Commiejones

The tomato house is picking up speed. In the next week it'll get past the tipping point where it is producing more than we want to eat. The yellow ones have a really lemony flavor and the darker ones have a deep umami flavor to them.

The funny shaped one in the middle is a random cross breed that came up on its own in the garden last year. It will be the starting point for our personal breed they are really sweet, fleshy, and have a good crunch to them. There is only the one in the picture because I keep eating them as soon as they are ready.

Just a little tigerella with some black opal basil. I'm waiting till the grow house is really popping before posting pictures of the whole thing.

This will be where we grow tomato's and basil this season.

Its probably 7m^2^ of growing area and over 2m in the center so I wont have to duck. We used recycled and natural (aka free) materials for the frame.

So it needs some trimming and I have to build a window but its 85% done. We'll lay down a layer of paper bags, steal a bit of soil from the garden where we've been burying our compost all winter and top it up with some hay and sheep poo. It'll have some shade cloth thrown over it in summer to keep things from cooking.

I'm really happy how its come together and I only got angry and had a fit like a dozen times during the process. Either I am getting better at building stuff or I am getting better at not freaking out and smacking the dirt with a hammer when the slightest thing goes wrong.

This is a spiral broccoli (spiroccoli) it is not ready but I want to eat it. I will wait a few more days. Then in a week or 2 I will have so many of them I will have to give them away.

Winter is over and things have gone great.

The broccoli is starting to get florets. They are a bit later than we were expecting but that's what happens when you live further from the equator. We've got some cabbages cauliflower and Korabi as well but they aren't quite as far along.

The first 2 clutches of chicks are getting their wing feathers. Pretty sure we got lots of boys. We managed to sell them all last season so fingers crossed. We've sent off almost 150 eggs for hatching and we were just starting this time last year.

The Garlic is going gangbusters with 4 more months to go. We had to freeze a few kilos from last season's harvest because they started to rot. Its kinda disappointing because we lost well over 5 kg but now we know how long it will last and how much fresh stuff we should keep for eating and thus how much of our harvest we can sell.

Our Parsley is going amazingly and the broad beans are just starting to flower.

Last seasons Pumpkins have ripened really well. We had to harvest them a bit early and we weren't sure how they'd but they have lots of pumpkin flavor and they aren't too sweet. (I find really sweet pumpkins ruin soups and things that are meant to be more savory)

We are still getting chillies and the odd capsicum from last years plants in our glass house and we've got some seedlings to relace the ones that didn't make it through the winter. and I'm in the process of building another glasshouse for our tomatoes.

Lots of work to do but barring some disaster the future is looking bright.

I spent most of yesterday and a bunch of the day before helping a baby Chicken get out of its shell. You aren't supposed to do that but it was over a day behind its siblings and hadn't been able to pop the shell.

It was cold and alone in the nest while mommy and her babies were running around. It would have died but my lady felt it wiggling in the egg. We could feel it tapping and hear its little chirps but it couldn't get out. We got a hot water bottle and made a wam nest for the egg in a beanie (toque for you Canucks) We figured it would die in the egg when its air sack ran out or maybe us helping could save it. So we shaved a tiny hole in the egg where it was tapping. Beanie, as we started to call it, wasn't going to die gasping.

We put the egg in with its momma overnight hoping she could handle the rest herself and momma would wake up with her last baby hatched.

Beanie wasn't out of her egg in the morning. The hole we made was much larger and we could see a little beak but the chick hadn't been able to spin around to "unzip." We brought her back inside into the beanie hot water bottle nest. We got a wet cloth to help keep the membranes in the egg from drying out and shrink wrapping around beanie. we did some more research and found someone who had performed the blasphemous procedure we were attempting. We chipped away bits of the shell being careful to not disturb the inner membrane as the chicks circular system is attached to it. The first little mistake made us slow down dramatically. I felt so bad as the little red spot grew and relived when it stopped growing. Once there was a large enough hole in the egg the membrane started to dry out as Beanie pulled all the blood out of it.

Beanie was kicking but but still seemed unable to get free for the egg. The membrane was too strong and too tight. So we got some warm water and a cotton tip and started rehydrating the membrane where Beanie was putting pressure. suddenly the membrane ripped. We kept moistening as beanies little feet and wings pushed out until finally we had an empty egg and a sweet little peeper.

We coddled her in her beany for the rest of the day worrying about whether her feet were messed up or if her feathers would fluff up properly. By the time all the other chooks were in bed she had fluffed up revealing her to be a beautiful golden girl. We put her with her mom and 10 siblings overnight because keeping her warm is hard work for people.

This morning she is still a bit slow compared to her siblings so she is hanging out with me and eating the crumbs off my shirt. She is happy and healthy and a pest.

Planted them 2 months ago. Around 800 cloves and so far no duds. I still need to figure out where and how I am going to cure them but I've got 7 months to figure that out.

For all you North hemisphere folks looking into the bleakness of winter I present my garden. I'm not a photographer but I started with some pictures of my Dill and Cilantro because I've never had them go so well (they call it coriander down under even though the rest of the world understands that coriander is just the seed) And then I just kept snapping pictures.

First of the herb garden. Then the corn/beans/pumpkin patch. Then the carrots and parsnip (you aren't supposed to plant them together but whatever) The potatoes (they look way better in that picture than real life) My first Rose. A weird colored Nasturtium and the flower wall below our glass house. Another Nasturtium, some carnations, Calendula and clover, sages and salvias. (the purple sage smells like bubble hash and makes me want to get high) Some Cherries, strawberries and then the garlic that is almost done curing.