Lucky she's cute!

Sunraysia Farmers Market yesterday morning.

The dogs have to be patient and wait till after the market for their daily walk.

The older ones are used to the routine but

Stella puppy struggles.

After market aftermath

I am not convinced she acted alone

I am sure a fabulous time was had by all

Nothing a rake and a few moments can't fix.

Lucky she's cute.

Its hard to get a good photo of them all at once.

Digital delay leaves many seconds for them to wander off, look the other way

or harangue the photographer.

More Farm Gate Gardens open day

It really was a beautiful garden.  

Many little garden rooms and plenty of bench seats scattered throughout.

Not much lawn....not enough for a family game of backyard cricket

the up side of that is not much lawn mowing

Perhaps just a bit too much decoration and little bits of this and that.

But

All in all there was something for every one.

 Lots of plants with the wow factor

It is easy to see why this plant is called the bird of paradise

These are from the same artists as the crazy birds. 

They tell me the duck is a new design.

  I am inspired to continue to work towards opening my garden to the general public.

I know I would like to see more vegetable gardening examples.

Open gardens are generally ornamental types.

Vegetable gardens can be very beautiful as well as useful.

I have to confess I have been slipping some flowers into the vege circles

I think luscious leafy green circles are impressive but the compliment of Asters around the edge just made the whole thing more impressive.

I sold many bunches of flowers from those Aster plants.

Farm Gate Gardens Open weekend

I am not fond of two day markets but the setting for this Cancer research fundraiser

was so beautiful I enjoyed having a stall.

We took the nursery section of our regular market stall.

There was a steady stream of garden lovers all day, many veteran green thumbs

and several fresh faced beginners who were full of anticipation 

We had many of the Salvias that featured in the garden for sale in 3 inch pots.

Anything that was flowering was popular.

I had small crimson chrysanthemums in flower, they were my best seller.

 There were some Garden Art people there with their creations

I am very fond of these crazy birds, bought one for my mother in law



 for her 80th last year
They have such quirky expressions

I was very pleased to have them guarding our plants over the weekend

 The garden is just like a 1/4 acre house block but seems much bigger.

Paths meander through many different garden rooms that are filled with points of interest.

OH & S spoils all the fun. The kids fort is now out of bounds

Loved the bird house village

This path leads to the cafe area, all under shade sails and filled with plants.

This is the vege garden section, a good lot of herbs but I would need more silverbeet

 .

We set out our tins to make a rainbow, but difficult to get the full impact,

 it did make it easy to find the produce.

Having trouble uploading photos today so I will save some up for my next post

Good Friday dust storm

Getting ready for the Saturday market.

Packing tins of plants

Its a constant game of memory, now where were those Oregano's?

Not too much Camel damage in the flower patch

Flowers all picked and ready to be bunched

I was so busy I didn't notice the storm rolling in.

The breeze was nice, blew some of the mosquitos away!

I did have to re-sleeve the flowers as they were all splatted with mallee dust.

Market was a huge success.

Camel in the vege patch

I was out in the garden to collect the eggs when

I noticed a huge hole in the edge of my fresh circle.

I started to curse the puppy thinking she had taken to burying that skull

she has been carting around.

 As I got closer it was a very neat hole

no evidence of any bones?

The garlic I planted in the centre of the circle has come up already.

There were several of these large holes and they seemed to be in some sort of order?

Camel foot prints, as large as dinner plates.

Winston must have decided to have a closer look at the garden.

When I looked about there was not much damage,

If he had been in there he did not touch the rocket or silver beet.

I should have put something to compare the footprint size. Dinner plate is quite accurate.

Later that day I actually caught him in there......couldn't find my camera but took a picture with the mobile phone. I can't seem to find the phone now?

 Lucky for me he was eating everything in my 2nd circle of circles which is all weeds this year.

Wow I got lucky. Next weekend is the biggest market of the year.

The last thing I need  is for a camel to eat all the leafy greens, herbs and flowers, which is what he did when he walked into the backyard a few years ago.

Needless to say I fixed the electric fence this afternoon. Fingers crossed it worked.

MS and I have been working on the house the last few weekends.

The cladding should have gone on years ago. You just can't rush these things.

The front door got a make over also. M's dad made the front door and it's original paint had all worn off.

 All the windows are getting the paint treatment. I felt like a new home owner.

20 + yrs late with that feeling. Shame I am not steady on a ladder anymore.

This next bit is my favourite as it never even had any cement sheet and was a spider haven.

I really hated it. Now I am really impressed, every time I go through the back door.

 

 There is a cap for the corner....Yet to be secured, waiting for the last of the ripple iron to go on.

Backyard is a bit of an OH&S nightmare at the moment.

Might be the motivating factor to complete the job. Easter is coming so there will be time to finish.

After the market that is.

I noticed that the garlic seed plants from last year had re sprouted

The ones I had potted up for the market,

They died down, disappeared over summer.

Several times I nearly reclaimed the dirt..........

.........thank goodness for labels!

Then I though OK if they have sprouted...

What has happened to the ones I parked in the paddock?

I am a bit shocked by the weeds, where have I been?

Where is the garlic?

There they are.

Now I have to be careful when I weed to reveal the garlic

 the weeds blend so well.

Stella puppy is also a danger down here, nice sandy digging

She did dig one up

These 1 year old bulbils are now the size of a pickled onion and will be a guaranteed big clove

when replanted in fresh ground and left till December.

I will leave them where they are for now until I have prepared the new ground.

Garlic should be always planted in fresh ground.

We have a market free weekend coming up so there is a chance it might happen. 

Yesterday I accidentally pulled up a freesia when weeding with gusto.

I hadn't realised they had come up.

I am still in summer mode, not spring bulbs.

Made me think that I really need to start planning for spring.

I have to confess I came inside and did an online bulb order while the thought was fresh in my mind.

Cheques in the mail.

I am excited.

I call it Rogue Red

It's a salvia, one of the annual ones.

Some people might consider it a weed.

Once you have it flowering it will grace you with flowers here there and every where.

I did get annoyed with its rabid habits but,

Given it is so easy to pull out I have decided that I am lucky indeed

to have such beautiful weeds.

Its bright, cheerful and determined.

I gain a lot of inspiration from it's attitude and perseverance.

I also really like garlic chive flowers

My sculpture students are studying ephemeral sculpture at the moment.

We went out into my forest for a class the other day.

I have a new found respect for Andy Goldsworthy. I tried to emulate his stick aperture.

Its a lot harder than it looks.

I have started to wonder if he mostly uses pine sticks, they would be very straight.

I am going to continue to work on it

Might collect the sticks in anticipation of some spare time to play.

The dogs were very keen to help with the sticks.

Tina wove a dress from the grasses.

She used leaves to make the frill at the bottom of the dress.

Back in the garden I have been busy with a new circle.

This next photo shows the previous new circle in full production, silver beet and rocket galore.

And now for the new one. I have continued with the doughnut experiment.

I have planted the centre with garlic.

I planted some of my best cloves in this circle so I am expecting

HUGE cloves from here in December.

Anyone would think it was warm

Stella is hard to capture on camera as she rarely sits still.