Seeding time !!

pHad a nice quite day today....

 Made some up some Dairy spread this morning.... Its easy to make & we know what goes into it...
 I use a Ratio of 2:1 Butter & Rice Bran Oil... It works out heaps cheaper than buying the "spreadable" butters & is a lot better to cook with as you get the butter flavour but it doesnt burn like normal butter due to the oil content... Taste great on sandwiches & toast as well....
Method : Just add the softened Butter to a mixing bowl & beat or whisk with Electric Beaters/Stand Mixer... When the butter is all smooth & creamy add the Rice Bran Oil a bit at a time.... I keep  Whisking it until it becomes pale & increases in volume.... I store it in decor 500ml containers & freeze until needed....
Costing : 
1Kg butter $4.58
500ml R/Bran oil   $1.63 (4L for $13 at Woolies on sale & I have a small stockpile..)
This works out to be  $0.42 per 100g or $2.10 for a 500g tub....
 The closest everyday cheapest equivalent is Aldi at $2.99 for 500g.... 
We dont like the Aldi brand due to it having Canola oil in it & that it spits everywhere when using it in cooking due to the water content.... Have been making this version of Dairy spread for a few years now after modifying a Recipe we found on the Simple Savings Site....
 This post has been copied & pasted onto our new Blog,   Bits Around the House..



In the Garden.... 
 Put up the Trellis for the Cucumbers & Climbing Beans today as well as planting out the 3 vacant beds....

  In Bed # 6 we planted, 
2 rows of All Season Carrots from Eden Seeds
Around the outside of the bed we planted,
Red Toga  Spring Onions from Johnsons Seeds,
White Lisbon Spring Onion from Hortico....
  In Bed # 7 we planted,
Blue lake Climbing bean x3
Marketmore Cucumber x 2
Lebanese Cucumber x 2
Purple Top Milan Turnips x 24-30
All these seeds were from Eden Seeds..... 
The Trellis runs the length of Bed # 7....   

  In Bed # 3 we planted,
Brown Beauty Bush Beans x 12
Cylindra Beetroot x 2 rows
Thai Green Eggplant x 2
Silverbeet Lucullus x 12
All these seeds were from Eden Seeds.....
Crimson Globe Beetroot  x 2 rows from Hortico

We are trying to use only old varieties of seed from the smaller seed suppliers as we try & save as many seeds from previous years as we can..... We have had great luck with Eden Seeds in the past & already have a couple of seeds saved from previous crops.... 
OH, & nearly forgot !!!! We bought a "long sweet Yellow" Capsicum seedling a few weeks ago & planted it out today In Bed # 1....  



This weeks harvest....
Kale, Silverbeet, Snowpeas, Broccoli, Zucchini & have gotten 3 eggs every day.....

 Have a Great one All....

: )»
 

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3 Blum Video Tutorial And Time Management

Tonight I worked on the #3 Jeremy Blum Basics of Arduino video tutorial -- again -- and still didnt finish it. I did learn some things, but didnt stay focused enough to finish the video.

One thing Ive learned while doing these Arduino video tutorials is that maybe I need to learn about time management and setting priorities more than I need to learn about microcontrollers! Theres no way doing these first three videos should have taken me this many nights...

Im enjoying the #3 video review of electrical formulas and concepts. Part of the problem is that Im an engineer, and it seems like I should already know lots (most?) of the stuff Jeremy is explaining in this video. So I end up reading background materials and watching videos to learn more about different aspects of what Jeremy is explaining.

Tonight it was LEDs. I didnt have anything on the MCU wiki yet about LEDs. So I pulled up the SparkFun LED tutorial, read a bit in that, hooked up an LED with the Arduino and breadboard and gave it power, then read the Wikipedia entry on LEDs. I also looked a bit at the ElectronicsTutorials entry on LEDs and the Digi-Key / Atmel "LED Driver Basics" video. If any of you know of an online info resource you think is particularly helpful for beginners (or for people experienced with MCUs), please send me a link to that. Ill add it to the wiki.

Between the above (relevant) diversions and a few other non-MCU things I needed to do this evening, I didnt get anywhere close to finishing the #3 Blum video.

Tomorrow, maybe...

**********

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What TIME is it Mr Wolf

THIS is another major piece of information.  And again, just like the "AI" shit, this is the next prime focus piece that is suddenly appearing in conversations.   Lisa Harrison and I have been discussing "Timelines" on the One Peoples Roundtable Discussion for the past few months, but suddenly in the past two weeks this topic has come into hyper focus over and over again.

Two nights ago I was up till after 3am on a call with Lisa discussing what we had begun to recognize as a huge shift in Time/Timelines that has taken place in the past 2 weeks or so.  Nick and I have spent hours upon hours over the past week dissecting "Time" and all the aspects that go along with it.  I have spoken to several other good friends- people who are very aware of the..... "energetic" shit that is going on, for hours on this subject as well.   Yesterday, Nick and I went out for a coffee and talked about the ramifications of time loops, time lines, and time shifting/jumping for over 3 hours.

