Water, water everywhere in the Outer East.

The previous post was talking about our lack of water and water restrictions. Clearly, a day is a long time in weather and climate. This afternoon, there was no shortage of water in the Outer Eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Huge downpours this afternoon and flash flooding all over the place.

For the first time in three years, the creek in front of our house is full and flowing: flowing fast, in fact.

Water, edibles and the elderly in the vege patch

Here is some of Miss Eagle's vege patch & pots.

Water is at a premium in Australia - and Victoria is no exception.

This morning we got a very welcome drop of rain.

But water is an issue with veges.

We are warned that there will some food shortages this summer along with higher prices for fruit and vegetables.

So it makes a lot of sense to grow your own.

You can eliminate the chemicals. Go organic. Plant permaculture.

And get a lot of pleasure and good nutrition all at the same time.

But water is an issue and Marika Wagner wants us to join her in lobbying the government about our needs. Marika knows what she is talking about. She works at the marvellous Bulleen Art and Garden here in Melbourne.

Marika says:

Produce gardens provide us with the very fruit, vegetables and herbs we eat, and many of us have worked hard to create these gardens with much of our own time and money.

It's understood that keeping higher water use ornamental gardens and lawns can be seen as luxury items in times of water shortage, but forcing us to let our produce gardens become unproductive and/or die is an outrage. Only being able to water on two pre-specified days of the week is not the most efficient way to keep a garden alive and productive and can lead to stressed and unproductive plants, defeating the purpose of this type of garden. Produce gardens should be allowed efficient, mindful watering, when required.

Education to efficient water use, is the key to saving water for Victoria, not forcing gardens to dwindle & perhaps perish.

To be able to grow our own food:-
1) Saves water for Victoria, according to a study done by David Holmgren, co-founder of ‘Permaculture’, (Holmgren Design Services), efficient backyard growers can use only one fifth of the water compared to commercial growers per $ value of produce.

2) Saves up to 25% of greenhouse gases by eliminating ‘food miles’, this means our fruit and vegetables don’t use excess energies of ; being machine harvested, transported to sorting sheds, stored in cool rooms, transported to market, then to supermarket, lit up by fluorescent lights and then transported again to homes to be then stored again in the fridge, whilst losing vitality and freshness along the way.

3) Reduces the overall Australia wide use of biocides like herbicides, pesticides and fungicides. This is because home produce gardens are naturally quite biodiverse, therefore resilient, and easy to apply natural pest control methods to.

4) Brings people and families together outdoors to gain healthy organic produce, fresh air, exercise and an awareness to our connection with nature.I believe that it is our right to grow and monitor our own fresh, healthy, chemical free food in our backyards. I am asking for an exemption from current water restrictions or for introduction of more appropriate water rules for our important produce gardens.

So, dear Reader, please pop across here and sign Marika's petition. And then, when you have done that, please let all your friends know and get them to sign too. Let's make Tim Holding and the Victorian Labor Government sit up and take notice. Otherwise, civil disobedience?

Miss E also supports Kevin Walsh's idea for a new E level of restriction: for the elderly and edibles. How sensible.

Help, please! Weed on the way!

I need some advice, please.

Beside the bungalow in the backyard, is this evergreen shrub which produces lovely white flowers. It was here when we came. I always thought it was rather nice. To-day, I decided to trim it a little to cut it back a bit and knock it into shape. Then I discovered what a weed, what a pest it is. Underneath, were long dead canes. Over the top, sprouted new many-feet long canes. Behind it is a philodendron and they are in competition. I would prefer the philodendron. Could someone let me know how to manage this without resort to nasty chemicals or anything that will affect the soil or surrounding plants?

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How sweet it is...in Wisconsin!

Sometimes, blogging reminds me of the penfriends I used to have as a child. We learn something of one another's country and way of life through friendship. Recently, I have accidentally landed in Wisconsin because Jeanna of Wisconsin Candy Dish dropped in and we got talking by email.

Now I have my doubts about whether Jeanna is one of Madison, Wisconsin's upstanding citizens. You see Jeanna is naughty. Her blog has been promoting bad habits since 2006 - and I think I have got caught up in them - in the most thoroughly enjoyable way of course.

