesn't take very long, maybe 10 mins tops.  When it is cool enough  to use then .... use it but please do be careful that it's not too hot.  This mix took about 3/4 of an hour to cool down.

I used to wax myself all the time years ago but my wax manufacturer stopped manufacturing and I experimented with a few different brands but couldn't find any that I like and got good results from so stopped waxing and started shaving but 'cos I'm a lazy lil gal I wouldn't do that as often as I should've.  Lucky I wear long pants to work hey !!!

Soap

Soo....I made my first batch of soap - not first batch ever but first in a really long time so it was like starting from scratch.

The recipe I used was  700g olive oil, 250g coconut oil [copha], 50g castor oil, 139g caustic soda, 375g water.

At trace I added an extra tablespoon of castor oil for extra moisturising qualities and a small bottle of lavender oil.

I used a crockpot to hot process the soap so it'd be ready in a few days time and not weeks and I'm happy with the result but the smell of the lavender actually makes it a dead ringer for sunlight soap.  Not happy 'bout that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah I know that sunlight soap is lemon and not lavender but this soap is a dead ringer for it.  Even hubby and father-in-law both said the same thing without me mentioning it.  I thought I was being paranoid but apparently not.

I'm thinking I may rebatch it to re-scent it. 

Anyhoos the soap has FANTASTIC lather and bubbles.  I'm really chuffed with that part of it and I've located a soap supplies store in southern queensland somewhere that have colours and different smells.

See these..........

these were our cupcake bath bombs or bath fizzies.  The ratio is 3:1 of bicarb soda and citric acid with no oil in them aside from the scented oil so that they - a) don't leave a ring of oil around the tub and b) don't make the tub slippery.

We scented some with strawberry and some with lavender and the icing was just a generic frosting made with egg whites and icing sugar with scented oil in them also but I'm gunna experiment with soap frosting this year.

We gave these as part of our Christmas gift packs and I dunno if other people loved them as much as we are loving them in our baths.  I do understand that not everyone baths......alot of people shower [my preference] so I'm also gunna try to make cupcake soaps.

OMG my garden is a haven for ........

See my beautiful ??? garden, it's a haven for ......... dogs, dog bones, dog poop, gumboots.


What was once my lovely food garden has been terribly neglected by the resident gardener.  I'm not at all happy with her. 

I guess I'll have to bribe her with something really awesome ...... what could that be I wonder ..............

Nah seriously I'm the resident gardener and all I want for this year is to have my lovely garden restored to an unfounded glory.

Full of flowers and veges like it was a few years ago.

Unfortunatly here in Central Queensland we have had an exceptionally wet year summer season so far.  November had 27 out of 30 wet days.  I don't believe that December was any different and January so far has had 3 sunny days out of 3 but still wet nights with a lot of storms blowing over.

Anyhoo my grand plan has started to take place.  I've rerouted the pumpkin vine which is LOVING our weather to go back on itself and back up the trellis.  I've put some sweet potato cuttings in the ground and planted out some purple bean seeds.  All have been fertilised and mulched with a combo of last years shredded school books [mwahahahaha] and chook nesting box filling.

If you take a closer look at the garden I still have last years crop of eshallots or spring onions in the ground and the celery is the chooks treats for laying yummy eggs.

Sooo.......perhaps I DO have a NYR and that's to make a freakinly awesome gorgeously fantastic fusion garden with veges and flowers.