Start of the summer harvest

The harvest is starting, but due to the lack of rainfall we're not having the success I'd hoped for.  Still, as our first year in a new district I guess it is to be expected that things don't always go, well, as expected!

So far we have managed to harvest:
1 kg Zucchini
3 kg carrots
6 (good size) leeks
250 grams blueberries
2 kg Beetroot
4 kg potatoes
1/2 kg cherry tomatoes

Mostly it is picking a few bits here and there, but within a few weeks we will be harvesting kilos of tomatoes, zucchinis, eggplants, pumpkins and melons each day.  For the moment we're able to use what we pick as we pick.

My wife bought me an early Christmas present, a book called Whole Larder Love. It is a collection of recipes and tips by a former chef who's virtually living off the land from his home grown produce, hunted and scavenged foods.  One recipe he has is perfect for our current produce of eggs, leeks and potatoes Tortilla Espanola.  I've modified it slightly, but my recipe is based substantially on his.

The basic ingredients are 6 eggs, 6 potatoes and 1 onion.  I substituted the onion for leek, and also added a small capsicum.  Once I got it into our frying pan, I also realised I needed more eggs, so I added another 4 eggs, but next time I'll just use a smaller pan.

The first step is to par-boil the potatoes, and then slice/cube the potatoes to fry up in some oil.  It only takes around 7 minutes on a hot stove, plus I added the leek to get it cooking.

After browning the potatoes and leeks, you pour those back into a mixing bowl with the beaten eggs, paprika, salt and pepper.  Then the whole mixture goes back into the frying pan to "set" the sides.  If your pan can go straight into an oven, you can cook it for around 20 mins in the oven.  Ours isn't oven proof, so I mostly cooked the tortilla on the stove, transferring it to an oven tray for the last 10 minutes of cooking.

 The end result: a great tasting Tortilla Espanola!

Happy harvest to all those Down Under!

Dream Holiday Home

I've been randomly dreaming of potential homes and holiday homes as we aim to live in an ever increasing self sufficient lifestyle.  A part of our lifestyle that we wouldn't want to give up is our holidays.

But it got me thinking, what if our holiday could be part of our semi self sufficient lifestyle?  For example, what if we could have a log cabin on a private island?

One property that I found wouldn't suit us now but does show that it would be possible.  For someone living in the Chicagoland area, or realistically most of northern Illinois, a 5 acre island in the Rock River is currently for sale!

I figure with a property like this, only around one and a half hours drive from Chicago, you could visit on a monthly basis especially during summer.  The property would add value in a number of different ways:

Recreation: Five acres of mostly wooded property for short walks, canoeing/boating on the river, swimming (?), camping, fishing, a golf course across the highway, rest and relaxation, TV (well, there is a satellite dish, so it is a potential activity!).

Food: While it wouldn't be worthwhile growing vegetables that would need regular attendance, potentially you could grow a small orchard.  Then during the summer visits, you could be taking fruit and produce "back home" to your permanent residence.

Fuel: Given that it is 5 acres in size, there are probably a few fallen trees and branches that could be used for a wood fired stove, pizza oven or campfire. Just remember to ensure you're replacing cut wood at a faster rate than you are cutting!

Income: I am sure that with the right connections you could rent this property out short term to other city residents wanting a break.  It might only be a couple of hundred dollars for a weekend, but June, July and August you could rent out the island say 9 times (taking into account your own personal use) at peak rates (summertime), another 10-15 times during spring and autumn, and maybe 5-6 in winter.  Hypothetically 30 weekends over the course of the year (you still get 22 weekends, plus numerous mid-week opportunities), could bring in around $6,000 each year.  Not a reliable source of income in itself, but certainly would offset the holding costs such as interest and taxes.

Then all the produce and recreation is "free" to you!

That's the dream anyway.

Growing nicely, thank you!

We've now been in this new house for two months - the time has just flown by!  We've made two trips back to Melbourne, plus with work being rather busy the weeks kind of roll into months and suddenly it is almost November.

The chickens have well and truly settled in and without any issues.  They are now laying 6 eggs a day, so I am having to think of creative ways to 'preserve' the eggs:

• Pavlova -uses 6 egg whites, but only lasts a day!
• Quiche - 3 eggs, but this recipe adds half a pint of cream, plus cheese.
• Baking - a dozen blueberry muffins used 3 eggs.
• Give-aways - a dozen eggs to a neighbour (traded for some greens for the chickens).
• Fresh Pasta - 7 eggs in total for two pounds of pasta.

