Gratitude

 I have been prompted to revisit this long ago ritual by Amanda who talks about a gratitude journal. Five things I am grateful for today;
     ~ The love of my Partner- my best friend
     ~ A warm house
     ~ 3 beautiful daughters
     ~ Good organic food to eat
     ~ Enough of everything I need.


I  sometimes find myself too far out there trying to deal with the woes of the world. I know that I can do more 'out there' by first bringing myself into balance. The gratitude journal helps.




  Meanwhile on the Farm, it's a fruit day and I have been concentrating on capsicums. 

I bought some ripe capsicums that were on sale at the organic shop and scraped out the seeds. They cost me 50c each  and I only needed the seeds from one capsicum, which is way less than a packet of seeds, and I get to eat the capsicums!

I put them all into punnets, covered them with more seed raising mix and put them into the underheater.

Crushed basalt

 I make my own seed raising mix using crushed basalt for drainage and cocopeat for moisture retention - equal quantities of each. It costs around $5 for a barrow load.

To make potting mix I add compost so that there is equal amounts of all 3.

The potting mix goes into these pots which are the bottom half of tubestock, a hole is pushed in to the mix...

and then the seedlings are pricked out and transplanted. These are the capsicums i germinated a few weeks back.

The hardening off area. The seedlings spend a week or so here before being planted out into the garden.

The propagation house.There are many features of importance when building a propagation house. This window faces Nth to allow the sun in, in winter, the bricks provide thermal mass, and it is placed in a position that I pass many times a day so I can keep an eye on them.

There are plans afoot to enlarge this propagation house as it no longer provides enough room for the number of seedlings we require each week.