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Before I forget again, here’s this month’s wildflower.

I had to venture a little further afield to find something interesting this time – down by the bridge in the shade where these are taking over a bit of the roadside. But worth the little amble. If I thought we had any shade that would suit it I’d be thinking about collecting some if it and trying to naturalise it in the garden somewhere…

Update: I’ve just been informed that apparently it’s Chamomile. For some reason I thought that had a lot smaller flowers, but apparently not. I’ll have to smell it next time and see whether it smells right…

I’ve normally been a bit slack with plants in pots. They get installed in the pot, they hopefully look pretty, they get watered, they eventually die or turn ugly, they get chucked out. Rinse, repeat. Then A little while ago I decided that I’d try a bit of an experiment with the two biggest plants out on the deck that were starting to look like they had stopped flowering and were heading down the path towards being compost. So, a big harsh trim, followed by a bit of liquid fertiliser every couple of weeks and they’ve now turned into stars.

I guess there’s something in this feeding lark after all!

(And yes, I have realised that I managed to miss the “Wildflower” of the month for April. A bit busy. And I don’t remember anything really catching my eye anyway. I’ll have to go a bit further afield to see if I can find something for May. A good excuse to get out anyway!)

Along with the three girls we seem to have been feeding a whole flock of sparrows each day. Not what we really want to be doing with the chook food! The chooks try to chase the sparrows away, but they just keep coming. So we’ve invested in a feeder for them that hopefully will eventually sort out the problems for all of us. Simple really. All they have to do is stand on the step and the lid opens. If they can just get used to it!

We’re getting there slowly. First stage was to prop the lid wide open so they got used to the food being in there. Which they thought was great, as now they had something else to stand on top of to get a good view. I had visions of one of them jumping up on the lid when another was feeding. I guess we’d be having chicken for dinner that night!

But they seem to have stopped that since I recently propped the lid up a bit and they open it the rest of the way to feed. Most of the time. One especially is a bit lazy and just goes in from the side. She’ll learn, unless she wants to starve!

And the sparrows? Well they’re still visiting, and the brave ones sneak in under the lid for a feed. Get in while you can, little ones!

Of course once we’ve finally got the chooks trained we’ll probably add a bird table somewhere and feed the damn things anyway!

But I think we all know how it ends.

Historically I’ve been pretty bad at thinning anything I’ve sown. Like really bad! But this year we had such a good strike rate with our onion seeds that I could see things getting even more horribly squashed together than usual at some point soon.

So what better way to spend a fine autumn day than pulling out baby onions and trying to replant the best of them into new rows. So now instead of the original 3¼ rows of onions we now have 8. The big problem with that is that currently I only have enough wire netting covers for 4 rows. So let’s see how many get pulled out by birds or kitties before they get big enough to look after themselves.

Another crop that’s done well in the tunnel-house this year has been capsicums. So, what do you do with a glut of tomatoes, capsicums and chillies? Only one thing for it, brew up a batch of chilli jam!

First up, prepare the basic ingredients…

Note, that I wisely took the photo before I deseeded the chillies. I’d rather not spread chilli juice over the camera right now as we’re trying to remember to pick it up and use it more regularly at the moment. And there’s a moment every time I have to deseed a number of chillies that I’m very, very thankful I wear glasses!

So a bit of bubbling, bubbling, bubbling later, and at some random moment when we decided it was ready it was into the jars.

Now just the usual wait to let it all come together before the grand tasting!

We pretty much did everything wrong with our corn patch this year. The soil wasn’t really prepared deep enough, we had two types of corn in the same patch, we didn’t bother weeding it, etc, etc… But despite all that a fair few cobs seem to have been produced. So before they were totally munted by something we got on and had a “late summer” lunch feast of some of them.

Water boiling before they get pulled off the plants, of course, and straight in they go. Yum, yum!

Might have to try a bit harder next year!…

It appears that I’ve not yet lost my touch with women…

Yes, they’re now eating out of the palm of my hand.

Weird feeling as they peck away, but not painful. Or not normally painful, except when one of them tried to see if the tip of my finger was edible. But as much as they like the scratch mix, they like the slugs I go find for them even better. They’re their favourite!

With the earlier demise of the cucumber plant in the tunnel house, the 2012 capsicum harvest could start to get into full swing. And I use the word capsicum here in it’s widest sense, encompassing all the many bell peppers and chillies hanging out in there.

Given that they’ve been a bit sorely neglected this year as well as everything else, they’ve done surprisingly well. And we have all sorts. We have ones that hang downwards…

Some that point up…

And a good number of big, fat, bell peppers that are about the size of my fist. (Can’t really see them in a little pic, so this one’s clicky for a clearer look)…

And a few more types too that I won’t bore you with. Aren’t you lucky! But yum, yum, yum! Expect some sort of red pepper chilli jam post soon!

Given that there is no other news to report, I have continued on the blind making expedition. This room only had one window to cover so all in all should have been less time.

It has become easier as the calculations and measuring make more sense, the sewing is getting slightly better, and the hardware to add for hanging is becoming more automatic. So you would think on that note that this one would be the best yet. Hmmmmm, probably the most troublesome yet in terms of a straight top and bottom. Somewhere along the line I managed to be out by about a cm or two on one side. So down it came for some handy hem work to straighten it up. All good now and safely restored in it’s rightful place. So this room is now called the Paua room. At least for now.

Now there is just one more bedroom to go and we will have a complete set…