Make your own compost tumbler

For a total of $35 I made my own compost tumbler. I spent $15 for the old cherry barrel from the markets and $20 for the castor wheels from Bunnings. I had a panel cut out and a hinge and latch screwed on to act as a door. I also drilled some holes along the top and bottom of the barrel for ventilation. Just a tip, don't make the holes too big or a lot of dirt will come out when you tumble.



The castors where bolted to Josh's old play table that he no longer uses so it was great to recycle it for this project.



Close up shot of one of the castor wheels.



Close up of the latched opening.



Close up of the hinge on the panel.



Tumble away Josh!!

Lavender tea

The lavender plants I planted last year when I started my veggie patch have started to bloom. While I get to work thinking about what to do with all the lovely flowers I decided to make myself a lavender tea. When you don't drink tea or coffee it can be hard finding something nice and warm to drink in the winter time.


I like to make all my infused teas in this cup which I bought in a shop in Berrima over 10 years ago. You can see it's had it's fair share of chips and breaks but I can't bear to throw it out.


I love that it has it's own steeper to put your herbs into, then you pop it's little lid on to keep the volatile oils from escaping with the steam.


Then, when you're ready to drink it, you can pop the steeper onto the upside down turned lid.

Today's veggie harvest

Today I harvested the following from my veggie patch:









zucchini and flowers
green chilli
green beans
eggplant
corn

I'm going to look up how to save the seeds from these plants and then I'll use my steamer to steam them and then place them in my freezer.

Veggie patch update

I can't believe how big my vegetable patch has grown. I've been fortunate with the weather that we have been having and already have a harvest of lettuce, green beans and sugar snap peas.

Mulching

The arborists are in today mulching away...

Bin for scraps

This is the bin I use to keep all my food scraps in until they are ready to be dug into the garden. I haven't started the actual compost heap yet, I'll be tackling that shortly. I use newspaper folded in two different ways to line both the sides and bottom to save the container from getting too yucky. When it's almost full I pull it all out via the paper and just bury the whole lot somwhere in the garden.

Tree felling

Well it finally happened - the trees got chopped down!! I had been waiting since we first bought this place 3 years ago for this event and I am so thrilled. The backyard is slowly coming together and one day will be the lovely green area that I envisioned when I first saw the property.
Hubby (on the right in his work gear) and Ron, my brother in law took 4 hours to get them all down with a chainsaw and rope system. I didn't get a chance to take pictures of the roping as I had Joshua to deal with who was being his usual curious self and getting too close for my liking so we had to retreat inside until it was safe. All that's left is to get a tree fellar/arborist in to quote us on the stump grinding and mulching. Can't wait to use it all.

My veggie patch

With mum's lovely help I finally set up my first attempt at a vegetable garden. Here are some pictures.
I had been digging all my food scraps into the area over the last year so the soil was absoulutely rich with nutrients. We just needed to buy a bag of cow manure to help it along further.
In the square brick area I've got lettuce, spring onion, carrots and capsicums. In the long area there's corn, tomatos, beans, snow peas, eggplant, zucchini and capsicum. We also dotted the area with marigold plants.
The long empty area is just a bed that we prepared whilst we decide what to plant. The other empty looking area has lavendar planted in it. Don't mind the pile of greenery from all the trees we chopped down recently!