You Win Some and Loose Some

Welcome again.

Today we had a major problem with one of the pumps in our aquaponic system in that it stopped working due to a capacitor breakdown. The water could not be pumped and aerated and as a result not enough oxygen was being generated for the poor fish that subsequently died, 36 in total. Needless to say that we were pretty annoyed .

Luckily it was Melbourne cup day and my partner was home to go to the shop to get another part to fix the pump.

Oh well you win some and loose some and in the end it all evens out.

This lovely rain has made the garden come alive. Today I noticed that we have hundresd of self sown Tomato plants in the patch where we dunped the Chicken manure. I just cant wait till harvest time.

So far I have harvests 8.7kg in my one tonne Challenge. I am going to have lots of fun in achieving this milestone.

good bye for now- worn out from all the landscaping and gardening I have been doing.

The One Tonne Challenge

Welcome to my Contented life blog.

Spring weather is finally here although we did get some cold weather accompanied by some much welcomed rain, just after planting some seeds and seedlings. So thank you God for sending the rain at the right time.

Yesterday , I picked some young Broad beans and had them with our dinner lightly steamed. They were so nice. Broadbeans can be eaten straight from the pod. I am going to make some broad bean pies and my favourite Broad beans , garlic and parsley salad.

So far this season I have harvested some lemons and strawberries which I have made into Lemon curd and Strawberry jam. I am stockpiling it for my up coming exhibition to provide some yummy treats for people to buy.

You are probably wondering what the one tonne challenge is. Well I have set my self a challenge this season to harvest 1000kg of fruit and vegetables from our garden. Well I hope I can do it, but the gain and joy is in the ride and journey. So wish me luck and I am going to try my hardest to get there. I haven't been measuring much so far, but will start.

Last year We harvested close to 300 kg of fruit and vegetables.

To measure my progress I will update the total list on the right had side of my posts.

Send me a comment Would love to hear from you. What do you think. Am I mad, do you think I will be able to achieve it?

This weekend I am planting out all my capsicums and tomatoes. I have planted out all the Eggplants and sowed Watermelon and Zucchini seeds.

Happy gardening. May you reap what you sow.

Lina

Another Good Reason to Grow your own Produce

Welcome to my Contented Life Blog.

I have spent the weekend in the garden and it has been lovely weather, the first nice weather this spring. It was perfect for being out door and getting your hands dirty and reconnecting with nature.



I planted some Egg plant, Baby Spinach, Capsican , Artichoke and
Zuchinni Seeds. I hope we dont get a frost. I have saved some seedlings incase we do.


We have been getting lots of beautiful strawberries from our green house. Slugs have been a problem and some of the best big juicy ones have been attacked. Why can't they choose the little ones? We have found this great organic pest control gadget to get them under some sort of control. It is a container ( will get picture soon) that you can pour beer into and the slugs are attracted to it and when they fall in they die.



I was reading an article about another reason to buy organic or grow your own . Apart form the pleasure of seeing the lovely fruit and vegetable develop and the wonderful flavour ,there is a lot of pesticides and chemicals that are used in commercially grown crops. Read the article here.


Perhaps if you can't grow much, you could grow the fruit and Vegies you eat then most of .


I made some wonderful strawberry jam with our own strawberries and lemons ( for pectin). I had some on my pancakes this morning it was delicious. I am going to make some lemon curd with our lemons soon.

Cheers and happy gardening

Lina

Medicine for the Mind and Soul

Connecting with Nature

Welcome once again to my posts.

These lovely photos have been taken at the Tulip Top Gardens in Sutton , Canberra. I have been working there for the last week and for the next week or so.

It is such a beautiful garden that I have spent some time after work just walking and sitting and admiring the miracle and beauty of nature. The blossom trees are a sight to behold and some blossom trees have two different colours.

The 500,000 bulbs have all been planted by the owners and the garden have been laid out beautifully. I am so glad that I have been able to work there. I am working in the cafe and you get to meet so many different people. My team members and owners are a great team to work with.

After work today, I came home to do a little bit of gardening myself as the weather is just perfect and the days are a little longer that you are able to potter in the garden till late afternoon. I was just thinking how blest I am to connect with nature when I am planting a cultivating vegetables and flowers. I just feel an inner peace and contentment when I am in the garden. It's a feeling that you have all that you need and there is no desire to be anything or be anywhere else, a feeling that you can do anything if you wanted to. It made me think that if we could feel this way more often , then it just might be this connection to nature that is the perfect medicine for your mind and your soul.

To be creative is my other passion and I also feel that anything is possible when I am in the middle of designing and creating when all my creative ideas come together. It is no wonder that I have become additcted. Nature and colours in nature have inspired some of my creations.

My advice is to find your connection, it may be that you love animals , or that you love walking through rain forests, or watching birds. Take the time to find your connection and I garantee that you will be happier and feel you have more time to spend with your family, friends and in general be more relaxed. Forget the endless to do list, it will always be there and the items on the list will get done, more so if you are relaxed about it. If we are constantly busy then we have not time to stop and take stock of the direction our lives are taking and to even get to know ourselves. When we know ourselves , we will know what we need to make our selve happy.