The garden is also growing really well.  The sandy soil in Western Australia used to really frustrate me, but after four years of working in solid clay the sand is so easy to work with!  I'll have to mulch really well to retain moisture once summer really hits, but for now the plants are growing really well:

Kids Garden

The kids garden has gone well, with the radishes almost finished, and a planting of carrots having just been sown to replace them.  The snow peas up against the house have replaced an attempt at a row of sunflowers - birds and slugs ate those faster than they could grow!  The cherry tomato is around two feet high, almost ready to fruit.

Carrots and onions

The carrot and onion bed is a bit of an experiment of sorts. The oldest carrots are on the left, with a couple of rows of leeks next to them.  This row of leeks has been topped up with some manure and mulch to help keep sunlight off.  As I say, all experimental!  There is then another small row of carrots, a later sowing to try to have them mature at a different time to the first planting.  Then there's another row of green onions and leeks, then parsnips on the right.

Tomato and related plants

The last garden bed in this section is for the tomatoes and related plants.  On the right with stakes are some heirloom tomatoes, then some Roma tomatoes in the mulch alongside those tomatoes.  There is a capsicum/pepper plant along the path, then some salad tomatoes on the left.  Next to the parsnips is a row of chillis (way too many, but I'll make lots of chilli sauce for the year), and some eggplants. Note to parents: when you bury eggshells next to eggplants it reinforces to your kids that eggplants grow eggs!

It's only been two months, but we're already well on our way to a bumper harvest!

Getting ready for Summer

We're only 30 days into the Australian Spring and I'm pretty confident that this is the most prepared I've every been for a summer harvest!  The chooks have settled into their chicken pen, and one has started to lay eggs already.  I suspect it is one of the Leghorns or Isa Browns, but haven't yet caught them in the act.

Chooks lined up ready for the kids to feed them weeds.

Our chook egg on left, shop bought on right.

The kid's patch is coming along nicely.  A few radishes have been picked already, with a bonus that the kids actually like them!  The cherry tomato has had a few flowers blossom, but I doubt that they'll really turn into anything at this early stage.  While the beetroot and strawberries are progressing, the sunflowers have basically just been snail food, and they never get to actually shoot very far before the snails get to them.

Half of the main bed has been set aside for tomato and related plants in a semi-rotational system.  In the photo below are blueberry, blackberry and black currant plants in pots, with tomatoes immediately behind (on the right of photo), and eggplant and chilli behind on left.  The bare dirt between the eggplant and brickwork will be for some Roma tomatoes.  The tomatoes on the right are various heirloom varieties -I figure that we'll end up with cherry tomatoes (from kids and one of my heirlooms), salad tomatoes, saucing/sundried tomatoes (from the Romas) and some green tomatoes (green zebras).  My sister's favourite movie for a while was Fried Green Tomatoes, so I've always wanted to grow green tomatoes just so I can make her one!

The three plants at the back of the garden bed are three of my propogated grape vines.  While I'm not sure which variety they are, a friend works for a liquor wholesaler and he's pretty confident that he'll be able to pick the variety.  Around three quarters of the propogated vines have established themselves, and I've been able to transplant 6 in total to our new house here (another three in pots elsewhere in the garden).  This will be their second season, so hopefully with the warmer weather we will get some fruit this time around!

Time to add a room!

One of the problems with renting a house is that you're firstly stuck with the layout as it comes, and secondly there is not much you can really do about it.

Take this house we've just started renting.  Because of it's age (1930's - 1950's at a guess) it has good features such as high ceilings, a lot of land, great storage in the kitchen and a good number of rooms (especially with the extension of a new master bedroom, second bathroom and another living area.

On the downside, the laundry wasn't built for washing machines the size of the modern era machine.  Not that ours is particularly large, but the placement of the laundry trough doesn't allow us to actually use the laundry as a laundry! So our laundry is outside on the back veranda, but this then leaves it exposed to full sun for most of the day.  And we're not even in summer yet.

The hoses etc are connected OK through the window, which unfortunately is always (locked) open.  Over the fence at the end are the rubbish (trash) bins, with a couple of ropes tied to the bins and the fence so that you can open the lids from over the fence.

