Fruit trees and fruit fly

I thought more for my record than anything I would write a list of what fruit trees we have in growing.

*Mulberry x2 (black & white)
*Pomegranate x2
*Kaffir Lime
*Lemon (Lots of Lemons)
*Mandarin (Emperor)
*Orange (Washington Navel)
*Blueberry x2
*Apricot (Bulida)
*Cherry (Stella)
*Plums (Santa Rosa & Mariposa)
*Mango (Grown from seed)
*Almond (Self pollinating)
*Loquat
*Nectarine x3
*Apple (Granny Smith & Lady Williams)
*Quince
*Grapevine
*Angel Peach (Donut)
*Crab Apple
*Passionfruit which needs to be pulled out as it's just the rootstock and start again.

The donut peach has quite a few fuzzy little peaches growing at the moment. This tree has never really done much good, the peaches have generally been pretty tasteless and I had thought about pulling it out last year but never got around to it. It produced peaches and when I went to pick them discovered to my horror that it had fruit fly. In this garden and all previous gardens I have been very very lucky and never had to contend with fruit fly, so was annoyed that they had finally found one of my trees. So once again I decided to pull this tree out and replace with another fruit tree and once again it didn't happen and now we have fuzzy little peaches growing. Which got me thinking I had better hurry up and do something bait wise to hopefully prevent the fruit fly from getting into the peaches.

Last Saturday night on Gardening Australia Jerry Coleby-Williams was talking to an entomologist all about fruit flies. At the end of the segment he showed how he makes traps that are cheap and easy to make at home, so I have just made a couple and stuck in the tree. It will be interesting to see how they work. It was so easy just half a teaspoon of Vegemite, a drop of dish washing detergent and some water, and replace once a week. I have my fingers crossed it was a once off and I won't have any more trouble with fruit fly, but I think that is probably wishful thinking!

Has anyone tried these baits or similar and do they work? Has anyone else found the donut peach tasteless and if so what organic methods can you recommend to help improve flavour?

Back to basics

So it's been quite awhile between blog posts once again. It's been a mixture of life being busy and when it's not been quite so busy I just didn't know what to blog about.

After months and months of neglect I spent the past weekend cleaning up the vege garden. I have been itching to get in there for awhile but with a steady stream of tradesmen in the house next door I just haven't been out there. There is a very low fence between my place and next door. That was great when Mrs W lived there, when we first moved in she would come to the fence and we would stand in the shade of the beautiful old peppercorn tree that was in her place and chat. As the years went on and Mrs W became more and more frail, that low fence was nice and easy for me to hop over numerous times throughout the day as I went in there to take meals, help her with showering, and all the other bits and pieces of daily life.

Then earlier this year her family sold her house off. A local gay business couple bought it and since then there has been much work going on in there quite often seven days a week. As my veggie garden  is near this low fence and in full view I have avoided going out there. Last weekend I had had enough. There was no-one there so I started pulling weeds and raking the gum leaves and twigs up from the paths between the beds. A car pulls up and workmen jump out, I swear under my breath and start to pack up rakes, shovels etc, but then I think bugger it! So I stayed out there most of the day and got so much cleaned up. Still a bit more to do but much improved.

A bit of a long intro into talking about getting back to basics. I originally started blogging when I was right into growing our own fruit and vegetables organically and basing our meals around what was in the garden. When I found inspiration from other blogs doing the same thing and living more sustainably and treading lightly on the planet.

Then somewhere along the way I lost my way! We started eating less and less from our garden and more and more crap from the supermarket. More junk food crept in and I have the weight gain to prove it. Not taking as much care with living as sustainably as we could. For months now I have this overwhelming sense of drowning. I'm not living the way I want to live. Granted things have changed in our household. Eldest teen has now moved to the city for university, she does come home weekends but is hardly here between hockey games and catching up with friends. Youngest teen started an apprenticeship back in January. So between full time work, hockey training, hockey games, SES training, volunteer fire and rescue training and his social life...well I never see him, or at least that's what it feels like. I am very proud of both of them and so happy that they are following their dreams. So at the end of the day it's just me mostly for meals and to do everything at home both inside and outside, and with one acre especially at this time of year there is lots to do. And I just can't seem to do it all, not with the two shoulders that give me constant pain and don't want to work like they should anymore.