Please comment on this post- would love to read what you think.

Find your connection to nature and find an inner peace that is priceless.

Cheers,

Lina Z

CEO

ZaniL Design

Lina's Water Saving tips for the Summer Months Ahead

Welcome

I hope you are living a Hajja Kuntenta in every way. The aim of my blog is to share my experiences and hopefully inspire you in some way.




This weeks blog is about water saving tips and you have probably read lots about this very important topic. I will not try to reinvent the wheel, but as we live on tank water I think I have some interesting ways of saving water. I also feel great that when we do save a precious resource like water we are achieving a very worthwhile goal. We lived on a 5000 gallon tank for ten years and through some really bad summers of low rain fall. In all that time we only had to buy water about 4 times. So here are my tips, perhaps there may be one you did not know about and perhaps if you have a few minutes you could comment and and share your tips. That way we all learn from each other.

In Canberra we have a population of approx 350, 000 people ( check government website for a more accurate figure). Our daily water target for example on a given day is 105 mega litres i.e 105, 000, 000 litres. At the end of this article you will see how each person by making very minimal , but dedicated changes to how you live and approach reusing and saving water will save at least 10,000, 000 litres per day. Read on if this interests you.


You do not need to immediately spend any money at all to start or begin this very import way of living and thinking about a resource that is going to become more precious as our population increases and almost doubles at smaller intervals of time ( eg.bacteria in a petrie dish ).


At the end of this blog post there will a simple rule to remember that if followed religiously will save thousands of litres every year and keep river levels above critical levels.


Lina's Tips on how to save thousands ( of litres)


1. Toilets use up a huge amount of water and a Friend of mine advised me of a little rhyme.

If it's yellow, let it mellow , if it's brown , flush it down. Each flush uses anywhere from 3 litres( very efficient to 10 litres). Lets do a little calculation.

Say you have a family of 4 and each of you saves 2 flushes each assuming a efficient toilet,
that's
2X3X4= 24 litres of water per day for 365 days a year = 7760 litres per year.


2. Cut Shower times to less than 4 minutes - my advice it to get a timer - sand timer will suffice.I have one that takes 4 minutes for all sand to run out, with a suction on the shower door.
4 minutes in a shower is an eternity and I still have the occasional shower that last 4 minutes.
Efficient shower heads use 6 litres per minute to the non efficient of up to 15 liters per minute.

Lets do another calculation - cutting your shower from an average of 7 minutes to 4 minutes saves 18 litres if you have a efficient shower head - so for 4 people

4 peopleX3minX6litres = 72 litres every day for 365 days = 26, 280 liters per year.


3. Washing machine- you will probably not take this one up as no -one wants to spend hours doing the washing - but I just love it as I find doing these mundane tasks really are a time for me to think and plan and perhaps even just take time out from a busy schedule.




Here's what I do. I have a front loader ( I do a full load) and I wash the whites first- once they are washed first cycle I save the suds. Then allow clothes to rinse and have another large basin ready to save the rinse water. Next load simply reuse the suds and discard after second use. when rinsing second load , simply reuse the saved rinse water from previous load. just be careful when lifting water , use a smaller bucket . This way you have only used 2 loads of water instead of 4. Now if you don't particularly like this tip you could just save the rinse water after each wash ( does not save as much but better than nothing) - another calculation.


Each load most like uses 80 litres- so if you only save 2 loads per week of 160lites per week for 52 weeks -that's an amazing 8320 litres.

You do have to be close by near the machine for this tip , but why not schedule some ironing the same time.


4. You could use the washing machine water for some gardening plants - just remember to use vegetation safe products , there are plenty at the supermarket. Potential to save lots. You could also use some of the washing water to flush the toilet occasionally.- remember even if you only do this 3-4 times a week ( saves 12 litres ) every week these small savings add up. You could also use the suds to wash tile floors - depending how often you do your floors- potential to save up to 3o litres per week- 1500 litres per year.

5. While waiting for warm water to come out of the shower nozzles why not fill up bucket to use on the garden or to flush the toilet - saves 5 -10 litres per day. Also applies to sink taps - why not fill up a bottle or a kettle or jug- for drinking water or boiling water - saves up to 5 litres per day.

6. Reusing the water is off course better than saving it as it is used twice or 3 times and you are getting better use of the resource without using anymore if it. To do this permanently perhaps you could look into installing a grey water system.

7. Most important tip- make 2-3 of these tips on saving water a habit and that way they become part of your daily routines and then it becomes a way of life and then it becomes easy to do. Perhaps start out with a month long target to get the habit started, record the before changes water usage and then make a few changes that you are willing to adopt and then record the after changes water usage. The result will make you want to do more.

