Zucchini planting at CERES!

A mildly hot and sunny day at CERES! :) The beds had been dried up since last week to prevent the weeds from taking over. We started re-weeding a bed in preparation for transplanting some zucchini plantlets. After lots of tugging, pulling and digging, it was time to fertilise the soil. We sprinkled some pellets around and rolled them in.


Then, we positioned the stakes into the ground for a guide to plant the soon-to-be-massive zucchini plants. Transplanting time! After all that, it was time for watering and positioning of the automatic-timered- watering hose.

Before we left, we helped cut down some basil plants that had started to flower. MMM... that night after a few hours of our nightly training, we had homemade vegan basil pesto with pasta for dinner :).

Babies no more! :D The summer ROAR!

Summer time has brought a lot of growth in our garden.....From springtime sprouts to beds of chlorophyll rich green!

My baby bean seedlings have grown! :) Out they are in the garden bed, no longer under my watch in their initial jars. Everyday I watch in awe as they grow. The chickpeas have grown into lovely shrubs with gentle & soft leaves. They are even flowering now! Small white flowers are delicately basking in the sun! I just found an interesting sac looking thing :). Exciting! 

Chickpea! :D 

interesting sac...

One of the adzuki bean plants is competing with its comfrey neighbour ~ TALLER!! TALLER! :)

Adzuki bean plant :)

Miraculous looking thing! 

We came back from our road trip and immediately checked the garden beds! BEHOLD THE MAGNIFICENT COMFREY! It was just a tineeeyyyy little plant when we left, only around 5inches in height. Now, its HUMONGOUS! :)

Our lemon tree we recently found had been swamped by gall wasps. :( We had to unfortunately shave most of it off, so it is now looking quite miserly. The cos lettuce didn't survive the heat while we were away on holiday. Two weeks later with lots of watering and compost, it is finally showing more signs of vigour. :)

tomato bed!

The eggplants are looking very wrinkled even with our dedicated watering regime and fertilising, while the tomatoes have gone wild! I've done a poor job staking and they have grown onto the footpath! :p ... We had the pleasure of having some Yellow Bush Taxi tomatoes a few nights back and WHOA, they were the yummiest we've had so far!

I can't wait to try some chilli from the garden. They are reddening! Yay! More tomatoes are on their way too :) While trying to put their succulent stems back under the netting, I spotted a few hidden juicy fruits, almost ready for harvest!

ROAD TRIP!! Melbourne to South Australia and the amazing Kangaroo Island!

Ten days on the road in our little cute van! After a full day of packing and preparing the van, we were finally ready to head off on our road trip. We took an esky full of produce for cooking, all our other essentials, jerry cans for water and petrol, sleeping stuff, juicer & blender, and bathers!

Cooking was fun on the road. :) We only cooked one meal ~ lunch! While shoo-ing flies & other insects, we had the shield ourselves and the cooking materials from the relentless wind. Magpies watched us from close range and some even wandered straight up and squawked for food. Some days we managed to find lovely picnic areas; shaded and shielded!

As the days went on, we grew accustomed to rising early as the sun shone through our booth window and slept once the sun went down. We were lucky to visit a couple of National Parks throughout the trip - The Grampians in Victoria, Flinders Chase on Kangaroo Island, and the Coorong National Park alongside the Murray River. Walks were rejuvenating and meditative. Look what we found on one of our walks at the Grampians~ Echidna!! <3

"You don't see me... you don't see me... "

Silverband Falls, Grampians.

Almost at the peak of another of the Grampians' walks.

We were lucky enough to find power for a juice every breakfast! Yumm.. On those hot, humid days, I was thankful to have these in the esky. Also, we have developed a love for coconut juice. We went through a stunning amount of coconut water during the trip. On the 41 degrees day in the van without air conditioning, we gulped down carton after carton and 4 more glasses at a Thai restaurant in Adelaide upon arrival.

