Rush hour at our home

  I took this photo just 30 minutes ago after I let the chooks out for the day.

There is an air of serenity in our backyard.  It's aided by the weather, wandering chooks grazing on green grass, the sound of unseen birds calling from the rain forest and the knowledge that here we can support our passion for home grown organic food.  We spent much of yesterday morning outside.  Hanno planted and weeded the garden and I spent time in the bush house sowing seeds and propagating ginger and turmeric.  We have our first seeds and seedlings in and growing well, but to support the need for food next month and the month after, we need to have  more seedlings ready to plant out.

On the way back from the chook pen, I saw this little kookaburra on the fence watching my every move.

When I was in Maleny last Friday, I went over to Green Harvest for supplies.  I bought Scotch curly kale, celeriac, Wakefield cabbage - a heirloom sugarloaf type and a trio of organic Italian garlic heads.  I always buy Green Harvest seeds, they germinate readily and there is a large selection of old varieties for me to choose from.  They're often local seeds too, so I know they're suited to the conditions here. The lovely Francis was in the shop when I walked in and after saying hello, she left me in the capable hands of one of the women there to place my order.  Soon after she returned with a handful of perennial leeks.  She had brought them in from her own garden for her staff and gave some to me to try.  What a thoughtful and unexpected gift!

 Rush hour at our place is usually over in two blinks of an eye.

Hanno was keen to get them in the ground yesterday morning and like our Welsh onions they'll happily grow out there for years without needing to be replaced each year.  We have trouble growing onions here because of the warm weather so having Alliums in the form of Welsh onions, perennial leeks and garlic, gives us some form of those vegetables although we still have to buy our brown and red onions.

The outside of the bush house - yes, it needs to be tidied up.

I was asked last week what our bush house is.  Well, it's just a shade cloth covered structure, located in the backyard, near the water tank, where I sow seeds in trays, propagate plants, store potting soil, keep the worm farm, and generally protect young and emerging plants from the harsher conditions outside.  Inside the bush house is always cooler in summer, and if I keep the water up to it, provides a cool and humid place for ferns, orchids, sick or baby plants and seedlings.  I guess  it's the tropical equivalent of a glasshouse - it provides protection from sun, heavy rain, wind, birds and wandering insects.

Inside the bush house (ditto on the tidying up), the potting mix bins sit under the worm farm (bathtub), seedlings on the left and assorted plants sit on the shelves.

It's early Sunday morning now and I know we'll have a lovely day today because Shane and Sarndra are coming over for lunch.  I've already made a mountain of little meatballs that I'll add to homemade tomato sauce,  I'll pick a salad from the garden, bake bread rolls and, depending on whether there is an egg or two later this morning, make a lemon tart for dessert.  I'll sow the celeriac seeds before they arrive and then we can all relax and enjoy the afternoon, knowing that all our work has been done and those little seeds are slowly making their way through the soil into the sunlight.

 Newly sown seeds, seedlings and propagated herbs sit at the sunny end of the bush house.  They get the gentle morning sun for about two hours to warm the soil, then sit in shade all day.

All this week's roads have been leading to this lunch; a time to sit back and enjoy life with my family.  Even though most of our days are similar now, made different only by the days I go to my voluntary work, there is still something special about Sunday afternoons - they seem to be made for experiencing, first-hand, the comfort of one's home, socialising, connecting and being with family and friends.  These are the days that memories are made of.