Weekend activities - upcycling!

Here's what we got up to this weekend in the sunshine. Perth's winter is definitely over (in fact I'd ask if it came at all!).

Hope your weekend has been just as enjoyable!

Happy gardening!

Worms go on the move

On Monday this week, I went to Clancy's school to help the kids set up a worm farm, as part of their gardening set up. They currently have a large raised garden bed (shown below planted out in February this year), a small rainwater tank (set up by the ever-resourceful Daddy, Simon), and now have a lovely worm farm to complete the cycle!


I grabbed a few set up tips from the Town of Cambridge worm farm fact sheet and draw up a worm-inspired sign, so the kids can be sure they are keeping a good eye on their worms.
So, these are basic facts for keeping your worms happy and healthy:

1. Worms love sweet, not sour (i.e. not citrus, onions, garlic, etc).
2. Worms love dark not light (keep in shaded position with lid on and carpet or cardboard as a cover).
3. Worms love moist not dry (test by squeezing a handful of castings to test for moisture - that's fun!).
4. Use "worm wee" 1:10 (or 1L to 10L water) for your plants - they'll LOVE you for it!
5. Feed small amounts frequently to avoid a smelly worm farm (it should smell like a damp forest or fresh earth).

I used coco for the "bed" layer on the first level, then we gave the worms some edible items on the second "kitchen/dining" layer, using some old leaves, soggy cardboard and some green weedy scraps. We covered the layer with wet newspaper and then let them settle in for the week before giving them further food, which the kids will now do on Mondays and Fridays.

The kids loved holding the worms and feeling them wriggling in their hands - they were so keen! They thought the idea of "worm wee" was pretty funny too! Love the happy curiosity of kids!

Happy gardening!

Goodbye carrots and beetroot

So ends our beetroot and carrots! And a fine display they put on too and kept the kids interested and involved in garden adventures!



Great to see both Alfie and Clancy develop confidence in gardening as they explored whether the vegies were ready to pick or needed more time. And fun too just to pick and eat straight from the ground (or bush, in the case of the snow peas!) - with a quick wash of course :-)

Now we can start to think about spring crops - oh, the choices!

Happy gardening!

Kids in the garden

Alfie will be one next month - who knows where the time has gone! As he engages more, especially outdoors, I'm reminded of when Clancy was a toddler and how we spent lots of time out in the garden when we lived in Canberra.

Now Alfie can spread his wings (or should that be green thumbs?) in the garden! How do you best engage the highly physical toddler without unleashing total garden destruction? My answer is pots.




And a big sister helps too! Alfie follows Clancy everywhere and no doubt is learning heaps from observing her and then copying where he can! He was stoked to "help" sow some peas in these colourful pots. If he decides they need not be in pots anymore, well, at least he hasn't destroyed the bigger garden beds! :-)

I've also noticed that Clancy can now focus on the whole process of choosing and filling pots, choosing seeds, sowing, watering - the lot, when she only need deal with one or two pots. This detailed experience combined with the bigger picture experience of exploring the garden in its entirety (we often walk a circuit in the morning to check everything out) is a good overall development process I reckon.

Little jobs, exploring and discovering, pretend plantings (planting cut flowers for example) all help to develop Clancy and no doubt Alfie into engaged and confident gardeners!

And if course it's simply gotta be good fun... Happy gardening!

Millipedes!!

Perth has been inundated with the pesky millipede lately, but they didn't count on Clancy!! Two benefits: Clancy gets to explore the world of bugs while ridding the garden of our mini plague of millipedes!

Some say they are of some benefit in the garden, but probably not so when in plague proportions!







Happy gardening!

Gardening companions

Clancy decided our garden needed a scarecrow. And he couldn't be happy, he had to be an angry scarecrow to scare the birds away!



The weather has been warm enough to give our seeds a cracking start too. The beetroots are already surfacing, as are the peas and beans planted at the same time. Its been barely a week!

Haven't seen the carrots yet. I have a feeling the seed was old. Will give them a week's grace.

Enjoying Autumn, happy gardening!

It's Autumn, what shall we plant?

Clancy and I are looking at the Gardening Australia Vegie Guide to see what we can plant in our garden beds, now the Summer seems to be over.

We found this article by Millie Ross which shows how to plant out a bean chubby house! Clancy thought that would be very cool :o). As our grapevine is beginning to lose its leaves, it would be good to plant beans at the end of the raised bed that is next to the vine so we can string the beans across to it to provide a tent-like cover for Clancy (and Alfie) to play under. Worth experimenting anyway.

Other things Clancy would like in the garden include beetroot, potatoes (we haven't planted them in our Perth garden yet, only back in Canberra, Clancy says), sweet potatoes and of course some purple, yellow and orange flowers!

Happy gardening!

Our first Okra!

Our first Okra! a photo by margoc on Flickr.

Aint it cute? :o)
Here's hoping for more...!

Happy gardeing!