Grow Your Own and Make Your Own! It’s fun! Why not make more than one smudgie, so you can gift one to a special friend? A gift from the garden and heart.
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Sage Smudge Sticks
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FSA ( Family Supported Agriculture)
A cornucopia of winter produce Many years ago, I read about CSA’s. Community Supported Agriculture. It’s a concept that supports small scale farms. A set number of folk sign up to the CSA, and pay a weekly fee in return for a box of fresh seasonal produce from their local farmer. Brilliant! This assures the…
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DIY Firewood Carrier
We have a great big firewood basket, but once it is filled with wood, it is a heavy bugger to carry from the wood store outside to the fireplace inside. So I have had my eye on a few designs I’ve seen on Pinterest and with a dull, showery Winter’s day, what better way to…
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Basket Making
Easy instructions on how to craft rope baskets.
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DIY Laundry Powder
Home-Grown Laundry Powder I love living sustainably, and being self-sufficient. I love making things and I have always dabbled at making my own household cleaners and products from leather conditioner to window cleaner. At the back of my mind, I always wanted to try making my own dishwasher powder, and laundry powder. Before Lockdown, I…
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Planning an Edible Garden
During Sustainable Backyards month of March, we usually open up our garden to visitors to see a working Edible Landscape in action. They ooh and aah and think that it is all incredibly well planned but I point out our mistakes in the hopes of sparing them the same mistake of NOT planning and allowing…
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Preserving Autumn Feijoa Fruits
A daily haul of feijoas Feijoas are wonderful Autumn fruits! Every New Zealand house should have a lemon and feijoa tree! Such versatile fruits and so easy to grow. A mature feijoa tree can produce between 15 and 25kg of fruit! So you can imagine how much we collect from our 8 trees! Gulp! Yes,…
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Creative Provocations during Lockdown
Okay, so I’ve been stuck at home, harvesting and preparing or preserving food, as normal. I deem myself an Essential Services worker. Every day I have to go to work! In my own backyard! But of course, I get a whole heap of extra time on hand, so I took up a challenge to Pimp…
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BananaRama Vegan Bread
A tisket, a tasket, a ripe and yellow basket!! Who said you couldn’t grow bananas in a non-tropical location? Yes, they get hammered by New Zealand’s Wintery blasts, but they are real hardy guys! Come Spring, they bounce back and sprout forth again. Did you know that a banana palm is closely related to ginger?…
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Olive Leaf Extract
Mid March/April is Olive Time. It’s the time to start picking olives, preparing them and bottling them. It is quite an exciting time and for some, a tedious process of washing the olives twice daily but for me, a daily ritual that I love. You see I love olives, I was introduced to them by…
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Living the Good Life
March is New Zealand’s Sustainable Backyards month. I am doing a heap of workshops and we also hosted an open day backyard garden tour. So it was no surprise when the Weekend Sun local paper emailed to say they wanted to do a story on us. Sure. Why not? But what turned out to be…
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Barb’s Courgette Patties
We have a whole heap of courgettes growing in the garden at this time of the year. Different types; the ordinary supermarket variety green one, Rampicante, scallopini and baby kamokamo. Kamokamo are a Maori squash which can grow quite large and develop a hard outer shell to allow you to store them through winter. As…
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Best Gardening Tips
I love my garden. It is a place where I feel alive, where I find my peace and where I grow strong, healthy organic food. It is also a place I like to play in. Where I find that inner child and where there are no rules. Where I can be creative. I love to…
Divine Enveloping Odour ( DIY Deo)
Let's talk deodorant. Back when my son was just 14yrs old, he spent nearly a year on the couch, cradling his head from crippling headaches and migraines. Endless trips to doctors, paediatricians and even a neuro specialist brought slim relief. He lived on pain killers and the last straw came when he was prescribed an…
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This Thing Called Love….
Love. noun - a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person. - a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend. - sexual passion or desire. On our recent trip to Bali, we happened to come across no less than 3 wedding shoots on one day, in the…
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Peppermint Clove Dental Powder
July is Plastic-Free Month. Focussed on getting people to be aware of all the single use plastic we use, and aimed at reducing the amount of plastic us consumers use. So here's a great idea...plastic free dental powder! Easy to make, economical and really nice to use. No plastic packaging needing to be discarded. Yay!…
Top 10 Winter Tips
The blooms have all gone. Deciduous trees are leafless. Face it. Reality check: it's Winter! Despite the fact that I have erlicheer and daffodil blooms in my garden, and it feels a little like spring during the day sometimes, the calendar month tells me we are slap bang in Winter! It's just nature being confused.…
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Take a Hottie to Bed
Winter is here! The temperatures are dropping and night temps are hard on the body comfort zone. Time to break out the hot water bottles! I have just replaced a couple of old ones (life span seems to be about 5-6 years) and so needed some covers for them. Being an avid upcycler, I rummaged…
Activated Compost Tea
We love tea. So does our garden. I make compost tea in a great big repurposed plastic garbage bin. I use an old onion net bag as a giant tea bag. Stuff it full of comfrey, any other green weeds or vegetable excess like nutritious kale leaves. Immerse it in water in the garbage bin,…
Bombing the Toilet Clean
I was a little sceptical at first, but I think the bombs work!
Cat(astrophes) and Feline Folly
Living a life of gratitude for our cat who brings so much joy into our lives.
