August 2021 Update

I can’t believe it’s almost the end of August. It’s been such a strange year. On the one hand it’s been quite hard / exhausting with the Covid situation getting so much worse in Australia, advocating for one of my kids at school to get the support she needs, dealing with my own mental health, perimenopause, and learning how to manage my neurodiversities. But on the other hand I am really loving what I have done with Bayside Homestead and my honesty stall so far; I have other opportunities opening up to me as well, which is pretty exciting; and I am making some good progress with learning to live with the way I operate rather than feeling I need to fit into someone else’s idea of how the world should work. So it’s all very mixed emotions around here!

Anyway… what’s been happening? Well garden wise we tidied up the herb garden, I mulched the asparagus bed, pulled out the beans I had growing in the netted bed and planted some pak choy and daikon there, and I pulled out the remains of the Mini Amish tomatoes and put in some beans, artichoke, turnip, carrots, and a capsicum in there. I need a name for that bed, for now it is Bed A. In the top half I have carrots and San Marzano tomatoes – I’m not sure how good an idea it was to put carrots in with the tomatoes, but never mind. Live and learn.

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One of the things I’ve been trying to do is narrow down exactly which vegetables and herbs we want to grow. and then figure out how to have a relatively good supply of those. I have a tendency to read a list of what can be grown and want to plant everything. But there’s really no point if a) we don’t eat it or b) it’s not really worth the garden space to grow it. I’m still learning but so far the list is: zucchini, eggplant, rosemary, thyme, oregano, dill, taragon, basil, chili, asparagus, beans, snow peas, capsicum, tomatoes, carrots, spring onions, chives, spinach, rocket, asian greens (pak choy, bok choy, etc).

I’ve also got a crop of garlic in that should be ready to be harvested next month I think. It’s an experiment to see if we get a reasonable crop and if it is worth the space/time or not. I put some mesh down to stop the cat from sitting there but I think something has been getting underneath it and digging as there is a hole next to a couple of the plants. But what on earth would want to eat the garlic (other than us)?

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Apart from gardening I’ve been crocheting in the evenings. This is one of the baskets I made and it’s actually gone off to a customer! *squee* I’m nervous to see what she things of it – I think it should arrive by next week.

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And with it being winter I cooked one of my favourites, Pulled Pork. I am a big fan of recipes where you can do one cooking session and then get several serves to put away into the freezer for times when you can’t be bothered to cook. It’s much quicker and cheaper than takeaway! I used to cook it on the oven but I tried it in the slow cooker this time and that makes it even easier and cheaper as you aren’t heating up a big oven for several hours.

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