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Hello dear friends. It's Anzac Day in Australia and New Zealand today. I've been sorting through my photos and found a nice Anzac Day photo. There are a few photos in this folder that I don't think have been published before so I thought you'd enjoy a slow browse through them.

April - week 4 in The Simple Home


Being able to grow some of your own food is a wonderful skill to have. Many gardeners dig in the soil, some create raised beds and, increasingly, some happily grow what they can in containers. Congratulations on taking this step if you're a new gardener. I hope the fresh vegetables and herbs you harvest will reward you for the work you do in setting up.

This week is the last in our gardening month. The topic is the housekeeping of gardening: watering, fertilising, composting and keeping your plants disease and insect-free.
My birthday flowers were sitting right at the front door to welcome everyone who visited.

Thank you all for the birthday greetings you sent this week.  I have to tell you, I don't feel like a 70 year old lady but I'm enjoying getting used to the feel of it.  It's a good age. I feel like I've earned my stripes. 😊

April, week 3 in The Simple Home

By now you have probably had enough time to think about what you want to plant and where it will grow and hopefully you've gathered a few containers and some growing mix. Depending on what you're hoping to grow, you might also have a trellis or bamboo and string and you might have thought about fertiliser and a few tools.  I hope you find second hand items and can keep your setup costs as low as possible because gardening can become expensive and it doesn't have to be.

Containers and potting mix

Types of containers
Look around your home, garden and garage, as well as your local recycle centre, to see if you have any suitable containers. Most of them need to be big. If you restrict the root growth of what you’re growing, it will also restrict your crops, so large containers are better than small ones. Of course you can grow a few herbs in small containers, or plant then around the edge of larger containers.  Look for old rubber tubs, an old slightly rusty wheelbarrow, boxes made from untreated wood, polystyrene troughs or metal containers. Most of the recycled containers won’t last a long time because they’ll be sitting in the sun all year long. But that doesn’t matter. You can change containers when you change seasons and start planting again. Keep that in mind and as you go through the year keep an open eye for follow-up containers.  And if you have any good ideas for containers that you're using at home, share them with us here.


Hello everyone. There will be no Simple Home post today but I'll have it up tomorrow.  I had a computer-free weekend while I celebrated my 70th birthday. We had a wonderful time yesterday with the family here for afternoon tea. When I was asked a few weeks ago what I wanted to do, my immediate reply was: no gifts and I don't want to go out to dinner. I wanted to be at home with my family. So that is what we did and when they all arrived they brought strawberry sponge cake, cucumber sandwiches, chicken pieces and a bottle of champagne. I made some little sausage rolls and a blood orange cheese cake. So we ate well, enjoyed each other's company and when everyone went home, I had a very contented feeling that it was exactly the right thing for me. It's good when that happens.

Gracie has a new toy - a pink pig called Vivienne (Westwood). She took great care with Vivienne the first couple of days she had her but now she's slowly removing the ears and legs.  Poor Viv.




Thanks for dropping by this week. It's good to see so many names I recognise from past years.  I know most readers eventually move on but it's endearing and comforting to have many of you return year after year. I hope you have a great weekend and to those of you who are preparing gardens and containers for vegetables, herbs and fruit, I wish you the best with your endeavours. I hope we all have bountiful harvests in a few months. xx

It's been a busy week so far. We're still painting, although not every day, and we probably have another couple of days of work with it. I've taken the opportunity to go through all my old magazines - some of my British Country Living mags are 20 years old! I've thrown out all of them and just kept a few pages of recipes and gardening information. We looked after Jamie for a few days while he's on school holidays and planted up garlic and sweet potatoes bought at Green Harvest and the seedings we bought at the market last weekend. Even after a week, the garden is looking good.  

For all the Gracie fans, here is a photo I took a day ago as she was enjoying a rest in the afternoon sun on her homemade tartan blanket.

April, week 2 in The Simple Home

 For all our new gardeners, there are two things I want you to decide on this week - what you're going to grow and where you'll grow it.  I hope you've found some big containers, if not, you'll need to get on to that this week too.  If you're not sure what to plant, grow what you eat, not what's in fashion or what you want to taste for the first time. Your garden should be full of what you eat and that will probably be the common vegetables like tomatoes, pumpkins, onions, beans, cabbages etc. I'll write about two commonly grown back yard vegetables - potatoes and tomatoes.  Planting larger plants first will give your container garden a feeling of being anchored and then you can fill in with your smaller vegies and herbs. If you don't want to grow potatoes or tomatoes, it could be anything that needs a trellis, such as cucumbers, peas or beans, or a couple of fruit trees in large pots.

Hanno and I were going to plant up our two potato containers yesterday but we were both exhausted after planting and fertilising the rest of the garden so we came inside early and rested. I chose the location for the potatoes last week but yesterday morning, sitting on the verandah listening to the radio, I realised the orange tree would shade them most of the morning, so I moved the empty containers to a sunnier space on the other side of the garden.

