Spring is Just Around the Corner!

Spring is in the air, we are not quite there yet, however the temperatures and the flowers blossoming are sure signs that Winter is all but gone for another year. Spring is a special time of the year, the nights are still cool and the day’s still bearable. The choice of seeds to plant are still varied and many, and if Spring rain does happen to fall everything just looks so wonderful. Spring rain!! Oh yes please! I have been busy watering our many tree’s this week as everything starts to wake up again, very time consuming but rewarding when you see everything looking happy again. Once again I feel that tug of outside chores verses inside chores, there seems to be so many things from the garden to preserve at the moment. I have an abundance of citrus still, so marmalade, more marmalade keeps popping into my mind. I have pulled up all my beetroot and pickled it, chillies are ready to be picked and made into sweet chilli sauce. And just the other day I brought some beautiful strawberries from a local strawberry farm and made jam. Homemade strawberry jam! The jam you buy from the shop just doesn’t compare to homemade, not to mention the smell when it’s cooking : ) As I get through my tasks each day I’m reminded that the simple life does not mean the easy life. To grow and harvest and store your food takes time and effort, but the reward and skills gained along the way make it all worth while in my mind. What a lovely feeling it is to know all my jams are made with my own hands, the tomatoes I grow provide us with not only jam but sauce too, vegetables are frozen, pickled or eaten fresh. Fruit picked and eaten straight from the tree. And just the other day I picked my first broccoli from the garden, a bit late, but finally here at last, and they were tasty!

No sprays just lot’s of flowers and herbs to keep pests at bay. Tomorrow I have decided to get in and pull out a huge bush tomato vine growing in here, so I can plant out snow peas and beans. These tomato bushes produce tiny tomatoes that grow in bunches on the vine, they grow wild in the paddocks are so tough and resilient and are the sweetest little tomatoes! But the plants do take up a very big area and since I have plenty of tomatoes I can sacrifice this one, and I know that they will keep coming back, once you have them you will always have them! The chickens, ducks and geese will be very excited when I let them pick through it : )

It’s probably time to start thinking about zucchini, salad greens, corn, cucumber all those lovely warmer weather crops as the soil starts to heat up. Growing from seed means trying to be on the ball as the seasons change, it’s funny the things that can set you back, things you would never imagine. My broccoli is so late because a sneaky chicken managed to find my seedlings and munched all the leaves off them, so I had to get them back nice and leafy and strong again before planting out, do not become complacent about your seedlings and their safety was the lesson learnt here!

I’ve been having a time away from social media, and loving it! I find it can all get a bit too much for me and starts to feel unhealthy. Even though I was not on there all the time, it made me question do I want all this going in and do I want what little extra time I have spent scrolling? For me the answer was no. I love to come here and write my blog, I always have this in the back of my mind and would like to start writing more regularly, and there are two other blogs that I like to take the time to sit back and enjoy. They are Outback Tania and Down to Earth. I have taken up crocheting again, simple things like dishcloth and face cloth squares. Practical and easy, I have been inspired by some friends and am thinking I might tackle a blanket soon. Between my garden and my home, and the farm there is plenty to fill my days, I had it on my heart to get back to simple things like creating and making more. Calling people on the telephone!! Writing letters, all those things that I seem to be loosing touch with. It’s good for us to take a step back now and again to re-evaluate our time and how we use it. We are better positioned to give to others when we have balance in our own lives and a sense of accomplishment as well as rest.

I’m running out of time so tomorrow I am going to write another post where I want to share two great recipes and show you my kitchen overhaul, well pantry overhaul that I tackled recently, what a job that was! xx