National Organic Week Day 6: Seed Saving

It's National Organic Week Day 6, and I thought I would share about seed saving. A number of years ago now a local friend shared with me how beneficial seed-saving is. They explained that if you save seed for three generations, the resulting seed will be that which is the best possible for your garden's growing conditions.

We have endeavoured to embrace that practice and the results have indeed spoken for themselves. Carrot seed, which this friend had been collecting themselves proved to be the most wonderful carrot seed I have ever used in our garden. I have never seen or tasted such wonderful carrots, as those grown from the seed that was shared with us.

In turn, we have had the most magnificent crown pumpkins grow from seeds we saved over several generations. When you have tasty, juicy pumpkins that are literally the size of a soccer ball, you know you have been blessed with something good!

Saving seed can be done quite simply. There are a number of videos on Youtube that discuss seed-saving and of course books can be sourced from the local library, should you require guidance.

I harvest most seed by collecting it and laying it out on trays, before putting it in the hot water cupboard to further dry. Some seed however may require a further step in the form of washing, before actually be placed on trays to dry. Some seed may be best collected and put out onto actual damp paper towels, particularly if it is small and not so easy to handle. A little research will help you determine what is the best approach to take for any and all particular forms of seed.

You can also research and look into how to save bulbs, and you can also learn how to take and strike cuttings, when it is seasonally appropriate to do so. One of the joys of having your own garden is not only the harvesting of wonderful organic, spray-free produce, but over time your garden can also create its own means of balance and indeed multiply what it produces, and seed saving goes a long way towards seeing the best possible results coming to fruition.

A little research about how best to collect and store each particular seed will go a long way to ensuring your seed saving is highly successful. I highly recommend saving seed as part of establishing your own backyard garden.

Back to Eden Garden Tour

This week's video over at the Household Logistics Youtube Channel is of our backyard garden. If you are new to gardening, have an interest in gardening or have something of an interest in what the Back to Eden Gardening Method is all about, this video is one you might like to make time to watch.

Our garden has undergone amazing transformation over the last 8 years. This is all due to the Back to Eden Gardening Method. Our garden is completely spray-free and every season we have been so grateful for the abundance of produce we have been able to harvest.

Here is the direct link to the video: Back to Eden Garden Tour

Having a low maintenance garden that is spray-free and producing food that is very palatable and also abundant is really a dream come true for many of us. The Back to Eden Gardening Method is a method of gardening that will sort everyone from the youngest to the oldest, as it really is very low maintenance. You can literally taste the difference this earth-friendly method of gardening makes when it comes to producing good food for your table.

We have been enjoying harvesting literally basket loads of tomatoes this past month. Over Christmas we really enjoyed being able to go out as required and harvest fresh homegrown potatoes for dinner.

Here are a couple of photographs taken over the last little while. Do check out the video though, as you will get to see so much more of our garden & what it is currently producing.

Happy home-making (and gardening!), Everyone!

Seed Potatoes

Cyclamen

Harvest

Harvesting Seed

Garden Goodness

If you have read any number of posts here in my small section of Blogland, you will have figured out by now that I really love spending time in my garden. I also really enjoy catching up on what other gardeners are doing, and hearing about what has been achieved and learnt.

Being able to chat with family and friends who have a common interest in growing all things green and gorgeous is always of interest to me. It has been my experience, that people who enjoy gardening are more than happy to take an informal tour of each other gardens, and exchange stories about how things are going season by season. We learn so much from each other's gardening adventures, and often gain a small handful of seed or seedlings, which are kindly passed on, in the process also.

Recently I received an envelope of garden goodness (aka as a selection of home harvested seeds) from Jen Morris, who is a fellow New Zealand blogger who also really enjoys being out and about in her own lovely garden, down the line in the Taranaki Region.

I have been keen to add more flowering plants to my own backyard garden for some time, in order to attract more pollinators to visit. So what flower seed Jen did include in the set of seed she sent to me is sure to be really beneficial, to help extend the current range in our garden.