... Then I got home and had a message from a good friend to check out something Jim Stone had written on a completely  unrelated topic..... read that and scrolled down to see what else Jim has been discussing lately.... and had this smack me in the face:

I am now confident I am not living in my original timeline.

Now This isnt Jims usual type of post, so in my opinion, when someone like Jim posts on a topic like this, I seriously take notice.  And the points he makes, ie: Mandela and BerenstEin bears- are both subjects that I have had multiple conversations on over the past few years.  BUT  .... "Sex AND the City"?!  No fuckin way!

This article jump started another explosive conversation between Nick and I, with dots connecting at lightening speed... another call with Lisa, plus Lily and Jeff, messages sent out to other friends.... and an experiment that I dropped into various skype rooms:

WITHOUT Looking it up:   How many MANNED missions did the US NASA land on the Moon do you remember?   Now... were not getting into the argument of whether they ever actually landed on the moon, lol, I mean- in your memory, in school, reading the news, WHAT YOU REMEMBER BEING TOLD.... How many times did NASA land a mission ON the moon that was manned by astronauts?

Would you be surprised to know that the answers varied WILDLY?    At last count from those who responded in the skype rooms:

6 people said ONCE
4 people said 2 or 3 times
5 people said 4 times, and
9 people said 5 or 6 times

... and 3 people remember more than 10 manned missions to the moon!!!

Of the 9 that remember 5-6 times, 3 of those have been researching it just recently in the past year or so, so I have said that their "vote" is corrupted by the fact that they cant remember what they remembered previously to doing the research.

Just two weeks ago Nick was researching something completely off topic that led him to a list of NASA missions to the moon.  He exclaimed outloud "WTF?" then asked me how many manned missions I remembered, and I said it was either 2 or 3.  He agrees with me.... but the list he was reading named 6 manned missions to the moon.

No Fuckin way!!!!   I even looked at the list of the astronauts on the missions and I only remember the names from the first three missions- all the other names Ive never heard of!

I went to bed last night thinking about this, and trying to comprehend my memory with what the facts now are stated to be..... woke up this morning and someone from one of the rooms over night says:

"Oh, here is one: I have a clear memory of learning/knowing (everybody knew) that Type A was the most prevalent blood type. Only to discover quite recently that Type 0 is. Type 0 was extremely rare in the reality I once lived in. I have a clear memory of learning/knowing (everybody knew) that Type A was the most prevalent blood type. Only to discover quite recently that Type 0 is. Type 0 was extremely rare in the reality I once lived in."

.... and my head exploded AGAIN!!!  This was a conversation that Nick and I had just had 3 months ago with a group of friends!!  Somehow the topic of blood types came up and Nick and I said that O+ is the Universal Donor and the most common blood type.  Our friends said no way, O- was the universal Donor.  Long story short, we looked it up and sure enough the information was that O- was the universal donor.... and Nick and I looked at each other and said "Thats not possible!!

Now, heres the thing:  when it comes to manned moon missions, none of us are astronauts, none of us were intimately involved in it, so all that we remember is second hand information through school or news stories or movies.   BUT.... when it comes to Blood types?  Now youre in my area!!!  Nick went to university for Biology, and I was a Medic.  Now, not only was I a medic, but I was USED AS A UNIVERSAL DONOR TWICE in emergency straight line transfusions, and it was always a joke that I was the walking blood bank, as I had just been screened for all diseases and was a UNIVERSAL DONOR.... Im O+.   When I was in the Canadian Armed Forces- as a medic- it was a joke again that those of us with O+ blood were Universal Donors and able to give blood to anyone in need.   This isnt me remembering wrong, or forgetting or not paying attention to moon landings... this is hard core evidence that something has changed.

So back to the Skype rooms again, asking what everyone remembers.  Lisa remembers that A was the most common blood type and O+ the universal donor, other people remember it differently as well. Some saying O- was the universal donor and even one person who insisted that A+ was the universal donor....

How many other pieces are we going to discover that dont match up with our memories?

Needless to say, this will be the main topic for this Mondays Roundtable Discussion!!!  Because some of the other pieces weve pulled together, some of the other dots that are suddenly connecting are mind blowing.

....As Lisa and I have been talking about for weeks:  Cycles of Time, The ending of Cycles, Timelines, and Yes even the crossing of dimensions, a la Fringe.... and CERN?

Shit is getting seriously weird my friends.   Did you notice that August got jumped and we are already in "September"? Are you leaves already turning?  Radical weather shifts that took place two weeks ago.....  Radical "energetic" shifts that took place about two weeks ago?  Oh yes..... shit is seriously getting weird my friends!

love d




http://82.221.129.208/ad1index.html

I am now confident I am not living in my original timeline.

