updating

I haven't blogged in a little while...


The past week has been extemely busy, with report writing, essay writing (for uni) and my 25th birthday. Being 25 feels much more substantial than 24 - I'm now in the mid to late twenties! Surrounded by people who are slightly older than I at work, I often feel impatient with my relative youth. However, I know I should enjoy it and be thankful for every moment.


In the midst of this busy time, I haven't had many moments to do the things that I really love, like reading for hours or knitting or gardening. I have squeezed in a little here and there - for instance, I have finished reading In Chancery, the second novel in John Galworthy's Forsyste Saga. I really enjoyed it - although it did lack some of the plot development of the first novel. I now have to decide whether to go on with the next book in the Saga, or venture off into other terrain... I like to read things in sequence, but there are so, so many other novels I want to read! Like Wolf Hall, the recent Booker winner by Hilary Mantel. It's a little daunting as it seems about a thousand pages long, but I've read some great reviews and felt I should be part of the moment...


Sometimes when I'm busy I only have time to think about rather than do the things I love. But somehow, even contemplating my next reading choices or planning my next knitting project can be enough to lift me into an altogether more exciting realm...!

Harvests (not so bountiful)

I love that more and more people are growing their own food at the moment. There are so many reasons to recommend it...It's empowering, it's good for the environment and the process is fun. With such a small garden and only a little time, I sknow I can't reasonably expect to be fully self-sufficient from my gardening efforts. But I do expect some sense of it paying off... Some harvest...

On the weekend, I dug up the garlic cloves that I planted earlier this year. The tops were starting to die off, and they had been in the ground for many months, so the time seemed ripe. But the bulbs themselves were not ripe. I was so disappointed by the tiny, stunted cloves that appeared. All that time ruminating in the ground, and what have they been doing??? It really doesn't seem worth the effort.

Here is a picture of them. The only benefit is that they are cute (that is a small potato, but it still dominates them.) I'm still going to try eating them though, after allowing them to 'cure' for a few weeks.

Much more satisfactory were the potatoes I harvested on the same day. This time I planted the potato plants in the ground rather than using the above-ground bag method, and I must say that the result was much improved. Fewer potatoes rotted and they seemed generally more healthy. There still wasn't a very big yield though. The potatoes shown in the photo came from about four plants. I wonder how I can encourage more potatoes to form?

I have now been growing vegetables for about a year, and it feels good to have some experience as to what works well and what doesn't. In the coming year I hope to focus on those things that grew really well, such as rocket, beans (I've just planted lots of different types), herbs (basil, coriander, rosemary, oregano, thyme, lemongrass), chillies, potatoes, carrots, parsley and lettuce, as well as have another go at some I didn't do right last time, such as tomatoes and capsicums. I'm not going to bother much with those that never yielded anything, like broccoli or garlic. My next plan is to install a trellis somehow (I'm thinking of recycling something - any ideas??) and utilise the vertical space to grow a range of beans. Yum! With not much space but a lot of enthusiasm, I need to grow things upwards as much as possible!

Joys un-numbered

I am still recovering from the flu. Been doing an unnatural amount of sleeping. Drinking lots of fresh juice and trying to get better! Also I've been doing marking for school. Betwixt and between these I have beheld many small joys...

...Eating French toast with pears for breakfast...Beginning the second novel in the Forsyte Saga...Finding some new broad bean pods on my plants and eating them...Seeing the tomato seedlings growing...Playing with Satie...Turning the heel of the sock I am knitting...Watching old episodes of The West Wing...Feeling very blessed with a wondeful family and life.

sick...

At the moment I'm at home with a flu virus... There's something very depressing about being at home sick. Far from the wonderful time of relaxation one imagines when at work, it is in fact boring and tiring. There is nothing to do but rest and wait...

I have started knitting a sock.