We've then tied a tarpaulin to the beams in the roof, which stretches the tarpaulin across most of the back.  There's still a gap on the right to make it easier when you're walking out of the house into the backyard.

The end result is a new laundry (of sorts).  Cost all of about $10, and won't be an issue when the landlord makes their next inspection!

On the move...

With a recent promotion at work, we're no longer based in Gippsland!  I'll keep the name of the blog, since we're expecting to move back eventually, and while in the sunny Wimmera (Western Victoria) I'll keep gardening, preserving and budgeting!

Our new home is a rental but with quite a large backyard.  Most of it is grassed, then there's the old pool area that is now a sandpit and paved area so the kids have got a lot of space to keep them occupied. There are also two largish areas that will make nice vegetable gardens.  Eventually.

The first area is by the clothesline, and with a path down the middle, already divided into three larger beds. This first bed, the largest, will be for carrots, leeks and parsnip on the left, grapevines along the back, and then tomatoes, capsicums and chili toward the right.

The second bed in this section will be for the kids - sunflowers, radishes, cherry tomatoes, beetroot and strawberries. An eclectic mix of foods and flowers they enjoy and smaller produce they'll at least have fun picking!  The third bed is a work in progress and will likely be the herb bed.  Still close to the house so we'll be able to pick fresh herbs to add to our cooking.

The other main area is an unused section at the back of the block.  Under true permaculture guidelines this normally wouldn't be for vegetables, since it isn't near the house.  It is however relatively clear from weeds and in full sun.  As a result I've started planting out potatoes, and will use this for corn and other plants as well that can mostly be left for long growing periods.  The walk to the back isn't a huge burden anyway and I can certainly do with the extra steps!

We are also very fortunate that there was already a chicken run in place, plus a very accommodating landlord that was happy for us to keep chickens.  We've bought 6 in total - 2 Isa Browns, 2 Leghorns and 2 Australorps (only one pictured).  The kids love them, the chooks love the weeds the kids feed them and we should start getting eggs within a few weeks.

Happy days ahead in the Wimmera!

New Brassica Garden Bed

Through the middle of summer I was trying to add a new garden bed.  The overall design of the garden is turning out fairly organically - where there is a little space available, I will try to grow veges in them.  By growing things in that space I also gradually clawback the grass that surrounds that space and in turn grow the size of the garden overall.

One garden bed I was wanting to create was some space for some brassica - specifically Brussels Sprouts.  It is again surrounded by strawberries until I get the space for a specific strawberry patch.  The inside space had some spent compost as a base which I then covered with lawn clippings and a layer of manure.

Then I continued to layer grass clippings and straw with manure and topped it off with a layer of straw.

Finally I added some bagged compost over the straw to plant out some Beetroot, Brussels Sprouts and mixed lettuce.  The seedlings then start to establish themselves in the compost as the straw and manure breaks down.

The level of the garden then allows for the strawberries to send runners into the garden bed and establish themselves.  After these get established, I'll transfer to the proper strawberry bed - at least once I've built one!

The Berry Field

Ok, so it mightn't be a field as such, but since we're heading into Spring I thought that it would be a good time to tidy up our raspberry patch.

I bought our first raspberry (Heritage) around 2 years ago, and keep getting good harvests from it. It started to run in the first year and I was fortunate to be able to propagate a second plant from one of the runners. The patch that we had these plants in though was starting to get a little overgrown.

To tidy it up a little, I thought it would be good in a raised garden bed. Our soil is a heavy clay and raspberries really prefer a deep rich soil. The raised bed allows for a no-dig or lasagna type garden, and by using the besser blocks I can grow strawberries around the outside. Now we shouldn't have any issues with berries this summer!

To start the no-dig garden, you place a layer of newspaper down. This will stop most weeds growing into the bed. While I'm intending to remove the turf because it is Kikuyu it is near impossible to completely remove. The newspaper makes one extra barrier to at least help control it a little. I've placed the besser blocks on the newspaper simply to stop the grass growing into where the strawberries will be planted.

Next up is a layer of mulch to help with drainage and a little aeration. I'd trimmed back some hedges this afternoon so they were conscripted in for this. I also added a layer of fresh chicken manure and charcoal. The charcoal had been soaked in some worm castings and should help with the delivery of nutrients to the garden.

At this point you then start alternating straw and manure in layers of around 10cms/4in. Because of the size of my bed, I probably went a bit smaller but I've not had any issues in previous years with this.

