Banksia in Flower

As promised, here are some photos of our Banksia tree in flower which has bloomed this winter right on cue. As suspected, the flowers are medium sized and yellow and are already attracting birds to sip on the nectar. We gave this a light pruning about a month ago and that doesn't seemed to have bothered it. We'll be keeping this tree, although some of the others like the Geisha Girl have to go to make room for things more productive, like a lemon tree which is our number one wish!

a medium sized yellow Banskia flower

looking up at blue skies through the Banksia canopy

Veggie Patch Winter 2013

The small 1m x 1m veggie patch has already turned out to be productive and earning it's keep. The spinach has been particularly successful, providing evening meals greens several times already with lots more left. We added some beetroot to last weekend's casserole which turned it red but also very yummy! The beetroot is naturally sweet and very tasty. I haven't been fertilising this yet even though its been up for a couple of months. When the spinach is finished I will have to fertilise the strawberries if there's any hope of getting any fruit. I don't like our chances of that!

this 1m x 1m veggie patch has spinach and beetroot, with strawberries in each corner

There's isn't much else to report from my garden at the moment due to the move and reducing the number of pots we have. The rosemary is still going well and the two lavender plants are currently flowering. The basil is looking pretty scrawny, I'm thinking of putting some small plants in the ground. If I get around to it!

Pipecleaners and a Strainer

Here's another no-mess toddler activity that doesn't cost much money. I spent just $2 on some pipe-cleaners from K-mart and used my large plastic strainer from the kitchen. Again, this is a great fine-motor activity for young children. I saw this idea on pinterest, and decided this would be safe for Thomas with supervision. On the packet, the pipe-cleaners say they are a choking hazard for under 3 year olds, but I couldn't see it! Maybe if he was chewing on a pipe-cleaner for a while, a small piece of metal might come loose, but he would have to be chewing on it for a while I think! But just to be sure, I sit with him during this activity.

poking pipecleaners through the holes in a strainer is great to help develop fine-motor coordination

Spaghetti and Cheerio's

Here is a low-mess and cheap activity that has quickly become a favourite for Thomas, an idea I got from pinterest. When he wants to play with the play-dough, I sometimes give him a few pieces of uncooked spaghetti and a small cup of cheerio's. I then encourage him to thread the cheerio's onto the spaghetti sticking up out of the play-dough. This is a great fine-motor activity, perfect for developing hand-eye coordination and finger control in preparedness for learning to write. Play-dough like this lasts well for a month in the fridge. This photo was taken a couple of weeks ago, the formally pink and blue play-dough is now a deep rich shade of purple!

spagetti and cheerios added to a play-dough session

Lemon and Coconut Birthday Cake

July is my birthday month, and we celebrated it a few weeks ago with this delicious cake! My husband made this devine lemon and coconut cake, it was just what I wanted! We found the recipe on taste.com, we found you need to let the cake cool before cutting it otherwise its very crumbly.

we had lemon and coconut cake for my brithday, it was delicious!

Wiggly Worms and Pancakes with Play-dough

Last night David and I made some play-dough, seeing as we've decided to keep Thomas home from day-care for now at least, so we need to find more activities to do with him. And the playdough was a success, this morning Thomas has already played with it for two spurts of 15 minutes each, and I'll drag it out again later today.

Thomas squishing play-dough with his fingers

making wriggly worms with play-dough

He made "wiggly worms" and "pancakes", then a tower of worms and pancakes, then pancake worms. Often he would intently squish small pieces of play-dough between his fingers. This is a great activity to develop the muscles in his hands in preparation for fine motor skills like writing. We used a recipe at bestrecipes.com.au, it was easy enough for me to do so will have to make more again, possibly next week.

a tower of toddler made wriggly worms and pancakes

Love Heart Shortbreads

I just made these shortbreads in the shape of love hearts, following a recipe on the Nigella Lawson webiste. It was easy enough for me, I'm not much of a cook, and my husband did help a little, too. They tasted just how I like shortbread, not too sweet, and nice and buttery. They worked out so well I felt inspired to share, my apologies for not blogging much this month. This photo was taken with my new camera, a lack of a good camera dampens the inclination to blog! Hopefully this camera works out now.

love heart shortbreads made following a Nigella Lawson recipe

Turmeric Harvest 2013

On the weekend we decided to pull up our tumeric, and this year's harvest didn't disappoint! Turmeric seems to really enjoy our climate and each year we've planted it it rewards us with a year's supply of turmeric, this year is no exception.

a year's supply of turmeric, with some ginger, lime and chilli

Here is this year's turmeric harvest, along with a couple of pieces of freshly grown ginger, some chillies and a few more limes from our 4 year old potted lime tree.

Making a Raised Bed Veggie Patch

My father-in-law Brian bought us this 1m x 1m raised bed to replace Tom's Garden, a wooden box he made which fell apart after about a year.

we're starting with a 1m x 1m raised bed for our veggie patch

We half filled the bottom with home-mulched calistimon, and threw 4 handfuls of dynamic lifter in there with it. Then we covered the mulch with newpaper and wet it down. On top of that we put some top soil from our side garden and some kitchen scraps to start composting. We mixed in the food scraps and left it for a couple of weeks.

Lastly we went and bought a big 65 L bag of premium potting mix and 2 x 25 L bags of ready made compost, and put that on top which filled the raised bed, with a few more handfuls of dynamic lifter. On the weekend, Brian paid a visit and brought some seedlings with him so we planted them out. We have lettuce, spinach and beetroot in there now, and I'm hoping to get some fresh strawberry plants to go in the corners. Lets see how it goes!

Spiral Hat in leaf, lavender and lotus

Here is a toddler sized spiral hat from my own design which I made especially for a custom order. The spiral creates an uneven edge, so I intentionally finshed with asymmetrical scallops. Its truly a unique design, I wish I could write the pattern down to share but I'm quite a ways off that yet. I've been working on publishing my patterns for more simpler hats which has proven to be quite a lot of work, so I can only imagine how hard this pattern will be to write!

spiral hat in 3 colours, leaf, lavender and lotus

 The start begins with 5 increasing rounds, the first of that is actually 2 rounds of sc. After about 5 rounds the increasing stops and the sides of the hat are worked. When the required length is reached, 60 stitches are divided by 3 and that is divided by 4 for the scallops. The scallops collapse onto the previous colour as shown in the picture above to create an asymmetrical effect. The spiral itself is quite difficult and hard to explain. I will keep making them in the hope one day I will have worked out a way to write it down in a pattern so it can be shared.

detail of the asymmetrical edge

closeup of the asymmetrical scalloped edge

spiral detail of the crown of the hat