Last day of holidays

Kind of...Joanna starts morning kindy tomorrow. Ben still has two and a half weeks until school starts.

Getting better every year

The first year we tried to grow garlic...it didn't even germinate.

The second year we tried to grow garlic...we harvested about 10 very small bulbs.

The third year we tried to grow garlic (this year)...we harvested 26 large bulbs of garlic (the same size range as the bulbs you buy at the supermarket).

Now this isn't a totally random result, there are factors that we have control over that we have changed/adjusted each year.

The first year we used garlic bought at the supermarket as our seed garlic - this shouldn't have made a difference as we bought NZ grown garlic which doesn't get treated with the same chemicals as the imported stuff (the imported stuff is sprayed with a chemical to specifically not let in germinate), but the general advice is to buy 'seed garlic' from the garden shop.

So the second year I used garlic I'd bought at the farmer's market (so I was able to check directly with the grower that it hadn't been sprayed). But after we planted them, we didn't pay much attention to them, so they didn't get watered much and I don't think I fertilised them at all. I also realised that I didn't plant it in the best location - it was a bit shady and got almost smothered by the potato plants.

So this year, our third year, I planted them in a nice sunny location, made sure that I watered them regularly and also fertilised regularly. I also had planted a greater number of seed garlic (as each clove of seed garlic produces 1 new whole bulb).

So maybe I'll get to have my whole roasted bulb of garlic this year!

How to become a 'green thumb'

You would all be familiar with the term 'green thumb' to describe a person who is good at gardening. Well the way to get a green thumb isn't all that difficult...all you need to do is remove some of the leaves off your tomato plants. Every time I do this I get green thumbs and fingers (I do it without gloves on because I find it too fiddley/delicate of a task to do with gloves on) and when I come in and wash my hands it turns the soap an antiseptic yellow colour for about 5 minutes of washing and scrubbing with a nail brush to get them clean!

Motivated by profits = bad environmental practices

I know this is nothing new, but I've just had an annoying experience of this today.

Item - Vacuum cleaner

Issue - a small thin ring of plastic that connects the cleaner head to the neck bend that attaches to the main wand is broken

Solution provided by the store - instead of just being able to replace the small ring for the cost of $5 (I know the cost as they sell replacement of exactly the same thing, just a bigger size for the hose attachment points), I have to buy a whole new 'head', at a cost of $39 or $49.

Reverse psychology

I've heard/read about the parenting technique where if your toddler is having a whingy cry, you mimic the behaviour to show them how ridiculous it is, so they stop. Well I think Ben has discovered this technique all by himself...I just observed Naomi have a whine at Ben, and Ben mimicking the behaviour back at her and...she stopped it.

Strange day

It has been raining all weekend and the forecast was for it to continue all this week...But when we wake up this morning there is sun and blue sky! I had psyched myself up for a week of kids being inside and had planned to go shopping this morning, just to be able to get them out of the house for a bit. Instead, I got them to get themselves dressed and jobs done quickly this morning and sent them outside to play (while the non-rainy weather lasts - there are still threatening grey clouds floating about the sky). They are having fun, but it has put me out of sorts a bit as the jobs I thought I was going to do this morning (ie. shopping) aren't getting done (as I don't want to waste fine weather being inside a shopping centre, I want to save it for one of the forecast rainy days) and I'm having to find different jobs to do at home.

Trying to get into the spirit of hot summer weather

I made up a bulk batch of sugar syrup this afternoon to make into various flavoured ice blocks. But it hasn't really felt hot enough for ice blocks yet (I had to put a light weight jacket on while sitting reading after lunch today as I was feeling a little cool). I do have memories of enjoying a nice cool ice block after walking home from school at the start of first term last year, so they should get eaten then, it they last...

Christmas packed up for another year

Prompted by a certain young boy starting to destroy decorations with his knight spear.

Potato Economics

As Peter posted yesterday, we harvested our first crop of the potatoes for the season. Although he included a photo to show how much, I thought it was a bit hard to really see how many we got (especially when you don't know the size of the box we had them in). So in the process of packing them away I've done some sorting and weighing, and have included the relevant statistics below:

Total Yield = 6.814kg

Broken down by quality:
3.369kg of perfect potatoes
2.934kg of damaged potatoes (ie. got damaged when forking them out of the soil or split while they were growing) - still edible, we will just have to eat them first as they will spoil quickly
0.511 of potatoes we won't eat (1 potato that is inedible and then 8 potatoes we are going to use as seed potatoes for another crop - these would otherwise have been included with the perfect potatoes)

We paid $6 for the 1kg of seed potatoes, so the crop has worked out at $0.89/kg (if you add on the cost of some fertiliser and water that we used to help them grow, probably works out at about $1/kg). And they are guaranteed to taste better than potatoes you buy from the supermarket! (we know from the taste difference we experienced last year)

First spuds...

We had a crop of fast growing potatoes that are supposed to mature within 60-90 days this year - the plants had died back a few weeks ago, and we got around to digging them out today.  According to Mel's trusty calendar, it had been 87 days in the ground for them.  This is what we got out, from 7 seed potatoes - I reckon they're pretty impressive!

We also pulled out a couple of heads of garlic to see how they were looking - we'll probably pull the rest out pretty soon seen as they're looking pretty good.