To market, to market, and to market at beautiful Buninyong

To-day I went to the Buninyong Markets.  Buninyong is a charming Victorian country village and now an outer suburb of Ballarat.  Once a month, on the third Saturday, it becomes Market Central.  THE market, so to speak, is organised by Rotary and you can find details here.

To my visitor's eye, I saw the market as a whole comprised of three sections.  Inside the Town Hall, seemed to be the Makers' Market: food, soaps, crafts, and so on.  Outside, the service lane coming parking area was taken over by things that grow.  This, to me, was the Farmers' Market.  This two/thirds was part of the Rotary bailiwick.

Next door at the Buninyong Uniting Church there was the third section: a Car Boot Sale.  I think some of the stuff there would not have fitted anywhere near a car boot.  There were crowds of stalls on the extensive front lawns of the church.  All manner of materials and things and books and things. Up next to the church itself is the church hall from where Uniting Church women served tea and biscuits alongside a table selling various goods and the whole in the midst of boxes and boxes of all manner of books.

I think it is a marvellous undertaking that Buninyong has embarked upon.  It brings people, goods and money to the village in a rather joyous jumble to make a marvellous whole.

To take a peek at the experience of going to market in Buninyong,

please go here.

Duncan's wild flowers and photography at Ben Cruachan

Be still my beating heart - but Duncan's doing it again at Ben Cruachan.  Beautiful pictures of wild orchids and other wildflowers in amongst complaints of he Dry in his part of Gippsland.  Some of us have our eyes open and brains switched on more than others, don't you think, Networkers?

After the Winter Solstice, harbingers of Spring

Herself brought these in from the garden.

Yes, dear Trad Padders, I know there are no snowdrops here and it clearly relates to a northern hemisphere spring  - but I think this poem fits my mood.

THE hardy little snowdrop

Delicate... yet so strong

The ground's still frozen hard

When they come along

It's one of nature's mysteries

How they choose a brand-new site

Suddenly they pop up

It seems like overnight

They were never planted there

But oh! Such delight

White heads nestled in the green

It's such a lovely sight

They bow their heads like little bells

Against February's savage winds

Yet welcome in the springtime

As this brand-new year begins.

RAY JOHNSON, Chapel House, Newcastle.

How does my garden grow?

It has been raining at Upper Gully since early this morning...
...a soft gentle rain unlike the storm and flooding of nearly two weeks ago.

The temperature is now 15.4 degrees Celsius - on a December day in Summer!

We have had 7.6mm of rain - just over a quarter on an inch.

The wheelbarrow bunch are doing their own thing...

just going crazy.

These Romas Tomatoes may turn out to be the first of the crop. The Oregano sits in a tub in an old laundry trolley.

It is going crazy - trailing everywhere!

These are my pride and joy. The best of my Sugar Loaf Cabbages.

I can't buy sugar loafs in the supermarkets or markets in Melbourne.

I have never grown cabbages before...but, if it's the only way to have sugar loafs....

Sugar Loaf Cabbages are the most delightful, sweetest cabbages...

perfect for coleslaw.

The hanging baskets look sweet.

I am thrilled with my hydrangea.

I bought two teeny-weeny ones three years ago.

They have been in tubs....

until this summer when I have turned them loose.

They are rewarding me with flowers which are white, through pink, to mauve.

Friends and Flower

Recent friends who have come to lunch, have come bearing flowers.

Above are the native flowers from Madelin's garden -

kangaroo paw (the tallest); grevillia (the yellow); and callistemon.

These beautiful pink roses are from Elaine and Kevin's garden in Clow Avenue.

Ripe and rhododendrons

Miss Eagle's sister, The Director, has been in Melbourne again this week-end.

Yesterday, we lunched at Ripe in Sassafras. It had changed a little since last I was there. Ripe is an old house and it had a verandah/deck at the back. The deck has been extended. Access is by two sets of folding glass doors. There is a marquee with see-through walls. Features of the space are a rhododendron and communal tables. It was a chilly, overcast day so there was one one of those huge outdoor gas heaters.Inside, in the house section, it is still the same wooden tables and chairs for a more intimate ambiance.

Here we were - each of us with gastric lapbands. So we ordered the vegetable and coriander soup and the risotto - with two spoons and two forks so we could share. Beautiful warming, comfort food. The risotto - with fresh asparagus, beans, and feta - was the best ever. As you can see, dear Reader, substantial portions.

Ripe also retails some luscious, high quality goodies.

Great to think about as the Christmas season draws near.

After lunch, we visited the National Rhododendron Gardens at Olinda.
The Gardens are magnificent - sitting on the edge of the beautiful Dandenongs.
The Dandenongs are a temperate rainforest area with huge eucalypts from which masts of sailing ships were made.
There is a huge variety of colour represented in the rhododendrons.
The native Australian bush makes a beautiful backdrop and contrast for the rhododendrons.

For more pictures of this masterpiece among Australian gardens, please visit here.

The Wombat, Spring, and the edible garden

Miss Eagle disguised as The Wombat of Upper Gully

To-day is Show and Tell over at Kelli's.