I look forward to getting these various varieties sown and seeing the range of flowers come to fruition. Thanks again, Jen. Your gift of home harvested seed was, and is, highly appreciated.

For those interested, you can check out what Jen is actually doing in her garden, season by season, via her regular vlog posts over at her Youtube Channel, 'A Thousand Words'. Here is the link to the tour of her backyard for last Spring, for those of you interested in checking it out: Garden Tour: Spring 2017. She has posted several seasonal tours and they are each interesting to view.

Jen has done a lot of hard work in her Taranaki based garden, with the support of her husband Grant. Together they have created a lush and attractive garden, with both homegrown produce and a diverse range of flowers also.

Her gardening journey has been very interesting to follow via her blog and vlog posts. As a fellow backyard gardening enthusiast also with a limited budget, I have particularly appreciated seeing how she goes about using innovation and frugal approaches to resolving various aspects of keeping and setting up a backyard food source for her and her family. It really is wonderful being able to source ideas from others online and learn from their experiences.

The truly wonderful thing about the internet and online community is that we can all learn from each other. Sometimes we can also not only share our gained wisdom and knowledge, but also at times pool resources also, if locality, time and resources allows for it. Sometimes an online network and community proves to be a very helpful and resource-filled means of supporting others and their endeavours.

Sometime ago I had sent Jen a parcel of home harvested seeds myself, so it was rather lovely to get a reciprocal selection sent through from Jen herself for my own garden. It is always fun and nice to add to one's own garden through exchanges with others when possible.

Seed exchanges really do help gardeners extend their repertoire of seeds and plants. Sharing our experiences and learning from each other provides a rich and diverse knowledge base to tap into also.

To date, the community of gardeners I have gotten to know, both locally and nationally, have all proved to be generous and friendly people. We are a group of people who have the common bond of really loving being outdoors, and seeing just what can be achieved with abit of dirt and a handful of seed, etc.

I am currently working away at putting together a video soon of our own backyard gardening endeavours, and it will nice to share this with you all, once it is completed. It will no doubt be a lovely way to record the seasonal changes and seasonal crop rotations in our own backyard garden, and in time to look back in time and see just what has been achieved.

There really is nothing quite like having delicious homegrown vegies and fruit growing, as well as diverse boughs of floral colour in your own neck-of-the-woods.

Do check out what Jen is doing in Taranaki via her video vlogs on her Youtube Channel, and we will soon enjoy sharing with you a video of our very own backyard adventure also.

Summertime Harvest: Corn

The first of the corn was harvested today.

Summertime Harvest

Harvested today from the garden.

Spring

The bees were busy in the backyard garden this afternoon. The plum tree was quite a buzz with the sound of them, as they flew from blossom to blossom.

I stood for quite some time watching one bee, then another, as they flittered from each delicate white flower on the plum tree. They each seemed very focused and intent on visiting as many of the plum blossoms as they could. Sometimes they would stop for quite some time, and other times they seemed to make a quick assessment and move on as quickly as they could, to try and locate a more pollen loaded flower. It really was quite fascinating to stand and quietly watch.

It was just such a wonderful sight to see all their activity, particularly as today was officially the first day of Spring, here in the southern hemisphere. Nothing says it is Spring like seeing a group of bees flying with focused attention in a cluster of blossom.

I tried to photograph several of them, but unfortunately the resulting photographs were not in focus. At some point it would be lovely to get a camera with the appropriate lenses to capture such sights. Still, it was lovely to watch and marvel at such a happy sight on this the first day of September.

The peach tree has begun to produce blossom also. I am hoping more blossom is yet to come, as there is not as of yet a great deal on the peach tree. Like the blossom of the plum tree, the peach tree blossom is so dainty and delicate looking also. The pink colouring of the peach blossom is so pretty.
It really is quite something seeing parts of the garden come alive again with boughs upon boughs of tiny new leaf buds and clusters of delicate blossom.

