The Big Routine - What do I need?

Vegetable gardening week has thus far been an abyssmal flop.  I did have one day of planting, and managed to acquire some cuttings of Nasturtium, that are excellent for keeping away pests.  So instead of updating on the nonexistent veggie progress, I’m taking sometime out to review my month’s blogging to see what kind of routines that have been on my mind.  Hopefully it will give me some idea of a daily cleaning routine that I can then experiment with next week.

A personalised summary of routine cleaning and organising from previous blogs shows the features my cleaning routine needs to have:

1.       Using the electronic diary in the phone for all family commitments works

2.       I like to make cleaning fun, with games, aps and fun sounding things like 27 fling boogie.

3.       I can’t clean ‘all the things’ at night late, it leads to insomnia!

4.       Focussing on one area a week works well to remind me to prioritise cleaning

5.       It would be beneficial to have regular visitors to keep a level of cleaning frenzy going

6.       Whenever possible, always leave every room brighter (eg pickup rubbish/junk) throughout every day

7.       Regularly cleanout the fridge before bin day, pay bills as soon as they arrive (I’ve had some disappear into the paper piles!), upload pictures at least monthly, send greetings quarterly.

8.       Spend at least 2 hours everyday on cleaning until the chaos is controlled.

9.       Have 2 days in a row alone in the house to clean every fortnight at least, again until it is controlled.

10.   Keep on top of my teeth and hair care to keep me feeling presentable to the world

11.   Make effort to have some ‘emergency’ supplies to be prepared for changes.

 How to apply these criteria is coming up in part 2 of the big routine!

Veggie Garden Challenge week!

This week, I'm inspired to get out into our veggie garden.  We have been half hearted growers for about 5 years, and last year I achieved my goal of having some kind of crop year-round.  Here is the most recent harvest, a Kent Pumpkin.  Last year at one point we had 6 growing on the vine.

My challenge for the week is to get the winter crops planted, as well as a fresh batch of year-round things like lettuce and carrots.

Here are the before shots.

These are the 2 empty beds at the front. Behind the big bed is mostly parsley and beetroot.

This shot shows the weeds! but in the foreground is the mini-bed with capsicum (bell peppers) and a big space in the middle where my tomatos and basil are going.

We have chives to help keep the aphids away from our rosebushes. I planted these on the weekend, with my son, around 'his' rosebush, a scented Mister Lincoln who hasn't yet flowered.  I also want to incorporate nasturiun and marigolds into the pest-repellants for the rose area.

The other crops going in are 2 punnets of lettuce - but first we need to finish preparing the bed, with some extra soil and compost.  I will be sowing some carrot seeds into trays for transplanting among the lettuce as they make good companion plants.

 

My husband bought some unknown 'somethings' I think I'll get them identified before I let them into the garden! 

We also have cucumbers (or they might be zucchini!) - these will need some support as the plants grow viney.

Happily, I already managed to get the 4 basil and 2 tomato plants into a garden bed with some existing capsicum (bell peppers) before all our rain, so with any luck they will thrive as soon as it stops raining. This is the basil before planting out, in one big clump.

For the rest of the week I'll be working on the list of jobs and plants above.  At the moment around the subtropics it really is time to plant broccoli and some of the other winter crops for early harvesting.

In the northern hemisphere its the perfect time to get all your spring / summer crops in like beans, beetroot, cucumber, cabbage, celery, even sweet corn, potato and leeks.  This site has a terrific worldwide sowing guide, although nothing replaces local knowledge, if you can get in touch with keen growers near you they'll have so many tips and tricks that suit your climate perfectly.