 I started thinking maybe I should sell and move to a smaller more manageable place. I went and looked at a house on a smaller block last weekend. The house was enormous, way too big for just me to be rattling around in there on my own most of the time and the yard needed lots of work. Nothing but weeds. Blank canvas yes, but just too much work starting from scratch. That's the thing I don't want to start from scratch again I've done it before, more than once. I have done so much to both the inside and outside here, that I just don't want to do it again.

So if I was to find a place on a smaller block that has had most of the work already done then I think I should consider it, until then I need to find a way to cope with this place and get back to basics which as we all know is more hard work than just going to the supermarket. Buying takeaway and buying all our clothes, laundry detergent etc. Having ready meals rather than making our own meals from scratch, baking. All these things take time and effort.

Back to basics to me is growing our own healthy organic food that only has to travel from the garden to our plate. Baking yummy sweet treats so that we know exactly what goes into it, no nasty numbers etc (and only eating in moderation). Meal planning I would love to do this all the time, but for some reason I seem to struggle with it. Learning to make our own clothes and homewares, whether it's sewing, knitting or crochet or a combination of all. Making our own simple and safe household cleaners. Being happy with what we have rather than having to keep up with the Joneses. Spending time out in nature and being in-tune with it instead of constantly being attached to social media. These area just a few areas of what getting back to basics means to me.

Time to go and read a few blogs and get inspired once more!

Random pictures of lately

Mid winter it's a time of.....

sparkly spiderwebs in the morning dew

foggy mornings

beautiful evening sunset walks

some very frosty mornings

some snoozing by the fire kind of days

enjoying some large apples off the tree

and finding beauty in the bleakest, coldest part of the year

and catching the beautiful winter sunshine when it's here

Just some of the goings on around our place at this time of year. It is so cold out there, but not as cold as the eastern states at the moment. Just a bit jealous of the snow they are receiving. It looks magical!
Maybe one day I will get to see some snow. We have our fingers crossed that the rain they have predicted for the weekend starting tonight, does arrive. It is very dry here which is not good. This is supposed to be our wettest month and we have had nothing so far. Enjoy the snow or the warmth depending on where you are!

From around the garden and our new family member Cody

It's been so long since I was last here, I almost forgot how to do a blog post!

It may be mid-winter but there is no shortage of colour out in the garden. Only photos of flowers today, the vege patch needs lots of weeding before I even think of taking photos in there.

It is lovely watching the Pansies unfurl to see what colour they will be.

The mulla mulla has been flowering like crazy since last spring.

Would love to have some more around the garden.

I absolutely adore this Correa 'Catie Bec'

Another one I would love to have lots more of around the garden.

A bit blurry, it's been ages since I have used my good camera to take any bee

pics. Looks like I am a bit out of practice!

Sweet Pea buds, the promise that spring is on the way.

Although with the freezing temperatures at the moment

springs seems like a long long way away yet.

Our newest family member; Cody!

We adopted Cody early last month through one of the rescue

organisations. He is a beautiful gentle boy that has fitted into our

family like he has always been here. It is six months since we

had to say goodbye to BJ and I still miss him everyday, but this

sweet funny boy has stolen my heart too.

Catching some winter sunshine earlier today.

My hands are numb from the cold, better go and do the dishes so I can sink them into some warm water and stoke the fire up, then time to start the evening chores. Soup for tea tonight sounds like a good idea I think.

A week away

Eglantine, a pretty David Austin rose.

Magpie who shared the crusts off my toast some mornings.

Last week was spent in the city with eldest teen as it was her orientation week for uni. I ended up having to go with her for the week as on the Monday when she started she wasn't yet 18. The uni rule is they are not allowed to stay in the accommodation until they have turned eighteen. After trying to find somewhere to stay and not finding anything that fit the budget, I was really starting to worry about what we would do. Mum and Dad very kindly came to our rescue and offered their caravan. I had fun staying in the caravan but not sure eldest teen enjoyed it quite as much!
It brought back many memories from my early twenties when I lived in a caravan up north with my then husband for his work.

It mostly was a relaxing break for me, I would drop eldest teen off at uni in the morning and then go and pick her up later, I had her car for driving myself around.

One of the places I visited was the beach. This is my childhood beach, we spent lots of fun times down here when we were children. I remember having a picnic tea down on the grassy foreshore of the beach many a time on really hot summer nights.