Here are some photographs for you to enjoy viewing, from the time spent out with my camera in the garden today. Spring has indeed sprung, and is making it's presence felt in our backyard garden.

Boughs of Blossom

One of the plum trees has been increasingly bursting into blossom over the past week. It looks almost bridal, with all its stunning, delicate white blossoms on each & every branch.

Such was the beauty of today's late afternoon light against the blossoms, I just had to grab my camera and try & capture something of what it all looked like. 

What a beautiful sight all these precious, delicate blossoms were to see and record, on the last day of winter here in the southern hemisphere. Goodbye Winter. The trees are all so ready to herald in the first of September, and the first day of Spring.

Digging Dessert

Doesn't the idea of planning and planting a dessert themed garden just seem such a delicious one to pursue? Blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, clusters of rhubarb, a wandering passionfruit vine.... are all part of the envisaged dessert themed garden I am currently in the process of creating, here in our neck-of-the-woods.

As mentioned in a previous blog post, I have started to work on an area of garden in our backyard that I have duly named "The Dessert Garden." Although there are areas of our backyard that also have fruiting vines and trees alongside vegetable beds, this area will be one that solely has fruit producers within it.

For a long time this particular area of the backyard has been used as a bit of a catch-all area. When you are busy on landscaping projects like we invariably are, you often find you need to put odd bits of timber, etc for other garden projects somewhere. It can all soon pile up and become a bit too scruffy and messy, and then that specific area of the garden eventually demands some attention itself!

There has been lengths of timber, an eclectic group of potted up plants and even broken pieces of concrete...... Well quite frankly, a range of both old and odd bits and pieces that have lurked a little too long in what became the catch-all area in our backyard. However! The time has come to de-junk this area and give it its very own makeover! It has duly been grandly named, "The Dessert Garden" and is now on its way to looking a lot better and being a source of fruit-filled deliciousness itself!

Here are some photographs to let you all have a peek at what has been achieved so far. I will share more photographs over time and reveal more of the bigger picture of this garden area as it gets sorted out and set up (Its much nicer to share the changes being made, than a whole bunch of photographs of miscellaneous and scattered timber off-cuts and stacks of broken tiles and rocks, right?).

A dessert themed garden just wouldn't be the same without a whole bunch of strawberry plants being planted out in it, in my opinion. I have begun planting out the pots of strawberries I have been collecting from various sources. Some of them were gifted to me by family and friends, others I have purchased when they are on sale (it is even nicer to buy things on special and priced down when you can!).

I have noticed there are a variety of strawberry plants that are able to be purchased, so I will do some research to see what each variety offers. It will be interesting to find out more about them and work out what will work best in our very own dessert garden; sticking with one variety or perhaps planting out a diverse range.

I have started to plant out what I hope will turn into a substantial hedge length of blueberry bushes. So far, I have planted out two varieties of blueberry.

I understand they do better if you plant out a variety in an area, so here's hoping that it will indeed make a difference in the long run. May the quantity and quality of the resulting fruit being fantastic!

I have tried previously to grown blueberries, and have not had much success. I am hoping this time, with a diverse variety positioned near each other, it will all prove to work out much better. I will aim to keep you all posted on how it goes!

In amongst the eclectic mix of plant pots, have been a number I planted out with previously separated clusters of rhubarb. I have found it doesn't take long for a cluster of rhubarb to get established, and each cluster can then quite easily be split up to create another and then another. These can be potted up and put aside, ready to be re-planted out in other garden areas. I hope to establish a really good border of rhubarb over time in our newly set up "The Dessert Garden."