Championing peace

We went tonight to hear John Pilger deliver his lecture in response to accepting the 2009 Sydney Peace Prize. He is an amazing orator and spoke in quite a confronting way about the injustices caused (in the past and currently) by Australia at war. In particular he highlighted the need for Australia to address the equity gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, saying that this is the real apartheid or 'Australian silence' that exists in our midst. Without confronting it, he said, we cannot hope to stand confidently against wider injustice in the world.


One of his points was the importance of ordinary people (us) seeking truth, questioning media representations and refusing to stand by and be silent in the face of injustice. He quoted the following lines from Percy Shelley's poem, 'The Mask of Anarchy':


Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.


Amen!

What I've been doing

I haven't blogged in a week or so, and that's because I couldn't think of anything interesting to blog about. I like to post about things I've been creating (knitting, gardening, cooking...) but I haven't really been creating anything lately - except for worksheets for school! But I have been doing a lot of reading.



So here's a run-down of a few of the novels I've read lately.







Firstly, Mrs Dalloway, hot on the heels of my Virginia Woolf resurgence. I read A Room of One's Own and loved it, and then read this after watching the film The Hours (if you haven't seen it, you should - although read Mrs Dalloway first). I absolutely loved the novel, and found in the main character an intriguing, unsettling kindred spirit. I love Woolf's exciting, plunging prose, which attempts to capture every sensation that goes into a moment...It made me want to embrace every material reality of life.







Next, I read The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga. I had high hopes for this novel, as it won the Booker Prize last year, but I must confess to being a little disappointed. The narrator and protaganist was personable and the pace fast, but altogether it did not go beyond a good yarn. I felt it lacked depth.





Now I'm reading the first novel in John Galsworthy's Forsyte Saga, called A Man of Property. I'm really enjoying its mix of satire and social realism. I have always wanted to read it but was daunted by the many volumes in the saga...I'll see when I get to the end of this one if I want to read on!!


I feel very lucky to have so many wonderful novels to read. Books are the one thing that I cannot hold back from buying. I try to be frugal in terms of other purchases, but books...They spill out of my bookshelf, line my bedside table and crowd my desk. Some are old favourites that I relish re-reading. I felt I lost my way a little in terms of reading last year, and this year I have tried to read one novel a week. I don't always make it, but have found it greatly improves life.

***

Today we had absolutely beautiful weather and in the late afternoon I spent some time in the garden. Clear light, a small breeze, blue sky - Sydney at its best. I tackled our small veggie patch, which is wedged between the house and the side fence, in a tiny little patch of soil and mulch.

As you can see, it's a tight fit. In particular the plants on the left side have been taking up a lot of room - without giving much back in terms of edible produce. Here is a closer picture of the offending cabbage and broccoli, which so far have resolutely refused to yield any edible stuff.









The cabbage has never formed into a head, and neither has the broccoli. I've put up with them for months, but enough is enough. Today I pulled them up.


You sometimes have to be ruthless in a small garden.





The bare space that they left behind is now interplanted with young tomato plants (Amish paste) and basil (a good companion plant for tomatoes as it assists their growth). These will hopefully be much more productive and take up less room.

The rest of the garden is coming along well. The chillies will be ripe soon. I have one Tommy Toe tomato growing on a plant. The recently planted oregano and thyme are settling in well. And the hydrangeas are in their first blush of flower.

As Clarissa Dalloway would say, 'What a lark! What a plunge!'

seed raising

It's perfect weather for germinating seeds and raising seedlings. I've got some summer essentials coming up - a few types of basil and tomatoes. I plan to sow some lettuce seeds soon, as I find them good for every day picking for salads. Recently I've been picking rocket, parsley, coriander and mint to put in salads for work, and it's lovely to be able to pick them in the morning and eat them for lunch!

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I have a fairly hit-and-miss record with seeds, and I find that this is the critical stage - they will either wilt now from too much sun or too little water, or they will go on to become healthy plants. Fingers crossed!

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The key to seed success at our house is finding a good position with not too much direct sun, controlled humidity (eg. keeping a covered container over the punnets), not too much watering, and (most importantly) keeping them out of the way of Satie!