From carrots to carrot cake

 Fresh picked carrots this morning plus fresh eggs from our chickens equals

 Yummy carrot cakes!

That's what it's all about

Survival of the hardiest

 I didn't get around to posting about my fried garden after our ridiculous heatwave, probably better to focus on the plants that did survive well, some of them thrived.  The ones that did the best were in the newest raised beds with good soil.  My poor driveway garden with its sandy soil and radiant heat from the concrete didn't do so well.  We also sadly lost a chicken.

 These two photos are of two cape gooseberry bushes growing together, and I think they doubled in size, and now have little buds on them.  I'm looking forward to trying their fruit, to see if we'll grow them again next summer.

 The cucumbers have taken off, I've just discovered some ripe for the picking after buying a couple at a farmer's market yesterday.  I thought it'd be a few weeks before we had any!

 A little capsicum.  We had some nearly ripe ones, but they were cooked on the bush.

 Grapes doing well.

 Comfrey- it was a pile of brown leaves at the end of the heatwave, but had a small green leaf poking up.  This is one week later.

 Sweet potatoes are quite happy, but are yet to fully take off

 Zucchinis chugging along

New growth on a young raspberry, after some leaves were damaged.  So we'll have to have a good think about what we can grow in the driveway, and cover everything with sheets or shade cloth in extreme heat.

Organic cotton flannelette nighties

Once again I'm sewing winter gear in summer, but that's ok, our Northern Hemisphere friends are enjoying winter at the moment.  I've just updated my shop with some new organic cotton nighties, to go with the upcycled ones.  You can find them here.

Roast tomato sauce

 Tomatoes ready for the oven with chopped garlic, thyme sprigs, olive oil and salt & pepper.  The tomatoes, garlic and thyme are all from our garden.

 After 1 hour of roasting

 After being pushed through a mouli- 900mls!  The recipe (River Cottage Veg) said I'd get about 500mls.

Ready to be frozen in 200ml (ish) portions.  Now I can try out the Roasted Tomato Risotto.

New dresses in the shop

Spring is on my mind, and with that, a few new dress offerings for my shop.

Winter garden tour

We're trying strawberries in hanging bags this year, after not much success with them in the garden thus far.  Just have to remember to keep the water up to them!  They're the Alinta variety from Diggers.

 One of our 2 new hazelnut trees- we have a Cosford, and a Wanliss Pride next to each other, both from Diggers.

 Cherry Stella, a self fertile variety, looks like a stick at the moment.

 One of our 2 Avocado Rincon, that tolerate the cold well, and only grow to 3 metres tall.  So our driveway that used to be full of pittosporums, now has 2 avocado, an almond, 2 hazelnut, a cherry, a cox's orange pippin apple, and an apricot tree.  And there's room for one more up the end, when we get some more tree stumps out.

 Andrew's wheat crop

 Our bumper crop of yummy carrots

 Potatoes coming back after the frost knocked them back.

 Some very healthy broccoli heads- no grubs on them this year.  We had a visit from a blue wren and his little brown mate yesterday, in the broccoli patch.

And our 7 chooks having a feast on some broccoli leaves, thinned to let more light in.  One of our chooks (Louisa the little araucana) died on one of the frosty mornings about 3 weeks ago.  I don't think she was a healthy bird.  On a lighter note, I think today will be a five egg day, with both Plymouth rock's laying an egg (both chooks jammed into one lawn mower catcher!).  If so, it will be the first time we've had five eggs in one day.  Can't wait for the araucanas to start laying again.

Casuarina Farm

We had our first fruit and vegetable box delivered today from Casuarina Farm, we found out about them at Ecofest. I've wanted to do this for a while, and I hadn't heard of these guys before. So far, so good, our garden will provide us with the rest- lettuce, cauliflower, leeks, silverbeet, spring onions, and soon, snow peas. I like to buy organic where possible, and this makes it that little bit easier.

Organic denim skirt in shop

Size 4 upwards- grows with you. In the shop now.

Organic denim skirt

Now in my Etsy shop

And another sideways shot :)

Organic denim pants now in shop

On Etsy

They look much better in person...

Sorry about the sideways shots, they sometimes have a mind of their own.

On Etsy

Kinder & new organic denim pants

Evie's off to kinder again today, for her first day with all of the class of 20. She only had to go for one day last week, but for the full 2 1/2 hours with 10 children. She still didn't want to come home afterwards, so she seems to be enjoying herself!

She went camping with my parents for a couple of nights on the weekend in Torquay, so I had some extra time to whip up some pairs of pants from organic cotton denim from Organic Fabric Online.
2 pairs for Evie (one plain pair, one red birch tree print), and 2 pairs for the Etsy shop, I'll upload later when the sun's in the right position for outside photos.

new items in shop

Ginkgo dress
Organic cotton dress size 1-2