Birds in our Garden

This is a post dedicated to birds we have seen over the time in our garden. There are some common and some rare visitors!

Common Koel Eudynamis scolopacea

Although called common, we don't see this one here very often. The common koel belongs to the cuckoo family and has very scary red eyes.

 Laughing Kookaburra Dacelo novaeguinea

We don't see this one very often, at least not as nicely positioned as pictured here, right on our garden fence. However, we often hear this birds laughing and another kookaburra's reply. Our cats always go mental when a kookaburra laughs closeby!

Black-faced Cuckoo-Shrike Coracina novaehollandiae

Definitely one of the more common visitors. Seems to be solitary, unlike many of the other birds we see around here.

Is this a juvenile Magpie-lark? My bird book doesn't indicate that juveniles have yellow beaks, so I might be wrong. Ideas, anyone?

Spotted Turtle-Dove Streptopelia chinensis

For some reason I keep calling this bird Woodpigeon, but there you go, it's a Spotted Turtle-Dove. It's very common here and it comes especially after we have worked in the gardens. I think it likes the seeds we dig up. It makes a funny-pigeon sound when it flies away and bobs its head when it walks.

Red Wattlebird Anthochaera carunculata

This one is very common in our garden, because a breeding pair of them lives in our neighbour's gigantic maple tree. They are never seen flying alone and always in close reach of their partner. You can guess why they are called wattle bird.

Figbird Sphectotheres viridis

This pecualiar little bird is a periodic visitor of our garden. We see them every year when our Mulberry tree is fruiting (strangely enough, not when our fig tree bears fruits, but that may be because the flying foxes are faster and eat them all).

Coincidences

Today I have two stories: One garden-related and one not-so very much garden-related.

Our garden is doing okay. The tomatoes have decided to keep growing like weeds and day after day we admite the new flowers and the growing green tomatoes, hoping for them to turn red soon.

We had to harvest the silver beet, as it could not deal well with the heat here and also the spinach as it was starting to bolt.

Our potatoes had to be harvested earlier than expected as well. We were quite sad to see, that it had caught some kind of disease. It did not look like Fungus (the first suspect in our garden), and we have no idea what it was. Because we had to harvest very early, we did not get quite as many potatoes as we were hoping for, but enough for a good meal.

We also harvested the leeks and made a yummy leak food with some of the carrots we planted a few weeks ago. They were a bit stunted but nontheless very yummy.

Due to the heat, the herbs that prefer moisture are not doing so well this year. This in fist place is the basil, but also the Parsley complains about the hot sun, burning down from the sky.

Despite the hot weather, we still keep getting fungal diseases. This time it hit our zucchini :( We took away the affected leaves and sprayed the rest with a milk-solution. Since then it's doing a bit better and growing flower after flower, yet it doesn't seem to grow fruits yet. Maybe we need to improve our bee-like qualities and pollinated those flowers a bit better.

So much for our garden.

Now the not-so much garden-related story.

Last Sunday, when we came back from down the coast, we saw a cat lying on the side of the road. Not sure whether it was still alive and could be saved we stopped, but the ginger man had been dead since a while and there was nothing we could do, other than informing the council.

Cats get hit by cars every day, and it didn't change anything that I was upset with an unknown owner who let their cat out next to a freaking busy road (yes, freaking busy). Yet it got to me and the whole day it made me sad, to think about the body of that beautiful ginger cat.

We eventually had dinner and watched a movie when around 22.00h someone knocked on our door. We didn't expect anyone and were rather surprised and when we opened the door, there was a man with a tiny orange bundle of fur in his arms.

He said he had found it on our front lawn, and whether we had lost it. Of course we hadn't, our two neutered boys can't reproduce after all ;) But there are many wild cats out there and at the moment is kitten season, so it was clear to us, that this kitten, one way or another, had lost its mum.

The man was clearly overwhelmed, and we decided to take the kitten of his hands and take responsibility for it. His (almost all ginger cats are male) eyes were still blue and his walk wobbly. Later I saw a few teeth in his mouth, which they grow when they are about three weeks old, so we estimated his age to be about 24 days.

