Today I pulled out 1 red radish from the garden, the first one for this season. This is the first time I've ever grown radish, they are actually really easy to grow here it has only been 6/7 weeks since I planted the seeds. I will definitely be growing these again.

The strawberries I planted about 3/4 months ago (in winter) have now got lots of fruits, probably another month before I can harvest, although there is one big one already that will probably be ready in 2 weeks time.

The tomatoes seedlings that I planted 2 months ago have now got lots of green tomatoes, not long now for those.

The zucchini, cucumber and beans are slowly growing.

Today was a great day. We slept in. The weather was pretty good so we decided to go for a jog. On the way to jogging we stop by at a store to buy a new iron. Our 15 year old iron (which was handed down to us 11 years ago by MIL) has not been working that well in the last couple of months, so it was time to get a new one. We looked at 2 stores and second one was slightly cheaper and was giving us a further $5 dollars off. We went for another Philips, I was looking at two models one was the cheap one for $50 and the one that we got was for $95 (this was more powerful and had an auto shut off). After we decided to get the more expensive one we found out that there is $20 cash back for this model (but none for the cheaper one). So it will end up being only $75. The sales person was of course trying to sell us the $300-400 once. Those ones claim to cut your ironing in half. Well if it cost 4 times as much I expect it to cut my ironing time to a quarter. I used the iron tonight and it was fantastic, I might actually start to like ironing - Not!

We went jogging for an hour along the river, and afterwards had little picnic. We brought sandwiches with us. We did well considering we went jogging pass one of our favourite café who make really yummy cakes. For 1 hour of jogging I put in $6 worth in the exercise challenge (xmas fund).

Afterward we came home and planted the kaffir lime, passion fruit and the strawberries that I got yesterday. I’m not too sure how the strawberries will go planting it in autumn. I hope it will survive the winter. I planted in a big bag so that I can move it around. It is an experiment; if it works I’ll be enjoying some strawberries in spring.


The bag only cost $2 and the seedlings was $2.95 and probably used about $5 worth of soil/manure/sugar cane.

After yesterday's lazy day, I was so much more productive today.

- I cleaned our bathroom, I gave it good scrub.
- Did a bit of dusting
- Vaccuumed the floors
- Got the laundry ready for tomorrow, including soaking some of the whites. We try to do our laundry on the weekend when its off-peak time for our electricity.
- Also did some gardening. I re-potted an orchid got 4 bigger pots out of it. It really needed it, I actually had to break the old pot to get it out. I got another 3 or 4 more to do. I will need to get more of the bigger pots. Also planted some of my coriander seedlings into its permanent place.
- Called and sorted my super fund (retirement fund) to get access to it online. Good news it is up, more than I expected it to be. I normally contribute to it $40 twice a month and then I get a co-contribution from the government - around $1000 per year. Because I haven't work for months now there hasn't been anymore money going into it but my little contribution.
- Cooked dinner early, no chance of take away tonight. And that made it a NSD today.

I've decided not to waste my time with the veggie garden this summer. According to the experts this is going to be a very hot summer. We just don't have enough water to have a veggie garden. Hopefully this time next year we will have a water tank but unfortunately that is not our priority right now. I also want to spend most of my energy this summer on doing more house repairs/renovations instead. I think if I plant too much it will get neglected, and it will just be a waste of time and money.

I'm thinking of still planting a couple of tomato plants and keep up with my herb garden and other plants that is already in the ground. Also DH want to get and plant a fruit tree or lime/lemon tree this year. We will probably get one and plant it this weekend. I really miss our fruit trees (esp the fig tree), we had to get rid off it because it was in a bad spot.

Hopefully the weather will be nice this weekend for gardening, we need to get our garden and lawn prep before the really hot weather comes. This should have been done a month ago but we got too busy and on our free time the weather hasn't been as co-operative.

The last few days have been very spendy, but I am hoping to get back to having NSD's again, starting today.

Yesterday (Saturday) we went out for lunch and also rented some DVD's. Overall it was pretty cheap entertainment. Rented 4 movies for $10 sure beats going to the movies where it is around $14 per adult ticket. So far we've watched Batman the Dark Knight and Taken.

Picked from the garden.





18 Jan - 2pm

I'm really killing NSD this month, after yesterday's NSD we are now up to 8 for the month. Another 4 and we will achieve our goal of having 12 NSD for the month.