And I got strong evidence that millions of people, if not all people, are not living in their original timelines. I think something happened.

The very first thing I noticed was that 20 years or so ago, Nelson Mandela died in prison, only to discover 20 years later he was still alive with no record of any prison. The second thing I noticed a few years ago was that the Berenstein bears were suddenly the Berenstain bears, which hit my gut odd, and I wondered why they changed it. As it turns out, in this timeline it was never changed. All the books, going all the way back say Berenstain. This was successfully talked down But there are now TWO NEW ENORMOUS NUKES THAT ARE NOT GOING AWAY, AND THEY ARE SEX IN THE CITY IS NOW SEX AND THE CITY, AND THE GIANT JESUS STATUES OF PERU AND BRAZIL.

Ok, now I have cold hard proof of Sex in the City, in the form of intrinsic evidence which proves that EVERYONE LIVING thinks it is supposed to be "Sex in the City". A simple google search that does the search in a way that denies Google the ability to correct the search results in a unanimous public consensus that YES, it always was "sex in the city":

Note the locations of the publications listed here: We have publications in America, airline blogs, and publications in Israel that say it was sex in the city, and ADDITIONALLY, a pirate perfume company in China that thought it was sex in the city. This proves that this phenomenon was global, and not just a local glitch at the local station, where someone there titled it wrong. Yet when you do an uncorrected search on Google, all Google will say is that it is and always was "sex and the city" and when you do a google image search titled "SEX IN THE CITY" it autocorrects and only puts up graphics of "Sex and the City" even if you try to force it to only give results for "sex in the city" because in this timeline, only the public conscience has it remembered as "sex in the city" which will show up in text people have written, while the hard physical reality has it as "sex and the city".

How big was the Rio Jesus anyway?

You know, that GIANT Jesus statue they have down there in Brazil, that in (at least my) original timeline dwarfed the entire town? I specifically remember that particular Jesus was over 300 feet tall, and that there was another giant Jesus in Peru that was just under 400 feet tall. How tall are they now? GET THIS: Neither are as tall as a 10 story building now! They look like ordinary large statues a big church might put up! And as it turns out, there is not a single Jesus statue anywhere in the world now that is over 120 feet tall when the base is subtracted!

And I do not know what to make of this.

All I can do is guess either something happened in our original timeline and a new one was created with errors in the details (which would pretty much prove we live in a simulation and not a real universe) or someone gained the ability to mess with the timeline and unwittingly change certain details in the recent past (which is as far back as they can go without risking their own time travel technology messing up their prospects of return.) It would make sense then that if they messed up the past, that would be our reality, but it did not go that way, something is seriously messed up.

One thing is certain, my memory is not messed up, "Sex in the city" proves it!

I can only hope it is the white hats messing with the timeline to give us a chance, like in the latest Terminator movie. I can only hope . . . . . because if it is the bad guys doing this, they already won and if no one is messing with the timeline, we might be living as a simulation in a CPU that had a crash, and merged us with a different but very similar parallel database.

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Time to get going

I just realised that we have only a few weeks to go until Spring & I really need to pull my finger out... There are are a few seeds I could start to sow in trays to get ready as well as a growing list of small to large scale projects I really need to make a start on...
IBC Aquaponic system... This one is the big one that really needs to be done but unfortunately there are a few other jobs that need to be completed in order to set it up...
Here is a list of the most important Jobbies as I see them...
# 1.Spice Wicking bed... This is going between the Chook yard & the AP system as an extra level of "scratch" protection... Dont really want Chook poo in the fish tank... Really need to get this in so we can move onto...
#2. Preparation of Aquaponic site... Part of the area where the Fish tank is going has been roughly levelled & some Besser blocks are cleaned & ready to be mortared in place, still need to pick a dozen or so up... We will be putting down some stone in the area on top of some used weed cloth & old feed bags to keep the weeds down...
#3. Cut & set up IBCs... To tell you the truth we are still a bit undecided as to which style of system to make... I like the idea of the grow beds that run on flood & drain using bell siphons that feed back into the fish tank directly with the pump running 24h... This will only need a basic pump & should be fairly cheap to build... If we go with one of the CHIFT PIST (Constant water Hight In Fish Tank, Pump In Sump Tank) system we need a pump with float switch & extra plumbing but I do like the idea of this system as the sump can be used as a separate tank for the Yabbies/Marron the real reason for getting into Aquaponics in the first place... (I dont like eating fish, go figure : D») To make it worse Backyard Aquaponics have released a Free Download Manual on how to build a basic IBC system as well as including HEAPS of the forum members own IBC systems... Heaps of ideas but really need to get it up & running for Spring...
#4. Harvest worm castings... This really needs to be done 3 weeks ago but havent gotten around to it... A couple of new farms need to be set up too in preparation of using them as a supplemental fish food...
#5. Build Black Solider Fly Larvae farm... This will be a great addition to the patch... These guys will look after all our meat scraps as well as veggie scraps... After our Dog Bunny passed we have been cringing as we toss out all meat scraps into the general waste bins... I see it as a waste of energy that could be used to feed other animals or plants... The Larvae can be used as chook or fish food& the wast they leave behind can be put through the worm farm...
#6. Age/Compost more Manure... Will be needing a fair amount of this for Jobbie #7... I almost bout a $30 120L composer new last night & am glad I didnt now... Will be pulling out the Carboy barrels again & might even make up a wire unit lined with weed matting... Will need to get some more blood & bone to add to the blend...
#7. Front yard Wicking Garden... We are letting the girls have a bed each in the front yard as well as a few for ourselves & a few barrels... Looking at some dwarf stone fruit for the barrels as well as a grape vine... Need to start to look at providing more of our own fruit...
There are more jobbies to do but that is a list of the ones I feel are important to get us off to a good start for the spring/Summer growing season...