I topped it off with a layer of mushroom compost to plant the raspberries into (rich soil, but not too rich like the raw manure would be), and a layer of pea straw as a mulch to keep it all moist. The strawberries around the outside were simply planted in potting mix.
Last year we did reasonably well with our raspberries, although lost a few (and almost all our strawberries) to birds. With the rich soil and a bit of netting for protection, we should have a bumper harvest this summer!

Oh yes, oh yes, It's Springtime!

So Spring has sprung in a big way over the last few weeks! Winter has officially left, and the plants and chickens have taken their cue and started to get more productive.

Firstly, our Rhode Island Red chickens are almost a year old and up until two weeks ago they hadn't laid a single egg between them. With the warming of the weather, between the two RIRs and two Australorps we are getting up to three eggs a day. It's an awesome feeling to be getting more eggs than we can eat at the moment!

Secondly, the plants are definitely reacting to the warm weather too. The deciduous ornamental trees (such as our Liquid Amber) are starting to shoot again, along with the stone fruit trees. I think there are about 3 flowers on the Cherry trees, not quite a bumper harvest, but it's good to see they're establishing themselves.

Today I'd planned to do a fair bit of work, but the weather's conspired against me and we're in for rain most of the weekend. In between the showers, I've been pottering a little. My main aim this weekend was to build a small retaining wall for one of my raised garden beds. Lately they've been getting "attacked" by some of the local wild birds chasing bugs and worms. I find though that the birds prefer to dig at the base of the garden beds rather than from the top. Hopefully just a single layer of 20cm/8in besser blocks will help stop them digging as much.


This is the first garden bed I'm working on. The garden slopes a little, so I will backfill with dirt on the right side of the photo, but from the house you'll be able to see the blocks (rather than just the garden bed). To make it a little more interesting though, the blocks also provide a great planting space for other small plants, so this one will have a border of strawberries. The strawberries will also benefit from a sort of micro-climate in that the blocks will warm up in the sunshine, as well as having them elevated off the ground. We lost quite a few last year to rotting on the ground.

After filling the holes with potting mix, I then transplanted and divided a number of plants from elsewhere in the garden. When we moved in last year, I really just put plants where ever we had room at the time, now that we're getting more established, I'm finding more permanent places for them.

The remaining plants in the garden bed are a row of Savoy Cabbages, Garlic and Cauliflowers. There were more cabbages and cauli's, but the birds destroyed a few searching for worms. The garlic was simply some left over shop-bought garlic from the fridge - it's really just an experiment to see how it goes.

There's still a bit of work left to do, but I'm anticipating it will be a great summer harvest!

Garden Update

OK, so I know it's been a while. Between work and the garden, it's been a little busy, so I've not been able to post for while!

Our chickens have matured, but with maturity came the realisation that one wasn't so much a chicken, but rather a rooster! Given the issues with our city about keeping chickens in the first place, having a rooster was a no-go. Thankfully we found another couple who's existing rooster was getting on a bit, so they've taken him to a big farming property they run. Here's a shot of the two Rhode Island Red girls that we reared:
My wife also had a friend who's in the middle of rearranging their garden and henhouse, so needed to get rid of two chickens. We've adopted these, and while I'm not 100% sure, I'm thinking that they're Australorps. The new chooks are a fair bit older so I don't know if we'll end up with huge numbers of eggs, but at the moment we're getting our fair share of manure!
I'm also using the slower growth now we are in winter to be able to establish some garden beds to have ready for summer. This new bed I'm using no dig principles with, starting with mulch on the bottom, green plants (old pumpkin vines and green grass clippings) then autumn leaves off our deciduous trees. Between each layer is a layer of manure. The bed's almost complete (another layer of manure and old grass clippings) and then it will sit for a few months waiting for summer.

I'm not growing too much at the moment, but have got a few broccoli and pea plants. These peas are growing on an old no dig bed that I used to grow potatoes in last summer, and seem to be doing very well despite the cold setting in early this year. The peas will also provide nitrogen to the soil, which is essentially now a compost having decomposed while the potatoes grew.


So, while the plant growth drops off in winter, the work continues! The next big projects until the spring planting season starts is really around preparing the soft fruits - clearing some space for our strawberries and dividing our raspberries to make sure that we've got way too many this summer!

