Sharing how we garden, harvest, preserve, solar cook, produce our own energy, raise livestock, make stuff and more.
Join us, as I share how our family has made our lifestyle on the edge of the Australian bush that bit more self-sufficient and sustainable.
Sharing what we have learned, to give others the confidence to give it a go too!
*Do keep in mind that we share the things we do and the methods we use. But you are responsible for ensuring the things you do in your situation are safe and right for you. And that you do your own research to have all the information needed (beyond the knowledge we share) to do an activity.
Thanks a bunch Christa. They are continuing to grow and fill out, so I think we will get a crop. But it is now evident on all the varieties we are trying out 😞
I’m going to have to search up this garlic growing off thingo in the group. I’m growing garlic for the first time this year so I am clueless on how well or not they are going. I have 2 varieties - 1. ‘Free bulbs Kate gave me’ and 2. ‘Free bulbs my husband brought home’. They seem to be going good but I’m starting to worry that I really need to know the next step 😂
Ooohhhh...free garlic varieties sound pretty good to me 😁😁😁 Here is one of the posts re the grow-off from Amanda, but there are a few posts if you search the group. facebook.com/share/p/DqknphzFKkiMgrwT/?mibextid=oFDknk
I hope your elephant garlic do well and they sure look like they are. They will actually outperform all the others, I bet. That is all I grow here on the East Coast of Canada and have huge success with it. When I plant late this fall, I will be doubling my garlic patch for next years harvest. You're re-planted garlic should be fine that the dog messed up. Rust spots on the garlic leaves could be a sign that the soil is not draining very well or you have clay type of soil, combined with wet weather will do this. If you water at night this will create humidity and also cause rust spots. Folicur fungicide will treat and eliminate the rust.
Thanks a bunch for the advice you have shared. It is very appreciated. The elephant garlic growing is a 1st for us. I must say that I am very much looking forward to having bigger cloves, as peeling is not my favourite job in the kitchen.
@@Bush_Edge_Homesteading_Aus I have no issues peeling the elephant garlic but I do have an issue crushing it with the flat of my knife. It's way to large most of the time for that, lol. You will love the taste. Nothing like it. Get it established and it will keep getting better each season you replant using cloves from that harvest you just took out. Happy growing and I did do a quick search and it says you can buy folicur fungicide in Australia. Have a great weekend 🙂
I'm looking forward to planting garlic this year... I've been watching to see how yours turned out. I'm sorry to see you've got this challenge - you'll figure it out though, I have confidence in you 💚
My beautiful baby girl dug up my garlic too at pretty much the same stage. I was taking some mega deep breaths to keep my sht together. Just made me get my act together to put up a fence sooner. Unfortunately for you a kelpie can easily jump most fences and bloody smart so they'll find a way.
My German Shepard used to dig up my garden , I bought some puppy play pens from the Reject shop and used them as fencing , you can move the panels where you need then , I have even bent or cut them to fit my beds
Not easy keeping it together when that happens. I feel you! They are such clever dogs and quite a jump. Thankfully the resecuring of the fencing is keeping Coops out at the moment. Crossing fingers it stays that way!
We haven't ever had to deal with rust either, thankfully, and I dont know too much about it. I'm sorry that this is happening to your garlic. I would love to hear any updates as the season progresses. I hope you are still able to save the bulbs. I'm off to check my garlic now. 😬😬
It's feeling like it is not getting out of control at the moment. But has affected all the varieties now. They are filling out, so if the weather is kind I actually still think we will get better bulbs than last year. But we do need to work through what is best moving forward now 😞
I think it has stopped it getting out of control but it is now evident on all the garlic in the bed. But the bulbs are continuing to fill out and it doesn't seem to be getting too bad. So we are leaving it in and watching closely. I hope yours are all well when you check.
This year we are experiencing an issue with our garlic that we haven't had before... rust 😞 Being something we haven't dealt with before, we would love any advice from others that have dealt with it in practice. My research online returns completely different advice on things like whether we can still store our own bulbs for next year. And how long we need to keep alliums out of this area of the garden. I have also been lamenting on what I did wrong. Did we bring this in with new cloves planted (especially the shop ones) or by composting onion purchased from shops or feeding a bit more heavily this year???? But I have now spoken and seen some other gardens where others are also seeing this on their garlic this year. So perhaps we have just been lucky until now and it is the conditions. Which will never be helped by our shady garden. The garlic is continuing to grow and fill out, so we should get a crop.... but what to do moving forward now????
