Elder Minipeeler decided to spontaneously clean his room today, mainly and noticeably focusing on purging old school stuff. Did a thorough job and I'm very proud of him.
In the meantime Miniest made a carrot cake, with very little intervention from me (gotta make sure the batter actually ends up in the cake tin and less in the mouth lol)
Gorgeous! Ask Miniest to send me some (if there's any left).
That is a most excellent cake. When is afternoon tea?
half the refinish paint/stain is on the old sewing machine cabinet, the original finish was so badly damaged tho, might need a second coat
and might get a wire brush to clean up the cast iron frame and some blacking to spruce it up a bit. Then I might tackle some of the rust on the machine fittings
Decided to take my (SILs) bike on the scenic foreshore front beach path back home from the shops. Usually don't do that as people (and kids / dogs) are a bit all over the place. Anyway now I have a bell with a unicorn on it which I'm required to use by law. it also has a front basket. I didn't use the bell but felt empowered (and got laughed at by two young girls). They didn't have unicorn bells or a front basket so fuck em. I'm gonna get some tassels next.
In more serious news the Pt. Lonny front beach was absolutely smashed by recent swell / weather. Had a chat to a local who was walking past and she'd never seen anything like it either. Must've been wild.
Also got about 10 hellos from randoms which was nice.
Considering heās so small, Chook is an absolute pig. The MESS, my god
They flick the husks out of their cage!
I have decaf coffee now.
Letās see if this thing keeps me awake at night tonight.
good idea , I might have one too, a really hot one with caramel
Saturday afternoon is the perfect time for "doing sweet fuck all". This is my recharge time from the work week.
Sunday is for chores etc.
But Saturday afternoon is blissful nothingness.
Also I bought a pair of Carhart pants. The last pair lasted 5ish years. Heavy initial cost, but the saving is significant over time.
My chores are done for today. Finally getting some food then Iām doing SFA till my Geelong Cats play this late afternoon.
Almost feels like I didnāt get much done in the end and itās Already so late.
Ate some delicious kofta, and cranked up my accompaniment to cleaning.
Once this is done, I have a new model to build, but I canāt open Bags And Bags And Bags Of Bits into an already messy apartment
I'm making kofta for dinner. Yay kofta!
Iāve been putting the registration for GardenSafe off for years even after posting about itā¦ tbh Iām still struggling majorly with my health and this creeping grass is like kudzu, so action isnāt guaranteed. But why not contribute to citizen science.
But itās asking really inflexible questions so I donāt know how to answer. Like for main food growing area do I answer in ground or pots? I may answer in ground because I want to know if itās safe to do so.
Renos within 5 years? No, but around 10.
And Iām not seeing any peeling external paint - but the builders buried discarded rubble in the soil which is a concern.
I donāt use pesticides but I donāt know whatās in the runoff from another yard.
I just want to find out if the soil here is theoretically safe to grow edible stuff in, lead levels and pesticides etc.
Edit: For peeling paint I just said yes because I didnāt know if there was any that got buried with the rubble. But now wondering if that was bad data and would label the soil as higher risk than it is. Should I try to tell them the situation?
Idk. I just donāt want to grow anything thatās dangerous to eat.
You're overthinking it. Just answer the questions as best you can and don't worry about the rest of the details - they are not doing a detailed analysis of your site, they will just be doing a rough classification to identify rough links in the aggregate data.
Alright, hopefully what I put is okay
donāt want to grow anything thatās dangerous to eat
I used these guys a while back: https://www.swep.com.au/ and was impressed by their analysis. Prof. in Ag. put me on to them.
Thanks! I kinda just went with the EPA because it was free š
Rule of Thumb: if the edible bit is actually in contact with soil, then you have cause for concern. If the edible bit is waving in the air, not to worry too much. Lettuce is debatable, but usually the faster it grows the less problem it is. The real problem is long lead time crops actually in the ground, like potatoes.
Thatās good - if things like zucchini and squash were trellised they would be fine?
And root veg would need grow bags or pots
Zucchini and curcurbits in general are usually no problem if the fruit is off the ground, so trellising sounds like a good idea. Heavy fruit like pumpkins can't be trellised and take up a shittonne of room, so might not be the best use of space. If you do have a try at pumpkins you might need to put a tile or plank put under each fruit to keep it off the ground.
Root veg would be better in pots or similar. As I didn't have room or good soil for spuds in East Brunswick, I grew spuds in car tyres stacked up on a concrete base. Made harvesting easy too as all I had to do was pull each tyre off in turn and fumble out the spuds. Very very productive way to grow spuds. Round carrots & beetroot went in milk crates lined with shademesh - these worked very well and also worked for leeks and silverbeet. I am too cheap to buy large pots from the green store. I found 1 bag of potting mix fitted nicely in 1 milkcrate too which made planning easier. Milk crate gardens did need extra watering in summer as they did dry out a lot if I didn't watch them. One benefit was they were easy to move about in accordance with the weather/sunlight. I've tried using growbags, but I find them a bit heavy to move about. They do hold a lot of soil so could be good for big carrots etc that need a deep soil bed without lumps in it.
you can put straw around your plants to keep the fruits off the dirt
root vegies should be fine in raised beds
most gardening is done in the top most soil in raised beds and that usually has added soil and compost too. Any contaminants would be deeper.
Your soil is fine. The problem with building rubble is the bits of concrete and stones. Concrete changes the acidity of your soil. Just pick out bits of concrete and stones and any other rubbish you find and it should be fine.
Quite a number of years ago I tried to dig it up but was unable to get a really big piece out.
just get as much as you can out bit by bit, concentrate on the small bits first as they have greatest surface area to interact with water and your soil
Was gonna go to CERES community garden today, but the weather is dodgy so no guarantee the market will be on.
My oodie has been donned, and escape room game has been loaded šš
Ooh what game?
The House of Da Vinci on the play store. It's an interactive puzzle, really pretty! And puzzling! I have discovered I may think too laterally, or not laterally enough š
So many weedsā¦ and whatās with winter round #2 ?
So many weeds
Yup. Currently tackling:
On the 7th green bin over 7 weeks with that bed. It's just gone off this year.
omg
It's getting there (I think). It's an uphill battle this year :(
Speaking of pop divas, Kylie tix go on pre-sale on Tuesday for the Tension Tour. Thereās a good chance we will go.
I went to the X tour in 08 and the show was fantastic. She rode a giant crystal skull that night! It was simply awesome!
Kylie tix go on pre-sale
A Kylie show is the only show I'd wear a nappy at. True diva.
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