Rhubarb has been in our experience a good staple to have growing in a garden. We often choose to include it in with other fruit in a fruit crumble or the like. I am planning to underplant some fruiting vines with a good length of rhubarb running along them and acting as a garden border also. That way each cluster of rhubarb can act as good ground cover, and by doing some deliberate companion planting, it will also allow for us to make good use of all available space.

When you feel like rhubarb in a pie or fruit crumble or even as a breakfast side, it is so easy to go out to the garden and simply twist off by hand a fistful of stalks. Once the leaves are broken off, and either put back on the garden directly as groundcover or put into the compost pile, you are good to go indoors with your harvested stalks.

A quick rinse under the tap, and the stalks can then be chopped up into inch length pieces and popped into a pot to boil away and soften. Yum! It makes me what to go harvest some rhubarb right now, just writing about it!

So, these photographs showed you the first steps being made to dig in and get a dessert themed garden sorted out here in our backyard. I love the fact that you can get so many plants quite cheaply, if you keep an eye out for discounted specials at places like The Warehouse, or even hardware stores like Mega Mitre 10 often have things at budget friendly prices also. Family & friends are often generous and kind about passing on things like clumps of rhubarb too.

It will be fun to share more of the progress being made in The Dessert Garden, as it occurs. Weather permitting, I am hoping that there will be time to get out and get digging this coming weekend. Such is the weather at present, that you just can't plan too far ahead or get your hopes up too high.

Still, the days until it is officially Spring are decreasing every day (only 13 days to the first of Spring to go, Folks!).  Digging for dessert, step by step no matter how long it ends up taking me, can only be a good thing, from now on. Happy gardening and home-making, Everyone!

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Here is the link to the Household Logistics Facebook Page: /https://www.facebook.com/householdlogistics/

Pretty & Cosy in Winter

Hello Fellow Home-makers! 

I hope you all are keeping warm, dry & well, if like us you are in the throes of winter. August is rather cold & wet at present, here in my neck-of-the-woods in the Northern Waikato Region.

Don't you just want Spring to roll around, and things to get a bit brighter (and drier!) in the garden? I certainly do! This rainy, cold, windy business, that is part & parcel of Winter just gets to be somewhat boring & annoying, after days upon days of the same old weather patterns at times, doesn't it? Still, it all has a purpose in the bigger scheme of things, I know.

There has been some developments in the garden, as the weather has permitted, which has been lovely. You can see some of it in the photographs shared here: 

A garden built along a side fence boundary has finally had some significant attention. It has been planted out with box hedging and pretty cyclamens.

All the box hedging in the various garden areas, has been grown from cuttings we have struck ourselves, or it has been re-planted from other areas around our property where it was no longer required. 

The cyclamens (these are an outdoorsy type) are just so bright and happy looking. They offer a lovely splash of colour to this particular garden area. They were purchased over time, as dollars would allow and it has been neat to see the vision for this particular garden area come to fruition finally. 

Don't you just love it, when something you envisage DOES work out to be just right in reality!

A punnet of cabbages planted out, has been steadily growing over several months, with many now having hearted up.

A collection of chard is doing well in this particular strip of garden. Hopefully we will have more growth soon, and then there will be plenty to add into salads in the warmer seasons.

Overall the slugs and snails were kept at bay, and only the occasional outer leaf, here and there, is showing signs of a few white butterfly pecks. There are sure to be some stir-fry meals soon on the menu.

A discounted pot of flowering chrysanthemums down to the grand total of $3.99, seemed too good a bargain to walk away from a few weeks ago. The pot contents were divided up and have now been planted out in the garden. It is to be hoped that they will enjoy their new home, out in a greater earth mix with greater room available to them.

Slowly, but surely things will soon really take off all around the garden, and the Spring growth spurt will make a big difference to how everything currently is shaping up.

The furry members of our household have all been far more keen to stay inside and keep cosy over the last months. They seem to have worked out whatever differences they may sometimes have, simply to insure that they can all mutually enjoy the benefit of resting up by a nice warm fire indoors! 

