You don’t use antibacterial wipes do you. Tell me you don’t.

http://witcheskitchen.com.au/you-dont-use-antibacterial-wipes-do-you-tell-me-you-dont/

 Great post from the Witches Kitchen, scary stuff indeed.

Closing sale at Evie & Liv

I've decided to close my Etsy shop Evie & Liv after about 8 years of sewing fun, so I'm offering readers a discount of 25% off already reduced prices with no minimum spend, until the end of June.  Great time to stock up on gear for your little ones, or gifts for others.  Thank-you for supporting local and handmade!

Coupon code for checkout: CLOSING25

Thoughts on reducing packaging waste

 Since the end of last year, I've been feeling the need to reduce the amount of throwaway packaging that comes into (and out of) our home.  I've revisited buying at bulk shops where you take your own containers to refill, but there's not a lot of that around here, so I do what I can.  I'm hoping The Source Bulk Foods opens in Geelong soon, I've been to one of their Melbourne shops a couple of times, and it's fantastic!

 My drawer of stainless steel containers and water bottles.  I also use a lot of Pyrex containers.

 I'm able to fill these up at the Wholefoods Co-operative in town.

 We have a confectionary shop locally that also sells a huge range of nuts, spices and healthier foods.  I took a drawstring cloth bag and asked if they would fill it with roasted almonds, and they kindly obliged.  They'd do it with their treats too I'm sure, but we'll try to avoid that where possible ;)

 A range of food covers- beeswax wraps, and bowl covers.  I've only bought 2 rolls of cling wrap in my adult life, I used it so infrequently, I figured I didn't need it.  I haven't used it for years as there are plenty of alternatives.

 Making your own crackers is very easy, the bought ones are so over packaged.  I've been using this recipe, mostly with a buckwheat/teff flour combination so it's GF.

 I like to buy oats and flour in 5kg bags, I'll store it in the freezer to keep it fresh if there's room.

My local free range butcher (Warren & Hutch) will fill up my containers, and set aside items that they normally package in plastic for me to pick up plastic free.  A local deli wouldn't let me buy cheese or deli meat in my own containers, so I'm buying waxed cheese for now, and I have bought parmesan cheese in one of my beeswax wraps, so it can be done, I just have to go further afield (Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne).  I'm drawing inspiration from:

The Rogue Ginger
Gippsland Unwrapped and a great interview here
Plastic Free July
Treading My Own Path

Endless Summer

 Livinia picking apricots in the new year

 Seems I lost my blogging mojo over summer, but here are some productive garden snapshots from the last 3 months.  We had a bounty of apricots and nectarines, the trees were well pollinated by the bees in spring.

 A little bit of soap making, lavender and peppermint

 And beeswax candlemaking from our beeswax and our eggshells

 Some of our almond harvest... scorched almonds for Easter?

 Golden delicious apples have been picked this week

 Butternut pumpkins coming along

 The second flush of raspberries ready for autumn

 Banana rockmelon, hopefully will ripen before the cold sets in

 Some of our 43kg honey harvest from 3 hives this season

 Garden looking good after the huge rains we got on January 27.  The sedums are at their best and covered in bees at the moment.

November garden in the morning

 After an unusually hot and dry October, yesterday we woke to thunder and lightning and lots of rain, such a relief.  There was 17mm in the rain gauge by the end of the day, and the garden is much happier for it.

 My experiment for the summer- growing in straw bales.  The idea is that the straw insulates against extreme heat and retains water, it breaks down over summer, and you're left with some good humus rich soil.  I added compost into the planting hole.

 Pumpkins coming up

 The garden bed that not much grew in, with lots of manure and mulch is growing much better.

 Lots of apricots on the tree

 Lots of almonds on the tree

Lots of raspberries and (not pictured here) lots of boysenberries, which I think will be an early crop this year due to the heat.

Swarming part 2

 This is the final cluster before Andrew was able to come home and catch it before they took off.

 Capturing the swarm

 These were rehomed to a lady who lives around the corner, and are doing well so far.  We had another swarm yesterday, so we had to borrow an empty hive, but this lot don't seem too happy right now.  Fingers crossed they settle down.

Swarming

 I could hear a lot of bee activity a little while ago, and I have watched as the bees have become thick over the backyard.

 I hope they stay on our block!

 Andrew installed a new (empty) hive last weekend, so a swarm would hopefully find it.  Fingers crossed!

Olive trees dripping with bees