Happy Earth Day - Out in the Garden

So I had some sewing projects in mind to mark this day and I really wanted to participate in the Feather your Nest sew along.  But the weather was against my lamp refurbishment, as I am not about to use spray glue inside my house!  The picnic quilt that I hoped to make last spring, well I have now made great progress but really that is for the garden not the house. The awesome patchwork throw that I have been saving our old woollens for, I still don't have enough patches.  Finally the girls dress refashioned from a mans shirt has been moved to number 2 item on my sewing list for this weeks KCWC.

So no lovely repurposed or recycled sewing finishes but we did finally get enough clear weather to finish digging out the vegetable patch, sow some seeds and plant our seedlings. Our friends the Hippersons came and helped, as they are missing having a garden of their own to dig in.  This is our first vegetable garden in this part of the world so it will be a learning experience as to what grows well in this climate.  Plus battle has already begun on the the thousands of slugs that already call our garden home!  We had never seen slugs in such numbers till we moved here.

James and Alannah pleased with their efforts in the vegetable patch.

We love growing our own produce.  We both grew up with vegetable patches and planted our first vegie patch together in 2003.  Our current garden not only has the largest plot we have ever had for vegetables but the rest of the garden is full of established fruit trees and berry bushes.  We don't aim to be self sufficient, just to supplement what we get from the supermarket but we do tailor our cooking around the produce we have on hand. We find herbs and salad greens are the most handy to have in the garden, it is nice to pick a few fresh leaves to make a quick side salad for dinner. 

Xanthe helped me sowing seeds in the egg boxes we had left over from Easter.  We don't have any seedling trays and are hoping that these will make good substitutes.  She then proceeded to sing to them, tell them a story and give them a light water, too cute!  These could be the most cared for little seeds, soon to be seedlings on the planet.

Here are all the seeds in their trays, I used  a permanent marker to write what they are on the side of the box, I am hoping it stays legible or there could be some lucky guessing when we plant them out in a few weeks......

So there you have it that is our little bit for environment, well actually for us, for a couple of days work across the year it is so rewarding!

Happy Earth Day xx