Kid-size veges

Miss Tizz and the X-man were busy setting up their own vege garden this afternoon (with a couple of ring-ins from next door). If the snails don't do too much damage, we should have plenty of kid-size cherry tomatoes and mini iceberg lettuces ('ice cubes').

warning: this is a bit gross

Ok, so maybe a LOT gross. Sorry about that (but you can click on the photos if you'd like to see a bit more detail).

We noticed that the lemon tree was attracting flies for some reason (the husband thinks they're attracted to yellow). There seem to be an awful lot of them this year - we've had alternating wet and warm weather, which probably has a lot to do with it.

There are a few types of flies, including big blowflies (erghhhh), and it's quite close to the front door, so not particularly desirable. We didn't want to use sprays, so we bought a few of these flycatchers from the hardware megastore. And do they work or what! This was about two days worth of flies!

I'm not exactly relishing the task, but I'm going to have to empty the traps out and re-set them with more of the liquid attractant soon (we've also put traps in the pear and apple trees). Or go with the husband's idea and just toss the whole thing and put up a new trap ... tempting ...

Who's eating my fruit?

Wicking beds



The beds are made, they're settling in, and just waiting for rain, worms & planting. The weather forecast mentioned rain many times last week, but nothing more than a few drops came of it. Tomorrow's forecast for the local area says "A thunderstorm in spots" - what's that supposed be? A fashion statement? I think I may end up resorting to the hose - after all, that's what those white watering tubes in the beds are for:



Next I need to bully the husband into finishing the worm feeders (he has more time & more sharp power tool experience than me). It all seems to be taking forever, but it's getting there ...

At least something's eating out of the backyard

The apples are looking lovely, aren't they?



But turn most of them over, and you'll find something like this:



Telltale signs of codling moth. The pears aren't immune either:



And then there's pear & cherry slug:



... and birds ...



The white cockatoos seem to prefer the pears, and the rosellas (ok - I'm not 100% sure they're rosellas, but they're green & red & blue & very pretty) prefer the apples. At least someone's eating well!

Baking

Speaking of eating, I made up my first batch of dough from the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day book today. The children have been bringing home their sandwiches barely touched, so I thought little crusty rolls, accompanied by a small salad, might be more tempting. The rolls are certainly tempting me!



You can find the master dough recipe on the authors' website, and variations of all sorts floating around the internet. I found this a little salty, and then read that the amount of table salt should be reduced by about a third or more if you're using table salt instead of the kosher salt in the original recipe. But it's certainly delicious and easy, even like this (that blurry one in the foreground is no more!). Mmmmmm ...