January 2007

8th January

**So what am I doing now with Stage 3 water restrictions? I water VERY CAREFULLY with bath water. Basically, so long as the water goes on the plant and not on the bits we will be eating, greywater is safe. I was also using milk bottles with holes in them to really cut down on plant/water contact, but it was just too fiddly, so now I use a watering can that has the rose taken off. Yesterday we picked the biggest Zucchini, against my arm it went from finger tip to elbow. ____________________________________________________________________

18th January

**I am now collecting the rinse water from the washing machine as there just wasn't enough bath water. Bunnings have nothing in the way of greywater systems at the moment (although my hubby is off to Clark Rubber tonight to see if they have anything), so basically I wait until I hear the machine starting to empty for the second time (this water is cleaner) and run like mad to the laundry. I then plug up the laundry basin and let the water run into it. Once it is nearly full, I shut off the machine and start filling watering cans. From the back door I then pour the watering cans full of water over the porch and into my green waste wheelie bin. Once this bin is full I wait until evening or early morning and then fill watering cans for the garden. What has really surprised me is the amount of water that is used by a washing machine. One entire load of water from our 4.0 kg washing machine (set to the lowest water level setting) will fill a small wheelie bin! I have been wasting this much water every day through not recycling! ____________________________________________________________________

29th January

**I went a bit nuts yesterday in the garden. My hubby discovered the chooks eating my green tomatoes the other day, so we have sectioned off our garden yet again. The chooks now have roughly one third of the yard, and that third has the blackberry problem, so maybe they'll do something about it now. ;-p Anyway, I put up yet another chicken wire fence, with a queenslander gate (that's basically a piece of chicken wire that you unhook to get through), until my hubby is motivated to make another magnificent gate (do you think he'll get the message?!). I cleared out the original vegie patch that the chooks had been picking over and fertilising while the carrots went to seed. I had also tried growing mustard round the edge of this as a couch grass deterent, and it actually worked quite well. I Replaced these mustard plants with Lima bean and Sunflower seeds. The mustard seeds where sprinkled in the cleared garden bed with about 2,000 carrot seeds (no I'm not exaggerating there) I had harvested myself. I also found some radish seedpods and threw those in as well. In about a month I will sprinkle some onion seeds. Today I plan to clear the garden bed at the top gate and plant some more bean seeds, now that the chooks can't get to them, I may actually be able to grow something on it. My plan is to cover all the chicken wire with food plants to create the allusion of more yard. ____________________________________________________________________