It is quite entertaining where we sometimes find each of them, parked up and blissfully sleeping through the worst of the greyness of Winter.

Soups & casseroles have been on the menu more so these past months. Hubby has been mastering the art of using the slow cooker. There is nothing quite like a cup or bowl of warm soothing soup on a cold evening is there! With the slow cooker, you also have the perk of the delicious smells that waft through the house through the day. Whoever invented the electric slow cooker, was truly a genius!

I have started to think about what I definitely want to get sorted in the garden a lot more lately, and have already started working on an area of garden that has needed some major attention for a while. Stay tuned over the next few weeks, as I will enjoy sharing the developments gradually being undertaken and occurring in this part of the garden we have deemed, The Dessert Garden. (Doesn't the very name just make you want to go peek at what is planted out there!).

So without any further news at present to really share, I will end this post here and go put on a cuppa. Ginger & Lemon Tea has been my go-to drink these past months. I am sure it has quietly helped ward of some of the usual winter ills. 

Keep warm & cosy, those of you that are fellow Southern Hemisphere Folks! There are 14 days of Winter left, and then Spring and all its gloriousness will officially be here to greet us! Yay!

P.S Feel free to go on over & like the Household Logistics Facebook Page, so you can keep up to date with what's happening over there also! Here is the link to the Household Logistics Facebook Page: /https://www.facebook.com/householdlogistics/

My Backyard Garden: Autumn Plantings & Produce

We have been busy raising the raised garden beds. We felt it would be better if they were higher (less back breaking), and so they have gone from being one sleeper in height to three.

This is the first of the actual beds that have been made higher, and in turn it has been filled and finished off with a planting out of Autumn crops. Hopefully the netting will help keep both much beloved pets and unwanted pests out of the completed raised bed from now on.

Chard, Kale, Feverfew, Beans, Parsley, Basil, Carrots and Cabbages have all taken up residence in this raised bed.

These were cabbage seedlings bought in the clearance section at The Warehouse. They are looking so much better now they are planted out in their new home in this raised bed.

A friend quite some time ago kindly gave me carrot seed she had saved as part of her own seed saving endeavours. They were the nicest carrots I think I have ever tasted!

She informed me at the time, that if you save seed for three generations it becomes perfect for your own garden's conditions. This has certainly proven to be true, in our own experience to date. I hope this latest planting of carrot seed will be successful, and I can save seed for next season also!

I had to include this photograph again of the ample harvest of grapes we are having currently. I am going to look at juicing some of the bountiful bunches of Albany Surprise Grapes we have been so delighted to see on our grapevine this year. It will be wonderful to be able to freeze it, and have it as both hot and cold drinks in the months ahead.

This caterpillar was spotted today, on the other side of our boundary fence. We had a HUGE Swan Plant in the actual garden with little activity seen on it this year. However, this plant certainly had been visited at some stage, as there are a number of crysalis and caterpillars present.

One of several crysalis found attached to a range of plants other than the original Swan Plant the caterpillars would have started out life on. I will be interested to watch these over the next few days.

Lavender always makes me think of my grandmother and maternal aunt. This flower looked so stunning and delicate in the sunlight this afternoon. 

Autumn Abundance

My Backyard

It is great when cuttings take! I recently struck several cuttings provided by a neighbour, and these were ones that took. There is something so happy about Impatience flowers. They bring such a wonderful splash of colour to a garden.

So many things are fruiting in the garden, and others are going about producing seed. When you stop and take note of all the diverse forms seed pods take, they are really quite interesting to behold.

A pot of plums. It just says 'Summer', doesn't it? We have been enjoying sampling them, and I am keen to look at making some plum jam soon also. This season we have had a lovely crop of plums.

It is just such a source of joy to wander out into the garden, reach up amongst a green canopy of leaves and find fruit ready for picking. There really is nothing quite like homegrown fruit, ready and ripened, and straight off the tree.