In The Garden: Getting My Geek On

So it's been a tumultuous kind of week or two round these parts, but hopefully things are heading back to normal-ish. I can live in hope anyway!!

Aside from drinking a tonne of coffee, any down time this week has seen me embracing my inner garden nerd. I've had my nose stuck firmly in some of my favourite organic gardening books and planning what we'll be planting in August/September, and figuring out how our crop rotation system is going to work. I've also been planning out the front garden, which we'll plant in September/October.

Toby is having his christening next weekend, so it's all hands on deck to get the place looking good before then, but once that's over I'll be garden-crazy all the way. I really want to have the beds in place and the soil worked on by the time August comes. (Or maybe the middle of August.)     

There are a gazillion different gardening resources out there, but in the effort to keep it as simple as possible I've decided to choose two or three resources and just stick to their advice, otherwise I find one book will contradict another and I just wind up confused.

So in case you're keen on starting your own vege garden, I thought I'd list the resources I'm going to stick with as I build and start the garden.

Organic Gardening magazine is great, but they have recently released their third Essential Guide, and they are all excellent. You can buy the newest one online, and the others on special order or from ABC shops:
- Getting Started (bed construction, composting, soil, growing in pots etc)
- Fruit (A-Z of fruits to grow at home)
- Veges (A-Z of veges to grow at home)

City Food Growers website is awesome. There are free and paid versions of the subscription (the paid version is so worth the $50 a year) and it will personalise the planting details based on your postcode, as well as offer a list of the best plants for your area, when to plant, what to plant with and common pests and diseases. It's incredibly helpful and I find I look at it most days when I'm trying to figure out what I'll be planting.

Gardenate app for iPhone. It has less detailed information that the City Food Growers website but it has the benefit of being portable, and it has a Garden Notes section where you list what you planted and when, and it will track the harvesting progress for you. Handy to keep track of the details that seem so simple at the time but will get pretty fuzzy pretty quickly.

So that's where we're at currently. And thank goodness for the gardening distraction, otherwise the past weeks may have seen me consume way too much wine and chocolate! Gardening as therapy = win!

Play Time!

Playdough by ragamufyn on Flickr

I've recently rediscovered a book that one of my sisters gave to me a couple of years ago. It's called Creative Play for Your Baby and it focuses on simple, home-made toys that encourage parents and kids to play meaningfully with each other, while teaching little tackers about concepts like caring, love, role play and imagination, as well as the value of handmade creations.

I have to admit that I didn't take too much from the book when Isy was younger, but upon re-reading I've been really struck by the simplicity of the toys and activities and the importance of little ones learning imaginative and creative play from an early age.

I get it, kids like toys. But I feel like toys have gotten out-of-hand complicated. After Christmas this year I think lasted about a week on Toy Mountain before going on a sorting spree and putting two-thirds of the kids toys away. I plan to rotate them every few weeks (I'm not mean, I promise!) but it just gives us space and means we're not constantly surrounded by a thousand bright, loud plastic things. Now I feel that Isla plays with her toys. She's not so overwhelmed by the sheer volume of toys that she races from one to another.

Today we spent hours playing with cardboard boxes, balls of wool (I'm on a pom-pom making binge) clothes pegs, balloons and Little People. I know none of this is ground-breaking, but it's just been a really nice reminder to me that kids are happy to play anywhere, anytime and that their imaginations will take over when given the opportunity.

On the cards for the coming weeks are a few projects featured in the book, including a pom-pom menagerie and a mobile for Tobes, as well as a family of simple soft dollies for Isla.


It's times like these that I really, really wish I could sew. But I really, really can't.

The rest of the week is shaping up to be garage-sale-prep-alicious, with so many old books and CDs getting the ol' heave-ho, along with furniture, knick-knacks and homewares. I seriously can't wait.

Loving it crazy: Homegrown Evolution

Hay bale image from Fir0002

I was recently reading a Design*Sponge Small Measures post on eco and green-living books (super score - I've googled all of them and discovered about 5 new favourite similar minded folk!) and one that I was really intrigued by was The Urban Homestead by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen.

Anyway, turns out they have a blog, Homegrown Evolution, and I'm loving it a little crazy right now. Their mix of gardening, green living tips, insight into the way they're shifting their lifestyle all the while living in a normal, urban area and just really cool information (like the difference between hay and straw - who knew?! Actually I'm sure lots of people know. Just not me.) is more-ish and very very readable. Plus I like how well they articulate issues and thoughts that I roll around inside my head for days before writing about them.

Thought you may enjoy taking a peek while I go and clean up the almighty mess left by our no-longer-present garage. It's either that or playdough. Tough call.