All over candy - or what we in the Land of Oz would call lollies.

Jeanna has sent me the most wonderful package. And I have been brushing up on Wisconsin's geography over at Wikipedia: and the geography sounds absolutely gorgeous and right up my street - except I'll steer clear in the dead of winter, thank you very much.

So. Jeanna's parcel arrived yesterday.

Above on the left is the box of goodies before unpacking. On the right is the unpacked goodies.

Will you get a load of that T-shirt. It's from that great football team that even Miss Eagle had heard of, the Green Bay Packers. I've got a Packers shirt. (Miss Eagle jumping up and down joyfully.) Whoda thunk it! Thank you Jeanna. It's a treasure!.

Above is a collage of goodies. A musical bottle opener beloved of Badger fans (I gather that there are a variety of college sports played under the Badger title); a copy of The Onion, a satirical newspaper which did amuse Miss E (the headlines are so interesting following Oz's longest election in history - or so it seems); more sweets and the cutest battery operated tea-candles with the teeniest batteries!
But the piece-de-resistance was these. Stupid Miss E did not comprehend what a cow pie could be when Jeanna talked of them. Open up the cellophane packet and you can see, can't you dear Reader, why this gorgeous cake-cum-chocolate coated biscuit is called a Cow Pie. And then there is the Badger Claw. Miss Eagle and Herself voted them both yummo.
AQIS (Australia's quarantine service) had been in for a peek but there was no evidence they had taken anything - just a couple of brochures.

Jeanna, the Tim Tams and assorted goodies should be in the good hands of Australia Post to-morrow.

Thank you so much. Your gift has given a great deal of pleasure and will continue to do so for quite a while. And thank you for the opportunity, through blogging friendship, to get to know beautiful Wisconsin.

A picnic inthe Dandenongs.

Yesterday I had a beautiful day. It was St Thom's Parish Picnic. It was held at Kirrang, the property of a couple who are parishioners of St Thom's. We had a beautiful day in beautiful surroundings. Here are the pictures.

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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.

Khaki is a cacky colour!

Jenny over at Chalk + Talk gave directions for the Spacefem Color Quiz and I went over and did it. There were lots of boxes to tick in quiz and I seemed to fill about three-quarters of them. I have no argument with the text that came out the other end. Pretty accurate! But the colour! Khaki!?! For a pacifist like moi?!

And apparently red and green have something to do with it. Oooohhh!

Red has never been included in my colours. When I was growing up the wisdom was that redheads didn't wear red. That has never bothered the redheaded Herself. If it is a red she likes, she wears it. As for green. Well my mother, Phyllis, always said she liked any colour so long as it was green. So there was always lots of green in my wardrobe when I was growing up: Phyllis's preference and it supposedly looked great on redheads! So, guess what? I'm over green - well and truly over green although it still intrudes! So red, green and khaki! Why not a lovely lavender or mauve, a pale cream tinged apricot, or a rich antique creamy beige?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
YOU ARE KHAKI#F0E68C

Your dominant hues are red and green, so you're definitely not afraid to get in and stir things up. You have no time for most people's concerns, you'd rather analyze with your head than be held back by some random "gut feeling".Your saturation level is lower than average - You don't stress out over things and don't understand people who do. Finishing projects may sometimes be a challenge, but you schedule time as you see fit and the important things all happen in the end, even if not everyone sees your grand master plan.Your outlook on life is bright. You see good things in situations where others may not be able to, and it frustrates you to see them get down on everything.

Watch the birdie!

Will you pop over, dear Reader, to this post at Alice's blog, Growing Delight. Her Dearly Beloved built a bird house for a pair of visiting Crimson Rosellas. Then there were the eggs. Next the baby birds. But in this wonderful post, Alice has a photograph of the first hint of their glorious colour in the baby bird fluff. Charming!

Enslaved by chocolate: addiction or exploitation?

OK, dear Reader, time to experiment with the old adage that the pen is mightier than the sword. Dust off those ethical thoughts. Chocolate and the child slaves who produce it is the issue. For more extensive information, please go here and here.