We divided the rooms, to keep him away from our cats and truly, like any feral coming from outside, he had quite a flea colony living in his fur. He wasn't too keen on food, so we had no choice, but to give him flea paste and a worming tablet before he ate and give his ears a little clean.

He was really calm during the whole time. I remember when we found Smaxie, he was screaming and trying to run away the whole time. Not this boy, who now is named Simba - he was calm and even adventurous. We got some formula for him and mixed it with wet food which he finally took some bites of. Since we have successfully changed his diet to wet food.

So now we have Simba living with us. Today he got a flea bath, to get the last fleas down of his body and truly he is a clean cat now. He is happy and adventurous and we will keep him here for a few weeks, until he is old enough to find another home.



It's funny how things like that happen in one day. It was a coincidence, but one that is worth smiling about. We also applied to become foster carers for kitten that very same day he came. it's just a funny coincidence this. :)

Garden Update

Our mulberry tree just finished fruiting after a felt 20kg of fruit and the remains are under the tree rotting happily away, staining the ground black. With the beautiful sunny weather this year and some better knowledge of how to keep our plants happy and healthy, our garden is growing like it has never before.

Here you can see the herb snail with the rucola bed behind it, which also has leeks and spring onions plus six pink fur potatoes planted inside. 

The garden bed on the left in the front has our desiree potatoes, which have just started flowering (so pretty!) and behind them, which can't be seen, a number of peas producing fruit after fruit like a machine. Also in that bed towards the right we have our last spinach (most of them have bolted by now) and the garlic we just harvested this week (see below). We planted some dill and a single salad in there aswell, unfortunately all the other salads died due to a aphid invasion...

The Bed behind has our tigerella tomatoes, which since I took this picture (I think last week) have grown another 15 centimeters! They are producing their first fruit and I think our harvest will start in about two weeks *yay*. To the left of the tomatoes, with the closed a-frame, we have two zucchini plants. We had to close the shade cloth, because birds apparently are crazy for zucchini plants and flowers. This is how we lost all our plants last year and almost this one. So the a-frame will remain closed and we will hopefully harvest our first zucchini someday. Behind the zucchini plant we have a number of bean plants, two types whose name I forgot though. They also have just started to flower.

Not to be seen in the picture are our 4 Capsicum plants, which are in a box covered by a shade cloth, also because of birds. And we have four melon plants: 2 rock and 2 eater melons. The water melons I will feature in one of the next posts, because their leaves are beautiful! Also the rock melons keep producing flowers, which unfortunately just keep falling off due to lack of pollination. :( I have tried hand pollinating and will try once more once we have our first zucchini flower.

Our herb snail, by the way, is just starting to be growing to its full glory again. In the front we have moroccan mint and spearmint. The parsley behind it will be replaced by new already germinated plants, once we could save the seeds of the flowers. There is a little marjoram plant behind, which I am not sure, whether it will make it, and a few basil plants, which self-seeded from last years plants. Then we have a lemon basil plant (smells delicious!!), dill, lemon balm, chives, thyme, lavender, sage which just starts to grow, oregano and rosemary! The spearmint has started to grow many shoots and some of them pop out between the rocks, which I think looks awesome! You can see one in the very front between the rocks.

Here the tigerella tomatoes:

The beans:

And our garlic harvest!! This will last for a while, although, with Rob cooking, maybe not that long after all :D

Potatoes & Tomatoes rock!

True to the title of our blog: Our things grow!


The potatoes have more than tripled in size and show no sign that they are planning to stop.

The tomatoes likewise, some of them even are starting to flower. We needed a storm though to remind us, that tomatoes only survive when staked. We lost a couple, maybe three really good looking plants, they were bent by the wind like a toy.

Our beans are starting to shoot up too. The marjoram in the background has been there for a while, we've missed out transplanting it and now it will just stay where it is. It seems to really like the soil.

This little thing is a watermelon plant. It is absolutely tiny and to keep the soil moist (melons don't like dry soil) and warm we have mulched it with Hay. It is only growing it's third leaf and already decides it is time for a flower. Let's see how this goes - I'm not complaining. :-)

Due to the warm long days most our herbs have started to flower. Last week I posted a piccie from our time, here is the parsley, which also has beautiful yellow flowers.