Rhubarb and Apple Crumble - without the crumble!

The Rhubarb's getting a bit overgrown at the moment, so I thought that it would be a great time to get some Crumble going. Only thing is that we're out of butter, so it's just straight Rhubarb for now!

I plan in some of my writings to include recipes for cooking, along with preservation techniques. The idea is that this isn't simply about the garden itself, it's suggestions of how to deal with the produce.

So tonight the Rhubarb.

This is a really easy recipe. You start with around 10-15 stalks of rhubarb, add a half cup of sugar, and two apples. I did it over a reasonably moderate heat as the rhubarb was almost cooked by the time I'd finished slicing the apple.


In this shot you can kind of see the rhubarb's cooked already. To make sure that the apple wasn't raw, I left it on the low heat, with the lid on, for the apple to continue cooking and soak up some of the juices. It worked pretty well, about 10-15 minutes all up.

You could then take this mix and put a mixture of sugar, oats, flour and butter on top to make the crumble. Ice cream worked just as well though. I did use brown sugar for this tonight, and I think that it's made it a bit browner overall - this photo kind of looks like a chocolate pudding!

Still, I think that the kids would be able to tell that it's a little bit more tart than chocolate.

The Garden is Growing!

Well, I've been a bit quiet logging onto the computer and putting an update in. Virtually all my free time is spent in the garden trying to make sure that I've got everything up and running for the summer growing season, and I think I'm almost there!

The weather's been perfect for planting out - lots of rain mixed with a fair bit of sunshine. We've only harvested minimal amounts so far - a few bunches of rhubarb, a broccoli, some strawberries and one raspberry. Just one, not one cup or one bucket. The chickens are growing well and are now outside. My wife is celebrating that the laundry has been reclaimed for the humans!

I've gone for a semi-no dig garden. I've not been to get the copious amounts of straw and manure to do a fully fledged no dig, but the rough principles are there. This first shot is my potato bed and it's a bit of an experiment itself. We were too late getting seed potatoes from the nursery, but we did have some sprouting potatoes in the pantry. Unable to eat them, they've gone into the patch to see what happens. If it doesn't work, we haven't lost much - next season I'll be prepared for the real thing!

There's two rows of tomatoes next to the potatoes (in the 'old' vegetable garden bed). One of Gross Lisse (for salads etc) and one of Roma (for sauces).

The next bed is roughly Brassica's - at the moment the last of some cabbages and the broccoli. I've planted in some climbing beans in between, and the wood shavings at the bottom are some carrots. Peter Cundall of Gardening Australia talks about how carrots don't always germinate if they dry out too much once you sow the seeds. I'd lost quite a few (out of about 2 metres/yards of seeds I'd had around 3 carrots germinate), so figured this was worth a shot. The seeds are at the bottom of a 'trench' about an inch deep, and then covered in wood shavings. So far so good!

At the back of this photo is the rhubarb, and a row of newer (Gross Lisse) tomatoes.

The next bed along is the corn and I'm growing Baby Corn along with Sweet Corn. I've grown the Baby Corn successfully a year or two ago and ended up getting close to 8 ears off each plant. Apparently if you let the cobs grow to full size you can use the corn as popcorn, so I might try that to see how the kids like that. The beans on the left are Borlotti and are great for drying out and using in soups, stews and possibly baked beans. On the right is a Cherry Tomato - this plant is extremely prolific already and we should have a few tomatoes to pick very soon.

The final bed in this section is for melons or cucurbits. We've got a couple of varieties of Pumpkin, some Cucumbers and some Zucchini (Squash). Hopefully with lots of eggs from the chickens and we'll have endless amounts of quiche over summer!

There's a bit more to the vege garden, but this is the main portion of it. Effectively this part is simply the original dirt garden, with some extensions of the no-dig portions of it. During next winter I'll grow green manure through most of it, and then I'll be able to properly divide the beds and have a proper rotation system happening.

For now the goal is simply to get as much in before the heat of summer kicks in, and then we can have a bumper harvest!

New Additions to the Farm

Since settlement went through a few weeks ago, we've been getting right into the garden and improving the vegetable garden and putting in fruit trees. Today though was the exciting addition of three new chicks to the farm.

We have been wanting to have some chickens, but I thought that with two young children under 4, buying week old chicks would give us a few extra benefits. Although they were a similar cost to point of lay chickens (and so we've got to feed them for around 3 months until we start getting a return in terms of eggs), the chicks will grow while the kids are able to be around them.