Great job. My family thought the flavour was good but we're apparently so used to having grass fed meat which can be tougher ,that they thought the texture was too soft to be nice. Haha. ❤❤
is there a link to a recipe, or written in the description somewhere but I can't see it? I'd love to give these a try as my girls are giving me lots of eggs right now. Thanks Rachel I hope I have enough plums to try the sauce this summer
The comments here don't let me pop a pic as part of my comment. So I will take a photo of the recipe I use from my recipe book and pop it in the posts on the community tab on my channel page. Hope you enjoy 😀
Thank you. So good to see something real and raw. Our place has been a huge work in process with many mistakes, so I have always been hesitant on sharing what we do. Though I am going to a sourdough workshop in a few weeks so looking forward to that!
I really appreciate your comment Lyndell. I'm sure we will continue to make mistakes along the way and have things go wrong. Hopefully sharing that helps others know they aren't alone in that regard. Wishing you all the best in your sourdough making. In those little windows we were able to make them, they really are wonderful breads to make at home. And discard crackers are just as good 😋
Ooooooh, Weck-Gläser. I think, that's the best system, because you only need to change (after several uses) are the rubber rings. And they are German - as a German I have to love that
Oh and another thing you mentioned was about preserving food. For years I’ve made the same preserve, such as bread a butter pickles. They will be your prized preserve and yet one batch, every now and then, will just not turn out right. You’ll think, do I throw it out? Or can I use is some other way? I hate throwing food out, particularly something that you have spent alot of time making. One year I made a batch of B&B pickles and they were mushy. It was because I used apple cucumbers and I pealed them. However, I strain off the brine, blend up the cucumbers and turn them into gherkin dip. The recipes that I’ve used have been old family recipes that have been made for generations. However, I now also use recipes from the Ball book.
@@Bush_Edge_Homesteading_Aus I also made a dud batch of pickled coleslaw. With this recipe I had to use a mixture of vinegars as I ran out of what I was supposed to put in. It’s not as nice as my first batch, but I still haven’t worked out what to do with it. We tried straining it and added it to chow mein, but it didn’t turn out all that nice. This batch I may end up throwing out.
I absolutely loved this!!! I totally agree with all of your tips. I often say to newbies, start small, don’t go too big too fast. I also believe that we all make many mistakes growing food, but perseverance is our best friend. For example, I’ve always struggled growing carrots, yet I keep trying and trying and I know that eventually I’m going to grow some awesome carrots. You’ll have years where you can grow a perfect crop of zucchini for example. Then you’ll have a year where your zucchini are a big fail. But, it’s not a fail as you just keep growing it again.
That is so true 😀 And when starting it may be unlucky that that first growing season is a bad one... but the next may be the perfect growing conditions and amazing 😀 I hope you end up with those awesome 🥕 🥕 🥕
@@Bush_Edge_Homesteading_Aus I currently have a heap of carrots growing m, but I didn’t get around to thinning them out. Could have some very interesting carrots 😂
Great video. I'm on a 700sqm suburban block in Perth, WA. Right now I'm trying to grow most of the vegetables and fruit we consume, would love chooks but don't have the spsce. A lot of it i have done as a backyard orchard culture/food forest style because of the space limitations, so I plant stuff closer than the normal recommendations and keep things pruned to a desired size. One of the main challenges here is the seasons, our spring and summer is extremely hot, windy and dry. Most of my time is consumed by watering because of this. This ties into the tip of observe your property. First thing I did was establish a 4 seasons sun map so I understood the light mapping of the land. This allowed me to plant things that will cast shade where I need it for afternoon shade to create a good microclimate. Over my vegie patch I built a patio structure without a roof so I can put up a 30% shade cloth, this is the only way to reliably grow vegetables through the many heat waves we get. Great tips especially the sit back for at least a year and just study and observe the land you're on.