Oh, & during all this it will still be life as usual with the girls schooling & general house duties or my chain will be shortened again by Queen B?......

Feel free to crack the whip & keep me motivated...
Have a great one all...
: )»
**Removes self from Puta & makes a start...**

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Here for your reading pleasure is an article from a You Tube friend of mine.. Was such a great article that I asked his permission & have posted it here for your reading pleasure.. If you would like to check out more of Dales clips you can find his You Tube channel Easy Grows It here, & the site that the article come from goes by the same name & can be found at easygrowsit.com .

How to save time and money when starting tomato plants for your garden

By Easy
easy@easygrowsit.com
February 24nd, 2013
If you, like many of us, grow lots of tomato plants for your garden every year, you start them from seed. Starting from seed can be tedious, time consuming and sometimes quite frustrating. You have to plan ahead so your little crop is ready to plant when the time is right. This usually means starting your seeds from 6-8 weeks before it’s time to plant them in the garden.
To start our seeds, some of us use 10? x 20? trays with cells for each seed. Others use anything from solo cups to microwave dishes from their last frozen dinner. It doesn’t matter what you grow them in, you’ll need to make sure they always get the proper amount of water, light and warmth to start them right. It requires a certain amount of attention at this stage and mistakes can set you back to the point of having to start over. Forget to water your little tomato plants and you could end up with plants that are stunted or dead and you could have to start all over.
At some point in the process, you’ll need to transplant the little seedlings into larger containers at least once. Depending on how large you want them at planting time, maybe twice. As I said above, it can get a little tedious and time consuming, especially if you’re doing the same with other plants like peppers at the same time.
The obvious alternative to growing tomato plants from seeds is to go buy small plants from a local nursery or home improvement store just before you need to put them out in the garden. Depending on how many plants you need, it can be quite expensive. If I remember correctly, last year the price of small tomato plants at home improvement stores were about US$3.50 each in 4 inch pots. If you bought a dozen plants, you were looking at around $42 plus tax. How many tomatoes would it take to make up for a $42 investment? That’s assuming all your plants survived to produce tomatoes.
So, starting tomatoes from $1.50 worth of seeds is easily more economical although much more risky and difficult. Buying plants somewhere is much less risky but much more expensive. What if I told you that you could have the benefits of both choices without the huge monetary outlay and without having to monitor dozens of baby plants from seed? Would that be something that might interest you? If it is, please read on.
For those of you that do not know much about tomatoes and tomato plants, let me give you a little background information before I move on. Tomatoes are actually a fruit, not a vegetable. I, like many, was not aware of this fact for quite some time and I was quite surprised to hear that. Tomato plants are actually vines, unlike, say, a bell pepper plant, which is technically a tree.
Vines are interesting plants. Some if not most vines (I don’t claim to be a vine expert or any kind of expert for that matter) will sprout roots when buried in soil. More roots means more water and nutrients for the plant as well as having a stronger base in the ground to support the plant. You can actually plant a tomato plant, with proper preparation, horizontally in a trench leaving just the very top of the tomato plant sticking out of the ground. It will develop many more roots than with the typical planting method and it will be much more strongly rooted in the ground as well. This is called the trench planting method. If you’d like to see exactly how this works, here’s a link to a You Tube video my friend Bobby (Mhpgardener on You Tube) did showing how it’s done…Planting Tomatoes – A Quick Tip
Tomatoes grow new baby plants at the intersection where a branch and the main stem meets. This intersection is typically called a crotch and the new baby plant that develops there is usually called a sucker. I am sure there is probably a more scientific name but gardeners usually call it a sucker because it takes energy away from the main plant to grow this new baby plant. Remember, a tomato plant is a vine and vines like to spread all over. Some tomato growers remove these suckers and others like to leave them on. I’ll leave that subject for another article.