Kangaroo Island was stunning! So far, I haven't crossed paths with such beautiful bays and beaches. Sun, warm sand, clear blue sky, crystalline pure water, life amongst the rocks, fishes swimming along, limestone caves, and freezing breeze. We took the Sealink from Cape Jervis to Penneshaw, Kangaroo Island. 

Along the road to Cape Jervis

Our ferry!

Bales Beach

Chirstmas Lunch

We spent Christmas Day at Bales Beach and wandered to Flinders Chase National Park. Since all was closed on the 25th of December, we took a 3 hour afternoon nap at a lovely picnic hut at Bales Beach. Wallabies hopped around and bees were buzzing around the taps. :) We took our time making a special Christmas lunch ~ egg noodles with fried ginger, blanched broccoli, eggplant, omelette, and topped with Goji berries and Incan berries. Yum! <3 Ginger. 

The next day at Kangaroo Island, we got lucky and embarked on the most breathtaking nature walks we've ever been on - Ravine de Casoars at Flinders Chase National Park. Even the pictures don't do it justice. This magnificent place was a portrait of natural beauty, left so untouched by man's hands. We explored the caves, dipped, admired the starfishes, and stood jaw dropped at it's grandeur.  

More at Flinders Chase - we tiredly strolled amongst the giant rock formations at Remarkable Rocks. It was almost sunset when we got there so we didn't stay long. Finding a place to park our van and the process of bunkering down was quite tedious, especially after a long and full day! 

me with the giants! :P

FUR SEALS!!! :) What a sight! A beach dotted with these loveable bundles of fats and blubber!! Some had wandered closer to the boardwalk (lucky for us!) and we got a good look at these wonderful creatures.

Then it was byebye to Kangaroo Island. We spent another night at Adelaide to watch Cirque du Soleil - Ovo, another amazing feat of :O. Definitely was worth it! On the drive home, we stopped by the Coorong National Park. The picture below shows a massive bed of Murray River Salt! Besides being a cemetery of insects and other bugs which might have died from it's high salt intensity, it was quite a sight. Pink, crystalline lakes of salt. SALTTT EVERYWHERE! We tasted some and WHOA.. that got us jumping around ;)

One of our final stops was Port Fairy! Lovely area! We took the walk and enjoyed it's inconspicuous beaches. 

Port Fairy

Thoroughly sunburnt and relaxed, we arrived back to bustling Melbourne. Nothing like some Chinatown traffic to tickle our senses ;) .... HOME! BED! SHOWER! And sweet sweet dreams of an amazing road trip <3.

Sunburnt at CERES

Another great morning of voluntary work at Honey Market Lane, CERES Environment Park!

The garden had over grown during the Christmas break! There were huge zucchinis and cucumbers ready for harvest. Beans had grown too old so the other volunteers put them into the compost pile. Also, the weeds were popping up everywhere!

After harvesting the succulent cucumbers, we tied some of its sleek vines back on the frame.

Then, off to weeding! We managed a bin-full of weeds :o Their root systems were very challenging... In the meantime, I forgot about my slowly burning skin!

After weeding! 

 The other volunteers harvested some amazing looking zucchinis.

I love plums! What a treat to be harvesting fresh plums straight off a tree. :) These succulent fruits loaded this old tree of more than 12 years of age! Some branches had broken under the immense weight of its fruits. SO MUCH PLUMS! We were lucky enough to try them fresh too. Mmmmm... so lovely and juicy :). The garden is looking great and is slowly regaining its usual tidy look. Can't wait for another gardening day next week! 

Orgonite making on a sunny Sunday afternoon...

We made orgonites again on the weekend :) They turned out pretty well!

This time we used a different method of making them. Our friend called up the professionals (orgonite website people) for advice on how to make an effective orgonite! This time, we got our ratios a little better ;) 50% metal fillings and 50% resin.

multicoloured while setting in the sun :)

The resin and catalyst we picked up from Autobarn in Melbourne and they were so different to the Diggers one we used before. This time, it dried up into a jelly like substance that was impenetrable in just a matter of minutes! We almost could not put in a quartz pointer in one of the towerbusters as it dried up so quickly.