You might, dear Reader, like to start with the following:

Cadbury

Cadbury Consumer Services, PO Box 200, Ringwood VIC 3134

Feedback link is here.

Are you interested, dear Reader, in doing a factory tour with Miss Eagle during which we can ask the question on the premises about where Cadbury's cocoa comes from and what they are doing about the exploitation of children? Currently, it would appear that their website is concerned only with obesity in children. But there are children involved in the chocolate process who will never grow fat - even though they might never go out to play!

Nestle

Consumer Services Department, GPO Box 4320, Sydney NSW 2001

You can email Nestle from here.

As you would be aware, dear Reader, Nestle has been the focus in the past for the promotion of breast milk substitutes in Africa. You will find them expounding their corporate philosophy of Good Food, Good Life here. A portion of Nestle's website is devoted to a discussion about coffee. You might like, in your correspondence, to ask them about their attitude to Fair Trade coffee. There is no mention of that on their site.

Mars

Mars Australia, Wodonga (Australian Headquarters), Petcare Place, Wodonga Vic 3690

Snackfood/Mars, PO Box 633, Ballarat VIC 3353 - Ballarat Ring Rd 3350

You can email Mars from here.

On the Mars site, there is this section, The 5 Principles. Mmmm....

• Quality: this segment says : "The consumer is the boss". So, dear Reader, use your consumer power to tell Mars who is the boss and that you do not want your love of chocolate to hold other human beings to ransom.
• Responsibility: Mars said it recruits ethical people. Challenge them to put their ethics on show in relation to child labour and child slavery.
• Mutuality: Mars says its "actions should never be at the expense, economic or otherwise, of others with whom we work". Now Miss Eagle understands that the child slaves are not direct employees of Mars but they are stakeholders in the industry nonetheless. Without companies such as Mars there might not be a cocoa industry to be exploitative. So Mars needs to put its actions in the ethical framework of how do we expect all children to live and enjoy life.
• Efficiency: Here Mars talks about its pursuit of "the least possible cost". To the child slaves there is a very high cost - loss of childhood development, loss of education. The least possible financial cost should not require the exploitation of sentient beings or the despoliation of the planet.
• Freedom: Mars claims for itself "We need freedom to shape our future: we need profit to remain free." Well, guess what! So do African children. Enslavement - even if it is the only hope for survival in an environment of despairing poverty - does not provide freedom and does not bring any profit to the people so that they can remain free of exploitative practices. The Christian adage of doing unto others as you would have done unto you needs to be extended by Mars to the poverty stricken people caught up in the cocoa economy to provide luxury goods for those with great economic freedom.

And then there is the industry body to contact, too:

Confectionery Manufacturers of Australasia

Confectionery Manufacturers of Australasia,PO Box 1307 (Level 2, 689 Burke Rd),Camberwell VIC 3124

Email Confectionery Manufacturers of Australasia (CMA) at cma@candy.net.au

When you have completed this task, dear Reader, you might like to keep Miss Eagle informed.

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.

Tricking and Treating in Upper Gully

A few days ago, this notice appeared in our letter box. Click to enlarge. Now, Miss Eagle doesn't go for the great emphasis on Hallowe'en these days. It seems to be an American emphasis and - since not many kids are raised in the ancient Christian traditions - there is no balance with teaching about All Saints Day and All Souls Day, the tradition with which Hallowe'en is inextricably bound.

However, Miss E could not resist this notice with its polite request. So this afternoon, Miss Eagle hung the inflated balloon from a tree beside the letter box and prepared a basket of goodies for the visitors.

And here below are my scary visitors -

Tricking and Treating!

We had a lovely time together. But don't you think the smallest Trickster is so, so cute!

It was lovely to meet such funsters - who had distributed 200 notices in the neighbourhood but as of this afternoon there were very few balloons visible. I hope things improved as the evening wore on.

Photo Friday: Silence

The topic for this week's Photo Friday is Silence.

One of the fascinations for such a topic is how does one grab the feeling visually. When I think of silence, one of the images which comes to mind is something from an old British black and white movie which has a pea-soup fog and the echo-ing sound of footsteps.

