Getting my green thumb on, city style

My how this year has flown by.  I seem to be more and more amazed at the swiftness of time these days but it's still a shock that we're bearing down on Christmas at a great rate of knots.

I'm so very at ease and at home again in Brisbane now - our time on the downs seems like a distant memory, if not a dream.  It feels like we never left.  The weather has been beautiful and I'm loving the longer daylight hours as we move towards summer.  Time to get outside and enjoy the world after work is done for the day.

The one thing I've been lamenting since we moved down was my lack of veggie garden.  This rented unit, while it has a courtyard, doesn't have much in the way of gardening space.  It was the lack of fresh herbs at the back door that started it all for me - all that missing my own patch of dirt to dig and plant and potter around in, the walk through in the morning to see what was out there and finding new fruit, new seedlings, fresh strawberries.....I've been missing that without wanting to allow myself to.

Strange how my outlook has changed now though.  Before we left Brisbane I had this idea in my head that to garden you needed space, lots of space, and all the equipment and tools etc to get started.  Gee I wasted a lot of time with that mentality - I could have had a ripper garden down here then like I eventually had out there!!

I'm glad I've changed my thinking - I've been waiting so patiently for the onset of springy days so that I could dig out the gardening gloves and get cracking.  I was about to go to the supermarket and pick up a few of those polystyrene boxes to use as planters when a sneaky birthday appeared and gave me some pots and potting mix with which to create my patio garden.  I  love a good gardening gift and Lucky Phil knows the way to win my heart is via dirt and plants (or a good book or something crafty!) :)

And so now I have it all happening.  A great selection of my favourite herbs - coriander, basil, parsley, mint, chives - and some veggies to top it all off - tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, snow peas, corn.  And I can't forget the flowers for a bit of colour - this time around some snapdragons and lobelias.  I even managed to keep alive some strawberry plants from my garden on the downs - they have really taken off since they have been repotted and mulched.

Pineapples that have been growing roots in containers on my sink for about three years now - finally in soil and they are lapping it up!

Tomato seedlings from the self-sown cherry tomatoes from our previous home

A Mulberry Tree that somehow  was sown, sprouted and survived in a pot that I brought down with me.  He much prefers the soil in this one.... 

I'm loving the greenery at my back door now - so much better than the stark tiles and concrete walls of before.  I'm out there a whole lot more now too - soaking up the view and taking in the 'outside-ness' of it all.  I'm just waiting now on the pumpkin seeds to sprout on the windowsill and get a bit of size to them and they'll go out too - into the wild garden bed for those, they'll be in their element.

The countdown is now on until I can be eating the fruits of my labours!  Can't wait!!

Carnival 2012

This weekend just gone has seen the end of the annual Carnival of Flowers.  The gardens around town are just blooming with flowers this year - more so than previous years if that's at all possible and the fireworks have been amazing (as viewed from my back steps).

The carnival kicked off last weekend with the parade.

The biggest one I've seen, it went for a good two hours.  Apparently, back in the day, two hours was a short parade.

The best part again this year, I think, were the storm troopers.  I had to wait so long I was starting to think there was a space battle somewhere that was keeping them from participating.  But it was all good 45 minutes in.  Even Vader put in an appearance this year.

 I'm thinking about joining this club so I can put my beetle-bug in the parade next year.... LOL

I also ran into my friend Kel and her walking artwork too.  Kel is an artist (among other things) and has a talent for body art.  I keep meaning to do a post on her work - amazing! - until then, here is a taste....

What a great parade!  Next year's has very big shoes to fill, very big shoes!

Getting my Spring on

I absolutely, positively, without any shadow of a doubt, LOVE this time of year.

These camelias are all off the one tree we have growing outside our bedroom window.  It's a massive tree, not a bust,
and I couldn't begin to guess its age....

In my ideal world, spring and autumn are the only two seasons - spring being the longest of course.

We have Jasmine growing along the fence out the front - the smell is divine.

Three weeks ago I smelled the warm on the air and started preparing for it.  Down came the blankets nailed over the windows and doorways (I do what I can in this icebox house!) despite the weather reports of another cold snap.  The doors were thrown open and the breeze blew away all the winter stuffiness.

This year I've planted heaps of flowers in my veggie garden...

Glorious.

The colours are gorgeous....

The plants outside are all telling me spring is here to stay.

  Thank you plants.  I love spring too.

Of macadamias and avocados and so forth

When the LOML and I first looked at this house with the intention to buy, it had sat un-lived-in and un-loved for months.  The grass was knee-high, the front gate was chained shut and the letterbox was full of junk mail.  

While waiting for the real estate agent to show up, we had a sticky beak around the yard, as you do.  

I fell in love in an instant.  

Well-established fruit trees were everywhere - orange, lemon, grapefruit, mandarine, fig, avocado, pecan, persimmon, apricot, mulberry, peach, nectarine, kiwi fruit, bananas, loquat, custard apple, lime, lemonade.....I was in heaven.  

It blew me away that this suburban block, tucked unobtrusively between two businesses in the 'rough' side of town yet still amazingly close to the centre of town, still had the feel of the farmhouse it once was.

In my heart I knew, this was my home.  The viewing we were about to have was merely a formality.

One of the mulberry trees just inside the front gate, absolutely loaded with fruit this year!

Right now, the trees are feeling spring.  I cannot wait until all these flowers burst their buds and bring in the bees.