Picture of a sucker growing from a tomato plant courtesy of mhpgardener of You Tube.

At this point, you might be saying to yourself, “This is all very interesting and good but what does all this have to do with how I get a bunch of tomato plants to plant in my garden?” I appreciate your patience dear reader and now that I have explained enough background information, let’s get to the point.
Suckers, as I said, are baby tomato plants. It’s like a another tomato plant growing out of the main tomato plant, which is called the mother plant. If you would snip off a decent sized sucker (six inches long or longer with a few full sets of leaves) from the mother plant and stick the bottom of the sucker in water, in a matter of three days to a couple of weeks, depending on the variety of tomato plant, you should see roots develop under and at the water line. Once they start to develop roots, those roots will grow at a very rapid rate. This is called “rooting” a plant. It’s also called “cloning”.
After the roots get a few inches long (don’t let them get too out of hand) you can transplant the new tomato plant into soil and it will grow like any other tomato plant in soil. Now, the really amazing as well as useful part of this whole process is that not only does the new sucker derived plant give you a whole new plant to grow, it doesn’t know it’s a new plant. To it, it’s a fully developed tomato plant, not a 6 week old baby plant that grew from seed and is still maturing. If the mother plant is three months old, the sucker is just as mature, just smaller. It’s ready to put on flowers and start bearing fruit right away unlike it’s six week old, grown from seed counterpart.
So now, let’s put it all together. If you needed a dozen or so tomato plants, instead of planting twelve seeds 6-8 weeks ahead of time, you could grow one or two mother plants a month or two earlier than that so they have suckers a few weeks before you needed plants to put in the garden. Not only will the sucker derived plants be more mature and ready to start producing right away, you’d be using less seeds and can still get more suckers later from the mother plant in case something terrible happens to your garden such as hail storm. The mother plant will continue to keep making suckers for you in case you need them.
I almost forgot! There’s another reason to generate plants this way. Not only will the mother plant give you lots of baby plants, chances are, depending on when you started your mother plant, it will also give you tomatoes as well by the time you start setting your new plants out in the garden.


Dont forget to check out Dales You Tube channel & Web site..

Have a great one all

: )»

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Catch up Time Aquaponics Chooks a wander through the veggie patch

Has been a while since I ventured over here to blog land so thought I would do a bit of a catch up post..Think we shall start with he Fish..

Aquaponics...
I did a "What is Aquaponics" style clip a few weeks ago to help a friend explain aquaponics to her family members.. Not a real in depth one but it will gives a rough idea on how the system works including the relationship between the fish, bacteria & plants.. It also shows a bit of the growth in the system if your interested on how its looking at the moment..

Not much has happened with the aquaponics of late which is a good thing on one hand but frustrating on the other... The fish are all well & happy (so they tell me) with the growth in the beds travelling along fine.. The celery is still being picked every couple of days & the strawberries have been fruiting well..

Harvested our first aquaponic pepino last weekend which was great.. There are a load on there with a few easily 50% larger than the fruit above :D
Really hoping to get the grow beds sorted out into their new positions by the start of spring.. First a wicking bed needs to be pulled down & the ground levelled to make room for them.. The new configuration should free up some space to try out a few new ways to grow plants with the system..

Hanging with the Chooks...
The chooks are at the top of their game at the moment.. Greedy decided to moult at the start of winter, which was a bit of a concern to us, but grew back back a fine set of feathers just in time for the few cool nights we have had this winter.. Have started to make up 2-3 lots of sprouted wheat a week for the girls.. I think they now recognise the sprouting jar as there is much flapping & excitement when we go wandering down to the pen with it.. Have also had a go at growing them some wheat sprouts as a fodder crop in the aquaponics but have shelved that idea for a little while :)

Hope to make a start on the modified feeder & shall do a bit of a report on that once it is done for those interested..


Wandering the patch...
Have got stuck into a few jobs around the place of late getting the patch ready for the warm season crops.. There are some tomato, eggplant & capsicum seedlings that have just started to germinate which is a great sight to see..
 

Some water chestnuts have also made it into some small 100mm pots to give them a bit of a head start before going into the sedge bathtub bed that will be set up near the aquaponics..

 The yacon are starting to throw up shoots  & I think we will have more than enough for our purposes this year.. Have quite a few earmarked for other people & have already given a fair few away.. 

Made a decent start in setting up the new front yard garden beds as well.. There are now 4 IBC wicking beds along the front retaining wall with another 4 going in over the coming weeks.. The first 2 beds have the asparagus in them with some heirloom corn planed for at least one of the other beds..  Hope to do a post on them by themselves once they are in & growing :)

Garden walk around clips..
Have a couple of clips on whats happening in the patch at the moment... The first is of the front yard last week before the new beds went in..