So this session went smooth and easy. Haha. Not much mess or sticky hands. The towerbusters while drying were of all sorts of colours! We were surprised as the last time our resin had no colour. This time, it was pink, purple, blue, orange and even green while they were setting in the muffin trays. They finally turned out a pretty pink when fully dried :) ... PoP! They came out with no hassle in just 2 hours! It took us more than 24 hours the last round.

Day 1 at Honey Market Lane, CERES Environment Park

Good weather for a day of gardening at Honey Market Lane. We arrived around 10.30ish at CERES Environment Park and searched for the location of the garden. Then, we looked for the illusive Steve, who runs the garden and it's many tasks + workers/volunteers. :)

Honey Market Lane

While waiting, I helped out with washing the lettuce for Market Day (tomorrow, Wednesday) while he started weeding some of the beds. Groups of loud school children flooded in tasting soil, doing their quizzes and just having some fun wandering and exploring.

Then I helped with weeding nut grass too! Very stubborn kind of grass with deep and interconnected roots. With the help of the fork and some muddy fingers, we got most of them out! And on the way found some other lovelies - worms, slaters and other colourful bugs I am unsure of what they're called.

Some regrowth from the harvested lettuce! 

We managed to weed 3 beds by the time the rain arrived. Next week ... planting basil! Fun!

Homemade Oat Milk

My first try at making oat milk! After referring to some great blogs online, I ordered in some muslin cloths and got onto trying this morning!

Soaked some organic rolled oats in filtered water for a few minutes before pouring it into our blender for a bit of a wizz. I added a tablespoon of Agave Syrup and a pinch of salt. After the oats became pulpy, I strained the mixture with a muslin cloth... and in it went into jars!

 Strong "oat" taste unlike the cartoned ones. Mmmm.. surprised at how easy and relatively mess free the whole process was. Now they're ready in the fridge for our bircher and protein shakes! :)

The remaining pulp ... product - oat milk and raw ingredient- oats!

I am excited to experiment more! 

And to use the pulp for some cookies or odd balls tonight :) 

Baby Bean Seedlings :)

Success (some!) so far in germinating my adzuki beans and chickpeas! Unfortunately left the adzuki outside for too long ~  birds or insects ate some of them and left my poor chipped and harassed red beans looking quite not alive :(

But some survived! YAY!

It was my first time germinating chickpeas - it never occurred to be before to give it a go! Soaked them for about 2 days until little roots started to show. Popped them in damp cotton wool until they grew a little bit more and had a bit of "grip". Then, into the jar and outside sun as the leaves started to show :) .

my chickpeas! conveniently fitting into our coffee cup holders ;) 

ADZUKI! the first one transplanted from cotton wool into a jar.. 

We used to have to germinate red or green beans yearly at school for a science project. Most of us just threw them away once the project was over. One year,  I replanted them into a pot in my garden. WHOA! :) ... Gorgeous plant & I had my own green beans after awhile! My science teacher wouldn't believe me that it would grow and have pods...=_='.

mmmmm :) pretty & delicate leaves :) <3

Instinctive Defence PRomO!

I'm excited for this Saturday ~ our 2nd Instinctive Defence Workshop! Places have been filling up and it's looking pretty good at the moment. We've been releasing promo material over the past few weeks hoping to gain some momentum. Besides the Facebook comments of "how cute" and similar comments, I am unsure if we're getting the message across yet. Ah well... time will tell!

Here's a couple more interesting things about the workshop!

1) We literally do ask you to show your fangs. You'd be surprised that you had some animal instinct left over the years of evolution and taming of our species ;) .

2) Our strategy is P.I.E.S. ~ It's YOUR strategy to figure out through the practice of the above - "rediscovering your inner roar". How do you come up with your strategy you say? In this workshop, we simulate a real life situation and if you don't think and act quick ... uh oh ;) 

 3) It's a one off course that has people a little sweaty from roaring, more instinctive and versatile and more prepared to roam the forest of our metropolitan city.