I have been s-o-o-o busy the last few weeks - for a number of reasons. The over-riding reason though has been the garden. Miss Eagle has been carrying on in the backyard like she's The Wombat of Upper Gully.
About a quarter of the backyard has been dug up and given to veges and herbs.
I have been wombatting in a most determined fashion, dear Reader, because Spring does not wait for anyone and can, at times, be quite anxious to turn into Summer and all that growing time is gone and cannot be reclaimed.
One of the difficulties in this mature garden is light. Fruit trees planted in the long ago are of great height and are heavy in branch and leaf - not to mention roots. I got quite carried away with the pruning of the plum tree to get extra space by the provision of more light. Above, can be seen a piece of the pruning I have rescued which I hope can do duty as a trellis for the snow peas whose seeds are planted beneath and around it.

I have tried to stretch my budget (if you could call it that) further this year by using a lot of seeds rather than seedlings. The wisdom of this decision will depend upon how many seeds come up, won't it?

A few notes of interest.

• I am fortunate in the provision of various bits and pieces through "hard rubbish": waste items put out on footpaths for collection. Herself says that at The Trad Pad we are not into Retail Therapy but Refuse Therapy (Opp Shops and Hard Rubbish). And, guess what? No credit cards required!


• Garden Picture No. 2 shows a white lattice propped against a plum tree. Garden Picture No. 3 shows a garden gate propped against the corner of the garden shed. These, if all goes to plan, will be trellises: the former for the ivy geraniums and the latter for golden zucchini.


• In Garden Picture No. 2 you will notice in the foreground a wire edging. Hard rubbish again - in sufficient quantity to go around the areas I have dug on either side of the shed. Herself had expressed a desire a couple of months ago for some garden edging but hadn't got to Bunning's to do anything about it. Just this week the very thing has been provided! It has a tad of rust - but we find rust in our vintage a bonus!


• Can't recall where the wire object from which the pots are hanging in Garden Picture No. 2 came from. Methinks that Herself acquired it in a swap or some long ago hard rubbish. The pots I have had for the best part of ten years and they are still going strong and they are planted with the seeds of cherry tomatoes.


• The toadstool sitting under the pots was a gift, more than a decade ago, from some very good friends. Now this sort of garden ornament is not really my style but my friends are very dear. To make it more me, I have a friend who does a very good line in frogs drawn in an Aboriginal style so I got him to draw such a one sitting on the toadstool. Now this quirky object and I have a whole lot more in common.


• In Garden Picture No. 1 the child's outdoor setting, the little wooden wheelbarrow, and the two wooden tubs are all found items. The large painted metal wheelbarrows I have had for a number of years. They came from garage sales.


• The area dug is on three sides of the tool shed with a small bed (planted with nasturtiums) on the fourth side. In these three areas are planted: sage, parsley, basil, coriander, silver beet, rocket, climbing beans, golden zucchini, beetroot, cherry tomatoes and snow peas. I have seed-boxes containing capsicums (peppers) and sugar-loaf cabbage. I need to find a home for cucumbers.


• My two yellow wheelbarrows contain: penny-royal, sage, thyme, common mint, Corsican mint, and oregano. In other parts of the garden I have other herb plantings with the addition of golden marjoram and lavender.


• I have not yet planted tomato seedlings. I can only find Gross Lisse seedlings. I am looking for heritage tomatoes such as I planted two years ago. I will take a drive into The Hills later to-day to see what I can locate up there. And maybe I'll let my fingers do the walking using this list.


• Here at The Trad Pad, we compost. We have two bins - but two older single women don't make a lot of compost very quickly. I add to our household scrap pile in the bin by adding, every few months, some additional layers. I will put in a layer of cow manure; a few months later, a layer of lime. Sometimes I find I have left a small amount of potting mix to its own devices in the tool shed, so it goes into the compost too. I didn't have quite enough from the two compost bins to provide an adequate layer over all of the dug area so there was a narrow patch on the long side of the toolshed where the rocket seeds have been planted which received cow manure. I prefer manure to blood and bone. Blood and bone is an organic fertiliser/nutrient but I prefer not to use it. If I could be assured that it comprised the remains of old and injured animals who have been killed in a humane manner, I would use it. However, most blood and bone would be the detritus from meat processing facilities which kill animals for food. So I prefer to go with cow manure because it means that an animal has not given its life for the main purpose of providing humans with food.

It hasn't all been veges and herbs. Pretty baskets a-plenty are decorating the trees in the back yard. Here are some of them. And I have not included any pictures of the succulent collection in the courtyard outside the sunroom. BTW, these wire baskets are found items!

Spring - busy-ness, joy, and perfume

Phew, I've made it back again. Health has been up and down and then over the last week Herself has been ill. A day at the Angliss yesterday and she is on the mend again.

But it's not only health issues. Spring is here and it hasn't been spring cleaning - but spring planting. Going potty - quite literally.

The oregano and marjoram had not been broken up for two years...

...so there are pots and pots of the stuff now...

...along with the break up of the parsley...

...and addition of coriander.

I have had these hanging pots stacked away for the last two years.