The pigeon pea still havent been harvested but when they have I shall post about our attempt at making humus with them...Should be interesting methinks..


The second clip is of the backyard patch with a bit of a quick look at the 2 new pineapple flowers that have just started to form :)

Hope to make a proper start to the insect house extension soon as well (looks at list of jobbies).. After last seasons success with keeping the fruit fly out I think we might finally get a chance at growing some decent tomatoes & capsicums :) 

------------

Well that brings us roughly up to date... Shall post some project updates over the next few days to bring the blog up to speed all proper like ;)
Hope all are well & happy out there & have been having fun in the garden..
Cheers,
Rob..

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Srring time preps

Bits from the patch...

We have had a great crop of Broccoli & Cauliflower this year especially in the little "white house" with only one incursion by a lone white butterfly.. I actually think it may of emerged from a chrysalis in there as we found no evidence of grubs after finding it..  We have planted out 3 lots of broccoli & caulies with a forth batch ready to plant out now.. Shall be holding off a week or so until we the current lot of broccoli side shoots have been all picked then the bed needs a good turn & feed before the next batch goes in..

Looks like we will have a bumper crop of the Roi De Carouby snow peas this year.. We did have a small hiccup with all our saved snow peas being mixed which resulted in a crop of both the RDC & mammoth melting that were saved last year... From what I can tell even though they were planted together there is very little chance of cross fertilisation due to the way the flowers then pods form on a pea plant.. We will be planting some to make sure that they are going to grow true to type before offering them to others though..
 The honey pod & sugar snap peas have also done really well so far.. The plants starting to pump out enough pods for a meals worth every second day if the girls dont get to them first.. They have become a bit of a lunch time hit being eaten with a selection of nuts & seeds with a small handful of dried cranberries..

Spring is near, time to get busy...
Even though the summer heat appeals to the lizard in me I really must admit to looking forward to the winter cold & the crops it allows us to grow here in South East Queensland.. We are also lucky

enough to be able to grow some crops through the mild winters like sweet potato, as well as having fruit form on the tomatoes & eggplants.. Another surprise to me so far this year have been the galangal with all putting out new shoots this winter event hough the ginger & turmeric have both had a bit of die back due to the cold..







Started to sort out the bathtubs for the spring & summer crops so needed to harvest the lemongrass from the tub up the side of the house... The plant was divided & 3 were planted into a re worked wicking barrel & 8 small shoots were potted out.. To get soil for them I needed to raid the water chestnut tub where I got a bit of a surprise as some had started to shoot already..

I have a feeling that I may have planted out the water chestnuts & lemongrass it a bit to early as we have had a few nights at or bellow 0°C here... They are not looking the best at all..

Worm Bathtub farm..

Have made up a bathtub worm farm over the past week.. The stand is made from some old metal chair frames that were reborn into the Aquaponic barrel system frame & have been reincarnated once again to hold up the tub... The red side rails are from an old discarded bed frame & the bath was the old water chestnut bed.. The drainage rocks cost $7 & the weed cloth was under $2 so was a really cheap build..

Sort of forced myself to do it as I have harvested all the worms from the blue barrel farm so that can be turned into a Black Solider Fly Larvae (BSFL) farm... Once its up & running I shall do a post on the farm & the BSFL themselves...


Thats about it for now...Have a good one...
**wanders off to start worm harvesting**

: )»

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Roundtable Discussion Shifting Time Lines WTF !

It would seem that the article I published last week:  "What Time is it Mr. Wolf?" opened the floodgates to a WHOLE lotta questions, and answered one major one for a whole lotta people:

.... No. Youre not going insane.   Weird shit really is happening right now, lol.

The two questions I asked in the article about How many US moon landings do you remember? and What is the Universal Donor Bloodtype? seem to have taken on a life of their own, at least on Facebook anyway!

In the past two weeks I have probably spent at least 50 hours in conversations  and discussion with several people on the topic of what the fuck is happening to our Time Line right now.  The more people Ive talked to, the more incredible and far reaching this topic has become.

Tomorrow night on the One Peoples Roundtable Discussion, Lisa Harrison and I will be laying out a LOT of data, reviewing multiple conversations that have been ongoing, and asking a LOT of questions.

Join us tomorrow, Monday night at 11pm London/ 6pm EDT for the LIVE Stream Broadcast of the Roundtable Discussion on CCN

http://www.consciousconsumernetwork.tv/ccn-live/

You can also be part of the conversation in the Chat room on Lisas website:

http://www.lisamharrison.com/watch-live/

Or you can Watch the Show live right here on RTS or on the RTS facebook page.

