Africanaussie

   In our hot and humid climate, jeans are not big movers in our op shop.  We had a $1 a pair sale rack, and still have full racks..... so I decided to make up a few different bags to see if we can somehow save these items from landfill.  Re-fashioning those items into something useful.  I made a few variations just to try out the market and sold this one on the first day they were put out! Each one is individual, depending on what fabric I have available. I tend to lay things out, and then just play around a bit.   Here I am laying out all the options before I start sewing.  I have joined a facebook group which is so inspirational and supportive.      Up-Cycled Cloth Collective | Facebook So often, it is just a case of seeing what is there, and then using it in the best way possible.  I was excited to find this tote bag, which was perfect as the lining of a bag for a teenager. this was also snapped up quickly. The bags were hu...

 I am so blessed to have a hubby who supports all my crazy hobbies. and we set out over the weekend to spend our Christmas gift card on a worm farm.  It was a combined gift, but of course I made the choice and it was gardening related.!  As most of you know I am a huge fan of my tumbler, but it is getting on in age, and suddenly didn't turn very easily anymore.  Hubby drilled a couple of holes and the trusty tie wraps came out.  What on earth did we do before tie wraps were invented?   I realized I should keep the tumbler as light as possible.  My daughter in law said that they partly compost veggie peeling and kitchen waste in their tumbler and then finish it off in the worm bin.  What a great idea I thought.... so the idea of a worm farm was born.  I settled on the worm cafe as I like the flat edge design, and for now it is under the eaves right next to the tumbler.  What a great design - nothing is thrown out - even the cardboard...

After a bit of a dry spell in November and December, the wet season seems to have arrived in the Wet tropics.   100-200mls of rain every day means the ground is wet most of the time.  Hoses are wrapped up, and nature waters the plants.  Bugs love this weather, some plants love it, some do not. I moved my orchids away from the back fence where I think they were in too much shade.  I love them like a green wall on either side of my mural.  They are easier to monitor and two of them are  getting ready to flower.! One branch on the yellow one has opened up! I have always been a "set and forget" type of orchid grower so am surprised and delighted when they flower. The area where the lady slipper orchid vine had rather taken over was cut back and the flowers are certainly enjoying a bit more sunshine. The wet season is not for the faint-hearted, and only the most robust veggies grow at this time of year.  I planted out a few more as...

I have a daughter in law who cannot eat eggs or milk, so am always on the lookout for recipes that I can use when she is coming around. On Saturday we had 7 people to dinner, and I cooked cassoulet again.  That is fast becoming a favourite meal for a crowd.  I serve it in my big bessamer pot, and I like to make it in advance so the flavours can meld as it simmers slowly on the stove.  This means I am not rushing around preparing dinner at the last minute.  Alongside I served a big salad with spinach and a mix of tomatoes, cucumbers,red onion and chick peas marinaded in a lemony olive oil dressing.   Of course there is bread to mop up the juices!  Oh!  and bubbly (not French my budget doesnt run to that,)  and French red wine.  For dessert I had to do a bit of research and planning.  I have had this recipe  for vegan chocolate cake on my evernote feed for quite some time, and eventually tried it, and it is a keeper! ...

We have my stepson staying with us this week, and I thought I had better get a bit organised with my menu plan.    What  I normally do is write down on the left hand side of the page a few dinners that I would like to cook for the week, and then on the right side of the page write the ingredients I need (after checking what I have on hand).  Breakfast and lunches are normally leftovers or regular rotation, so certain things are purchased every week.  I have being doing intermittent fasting for about 6 months now, so each day is only two meals.  Lunch and dinner over the weekends, and then breakfast and lunch during the week.  I thought I had better do a bit of baking to have some things on hand.  A staple growing up was my Moms crunchies, and they changed over the years to a healthier option.  Every time I make the recipe I change a few things as I use up whatever is on hand. This time they are walnut and date based. Sunday: Roast chic...

Some things I just keeping trying even though they have never worked in the past.  Are you like that? One thing is grafting -  I tried both a lime and a lemon tree grafted onto a citrus that grew up from the rootstock of a lime mandarin.  I cut a pointed edge on the scion and then inserted it into a slit.   I rested a moist bit of coconut husk into the branch above the graft to allow some moisture and then placed a plastic bag over the entire thing.   Tied up nice and tight with grafting tape. The other thing I have not always had success with is pollinating pumpkins.  I see lots of bees and flying insects, but supposedly pumpkins have to be hand pollinated.  I have let a volunteer pumpkin have its way in the back veggie patch because at least it shades the ground.  I have heard young pumpkin leaves are very tasty, but I have never tried them.  This little thing was right beside the path so I got a female flower and broke away t...