This afternoon as soon as we got home the chicks were out running around on a rug with the kids watching. Once I put them away, our daughter ran to the table and started drawing pictures to show them! She can't get enough!

Tonight we went a step further too. Our daughter loves a PBS TV show "Sid The Science Kid" where the character learns about growth, charts, observations and heaps of other aspects of science. So, these chicks are now providing a science to our daughter. We weighed the chicks tonight (and will do so weekly) so that we can chart their growth, plus she sat down after and drew pictures of the chicks.
The picture needs a bit of an explanation. The head is on the left. The black mark on the top is a mark that this particular chick has (we're hoping it doesn't grow out as it helps identify it!). The red and purple bit on the left of the legs (in blue) is the container the chick is eating out of. The brown spot at the right at the opposite end of the head is... Well, I guess you will be able to work out what comes out of week old chicks from that end of their body.

It's Ours!

After months of planning and talking, the house is ours! Settlement went through yesterday, so now it's all official.

I've got my parents visiting this weekend, so there probably won't be much packing, moving or gardening this weekend. The removalist is booked for next weekend though, so we'll be heading into a very busy week or two.

Two weeks to go!

Two weeks to go and things are definitely getting ready to go! One of my big goals out of the whole move is that this will help set us up well financial, especially through reducing our grocery bills as we become more self-sufficient.

To help with that, the last few weeks have been preparing for the move and getting some more plants organised. I've written before about the strawberries and grapes, but we've given them a push along by purchasing some more fruit trees.

This will be our front lawn - 600m2 of lawn. It will be the kids play area, with deciduous fruit trees around the edge (apples, pears, peaches, apricots etc). We live in a cooler high rainfall area, so the grass doesn't need watering very much at all (around half a dozen times a year), puls the grass clippings will help with compost for the vege garden. I will work on a greywater system for a portion of the lawn, I'm leaning towards not watering at all for the most part of it, and then greywater for where we want the kids to play (and green lawn!).
Part of the backyard vegetable garden. On the left of the shed I'll be putting in a henhouse for some chickens. Free eggs and manure!!! Leading up to the shed & henhouse will be some plants that will be outside of the rotation system used for gardening in the main plot. Strawberries and potatoes at this stage, but likely to include peanuts and sweet potatoes as experiments later. Where the hedge is on the right will make way for raspberries and/or grapes. They'll then provide a productive border to the rest of the garden.

Finally, the top garden - where I'll grow the vegetables. This is from behind the garden shed, looking back towards where the other picture was taken (slightly to the left of this shot). The chickens will be near the hedges on the left, but I've still got around 100m2 within this area that will be our vegetable garden. Eventually I'll have six beds and employ a rotational system, but to start will I'll be dumping a stack of seedlings and seeds into this small garden bed which the current owners have used. It's not massive, but the soil under the grass is a heavy clay, so it's going to take a little while to build up.

I'll also put in a few citrus trees towards the back fence (left of the large trees at the back of this photo), so in a few years we should be (mostly) self-sufficient in fruit, vegetables and eggs. We'll need to buy in some groceries (we need a permit for the chickens from our shire council, so I don't imagine they'd look favourably on getting a milking goat or sheep!), but this will provide more than enough produce and we should be able to barter with some other residents around for additional produce that we can't grow ourselves.

So, we've notified our current landlord that we're ready to vacate, and will have removalists coming to shift our furniture in less than two weeks. Some of the plants have already started to make their way to the new place (we know the current owners quite well now!), and the orchards should be ready for the (Southern Hemisphere) summer growing season that's about to start.

Settlement Moving Forward!

Wow, what a couple of weeks it has been. Finance was approved, and then the building inspection came up OK (a few things to fix, but no surprises at least), so settlement was formally set for November.

I went to visit the couple we are buying the house from last week, and the place they wanted to move into was still on the market. I gave them a couple of tips to get their offer accepted (another guy had an offer on subject to finance which had been dragging on, I suggested that we could move our settlement forward to then let them put an unconditional offer on the place they wanted). As a result, we could potentially buy our new place in as little as 4 weeks!