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Spring time fun Jobbies

Had a great weekend in the yard doing some jobbies, socialising with ADULTS & playing with a family heirloom that has been "lent" to me...

BBQ, Good Friends & Spuds...
   My farther has passed on custodianship of the family BBQ to us...  He built this BBQ for APEX outings before I was born (40 or a few less years ago) & it is still going strong with a few minor alterations like the tin side panels being replaced with Stainless steel & some Aluminium covers to keep the plate clean when stored & not in use... It had been out of service for the past 10 or so years as family gatherings had migrated to other relatives places so it needed a bit of TLC... The plate needed a bit of a touch to remove a bit of rust build up as well as replacing the regulator & lines just to be on the safe side... Not as flash as a newer model but we know it will last another 40 or so years if looked after.. I like that we can remove the burners & use them to boil the presure cooker (when we get one) for canning our produce in the near future...

    We got to use it for the first time on Saturday when we had friends visit for a bit of socialising...
   Was a great day & got a bit of help in the yard... We needed to harvest the 4 potato bags from around the side of the house as the stalks were all dying back so the young kids all got a go at digging through the soil to see what they could find... Wasnt the best yield but we are still learning with spuds... I think the mix we used was to free draining & it was a struggle to keep the water up to them...
    Also got a bit of a hand with the framework to finish off the AP site... Can set the fish tank & other grow beds up now... Thanks Guys & Girls...
 

Fertilisers...
   We bought a couple of bags of fertiliser last week from Safe Fertilisers as we are starting to run low on the rock dust & have a few beds/barrels that need to be revitalised before they are plated out.. The last batch we got was an all rock dust blend but decided to try a "BFA Certified"  "Enviro Blend" this time..
CBM
Chicken manure, blood & bone, and minerals. This 100% organic blend provides the full
spectrum of macro and micro elements.
N 2%,  P 2%, K 0.4%, S 2000ppm, Ca 8%, Mg 2%,  Fe 1.4ppm, Mn 370ppm,  B250ppm,  
Cu 55ppm, Zn 120ppm, Co 10ppm, Mo 40ppm, Se 3ppm, C 20%, Si 5%
Not the most pleasant smelling blend but should help kick things on a bit... Will still be using the horse manure & worm castings as added organic matter to the beds/barrels, this is just to help add a few nutrients that were used up in the last crop or just not there...
The main crop of Beetroot is not preforming as well as the others planted out at the same time & it was suggested to us that it could be a boron deficiency so they will get a nice top dress of fertiliser too...

Harvesting & Planting out...
Have been picking a fair of  Kohlrabi, Carrots, Spring Onion & Mangle to turn into coleslaw lately & it has become a bit of a favourite... 4 bas of potatoes were also harvested (see picture above) as well as the garlic that is in the clip below... The stems went a bit soft on some & others had already dried out but were missed amongst the Onions so we though it best to harvest the lot..
The Silverbeet/Chard & other leafy greens are still being used to supplement the chooks diet.. They now look forward to their morning/evening treats & come running as soon as they see us in the patch...
    Below is a list of what was planted out last night to take advantage of the full moon...
Carrots, a  mix of Nantes (Johnsons seeds- organic) & Dragon (Eden seeds) x 2 rows in Bed #1
Carrots, Mini Round (Diggers seed) x 2 rows in Bed #1
Carrots, Heirloom mixed (Diggers seed ??) x 2 rows in Bed #1
Tomato, Broad Ripple Yellow currant (Diggers ??) in Lime Tree bed...
Tomato, Wapsipinicon Peach (Diggers ??) in Lime Tree bed...
All but the Nantes & Dragon Carrots were from the gift we received from from our You Tube gardener friend Watsamadoing last week... Thanks again :D»

Garden walk through Clip...
Bit of what was said above & other natterings...

Weather...
It will start to heat up here a bit by the weekend we are told, hitting about 29°C by Friday, so we are thinking about putting up some of the shade structure to try & stop some of the Broccoli from premature bolting... Will be trying to incorporate the mesh we got to try & keep the White Cabbage Moth/Butterflies from getting to the Brassicas & depositing their eggs...




Have a great one all...
: )»

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Time for an aquaponic system update the first fish harvest

Did another backyard aquaponic system update last week.. Its all travelling along rather nicely at the moment & am happy to report there have been no dramas as of late..  **knocks on wood**
Plant growth is still coming along nicely even though the temperatures have been dropping a bit.. Thinking we are still right to plant out a few more seeds though..

Should have the site for the mini fish farm all sorted by the next update hopefully..

Have taken the first 4 perch from the system to share at a bit of a family get together over the weekend.. 3 were not the largest but wasnt expecting too much.. Might pull a few more over Winter but not sure yet, shall see how we go..

