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I've just come in from the garden on this humid morning and want to pass on a few tips for hot and dry summer gardening. I know there are a lot of new gardeners out there so I hope what I share helps you get your garden through these harsh conditions. I was out in my garden filling up the bird baths, watering a few pots that looked parched and I also discovered a paper wasp nest right next to where I was standing.  Usually we leave the insects to do their thing, as they leave us to do ours, but with children visiting over the holidays this wasp nest is just too close to where they'll be playing so it has to go. I passed that job over to Hanno who will deal with it later today.  



The tree is one of our orange trees. We're watching it like a hawk because it's full of small oranges and if it gets heat stressed, it will drop the fruit.
A couple of weeks ago I was asked on Instagram what my connection to Clare Bowditch was because she'd thanked me, as one of many, in her wonderful book, Your Own Kind of Girl. I explained that I met Clare a few years earlier when I was on a book tour for The Simple Home. Clare greeted me like a long-lost friend in the ABC studios in Melbourne and after her interview, she told me that Down to Earth sat on her bedside table as one of her favourite books. Thank you, Clare.


This is my knitting station. I have my wool and cotton basket on the table - and it's just had its annual clean out.
Two books I'm reviewing for new recipes to add to what I already cook, and my washcloths so far this year. There are seven in all, I have three more on needles and I'll probably do 12 - 15 all up. That will give me a new baby gift, our dishcloths for the year and a couple of other small gifts.

This is our new cottage garden. I started it in August and it's growing well but it's not quite finished. We've gone from tending a very productive vegetable garden for about 30 years, to a small cottage garden that fits into a third of the old garden. We've taken out some gardens, they're lawn now, the rest are flowers, herbs and fruit.


This is our winter garden in 2006. Now the garden closest to the camera and the middle garden are  gone, and the cottage garden is growing in the two gardens closest to the picket fence.


And this is today's garden taken from a different angle. The picket fence in the last photo is on the left of this garden.

Today, I've written about our Bosch induction stove top, Bosch heat pump clothes dryer and Miele dishwasher. Water and energy efficiency is the most important thing to me when I buy a new appliance. I searched through our old water and electricity accounts yesterday and discovered that there has been no increase in our water or electricity consumption since we bought these appliances. For years we've used between 150 and 200 litres of water per day and between 140 and 200 kWh of electricity. Both those figures are under the average usage for a two person household in Australia.

Bosch PIJ611BB1E 60cm induction cooktop

Earlier this year we replaced our gas cooktop with a Bosch PIJ611BB1E, 60cm, induction, three burner cooktop. We paid $999 for ours but I notice they're currently listed on the Bosch Australian site $1699 and on Appliances Online for $1265. It always pays to look around for the best price.  I'm very happy with the stove.  We chose the three burner because we're past the stage of needing more burners to cook meals. So far I haven't regretted that choice.


Hello sewers. I've started a sewing bee involving recycling old fabric. You can recycle unused old fabric from your stash, an old dress, sheets, towels, coats or whatever you have enough of to make something you'll use.  I'm making pillow cases from an old white cotton bed skirt.  Would you like to join in? There are no fees and no pressure; we'll all have a bit of fun and learn more about sewing and recycling. I'm hoping new sewers join in as well as our intermediates and experienced sewers. Everyone is welcome.  You can join either here or on Instagram - #downtoearthsewingbee.

This is the old bed skirt I'm using to make pillow cases.  What will you use?

The item should be finished by Thursday 21 November (or close to it) and when you finish, I'd like you to take a photo and send it to me so I can add it to my Instagram sewing bee gallery.  I'm always interested in what other people sew so I'm looking forward to seeing what you create.  Start now, let me know what you're sewing and when you finish send a photo of your finished project to downtoearthsewingbee@gmail.com so it can be added to the photo gallery.
It's been a crazy week with many visitors, reading, gardening, rest and a lot of busyness snaking through my days. The highlight of the week came yesterday when Clare Bowditch visited with her husband Marty and publicist Isabelle. Clare is on tour promoting her first book Your Own Kind of Girl and on their way to Maleny they dropped in for afternoon tea. It was wonderful seeing her again. I met Clare when she interviewed me in 2016 on tour with The Simple Home. She's a wonderful and interesting woman who makes everyone around her feel loved, although it's clear when reading her book, she had a complex and difficult past. If you're looking for a good book with a clear message about life and how it changes, this is the one for you. I'm still reading mine and I don't want it to end.



It will be cloudy here today with a minimal chance of rain so I'll be out in the garden planting up geranium Rozanne, a Lillipop Soda Pop gaura and a rosea, the final plants in our newish cottage garden. Before that though I want to write about the last legs of our vegetable garden - a thriving collection of common and not-so-common vegetables and fruits we started growing here in 1998.



I've been working in my garden for a few weeks transitioning from a vegetable to a cottage garden and trying to get everything ready for spring.  Spring is the season that sets our gardens up for the year and if you get good rain in spring, as we did, it's even better. But I have no illusions of a lush floral display throughout summer, I just hope I can help most of it through the prolonged heat that I know is coming.  Our average annual rainfall is about 1800mm and that is one of the reasons we chose to live in this area. However, so far this year we've had 755.4mm, 286mm less than the previous year. This was the first year two of our tanks ran out of water, and the big 10,000 litre tank had only about 2000 litres left. I wouldn't grow vegetables without the safety net of tanks. They're expensive to put in, but like solar panels, they earn their place in most environmentally sound houses.  We saved for our tanks, one went in soon after we arrived here, and the big one was established about ten years ago; again, when we had the cash to pay for it.  When you set yourself up with tanks, you can water liberally most of the time and know that you're producing food with no hidden costs.

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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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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

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Time changes everything

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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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