8. Simply put and easy to remember by using simple maths=

• Each person saving 2 flushes a day saves 6 litres per day
• Each person reducing shower time to 3-4 min - saves 6 litres per minute - say you only save 2 minutes off your shower time - remember use a timer - saves approx 12 litres per day.
• saving cold shower water (waiting for warm )in a bucket saves 6 litres per day
• saving tap water before it comes out hot in a bottle or jug ( handy to have a bottle or jug near tap) saves 1-2 litres per day.
• use a cup when washing teeth - save 1 litre per day
• add up all the large bold numbers - 6 + 12 + 6 +2 +1 = 27 litres per day per person with very simple and easy to implement changes.
• Multiply savings per person by the number of people- 27Lt X 350,000 people

= 9, 750, 000 litres per day saving

Remember more savings achieved if you do save some of your washing water ( perhaps you have a front loader which are the most efficient). I prefer the top loaders as the front loaders take forever to complete a cycle. I don't mind spending a little extra time saving the water, but this suits me and may not suit you.

My earliest memory of washing clothes wash helping my mum with when we had an old fashioned machine with exposed ringer like two rolling pins on top of each other. Once I got my hand caught and my arm proceeded to be fed into the ringer to get rung out- very scary for a 12 year old. If I could get my hands on one of these I would love it.

So what do you think - have you any tips that I could use as I am so passionate about reusing , recycling and generally minimising my impact on the environment.

Make time to do the important things and the rest will look after it self.cheers for now- check out my jewellery blog if you have time.

Lina

Spring is in the Air

Welcome to my blog.

Spring is almost here and there are already early signs that it won't be long before our natural enviroment is bursting with new life.

Spring is my favourite time of year, filled with promise of a garden of beautiful flowers and vegtables for the next few months.

Spring is definitely a great time to start thinking of what you would you like to grow and start planning so that once the frosts stop ( Canberra) you can press ahead to ensure you get a full growing season.

My tip is to make gardening a normal part of your life to enjoy it and to make time for it and that way you won't feel that you have not got the time to invest in it. Also another tip is to add 1 or 2 new things to grow each year and make them part of what you normally grow ( depending on how successful you have been in growing the new plant). this way it won't be long before you are growing quite a large array of what you need to prepare fresh, healthy and tasty food full of flavour all from your own back yard. The hardest part about gardening is in the planning and the sowing of the seeds and seedlings. Once this is done, all you need to do is water and weed, mulch and basically watch the plants grow. The results ( hopefully good ones) will make you want to succeed and do more.

Growing your own fruit and vegetable helps in reducing carbon emissions as the food we buy from supermarkets are very high in food miles and energy per kilo joules of food. Not only do we use fuel to drive there to get it, fuel and energy has been used to grow it as well as transport it to the market place. Buying from a local producer is also a great way to reduce your carbon foot print, if you are unable to grow your own , due to health and space restrictions.

Benefits of growing your own.

• You have more flavoursome and vine ripened vegetables. It is healthier to eat fruit and vegetables that have been sun ripened- have more vitamins.
• Freshness- pick when you need.
• sharing- swaping with friends for things you can't grow.
• sense of satifaction
• saves money
• healthy past time - gardening is a form of excercise
• relaxing when you look at the beautiful fruit forming.
• educational - learn about plant/bugs/ pruning etc
• reduce your carbon foot print.

Disadvantages

• hard work - but who said life was meant to be easy - you reap what you sow in more ways than one.
• time consuming
• plant failure - always learn form mistakes - that's a positive as long as you don't keep making the same mistake.
  
  

Tips to get you started on your very own veggie patch

• Start out small - only grow 4 -5 things and grow them well- your success will feed further successes.

These plants are a good starting point

• Zucchinni's - these are fast growers- you will be amazed.
• Parsley- very useful herb.
• Garlic- plant bulbs in winter .
• Lettuce also very easy to grow
• Beans
• Potatoes - these can be grown in old tyres , just keep adding dirt as the palnt matures.
• sun flowers to attract bees
• Pumpkin vine

Happy gardening, I am sure you will not look back once you have decided to grow a few things.

best regards

from the Bejewelled Gardener

Lina of ZaniL Design Jewellery

How to slow time down

Welcome to my Contented Life Blog

Do you think the pace of life is speeding up? Are you constantly busy with no spare time for your self? Do you want to know how to get more time for your self.? Do you find your self looking to the future at the next holiday or next job that needs to be done.?

I remember as a child, time did pass so slow and it was a long time between birthdays. As I got older time did seem to go faster and faster. We all seem to think that as we approach retirement we will have more time to do the things we want. I think this is a fallacy as many retired people I speak to seem to be very busy with grand children, and the usual things in life. I also thought that when I left my full time job, I would have all the time inn the world and I would be drinking cups of tea everyday. I quickly found that the reality was quite different.

How to make time Slow down.

When we think of the way we spend our days, we are constantly looking into the future at the next job , next holiday, next whatever. This does tend to make us live in the future and we do not fully appreciate the here and now. If we only had a few months to live, I think our focus would be to enjoy the moments we have and to live them in the present .We would not be looking too far in the future ( as in reality we know that the future is never ours).

My advice on how to make time go slower is to simply slow down, what is all the rush about. Why do we want to cram so much in to our every day activities, are we afraid that we won't get them done ? Make time for important things like friends and family.

cheers

Lina