I'd planted out some seedlings in our current home a few weeks ago (cauliflower, broccoli and spinach) but now it looks like we won't be around long enough for them to properly grow out!
My wife's also been renovating a kitchen! Well, one for the kids anyway... She's taken two old small chest of drawers (about 40 years old, they were my parents originally) and converted to an oven and fridge, then a piece of MDF board to be the bench in the middle. Four black coasters for the stove, and a stainless steel mixing bowl for the sink, and viola! A new kitchen!

Finance Approved!

After a few months of trying to sort out a few things financially, the bank has finally approved our loan to buy our new home. Yay! Our dream of living on a big block of land is only a short while off.

We have agreed for the current owners to remain in the property after the settlement has gone through, although this was only because we've brought privately (direct from the owners) who are an elderly couple wanting to downsize. They weren't expecting to sell for another 2 years, so haven't found somewhere yet. Now that we've got finance approved though, I suspect that they will want to move into a new property themselves fairly soon.

Part of the original plan was to sell our other home in Perth to free up some cash. Unfortunately we couldn't get a good price, so plan B is to rent that one out, and then live in this new home (we've been renting here in the meantime). Financially it will only cost around $100 a week more (worst case scenario in 30 years we'll own it outright), but it is really about the non-financial reasons that we're buying (big garden, we can do what we like to the house, settling down permanently in Victoria).

On the gardening front, it's also the first time that I've been able to plan a garden quite like this one. Our other gardens have been more a default setting - either the previous owners had it set up one way, or we didn't have the space to have much choice. This time we've got a stack of options, so can really consider many more aspects.

I'll post something shortly to show some past gardens that we've had, and I'll post another time to explain the set up of our new garden.

While we won't be handing over the cash any time soon (or rather, borrowing from the bank), it will be a stretch on our budget compared to what we've been able to do in recent years, so for now it's about settling into a routine and budget that we'll be having to live to shortly. And as part of that routine, I'm off to plant some seedlings out into our winter vege garden here!

Budget (Home Made) Pizza

Time for a confession - I'm a definite pizza fanatic. One of my first jobs was delivering pizzas, and through that I got to learn the pizza making process. If was also a money saver. During our first years of marriage, I was working part time, and with my wife's low income position (Office Junior) our combined income was around $20k per year. Pizza's that weren't fit for customer's consumption became a staple in our house for free meals!

Since that time, things have improved (thankfully)! Whenever we've travelled, sampling local pizza has always been a priority to me - along with other foods of course. A highlight was a few years ago when I was in Chicago and got to experience Chicago-style pizza at Pizzeria Due on the North Side. It's a deep pan pizza, but can not compare to Australian deep pan pizza.

I've previously come across a recipe for a Chicago-style pizza dough, and have made it before with moderate levels of success. Today I thought that I'd give it another go. From a budget perspective, I made two pizzas for maybe around $4 using the following ingredients.Plus added water...

I deviated from the recipe a little, but basically started with activating the yeast by adding to warm water and sugar. If you do that a few minutes before combining with the flour, salt and cornflour, then you end up with a a foamy mix of water and yeast.


By gradually adding the liquid ingredients to the mix, you end up with your dough. It's still not perfectly mixed, but a few minutes of kneading the dough helps with that process. Then you simply roll into a ball and leave for an hour approximately until the dough ball is roughly double in size.
Strictly, this recipe makes one base, but for the sake of spreading the dough a little further, it is more than satisfactory if you half the dough and make two bases. They still ended up almost a centimetre (a third of an inch) thick. After splitting in half, roll the doughs out to slightly larger than the pan, as they will shrink a little. I also pinch the edges, which helps form a great crust (poke the base with a fork a bit so that it doesn't rise or bubble too much also).
Parbake the bases for around 5 minutes in a hot (220C) oven, and then you can get the toppings on. True Chicago-style pizza toppings would be easiest to describe as being and upside down pizza on a pie - it's literally like the cheese and toppings are on the base, then the sauce (which is like a napolitana sauce on the top. While the sauce is quite "wet" compared to regular pizza sauce, it really combines well with the pizza dough soaking up the moisture. If I haven't done it justice in this description - you'll have to go to Chicago to experience it yourself!

The pizzas I made today were fairly straight forward. One bacon and pineapple for the kids, and one with bacon, chicken, onion and avocado for the parents. A fantastic meal, and there's leftovers for lunch tomorrow. Plus, it was only $4, not $12-15 per pizza that we would have paid tonight in town.