Last year I finally planted two birdhouse gourd seeds to grow over the chicken coop - along with loofahs and snake beans. They did grow over the chicken coop, but they also travelled up our huge dracena, over the quail shed and along the shade cloth we hang over the bees.
With all the research I did, I was only expecting a few gourds from each plant. But only one plant survived to do all that travelling, and I now have so many gourds! Surprisingly the plant is only dying now wheras the loofah died off when the cold hit over a month ago.
Gourds can take months to dry, as they've dropped from the vine I starting making macrame hangers from twine so they have really good air circulation to prevent rotting. Then I just grabbed an old piece of wood from the yard, screwed in a whole heap of cup hooks and put it between the sheds. I read that they go mouldy and smell pretty bad as they dry out so I figure the junk pile won't mind!
It's working well, I have a few that seem to be fully dry and I haven't noticed any mould or any bad smells - not that I'm going to breath deeply or intentionally smell them when I get close.
Since that old piece of wood doesn't seem to be coping too well with the weight of the fresh gourds the rest will hang out on the mulch until I have room on the hanger. Gourd farmers do just leave them in the field over winter until they dry out so this shouldn't be a problem. Although I do wonder if contact with the ground might cause mould or rot issues.
The first thing I'm going to do is put a couple of small ones in with my finches to see if they like them. The main reason I wanted to grow them is to do pyrography on them. I've seen them used for bowls, spoons, yarn bowls, ornaments, planters, lanterns and of course they used to be used for water hence their other name of bottle gourd.
For my birthday last year we ordered a Flow Hive so we could finally get our very own honey bees! We could of course get honey off our native bees but it is a lot of work for little reward and I prefer the taste of the European bee honey.
Our long awaited hive arrived right when life threw us lots of lemons. So as is my way of coping with grief, I stop creating. I had plans of a beautiful wood burnt hive but instead it sat in its box unassembled because it's so much easier to do the pyrography before assembly.
I tried making myself get it done so we could get bees sooner but I just could not focus on doing the design. And when that was finally done I just didn't feel like even starting to burn.
Gardening became my distraction except it was way too hot in summer so I retreated to the air con and slowly worked on the hive in the middle of the day. And it was finally burnt, assembled and oiled. We bought bee suits and all the gear we needed. I fenced off a spot to keep the chickens and Archie away from the bees. Then covid restrictions started happening and we weren't sure when we could get bees. Thankfully we were able to buy a nucleus and we have now been the proud owners of European bees for 3 months!
We won't be able to add the honey super until Spring, but in the meantime we get to observe, learn and get to know our bees until we can do our first harvest.
I've grown rosellas before simply because they are a lovely looking plant, but last year I decided to grow enough so I could make some jam.
Last month it was finally time to pick them and try making jam for the first time and it turned out great! It tastes good, set well and so far everyone who has tried has liked it. I used this recipe but skipped the butter and just scooped the bubbly scum off the top. I bought the seeds from there as well.
Now my only problem is that I have a bucket of rosellas in my freezer waiting for me to separate them to make more jam.
Rosellas can also be used to make syrup or tea so I dehydrated some for mum, I keep opening the jar because they smell amazing!
As for these bushes, they don't seem to be stopping production so this bucket is likely to be filled again as soon as it is empty. I planted three seedlings so maybe just one will been enough next time...
Last year, before life threw us many lemons, I got the chance to do a collaboration with Steve from nativebeehives.com who makes beautiful cypress native bee hives. H trusted me enough to decorate some of them with pyrography, along with one of his ukuleles.
I have wanted one of Steve's hexagon hives since we first learnt about native stingless bees. Now I think it is too lovely to put outside in the weather and it sits proudly on display, safely inside. One day I'll find the perfect spot to keep it protected from the elements and where I can see it through the window.
Steve gave me an octagon hive and in exchange I got to burn on two of his other hives for him and he also let me do a burn on one of the ukuleles he makes. These are by far the nicest woodworking pieces I've ever burnt on, I was so excited and but also a little terrified that I might make a mistake on such beautifully made hives. Luckily I didn't mess them up, and I'm really happy with how they turned out.
The only thing that needs to be condsidered when doing pyrography on native beehives is if you want to split them later on - the top two levels will be separated from the bottom level so the design can't continue through the levels.
Steve makes a lot of creative and fun native bee hives that are incredibly high quality so please check out his website - he also has an online store if you're interested in buying your own hive. And if you'd like to read the article he wrote about my pyrography you can check that out here.
My sister in law made beautiful terrariums as Christmas gifts one year and I tried so hard (and then replanted it twice) but I just could not keep it alive. So I filled the jar with a layer of white gravel then a nice thick layer of black gravel. Then went to Ikea and bought cute little plastic succulents in pots. I broke them out of the pots and poked them down in the gravel, added the ornaments from the original terrarium plus some cute mini ones.
It looks alright, I much preferred the beautiful fittonia and fern - I just could not get them to survive, so fake succulents will have to do. It would be great if I could keep indoor plants alive - I'm working on it, my fish tank is turning into a plant stand and so far I've got a few survivors!