@mathewhayes9674 thank you Mathew 😊 The balcony I mentioned growing on, was back in my days over there in Perth. I remember that heat well and awaiting the Freo doctor. It sounds like you are doing wonderfully in your space and making the very most out of it.
Gosh what a mess they made. You’ve done well with that land considering. The bush blocks are tricky with the gums for growing too so in a way the storm was a blessing. Less competition for your plants at least.
It was a really hard time to go through. Being at such a loss as to what to do. Especially when other plumbers came to look at what the first had done, and they as the professionals, said they couldn't fix what he had done.
Thanks again. Im a newby and ive made mistakes too.😊 love your natural way of communicating your homesteading with us all. Always a pleasure to watch. 😊
I loved your bonus tip and it is oh so true. Our block is exactly the same as yours and our black summer bushfire meant we lost about 50-60 trees on our block. We employed earth moving equipment which cost us more than a small car to create levels in our lower land so that we could finally grow some grass along the levels and mow it to keep a better fire break between us and the forest. I always find when I am in the lower paddock working that what i need is always back up that steep incline. Finally after living here for almost 8 years and having bursitis now in my leg and hip we have invested in a 4 wheel vehicle that i can drive all over our property and fill the tip tray with all of the tools i think I might need….usually always forget something and have to come back up but at least now there’s a vehicle to make that task just a little bit easier. Thanks for the tips and great work fixing up the insurance stuffs ups…we sooooo get it :)
That Black Summer fires experience is one I imagine will site with you and I'm so sorry that hit you guys personally. It sounds like you also came out of that with a positive, but with alot of your efforts along the way. Here's to all the tools being where we are!!!! 😀
I think if you're planning on this being your forever home, it's important to have a really solid list of all the things you might want to do one day: I might want a few sheep, I might want to grow mushrooms, I might want to distil our own rose oil, I might want a granny flat for that family member who needs a bit more independent space while still living with us. You don't need to do all these things now, but it's important to plan where all these things will be placed on your property so you don't accidentally plant your orchard in the only place where a granny flat can drain to the same septic tank.
Thank you so much for sharing.😊 i love how you turned many challenges into positives. Its nice to hear about your challenges and feel like we are in ot together and im not facing challenges alone 😊😅
Life is a learning experience and you will make more mistakes than have successes. When my life starts to become stressful and nothing is going to plan I just remind myself that there are literally hundreds of millions of people who have a worse life than mine so my life is not actually as bad as I think. I am a little jealous of your lifestyle but you have worked hard to get where you are, so you should be very proud of your resilience and adaptability.
@Bush_Edge_Homesteading_Aus just finished, with a few interruptions 😂 great tips ALL of them. I keep blasting myself with not having got things done yet, but gee, i dont even have a house yet 😂 but i do have a heap of temp veg beds that u'm enjoying learning what works in a climate different from what i had
I can relate to interruptions during a watch 😅 I think sometimes it is human nature to see what we haven't done and overlook all the wonderful things we actually are.
Fantastic tips. I especially loved the one about not needing to do " it all" and id add that its ok to have a try at something and realise it doesn't fit your family or even circumstances can change and youre unable to continue doing something you love because the scaffolding you once had is not there anymore. I loved seeing you in front of the camera too. Thank you for sharing these gems lovely ❤❤
Aww shucks, thank you for those lovely comments 😊 That is such a wonderful tip too. And we have followed your advice on things like the sourdough,, raising meatbirds and other things.
G'day Rachel. Really good video as always. Loved your first tip as I believe that homesteading has no size requirements. People may need to do things on a smaller scale, but most people can absolutely work with what they have and live a happy and productive lifestyle. You've had some dramas there, but it looks great now and that has been one very nice supply of firewood. Oh and what you said about netting an orchard... I'm so glad I netted my orchard. Doesn't stop the fruit fly, but it's kept the birds out. Take care. Daz.
Thanks a bunch Daz 😀 There have definitely been some 'bumps' on the journey, that honestly were super tough at the time. It is good to reflect on the other side though and appreciate what has come on the other side of those events. Hope you are keeping well up there 😀
Good morning and thanks for joining us. It's really lovely to be watching along with you live with this one and to answer questions you may have as you watch along. It is our 1st time doing a Premier, so hoping it all works well. But as always... we are always still learning.
