Pallet potting table.

Here is my new potting table!

I know this is not a sewn, knitted or spun item, but it is handmade so that's ok, right? Jamie and I spent the weekend building a potting table for our garden. My parent in laws were visiting and gave us a lot of help also with this endeavour. To be fair, Jamie is the total brains and brawn behind this creation, my role was more as the 'artistic director'. 

I have dreamt of having my own potting table ever since we moved to Newcastle and rented a house with a yard. Potting tables can be as unique as your garden is. Most often they are crafted from re-purposed materials that the gardener has managed to salvage from a local source. Random bits are nailed, glued and screwed together to create something for the garden that is functional, and in my case, pleasing to the eye.

This potting table is completely made from pallet timber I was able to obtain for free from a retired gentleman who lives near the town where I work. He builds chicken coops and bird breeding boxes in his spare time and was only too happy for me to take what timber I needed. I did offer to pay him for the timber, but he replied with a smile "I would be offended if you paid me, please take as much as you need". He spent almost 45 minutes with me discussing my design plans and selecting the perfect pieces for the project from his substantial timber pile.

Pallet timber is ideal for this kind of project. It is cheap, or possibly free, and is a standard size. Pallets are made from outdoor wood so this table will survive being exposed to the weather. What I also prefer is the timbers 'rustic' look. Every piece is weathers differently. Knots. Stains. Splinters. All slats are unique.

I am considering adding some nails or hooks to the upper part of the timber frame, to use as a place to hang my gardening hand tools whilst I am working. Rhonda also uses a potting box to prevent wasting some of her soil while she is potting. I am hoping I can whip one of these up with all the off cuts I have left.

Below is the photo I found on pinterest months ago that I used for the inspiration for this potting table. The table was made by Bruce at www.thedesignpallet.com. The image has been sitting in my Gardens folder for some time, waiting for me to get my hands on some pallets.

~ Image can be found at The Design Pallet here ~

Jamie was really pleased with how similar his creation was to the inspiration photo...

We finished the potting table as the sun was setting, so I am yet to actually use it to pot any seeds. Winter is a difficult time to garden as night falls before I am home from work, leaving me unable to garden most evenings. Sometimes I do a spot of weeding before work, but that depends on the chill in the air and me not hitting the 'snooze' button. I am sure this table will get much use though next weekend!

Sam xox

Potential chicken babies.

I've had a bit of a problem in the hen house these past few weeks. You see, Lady Sussex has turned broody and has been sitting on her eggs morning, noon and night. She rarely leaves them except to occasionally eat. The problem (for her) is there's not a rooster in sight, so those eggs are never going to hatch. Taking the advice of my father-in-law Arthur, I removed all the eggs and attempted to separate her from the nesting spot, but without a secure and safe alternative place to keep her, it was no use.

Lady Sussex went bananas after I took the eggs. I have never heard such a commotion come from one hen! The plan failed.

So I was left with two options. Option one - Let her sit on the unfertilized eggs and hope she 'got over being broody'. If chickens stay on unfertilized eggs for too long they can catch all sorts of diseases and die. Option two would be to slip some fertilized eggs under her and hope they hatch.

I chose option two.

A quick search on Google found me someone selling fertilized eggs up north.

A few emails later I had arranged delivery via express post. The eggs arrived the next day, safely wrapped, and all individually marked with the breed. One egg is a Light Sussex (the same as her) the rest are Bantam Langshan's.

While we let the eggs sit (they have to sit for 12 hours after posting) we completed the final touches on the new nesting box, that is to replace the one destroyed by the fox last year.

Lady Sussex let me slip all the eggs under her and she has been sitting on them ever since (it has been over one week now). Chickens have a 21 day incubation period so fingers crossed we have some baby chickies by the end of this month.

Luckily, the other chickens don't seem to be tempted to follow in the footsteps of Lady Sussex, they are content eating their seed and producing beautifully yellow-yolked eggs.

Sam xox

Meet my ladies.

Let me introduce to you the latest additions to our household...

I arrived home Friday afternoon to find that my chicken coop had been delivered and Jamie had spent three hours putting it together (thanks honey!). It is fantastic. The perfect size for the space I had picked out for it in the yard. There is plenty of room inside the coop to provide shelter and comfort for the girls during the night, and with the addition of the chicken run I added to the end, there is plenty of roaming room for all.


I piled up my car with large cardboard boxes and drove over an hour yesterday to a very small country town where a man named Garry was selling chicken. I had found Garry on the internet, and after a few text messages back and forth (while I googled the breads of chickens he had, just so I knew they looked nice) we had struck up a deal.

