Oh dear...
Well, I have prooved my point about not being able to grow a thing and having no green thumbs to speak of.... Of our 5 little herb seedlings we planted last weekend: Not one survived.
Partially - in our defense! - this was because 2 days after we planted the little babies, we had a freak hailstorm (hail the size of marbles!) and there was a bit of damage to their delicate little fronds.
The rest has been eaten by... Something.
Damn.
So far, our food growing/homesteading/'feed our whole family from the garden' dream is looking pretty grim. 0/5. Not only was I feeling particularly glum about this failure, but then found that one of our poor hens had fallen into a horse water trough while we'd been out, and drowned. And another is looking like she's not long for this world (although I suspect that's more to do with her age, than bad luck).
It's hard not to feel disheartened. How do we combat a pest in our veggie patch when we're not even sure what it is?! Rabbits? Slugs? Birds? Will this be our fate?: Working hard and spending a fortune to feed the wildlife?!
Something that is still feeding us, however is the citrus - THANK GOODNESS FOR THE CITRUS! It has served to keep my faith that we can grow food here! Oh sure, the cockatoos take a share of the oranges, but we can afford to share! There's plenty to go round!
Katie's latest favourite activity is to pick a bucket of oranges off the tree, juice them all like crazy, and make orange icypoles! It's wonderful knowing she's learning about where food comes from, but also making a preservative/refined sugar free snack, and she can do it all by herself!
And I found a wonderful EASY MICROWAVE LEMON CURD recipe which I have been making use of to use up all those lemons!
Now Im including this without permission from the author - but only because I dont know how to contact her to ask her! But it's just too good not to include, and full credit goes to Nancy Johnson of Speers Court - Nancy, I hope you dont mind! x
Easy Microwave Lemon Curd
(Makes about 600mls-ish.)
180ml lemon juice
zest of all the juiced lemons (I only actually used zest of 2 lemons)
4 egg yolks
3 eggs extra
3/4 cup caster sugar
125g unsalted butter
Place all ingredients into a microwave proof bowl and microwave on medium for 6-8 min stopping to whisk every minute. (You know it's done when it thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon)
I strained the zest out of mine before I chilled it, but you certainly dont have to!
How do you keep pests out of your garden?
What do your kids/grandkids love to cook?
Just heading out to put some wire over that water trough: Chooks cant swim well. Apparently.
RIP little chookie x
Such a shame about the seedlings, they are a bit delicate until they are big and strong and the roots often don't take kindly to being transplanted before they are robust and growing well, unless it is soft well nourished soil.
ReplyDeleteSnails and slugs HATE sawdust, so get hold of some and surraound your at risk plants, they will not cross over it. Possums Love parsley, so they may be eating that.
You could try growing herbs etc. in containers close to the house on the deck or whatever, and see if that effects the survival rate....good luck ...try again.
Thanks Maragret. I think we jumped in too early... we are in a much better position now!
Delete