A Spot of Gardening

Our new house has a small yard with two spots in the back for a bit of a garden. I have been wanting to do something back there since we moved in. Gardening in a different climate was really intimidating to me at first since I had no idea what grew during what season (things were so easy back home, you had from basically May to September to garden and that was it). When we got back home from our trip to Canada I decided that since spring was coming (spring starts September 1st) I was going to take the plunge and plant things.
Unfortunately I put things off too long so I missed buying/planting spring flowering bulbs (next year!) but picked up some summer flowering bulbs (glads) and a bunch of seeds. I decided that the long bed that runs across from our living room window was going to be for flowers and the weird triangular shaped bed by the back door was going to be for veggies.

I was really interested in trying to grow veggies/fruit that might've been difficult to grow back home or ones we've never tried to grow before. One of the main ones I wanted to grow was watermelon. I was having a bit of success with my seedlings and then I put them into the ground... Slowly, one by one, they all got eaten by slugs/snails or whatever else is out there munching on my plants. I went and picked up another packet of seeds to try again so hopefully these new ones survive!

So right now in the veggie bed I have: corn, snow peas, orange pumpkin, cucumber, watermelon, radish, carrots, basil, and tomatoes. I'll be planting brussels sprouts in a few weeks. I also have a little container of jalapenos and strawberries in the kitchen.

In the flower bed I have a huge mix of things. The two biggest things are the glads (they are doing SO well!) and balsam camellia. I also have snap dragons, sweet peas, marigolds, and a bunch of other random things.

Don't let all those tiny green plants fool you, most of that will be flowers!

We also have a plan to put down some grass seed in all those dead patches.

Starting Again

I sort of felt like I painted myself into a corner with my last blog, both with the title (I've been in Australia for three years now and definitely feel settled) and with my serious lack of posting. It's not that I don't have time to update or don't get a chance to sit at the computer, I felt like I didn't have a whole lot to talk about and didn't want all my updates to be baby updates. I haven't had a whole lot of time to knit or do other crafts (though I seem to be able to find some time here and there to get some sewing done) and started to feel like if I didn't have crafty things to talk about that no one would be interested.
I really struggled to come up with a new name that would offer flexibility for the future, I didn't want anything that talked specifically of being crafty or of only having one kid (we plan on having more) or even specifically our location (we do plan to stay in Oz but y'never know!). I was having some serious thinkers block when it came to picking something (and of course a lot of good names were taken!).

Anyway, so what have we been up to? In January we moved from our tiny cold flat to a beautiful, double-story townhouse with a yard and small garden. It's so much closer to Glen's work which is awesome for having him home at a decent time every day and it's close enough that I can drive him to work and use the car for the day if I need to. So, that also means I've been doing a lot of driving. I can still only drive to the same half a dozen places but Aurora and I get out a few times a week and do stuff. We drive out to where we used to live to go to mothers group (known here on out at MG) once a week, we sometimes drive out to Glen's sister's for the afternoon and we're a short walk from the shops and library so we're there a few times a week too.
We took a trip back home in June and July to see (almost) everyone and have Aurora meet (most of) her Canadian family and as many friends as we could fit in to the trip. We did A LOT of driving (over 5,000km) and only saw part of two provinces. Aurora was a superstar on the plane and while it's not something I'd like to do often, it wasn't torture like a lot of people said it would be (I flew there by myself and Glen joined us and flew home with us).
We've been sick on and off since we got back from holidays (that's what we get for missing all the winter bugs by being overseas!) but still managed to have Aurora's birthday party a few weeks ago. Can you believe she's one already?!

Aurora painting at my mum's in July

And that's kind of where we're at right now.  We got up to some exciting things last week but I'm going to blog about that separately.

Sorry for my ridiculously long absence! I hope to start blogging again on a regular basis!

Lake Eildon National Park - Wombat!