It seems to me that such a thick, thick fog provides a blanket or wall of silence against which sound echoes.

Here in Melbourne, we can experience thick fogs - especially in or close to the mountains. Upper Gully is in the foothills of The Dandenongs which are thick with temperate rainforest. The further up the hills you go - on some days - the thicker the fog. My picture was taken early one July morning at the Upper Gully railway station: an early morning blanket of silence which could echo with the footsteps of each new arrival to the platform to wait for the train.

You say to-may-toe : I say to-mah-toe

To-day I found the tomatoes I need for the vege garden - at our Upper Gully week-end market. I purchased eight plants - listed below. I purchased eight advanced plants for $14. To-day has been a very warm Melbourne day 28/29 degrees so I will plant them in the cool of early evening. For more information on tomatoes, and some good recipes go here.

Sweet Bite

Hybrid
Small tomato variety producing masses of good flavoured, bite sized fruit ideal for salads. Sweet Bite is easily grown in the garden or in decorative tubs and contained . Stake to support using a trellis

Patio Roma

An heirloom variety.

A vigorous compact plant that looks as good as freshly picked fruit tastes. Good yields of tasty bright red pear shaped tomatoes with excellent shelf life.

Roma

An heirloom variety.

This variety produces an abundance of great flavoured, bright red, egg shaped fruits. They are delicious eaten fresh in salads, sandwiches and a variety of cooked dishes.

Mortgage Lifter

An heirloom variety.

Bred by “Radiator Charlie” (M.C. Byles) in he 1930s, these meaty mild flavoured tomatoes with few seeds are said to have helped Charlie pay off his mortgage because they were so popular. The fruit is pinkish read, slightly flattened, globe shape, and ranges from 250-1500 grams in weight. Some tomato! It is said they make the perfect tomato sandwich.

Mighty Red

Large tomato variety producing many full-flavoured, globe shaped fruits.A vigorous, disease free plant, easily grown in the garden or in large decorative tubs or containers.

Green Zebra

An heirloom variety./Hybrid

The result of breeding four heirloom varieties. Green Zebra yields rich yellow-green, medium sized fruit with distinctive darker green stripes. The flesh is lime to emerald-green in colour; the texture of the flesh is cream and the flavour tangy. It needs staking and produces a heavy crop. Green Zebra is also low in acid. A great tomato for adding zing to that tired old salad.

Black Russian

An heirloom variety.

Black Russian is a must for black tomato fans with its complex flavour - sweet and spicy with smoky undertones. Drying the fruit enhances the flavour. The fruit is large, round and smooth and almost mahogany in colour. Black Russian is an open, pollinated variety with good disease resistance. It is early to mature and a heavy cropper.

Grosse Lisse

A mid to late season staking variety producing medium to large sized fruit. Excellent summer-autumn flavour.

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!

Kath and Kim: tunnelling through

It is nearly ready! Melbourne's latest Freeway - the Mitcham to Frankston or the Scoresby as it is often known. It is only ten minutes from Upper Gully and Miss Eagle will probably love its convenience. Shame on me - as I remember the beautiful farmland it subsumed - including a place with miniature ponies.

Now they are asking us to name the twin tunnels of the project.

Herself can be a clever drawers at times and - as soon as she heard the announcement - she had the names: Kath and Kim.

I don't think the names are worth entering because you see, dear Reader, there are guidelines. And, after a read of those, it seems that Kath and Kim may not cut the mustard.

But that, dear Reader, should not really matter. The tunnels can have a flash, guide-line meeting name for the toffs. But for the rest of us we know that, just as at Fountain Gate in south-east Melbourne, Kath and Kim are stars so their names can become through common and widespread usage the names for the stars of convenience in private transport in south-east Melbourne.

,

Melbourne: The City

It is Photo Friday. And the theme is The City. The photos below are of my city: Melbourne, Australia. They are slightly different from a lot of south-facing views of Melbourne. These are taken from the First Floor corridor in the offices of Flinders Street Station. The photos look across the tracks and platforms of FSS. The first one looks south-east towards the tower of the Arts Centre. The second looks south-west.