They came from the hard rubbish...

...the stuff people put on the footpath

This, along with mowing the lawn, prowling the hard rubbish now winter is gone, and organising our out door area for summer has kept me rather busy. So that is the work that Spring brings. But it is a joyful time. The blossom, both native and exotic, is wonderful.

I wish I could include the wonderful scents I experience as I walk around my neighbourhood.

Instead, here is some of the blossom on our huge potted jasmine perfuming The Trad Pad.

Spring 2007

We still have twelve days to go until Spring officially arrives.

But to-day in Melbourne, the weather seems to have had its say.

Spring is here. Winter is gone!

Yippee!

Nectar: nature's own party drug

People, including Gina, have been blogging about parrot visitations. This week Poppalina has been blogging about her daphne blossoming. So I thought I would chime in with both parrots and daphne.

Two weeks ago our daphne burst into bloom. As Herself said, you watch and watch the buds longing for the time when that beautiful scent will invade your life. But, little do you know, others are watching too: watching for just the right moment for blossom to open, nectar to peak, and a strike must be made before anyone else gets to it.

So it was that a visiting pair of Crimson Rosellas feasted and partied in a quite single-minded fashion on the shrub outside our living room window.

Shelter from the wind and the cold?

The camellias are trying to get in the living room window.

Could it be the weather?

Crafted busy-ness

Hel-l-o-o! Yo-o-h-o-o! Yes, that's me waving at you. It seems like I have been gone for yonks but I notice that I have squeaked in one post this end-of-winter August. But life has been rather busy. I have been caught up with finishing the UFO above. Back in 1992, my mother died. Left behind was an afghan rug, unfinished, which she had been working of for a Family Member. The Director, mother of the FM, could not complete it so I said I would. Occasionally, it would come out and a few more rows would be added. Since I left work, I have put in a bit more effort going around and around until it seemed reasonable to stop and add a few more inches with tassels. Then it was done. And, coincidence, The Director was coming to overnight post-conference in Melbourne.

So, I decided to do something a little extra. I'm not very crafty but I have noticed that some craft bloggers in the USA are altered paper bags. So here is my version:

This afghan had a lot of sentimental attachment so I included an old photograph of the FM's grandparents. I wanted the bag itself, if the FM agreed, to become a keepsake so I put my mothers name on it as starting it, myself as completing it, and the FM's mother as carrying it from Melbourne to Brisbane.

One of my favourite pieces of literature is the piece from Ecclesiasticus, Let Us Now Praise Famouse Men. So, changing men to women, I wrote this on the front and back of the bag. And, as you can see dear Reader, there is much decoration on the front and back of the bag.
The, as The Director's birthday is later this month, I did an altered paper bag for her birthday present. At each corner, are cardboard hearts in a William Morris design sitting on two fabric rose petals laid together to form a heart. Birthday wishes are written around the inside of the rich ribbon and the name is there in print cut-outs. The back takes the shape of a paned window.

Both Val and Gina have posted about attending the Craft Fair held here in Melbourne recently. So I thought I would mention that I attended on the Friday - and, in spite of being highly organised, forgot my camera. I was there just after 8am waiting for the doors to open at 9am and left with head spinning about 1.30pm. In an organised fashion, I had mapped out before leaving home the workshops which I planned to attend. But by the time I had done three workshops, perused every stand, and was stunned by the museum quality quilts, I decided to throw in the towel and go home.

The three workshops I did were:

1. Working beads into your knitting
2. Printing on Fabric
3. Floral Fantasy

I was well satisfied with my choices. The workshops were informative and related to my interests so I think that is why my head was spinning and I felt sufficiently satisfied to go home earlier than I had planned.

The one I enjoyed the most was Floral Fantasy led by Gabrielle of Miss Rose and Sister Violet. I have seen Miss Rose and Sister Violet many times at Gift Fair. Gabrielle's specialties are flowers and beads and all things floral and vintage. The workshop discussed how to use the flowers and beads and the whole thing was interspersed with Gabrielle's philosophy of life: everything has to be beautiful, places like Ikea are ugly and they are invading our homes, behind every nasty man is a woman who lets him get away with it! I'm waiting for the book, I can tell you.

Anyway, here at The Trad Pad we need no encouragement to scatter flowers around hither and yon but, after half an hour with Gabrielle, I have to tell you, dear Reader, I am going OTT (over the top!). So, for Miss Eagle, it is a flower strewn path into the future as far as the eye can see.

The dining room has been the first place to feel the impact. It was already on its way but there has been a huge influx.

One of the inspirations from the Floral Fantasy workshop was to take my basket collection to another level. Miss Eagle does not find cane. It finds her. To date I have painted them pretty and lined them to make them even pretty. Now they will be going floral as well. But I practised first. This basket had remained unpainted and has being doing duty in the kitchen as a vegetable basket. I had these sprays (plastic) of olives and olive leaves. So I cut them up and started applying them to the basket. Simple - but oh the difference!

And finally I resurrected this item. An old piece of EPNS that I had painted ages ago but had never been presented in the best light. Now here it is!