Today's weather here is going to be hot so I made sure to water the vegie garden well last night. While doing that I also harvested more silverbeet (they grow so well), 3 baby zucchinis and the first cucumber for the season.

I made casserole last night, had it with steam rice. And had some extra to put in the freezer.



13 Jan - 11am

Not much to update really, yesterday was another NSD, our 5th NSD for the month...yipee. We had spag bol for dinner with salad and DH toasted some of his homemade bread and rubbed garlic on it. The leftover is for lunch.

I spent some time gardening yesterday and took some photos of the plants:



One of the basil plant/pot.



Lemongrass - not looking as good these days. I think I need to either replant the whole thing in the ground or at least replant half of it to another pot. Probably needs more watering too, this one tends to get neglected. I guess it needs more TLC.



Chilli plant - some are ready for picking.




9 Jan - 10:30am

It has been raining heavily and really windy here in the last few days. It seemed to have stopped today. All this water is really good for the plants except the tomatoes. I picked the first tomato for the season and it has a split due to too much water. Apart from that it looks tasty.

This is great time in the garden, everyday there is always new & exciting things to be found. I can now see little capsicum and okra growing. Even that once dying zucchini has now got a baby zucchini growing. And some of the eggplants are almost ready for eating.

Dinner was great tonight. I've been craving for salmon for few days now, so earlier today we went to the market to get some produce and decided to get some salmon. I cooked it for dinner tonight on a bed of steamed silverbeet and a side of mash potato and greek salad. Great tasty and healty dinner. And it was quite cheap too since some vegies and herbs were taken from the garden.

Did some more gardening this afternoon. I planted some more tomatoes and capsicum. Also did some cleaning up. I can now see a couple of baby zucchinis growing. There are a few baby eggplants now too (these were from last year's plant). I tried to take some photos but my camera is not working, I need to charge the batteries.

Oh, I finished cleaning the pantry yesterday. Now I'm thinking of re-organising the rest of the kitchen cupboards.

We had our first serving of the silverbeet, it was nice. I picked and washed it. We then just steamed it and just finished off with a little bit of butter. Really fresh and healthy.

I also picked some basil for some tomato and basil salad. Unfortunately the tomatoes were bought. Hopefully soon we will be getting some tomatoes from the garden.

I just cleaned another shelf of the pantry, 2 down 3 to go.

Dh and I just came home from watching Wicked (the musical show), it was fantastic! The best thing was it was for free, although we still spent some money on some food, drinks and parking.

Other than going to the show our weekend was spent just doing some housework and gardening. The zucchini that almost died a few weeks ago is still surviving well, even though it was the biggest seedling to start with it has caught up with the other plants. 2 of the other zucchini plants are already flowering. Also started organising the pantry again, I've managed to clean 1 whole shelf! I'm doing it one at the time because I can actually get it done that way. I've been meaning to clean this pantry for 2-3 months now and everytime I think about doing it I get so overwhelmed that I just never start it. So I think by cleaning/organising it one shelf at the time I might actually get it done.

Well that was my weekend and tomorrow is back to work again...sigh.

Update on the zucchini - it is surviving.

It finally rained the other day and since then the days has been a lot cooler, although it is starting to heat up again.

We got up early today and did a lot of planting - lettuces, silver beets, rockets, more zucchinis, tomatoes, cucumbers and sunflowers. Now we just need to get the birds, snails and other nasties. It's a constant stuggle with those things.


These are the strawberries that I managed to pick from the garden today too. The strawberries were actually planted last year. We are actually getting more fruit from them this year, although the birds got some of them. I have now resorted to putting a net to keep them out.

Today's weather was a lot hotter than expected and it might have killed the zucchini I transplanted yesterday. Even though I watered it this morning before leaving for work it still got burnt. I don't know if it is going to survive, tomorrow is going to be really hot again but it is going to cool down in the late afternoon. I'm hoping the watering it got this afternoon will help it survive. Lucky I didn't plant all the zucchini seedlings yesterday.

I did some gardening late this afternoon, planted some zucchini and pumpkin in the ground. There are still more seedlings that needs planting but I think I'm going to wait until the weekend when hopefully the weather will be a bit cooler. It's a bit hot here in the next few days, the seedlings might not survive it. I did some weeding to get the area ready for it.

A tomato that I planted last month has now got couple of fruits. Can't wait to have fresh tomatoes from the garden again. The basils are also going along just in time for the tomatoes. Tomato and basil salad is my favourite.