That's the macadamia on the left, pecan in the middle, avocado on the right.

Some days I feel like the most fortunate person on the planet.

Falling off the face of August.....

Seriously, where has this month gone.

I'm flailing in my lack of date recognition and the disappearance of the days.  I'm really pinning all my hopes on the longer days meaning I get back on top of things again - in my world, we're only just into the first week of the eighth month...very disappointing, and more than a tad scary, to realize with a jolt that we're nearly into September already.  I'm just not ready.

That being said, a lot has been happening in this neck of the woods lately.  A blog post in each to be sure, but in a nutshell.....(not, as the LOML would say, you're a nut-Shell)....

......it's been Languages and Cultures Festival time again....

.....I've been working long enough to accrue a week and bit holiday - so we headed south and spent a week and a bit in Melbourne and Sydney....

(I loooovvveee hotel freebies)

....saw some sights...

Could I get a bigger pole in the centre of my frame????

 ....made a few donations....

.....welcomed home some olympians....

....did some shopping, met some rellies and then headed home loaded up with goodies....

.....I've since been out in the garden with gusto (this weather is glorious, just plain glorious!)....

.....we've also been cranking up the little Webber on the deck again with the LOML showing off his chicken-stick prowess...

Hopefully now I'm back in the routine of blogging, just like I'm back in the routine of exercising.  But while I despise with the white hot intensity of one thousand suns the necessity which is exercise in my life, (a routine that is a must.  M.U.S.T.), blogging (both reading and writing) is my outlet and my release and I'm glad to be back into it.

Cheers!!

A change is as good as a holiday

Last night, I had an attack of the rearrangings.  Every now and then my urge to reshuffle, tidy and rearrange various elements of my world raises its head and demands action be taken.  

The LOML, despite being able to travel overseas for a fortnight with only 2 changes of clothes, a toothbrush and a phone charger, doesn't cope very well when I move the furniture in the lounge room, so last night I rearranged my blog instead.  

I'm rather taken with the new colours and layout.  A bit plain at the moment but I plan on putting a  few photos around the place - sort of like hanging new paintings on the wall.  I love the way the photos look in the posts too - makes my sometimes inadequate shots look quite professional!  Just a little more moving and shuffling and I'll feel all finished and refreshed!  

Unfortunately, changing my blog around hasn't satisfied the urge to move things (I think it's an attack of the 'spring clean') so this morning I'm set to rearrange the kitchen - move some gadgets, tidy some shelves, that sort of thing.  The cupboards certainly need a good clean so at least that will get done if nothing else!  

I could be a while.....and I may not achieve all that is listed on my to dos today.....

I don't want to jinx it, but I think Spring has Sprung

I'm very excited and a little wary at the same time.  I mean, it's not yet officially the start of spring but the trees are telling me (and have been telling me for the past two weeks at least) that it's time.  But has it really?  Or is winter just tricking me?

Leaves have been bursting out of buds all over the place.  

Apricot Tree

Persimmon Tree

As have the flowers.  

Avocado tree about to bloom

Apricot blossom

Jasmine flowers

And the apricot tree now has little bitty fruits.  Note to self: hurry up and get that bird net up - there was a lorikeet hanging from one of those branches the other day eating everything in sight!

The mulberry tree is also covered with little mulberries.  Must net this one too.

I love this time of year so very very much I can hardly sit still for the love of it.

I even went out yesterday and planted some bean seeds.  And today I'm going to transplant the zucchini seedlings growing on my window-sill.

Game of me I know.

Expect a frost sometime in the next few days.

On My Mind: Not long now....!

Spring is coming!  Spring is coming!  Spring is coming!!!!

I am so excited (can't you tell?!).  Last year, the year of wet, spring didn't really eventuate.  Oh, I saw the sun a couple of days from September to December but it wasn't enough to really be classified as 'spring'.  It also wasn't nearly enough to boost my mood and make me shake the winter malaise.  And it certainly wasn't enough for me to consider trying to dry the sheets on the clothesline outside.

This year is shaping up to be better, normal almost - no, make that better than normal!  The weather started warming a couple of weeks ago and I started shedding layers - would you believe one day I even wore open toed shoes?  I know right!  Bare feet in July, it was almost unthinkable!  

And the trees are also shedding their layers.  Well, actually I don't know if that's the right description but they are bursting their buds and sending out leaves and flowers and buds and generally announcing to the world that they are not far from open and trading and ready for action!  It's glorious to see.

Right now is Ekka wind time.  That time of year, every year, when the Brisbane show signals the arrival of some bitterly cold westerly winds that remind us all that August still is a winter month, thank you very much, there'll be no jumper-less action on my watch!  

I find it amazing that the winds know when to start up - right on Ekka time - sometimes before, rarely after, but right on queue they whip up.  Regardless if Ekka starts on the 10th or the 17th of the month, that is the day the winds come.  Freaky.  So all the planned show stopping outfits of pretty summer dresses and short shorts have to be ditched in favour of jeans, boots, jackets and scarves (unless you are 16 in which case it is cool to be cold - necessary sacrifice for fashion and all!).

So welcome Ekka winds.  Knock yourself out, blow yourself silly.  Go crazy with it all.  This year I welcome you with open (and very rugged up) arms because your arrival signals your end and your end means spring is here and that is only ever a good thing!

Linking in with Down To Earth's Friday photo feature 'On My Mind'.....check it out and join in yourself!