A quick update

Hello, and welcome back. I hope that life has been treating you well. As you may have noticed, I haven’t posted for the past few weeks. It’s been a busy period for me; my housemate had a friend visit from Australia, I’ve changed my work to an overnight position, which has taken some getting used to, and I have also moved house. But seeing how things have settled down for now, I thought I had better post an update and let you know how things are progressing.

First of all, a quick update on my small herb garden; so far, it all seems to be going well. The coriander has been doing great. And I have been using it regularly in my cooking. However, now that it is of usable size, I need to focus on preventing it from going to seed or “bolting”. I will cover some of these tips in an upcoming post.  

I also planted some spring or green onion seeds a while ago, and although they are shooting up well, they seem to be taking their time. Instead, they look more like chives, tall and thin, and I suspect the reason was that I didn’t space them out correctly. It hasn’t stopped me from using them in my cooking, as they taste great, but sadly they are not what I am after. Hopefully, as I keep picking them, the remaining plants will thicken up the way they are meant to.

Speaking of spacing issues, I will need to transfer the lettuce as it is at a point where I need to fix its spacing. The seed packet recommends they’re planted roughly 20cm apart. At the moment, they are lucky to be 2cm apart. So I will need to sort that out soon.  

As far as the parsley was concerned, I have given up on that. Three times I have sown parsley seeds, I even changed the potting mix for one of them just in case, but still, nothing seems to want to stick. This has surprised me. I have always thought parsley was foolproof, and it turns out that’s not the case. For a while there, the basil looked as if it was going down the same path as the parsley, but thankfully with a change of soil and a third attempt of sowing some seeds, I was rewarded with some shoots, and they appear to be doing quite well now. Here’s to hoping they keep going.

As I mentioned earlier, I have recently moved. My housemate is having work done at his place, and we had to leave during the renovations. Thankfully this move is temporary, and next month I will return to having an entire south-facing balcony that will be perfect for the plants. Until then, I will do my best with my plants on the window sill of our temporary place and hope they can get enough sunlight and survive until the renovations are complete.

The homesteading goal is still alive and well, although my posts have recently been kitchen-heavy. That will change with time. As I have mentioned, my current living situation dictates much of what I can do; the space and equipment I have on hand are limited. I plan to cover a few more kitchen posts shortly; jams, jellies, pickles, and stocks are on my list, so keep an eye out for them. I also want to look at a few other topics related to living self-sufficiently in a downtown environment. Once I resettle back in Australia, I plan to move my focus out of the kitchen and onto larger outdoor projects and topics.

As for the move back to Australia, I only have a few months left in Canada, so I am preparing to pack up my belongings and head south. And as sad as the thought of leaving is, I look forward to returning to Australia and starting the next chapter of my life. However, before I can move onto the land, I will need to do some work on the house I will be moving into as it urgently needs some repairs, and while I am doing that, I will also need to start some groundwork for the land so I can build a house on it. I first thought I could move directly onto the land and live in a tent, doing what I needed to from there. Unfortunately, that idea raised more problems than it solved, so after careful consideration, I will need a more permanent home. The main reason behind this decision was that, without a doubt, getting established on my property would take longer than I expect, so I want to be as comfortable as possible while this happens.  

Obviously, this will take time as I will be doing most of the work myself and still need to fit it around a job and other day-to-day commitments. But thankfully, the place I am moving into has a large backyard. Given that I will be arriving at the tail end of winter, I will be arriving at the perfect time to set up a veggie garden ready for spring. So I can save money on food costs and get back into the swing of gardening on a scale larger than my current half a dozen pots.

I look forward to this as it will allow me to share the next stage of my journey and the next step of establishing my homestead.  

And that is about all of it from me at the moment. As you can see, it is still full steam ahead, and although I haven’t posted much recently, it doesn’t mean I have given up. So until next time, have a good one and catch you later.