After a night with yoghurt draining over a bowl in the fridge, I finished off my yoghurt cheese this morning. I added salt and pepper and some chopped green onions. The whey was saved and will be used tomorrow to make a batch of scones. Waste not, want not.




April, week 1 in The Simple Home

Growing your own food
When you’re starting out on your simple life journey, or if you move to a home with a bit of land attached, some people will recommend you start growing your own fruit and vegetables. It’s a good option for experienced gardeners because a large productive garden will add value and strength to your home and increase the opportunities you have to eat well and store away food that can be eaten later in the year. However, if you've never grown anything before and have to start building garden beds and fences, enrich virgin soil or buy soil, seeds and seedlings, as well as the tools to work the land, often it doesn't make financial sense. You’ll probably know before you start such a big project that you’ll spend much more money on setting up than you could save on vegetables. When you spread the setup costs out over a few years, it makes more sense but if you can’t afford the set up costs of garden beds, what are the alternatives?

This is our main garden with a potted bay tree growing nicely on the corner.

Container gardening
Containers! Why containers? If you have never grown food before, if you're time poor, if you have limited water, if you have no land or room other than a back step, a sunny window sill or a small courtyard, for many reasons, containers will be your simple answer.

Happy Easter everyone. 🐣

I'm viewing this screen with 20/20 vision; it's the first time my vision has been this good in 40 years.  I had my final eye op on Tuesday, the cataract was removed and a lens inserted in my eye. This lens is the same prescription as my glasses so now I can see well without them - I can even tell the difference between HD and ordinary TV. Amazing. They did a test when I had my post-op check on Wednesday and that revealed the best of all results - 20/20 vision. I was really pleased.  If you're thinking of having this surgery done, go for it. I was anxious before the first surgery but honestly, the worst part of the entire procedure is the six times a day eyedrops for one month, twice.

Hanno has been slowly getting the painting done and I'm very happy with the colours we chose - a very pale blue-grey and a darker blue feature wall.  I'll be reorganising a few things in the living room and kitchen over the weekend (I'm not allowed to garden for two weeks!!) and we'll move closer to having it all done. It's another home maintenance item put to bed for a few years.

March, week 4 in The Simple Home

This is the final week in our food and home cooking month. We've been discussing food shopping, storage, stockpiling, menu planning, cooking from scratch, batch cooking and preserving. In this final week, we'll be talking about food fads, food waste and home cooking, surely the best food there is.

Homemade chicken soup.
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I'm Rhonda Hetzel and I've been writing my Down to Earth blog since 2007. Although I write the occasional philosophical post, my main topics include home cooking, happiness and gardening as well as budgeting, baking, ageing, generosity, mending and handmade crafts. I hope you enjoy your time here.

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Popular posts last year

Making ginger beer from scratch

We had a nice supply of ginger beer going over Christmas. It's a delicious soft drink for young and old, although there is an alcoholic version that can be made with a slight variation on the recipe. Ginger beer is a naturally fermented drink that is easy to make - with ginger beer you make a starter called a ginger beer plant and after it has fermented, you add that to sweet water and lemon juice. Like sourdough, it must ferment to give it that sharp fizz. To make a ginger beer plant you'll need ginger - either the powdered dry variety or fresh ginger, sugar, rainwater or tap water that has stood for 24 hours to allow the chlorine to evaporate off. You'll also need clean plastic bottles that have been scrubbed with soap, hot water and a bottle brush and then rinsed with hot water. I never sterilise my bottles and I haven't had any problems. If you intend to keep the ginger beer for a long time, I'd suggest you sterilise your bottles. MAKING THE STARTER In a...
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How to make cold process soap

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Preserving food in a traditional way - pickling beetroot

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Cleaning mould from walls and fabrics

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What is the role of the homemaker in later years?

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Every morning at home

Every morning when I walk into my kitchen it looks tidy and ready for a day's work. Not so on this morning (above), I saw this when I walked in. Late the previous afternoon when I was looking for something, I came across my rolled up Zwilling vacuum bags and decided they had to be washed and dried. So I did that and although I usually put them outside on the verandah to dry it was dark by then. I turned the just-washed bags inside out and left them like this on a towel. It worked well and now the bags are ready to use when I bring home root vegetables, cabbages or whatever I buy that I want to last four or five weeks.
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You’ll save money by going back to basics

When I was doing the workshops and solo sessions, I had a couple of people whose main focus was on creating the fastest way to set up a simple life. You can't create a simple life fast, it's the opposite of that It's not one single thing either - it's a number of smaller, simpler activities that combine to create a life that reflects your values; and that takes a long to come together. When I first started living simply I took an entire year to work out our food - buying it, storing it, cooking it, preserving, baking, freezing, and growing it in the backyard. This is change that will transform how you live and it can't be rushed.  
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Trending Articles