Information on the iki jime method of despatching fish can be found here
http://www.ikijime.com/
& is well worth the look I think.

For more regular updates & pictures from the patch come visit us on our "Bits Out the Back" Facebook page..
Have a great one All...
Rob..

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The Roundtable Discussion No More nicey nicey time to tell it like it is!

The time for kid gloves, political correctness and worrying about bruised feelings and "triggering" people is well and truly over.   No more nicey nicey.  No more sugar coating.  No more mincing words.   Its time for the cold harsh reality of what the fuck is going on right now.

Tonight Lisa and I will be joined by Lily Earth and ohhhhhh boy!  We have a lot to say.   Tonights menu of topics will include Mind Control, "AI", Programming and Rituals, the use of auto suggestion and blatant programming by Hollywood, and ..... the Savior Meme.  

This will not be a lovey dovey, feel good, sweeping strings while we frolic through fields of flowers on unicorns kinda night.



Join us tonight on the Roundtable Discussion, LIVE Stream on CCN at 11pm BDT/ 6pm EDT

http://www.consciousconsumernetwork.tv/ccn-live/

Or Watch live and join us in the Chat Room on Lisas website:

http://www.lisamharrison.com/watch-live/

Or watch right here on RTS

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Catch up time

Have been doing a few small bits & pieces around the patch since I last posted...

Wicking Bathtub...
An old bathtub came up for offer on Freecycle  a few weeks back so we grabbed it to try turning it into a Wicking Bed...

 I wanted to set the bed up as a Thai curry bed but as we have enough Chillies already for what we need a Capsicum was planted in there instead...

 Seeding & planting update...
The morning the Bathtub bed was made we went to the local markets & purchased,
2 x Thai Mint, 1x Giant Capsicum & a Calendula seedlings... They were fairly advanced & very healthy looking so a bargain for $4 all up (if memory serves me right)... 1 of the Basils along with the Capsicum went into the Bath along with the volunteer Lemongrass we had growing in a pot...

Last Sunday (16th Oct) Bianca & I potted up all the seedlings that were advanced enough into 10cm (4inch) pots to allow their roots to develop a bit more & for us to make space around the place or find new homes for the leftovers... We now have the below thriving quite happily in their new pots,
Eggplant, Long Thai Purple  x 6
Eggplant, Udumalapet x1
Eggplant, Rosa Bianca x 2
Tomato, Black Russian x 6
Tomato, Brandywine Pink x 6
Cucumber, Mini White x 3
Rockmelon, Minnesota Midget x3
 The remaining Mini white Cucumbers & Minnesota Midget Rockmelons (3 each) went into 2 different barrels with cadges on them.. The Cucumbers should vine up alright & it will be interesting to see how the Melons will go...
B? also planted another 4 Amish Paste Tomato Seeds as we are really enjoying the ones we have already eaten fresh & turned into sauces.. The plants in the lime beds just are not doing as well as they could so we are going to try them in a Wicking bed where they will have constant water & see how they go.. Just need to find the room now... 

Aquaponics...
Not a lot has been happening with the IBC system other than the occasional Yabbie shedding its exoskeleton &n an influx of Mozzie wrigglers.. Some of them were taken care of quickly today after we introduced about 30 Firetail Gudgeon feeder fish into the Sump Tank... The Yabbies were put in there a few weeks ago & the Goldies from the house were put into the Barrel system along with the Pacific Blue Eyes we had in the Barrel pond in the patch... The Barrel system has still only got a trace reading of Ammonia & no readings that I can see for Nitrite or Nitrates... The tank is being supplemented with Seasol as well as Chelated Iron while the pH is above 8 as high pH locks out Iron which can appear as a yellowing of the leaves like a nitrogen deficiency...
I have been collecting bits for the plumbing work & think most of what is need has been found as well as buying a 2500LPH back up pump that is running during the day at the moment... 
Did a bit of rearranging of the AP site today & will be trying to knock off the rest of the set up in the next few weeks...


Potato update...

We have had a few problems with a Spotted Potato Ladybug infestation in the Kipfler drum... They are on all of the plants but really hooked into the barrel plants.. We started to spray all the plants with Neem & these are the only specimens I could find today but from the 

shot on the Left you can see the difference between the 2 plants...
I think we may just harvest the Barrel this weekend if the plant dies back to much... The Kipflers on the right in the shot have been left alone for now so we will be keeping the Neem up to them until harvest time...




A little Carrot experiment....

Mmmmmm.... Well, I did try to save to poor little feller...
The results can be seen at the start of the clip below.. : (»

Garden Walk through...

Tried to cram in as much as I could but still miss a fair bit out... The Patch just keeps growing which I cant really complain about..

New project....
Here is a sneak peek of a new project we will be starting today or on the weekend...

Going to be fun, messy but Fun....

Have a great one all....
: )»

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