Last weekend we didn't go grocery shopping.  I implemented a no shop week on the spur of the moment - no pre-planning, no notification so we could stock up!  My dear hubby is quite used to my impulsive nature by now.  He calls it my "shoot from the hip attitude."  This was mainly brought about because I got stuck in to cleaning the sliding glass doors on Saturday which turned into a major living room clean, and I didn't want to get cleaned up to go into town and shop for groceries. I did a quick inventory of the veggies and fruit and fresh stuff and knew that the freezer was well stocked.  I always have a loose menu plan for the week in mind and thought I would be able to wing it. On Saturday we had a nice little barbeque in the back yard.  Home made boerewors (South African sausage) baked potatoes and a salad. Sunday, hubby was busy doing a bit of reduce, re-cyle and re-use which I will tell you about in another post. Luckily I was inside with the airco...

Welcome to the garden share collective hosted by  kate at rosehips and rhubarb  and  Kyrstie at a fresh legacy.   Thank you for doing this, it keeps me motivated! The theme this month is fruit, and since I have a small garden I never really thought I would be able to grow much fruit.  The main feature in my side garden is the lychee tree and this year I really wished we didn't have it in the garden.  We had it pruned a while back and the gardener said that he couldn't lop the height off for some reason (I was at work when this happened) Of course it has now grown higher and when it fruited over December, we couldn't reach a single fruit, but believe me the bats and rosellas could!  The noise, and the mess were horrendous.  My poor hubby was raking up leaves and rotting fruit a couple of times a week to try and gain control, but the fallen fruit still attracted fruit fly. Well, end of the sorry story we are digging deep in our pockets and going ...

Some plants love this heat, and one of those is the peppercorn vine.  I noticed a while back that I was getting little strings of "pearls" forming on the ends of the branches.  I cut about a dozen of them and put them into a brine to pickle,  I am not really sure when the right time is to harvest them.  I love them out in the garden just to nibble on, but in order to preserve them they have to be pickled.  I might make steak au poivre one day and put both green and black pepperocrns into the sauce.  Recipes are hard to find, so if anyone has anything to share I will be most grateful. I have also heard that the vine needs to be pruned properly after fruiting in order to produce the most peppercorns.  I am thinking of training it along the side of the perrenial bed, but want to make sure I do it the right way.  I saw something that said it only bears on outside shoots.  What does that mean? I am certainly glad that there are no maintenance...

Yesterday we had almost an entire 24 hours without rain so I sprayed myself liberally with mosquito repellent and went out into the garden and chopped and hacked my way through the jungle.  This will allow more light into the ground and plants and hopefully there will be less damp areas for the mozzies to hang out and breed in.  I also would like it to dry out enough to mulch up the leaves.  The rex begonia love this weather. I really chopped away a lot of hanging branches here to let the light in and scraped up some lovely mulch from the path to put between the bromeliads.  There are still lots of lovely strands of lady slipper orchids hanging down into the path. I was photographing the hanging lady slipper orchids and look at this funny face I captured! Underneath the fan palms the beehive gingers are going crazy - I will get into this area next and clean it out a bit. I hope everyone else has had a wonderful relaxing time with family and friends an...

Last weekend I decided to make cheese again, and called up a friend to see if she wanted to join me. I have a tiny kitchen and knew we would have to share the thermometer, but had pretty much doubled up on everything else we would need. We made haloumi, and whey ricotta, and it was a fun afternoon.  There was a forty five minute break where we sat and had a salad and some of my life changing bread.  I gave her the recipe so that she could use some of the leftover whey to soak the ingredients for the bread.  Using up every last scrap of the ingredients is something I love about cheesemaking. That night I made up a simple salad of greens, avocado, sauteed haloumi and tinned tuna. Yum When she had left I looked in the fridge and realized I had another two litres of milk just sitting there.  It was not going to be used up before it went off, and the kitchen was all still nicely sterilized and ready for cheesemaking.  I got out the recipe book, and found that...

Hello!  Come on in   ... dont be shy! I am once again joining with Vicki at Grow your blog  to discover more wonderful blogs to read and follow and also to expose my blog to more readers.  thanks so much for hosting this, Vicki,  I did it in 2013  and it was such fun! Firstly, an introduction: My dear hubby and I (my name is Gillian) live in the tropical north- east of Australia.  We both grew up in South Africa, lived our separate lives for 20 years, and then "found" each other 10 years ago. 7 years ago we moved in to a unit with a very small backyard, which was dominated by a huge lychee tree, and nothing else.  Slowly I have added more and more small fruit trees, anything that flowers, and a food forest.  I am lucky enough to be able to tuck orchids into the trees, and they often surprise me with their flowers: There is nothing I love more than wandering out into the garden and picking some eggplant, sweet potato, ginge...