NOT the last post

This will be my last post here.  I've been writing my blog for 18 years and now is the time to step back. I’ve stopped writing the blog and come back a couple of times because so many people wanted it, but that won’t happen again, I won’t be back.  I’ll continue on instagram to remain connected but I don’t know how frequent that will be. I know some of you will be interested to know the blog's statistics. 
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Every morning at home

Every morning when I walk into my kitchen it looks tidy and ready for a day's work. Not so on this morning (above), I saw this when I walked in. Late the previous afternoon when I was looking for something, I came across my rolled up Zwilling vacuum bags and decided they had to be washed and dried. So I did that and although I usually put them outside on the verandah to dry it was dark by then. I turned the just-washed bags inside out and left them like this on a towel. It worked well and now the bags are ready to use when I bring home root vegetables, cabbages or whatever I buy that I want to last four or five weeks.
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You’ll save money by going back to basics

When I was doing the workshops and solo sessions, I had a couple of people whose main focus was on creating the fastest way to set up a simple life. You can't create a simple life fast, it's the opposite of that It's not one single thing either - it's a number of smaller, simpler activities that combine to create a life that reflects your values; and that takes a long to come together. When I first started living simply I took an entire year to work out our food - buying it, storing it, cooking it, preserving, baking, freezing, and growing it in the backyard. This is change that will transform how you live and it can't be rushed.  
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Creating a home you'll love forever

Living simply is the answer to just about everything. It reduces the cost of living; it keeps you focused on being careful with resources such as water and electricity; it reminds you to not waste food; it encourages you to store food so you don't waste it and doing all those things brings routine and rhythm to your daily life. Consciously connecting every day with the activities and tasks that create simple life reminds you to look for the meaning and beauty that normal daily life holds.  It's all there in your home if you look for it. Seemingly mundane tasks like cleaning and cooking help you with that connection for without those tasks, the home you want to live in won't exist in the way you want it to.  Creating a home you love will make you happy and satisfied.
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Time changes everything

I've been spending time in the backyard lately creating a contained herb and vegetable garden. My aim is to develop a comfortable place to spend time, relax, increase biodiversity and encourage more animals, birds and insects to live here or visit. Of course I'd prefer my old garden which was put together by Hanno with ease and German precision. Together, we created a space bursting at the seams with herbs, vegetables and fruity goodness ready to eat and share throughout the year. But time changes everything. What I'm planning on doing now, is a brilliant opportunity for an almost 80 year old with balance issues. In my new garden I'll be able to do a wide range of challenging or easy work, depending on how I feel each day. It’s a daily opportunity to push myself or sit back, watch what's happening around me and be captivated by memories or the scope of what's yet to come.
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It's the old ways I love the most

I'm a practical woman who lives in a 1980’s brick slab house. There are verandahs front and back so I have places to sit outside when it's hot or cold. Those verandahs tend to make the house darker than it would be but they're been a great investment over time because they made the house more liveable. My home is not a romantic cottage, nor a minimalist modern home, it's a 1980’s brick slab house. And yet when people visit me here they tell me how warm and cosy my home is and that they feel comforted by being here. I've thought about that over the years and I'm convinced now that the style of a home isn't what appeals to people. What they love is the feeling within that home and whether it's nurturing the people who live there.
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Making ginger beer from scratch

We had a nice supply of ginger beer going over Christmas. It's a delicious soft drink for young and old, although there is an alcoholic version that can be made with a slight variation on the recipe. Ginger beer is a naturally fermented drink that is easy to make - with ginger beer you make a starter called a ginger beer plant and after it has fermented, you add that to sweet water and lemon juice. Like sourdough, it must ferment to give it that sharp fizz. To make a ginger beer plant you'll need ginger - either the powdered dry variety or fresh ginger, sugar, rainwater or tap water that has stood for 24 hours to allow the chlorine to evaporate off. You'll also need clean plastic bottles that have been scrubbed with soap, hot water and a bottle brush and then rinsed with hot water. I never sterilise my bottles and I haven't had any problems. If you intend to keep the ginger beer for a long time, I'd suggest you sterilise your bottles. MAKING THE STARTER In a...
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An authentic look at daily life here — unstaged and real

Most days Hanno was outside happily working in the fresh air. It may surprise you to know that I started reading my book,  Down to Earth , yesterday - the first time since I wrote it 13 years ago.  I had lent it to my neighbor, and when she returned it, I started reading, expecting to find surprises. Instead, I realised the words were still familiar—as if they were etched into my memory. As I flipped through the pages, I was reminded of how important it was for me to share that knowledge with others. The principles in Down to Earth changed my life, and I truly believed they could do the same for others. After just 30 minutes of reading, I put the book down, reassured that its message still holds true: we can slow down and reshape our lives, one step at a time.
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