I spent quite awhile watching all the dogs and their owners having fun on the dog beach. I got a little teary at one stage when two beautiful golden retrievers arrived for a swim. I have been missing my beautiful boy BJ so much and seeing them having so much fun was good but sad too, just made me miss my boy even more.

A pretty flower I saw in the sand dunes.

Saw lots of different kinds of birds.

We arrived back home on the Friday evening and it just seems to have been go go go since then. Eldest teen turned 18 on Sunday and is now halfway through her second week at uni.

I have been playing around with our new computer trying to work out what I am doing, going to take a bit of getting used to I think! I am struggling with a very sore hand this week as I had a skin cancer removed on Monday. It was right where your wrist and hand join and right on top of a vein. I have had skin cancers removed before and only experienced mild discomfort the first day or so but this is very different, thinking I may need to go back and get it looked at.

Think I had better get off here as there is thunder rumbling around out there and the sky is getting very dark. Time to go feed the chooks and fingers crossed we get some rain out of this we desperately need it.

Time management

A collection of random photos taken over the last couple of weeks.

Just Joey looking a little worse for wear from the heat, but nonetheless still beautiful.

Stripes, such a hard life for some!

This mornings harvest from the vege garden.

Close up of the Trombocinno zucchini.

Jess always wanting to know where I am at all times.

Lots of tomatoes in the garden, unfortunately quite a few of them have been cooked on the vine

from all the hot weather we have been experiencing.

Smoke, there was lots of it last week from two huge bush fires burning in our Southwest and Great Southern. Eldest teen was in one of those towns threatened by the fires for work. I was so happy and

relieved to see her home again, it was an anxious week.

Went to visit my sister two weekends ago and witnessed the most stunning sunset. I got a little carried away and took about a hundred plus photos.

Billy, the youngest cat in the family. He always wants his two sisters to play, but they are getting a bit too old for his antics.

Just some pretty gum blossom in Mum and Dad's garden.

Well so much for being here at least twice a week. I think I must have a serious problem with time management. There just never seems to be enough hours in the day! I work (if you could call it that) seven days a week. It's not seven full days though, just an hour here, fifteen minutes there, half an hour on another day and then forty five minutes on another day. Some days it takes me longer to get dressed in my uniform than it does to go and do the actual job.

It is so frustrating. Don't get me wrong I am thankful that I have work at all, but it really is a complete pain being spread out like that over seven days. If I want to go somewhere, just say for instance I have an appointment with the osteopath, it's a five hundred kilometre round trip. So it's all day, which means I have to take a day off, but taking a day off might mean I'm only missing out on a half hour or at the most an hour job. But because I only work so few hours I need those hours, so it just keeps me tied here. The photos above of the sunset were taken a couple of weekends ago. I worked on the Friday morning, travelled to the osteopath late afternoon and after leaving there continued on another 50 kilometres down the road to stay at my sister's place as she has just bought a new house and I was really looking forward to seeing both my sister and the new house. It meant I didn't work the weekend, which is half an hour each day, financially the best two days to work, but also the hardest two days to get someone else to cover them.

What I am trying to get at is even though I work so few hours I just don't seem to be able to get half the things done that need to be done, let alone anything I might want to do such as a blog post. I feel guilty if I come on here when I know the floors need to be cleaned, or the dishes done or the bathroom cleaned. I have a large garden I can't keep up with. I wake up every morning feeling like I am behind the eightball, I just don't seem to be able to catch up. So far it has taken me three hours just trying to do this blogpost in between visitors, phone calls and text messages. Tea of a night time seems to be getting later and later. Something needs to change.

I know I am one person and that I can't do everything, but unfortunately everything needs to be done.

Part-time work, clean the house, gardening, cooking nutritious meals, looking and applying for other work, huge yard to look after and now part-time studies as well. I need a creative outlet too and blogging is what I want to do but it comes after everything else and suffers. 

I would love nothing more than to be able to stay home everyday and have a clean house, yummy and healthy meals on the table, time to spend in the garden and time for creativity, but it's not possible. Next best thing is if I could find work for three or even four days every week, set hours and days, that would be heaven. I have no idea why, but I seem to think I would be able to manage my time better.

Who knows, I think I would still probably be hopeless at time management!