Not everything has just started to grow, some things also are finishing at the moment. Our small and early harvest garlic varieties for instance. They have a nice red skin and smell delicious, I'm sure it won't take long until we start cooking with them.

Okay, I admit, this is not a plant, and yes I am a cat fanatic who continuously has to post cat pictures. BUT - how can you resist? These creatures are amazing, and I love them so much. This is Max in his self-chosen night spot on the top of the wardrobe. Whenever someone walks past he can't resist the urge to see who it is:

A leaf?

Over the upcoming days I will post some pictures of our slowly, yet steadily growing plants. We had many sunny days followed by a few rainy days and the garden is very happy!

Today only a shot of something, we found hiding out in the thyme plant, while we were cutting down the leaves from our bush mango, which unfortunately is infected by a rather bad bacterial fungus.

Here it is:

And isn't the thyme beautiful in flower?

Mulberry Jam Recipe #1: Basic

Ingredients:
1kg Mulberries
1 kg gelling sugar/setting sugar (if ratio is 1:1)
1 Lime (Juice of it)
10g Butter
Sterilized and washed glasses (~3 x 500ml)

Directions

1) Weigh and De-Stalk Mulberries

2) Prepare Lime and Jam setting Sugar.

3) Put Mulberries in 6l pot and crush them with a potato masher.

4) Add Sugar and Lime juice.

5) Heat on low flame (no boiling) until all the sugar has dissolved.

6) Add Butter.

7) Bring to hard boil, boil until a drop of jam does not move when put on a cold plate. Skim off the foam if it builds, stir occasionally.

Fill into washed and sterilized jars (don't forget to preheat them carefully or they might break due to the sudden impact of heat!): Et voilá! We needed 3 500ml glasses for the amount of jam we made.

2nd Time - What can be done better?

A) Heat up the berries without the sugars, wait until they are cooked and start to fall apart, Only then crush them with a potato masher.

B) At that point you have the options of either making jam or jelly. If you want to make mulberry jam, just continue with C, if you want to make jelly press the fruit through a thin sieve or a cheese cloth and only continue with the pure juice. If you just have the fruit juice, probably 800g to 1000 ml will suffice. (I personally quite liked the jelly consistency that came out when I tried, Rob prefers the Jam :))

C) Instead of adding all the sugar instantansously, add it 1-2 spoons at a time and wait until it dissolved. All on low flame, it should neither be simmering nor boiling!

D) After that continue as described, bringing it to a rolling boil for at least for minute. To test though, put the plate in the fridge for a minute and then see, whether the jam/jelly remains runny still or sets. 

E) Instead of Lime Juice, also some of the peel can be added, if you have organic limes at hand. Be careful, that you don't add too much Lime! (We have two glasses of rather limey jam)

F) If you don't have jam setting sugar, it is possible to replace it with small cut pieces of peel of apples that are as unripe as possible, plus lime peel, since both contain pectin that serves as a setting agent. You have to experiment to find out the right amount. Just use normal sugar if you want to try this way.

G) I haven't done this, but my feeling tells me, this could go rather well with elderberry juice added.... too bad we haven't got a bush around here...yet :)

A Heap of Mulberries

The first spring-bulb has shown its flowerhead - and a beautiful one it is:

We have trimmed our chamomile and are waiting for new bush to grow now:

Even after 3kg of harvested Mulberries, it doesn't stop producing fruit. We're preparing to make *a lot* of jam:

On the cat news, we have made a little toy for them, which makes it harder for them to reach the so much loved dry food and slows them down eating it. Here is the table after we had finished building the fiddle board.

We also planted some catnip and catgrass for them, to have a nice munch on vitamins once in a while (yes our cats are spoiled ;)):

Here is the finished fiddleboard:

And here are the cats examining there new toy:

Banjo, the greedy one, went right into it, while Max preferred to watch from the outside:

And doing catrobatics. He's a talented little guy, I tell you!