~ The Ancona breed is close to the Leghorn breed, identified by the floppy red comb on its head. Sometimes the comb flops over and covers half her face. It's a wonder she can see where she's walking. So cute! ~

I brought them home and introduced them to their new quarters as the rain poured down. They didn't seem to be bothered by the miserable weather, and quickly made themselves at home; scratching at the mulch and feeding on seed and lettuce leaves.

~ This here is Lady Sussex. She is a 'show quality' hen, but according to the seller "She won't win you a show"... mysterious ~

(Breed: Light Sussex. 2 years old)

~ This here is Betty. She is our smallest girl and loves strawberries ~

(Breed: Rhode Island Red. 16 weeks old)

~ On the left we have Maggie, on the right Audrey ~

(Breed: Ancona. 1 year old. Breed: Australorp. 16 weeks old)

I was warned by my father-in-law that the hens may not lay for a few days after arriving as they will likely be stressed. But in less than 24 hours at our home, look what I found in the nesting box...

Success! It must have been the strawberries that made them feel relaxed.

I am going to be posting all my gardening/vegetable growing/chicken raising stuff on a new blog, seeing as I am spending so many hours in my garden. Click here to visit it if you are interested in the dirty nails side of things.

Sam xox

The first signs of spring.

As the weather continues to get warmer here,

blossoms and new life begin to appear...

~ The last of my winter bulbs ~

~ Tiny lemons beginning to grow on my tree ~

~ Lots of colourful faces ~

~ A nesting dove in our backyard ~

~ The doves first attempt at making a nest ~

Sam xox

We have settled.

Hi Everyone,

I feel like it has been ages since I last put up a post. It has been. We haven't had internet at our new place, so I have been using my iphone, which means I have been able to read all your blog posts but commenting is a little tricky.

In the last three weeks Jamie and I have moved house and have been trying to settle into our new routine. That being, we live in Newcastle on the weekends, then Monday to Friday I live off the kindness of friends and family, on a continual rotation of people's spare beds and floors while I finish off my position at work in Sydney.

I feel like I haven't really moved to Newcastle yet. I only spend two out of seven days here with Jamie. I have a couple of job interviews lined up, so fingers crossed that will yield some employment for me up here :-)

Now, on to more important things... like sewing.

I have not done any! I am having massive withdrawal symptoms from not being able to stitch when I want to. Currently my new sewing room is still a pile of half opened boxes and stacks of sewing magazines. I haven't had the chance to really get in there and sort it yet, but as today's weather here is looking dicey, I might be able to begin the sorting this afternoon.

Here are some photos of what the room looks like (before all the boxes and furniture filled it)...

It's the smallest of the three bedrooms, and I would call it a single room, as it is only like a half sized bedroom. The windows are my favourite feature, as the one on the left is where my table sits below, and it looks out onto our garden and veggie patch. I think this will be a lovely spot to sew. You can't see in the photo but there is also a wardrobe (out of sight to the left of the shot) which came with the house. It has a lot of shelving storage space in it which I think is going to be great for storing most of my sewing stuff concealed from sight!

Talking about storage, we have moved from an apartment with a huge lock up garage to a house with not even a car port. We desperately needed a shed, so that was our first homemaking project...

Jamie selecting sand for leveling the shed.

A shed we bought on eBay. We lost the instructions.

We were lucky enough to have two friends visit the day after we moved in.

We had our very own 'shed raising'.

The final result (Jamie has since installed the sliding doors).

The veggie plot in need of some serious work.

Last weekend I did some work in the garden. I have weeded completely the main part of the veggie garden, turned all the soil, and filled our compost bin to the brim with different bits and pieces.

At this time of year there is not a lot I am able to plant which means I have a lot of time to be able to spend on the planning of the garden. Deciding on the layout of the plants, what to plant, and when to plant them. I am going to keep some sort of gardening diary to help me with this. I am very excited to finally have the space to build a veggie garden that will hopefully provide us for most of our veggie needs. In my apartment in Sydney I was pretty limited to what I could grow. Now the possibilities seem endless...

Glad to be back!

Sam xox

Balcony make-over.

I took advantage of the beautiful autumn weather on Friday to do a spot of gardening. I thought I would share with you some photos from my balcony garden, and save my vegetable garden photos for later in the week.

I have a reasonably sized balcony that I love very much. I really don't think I would survive living in the city if I didn't have my own outdoor space where I could potter about and grow things. Our balcony space sort of makes an L shape around the side of our apartment, and is lined with pots of different size and colour.

Friday morning I took a trip to the local garden centre and picked up some plants suitable for the approaching winter months. These mostly included pansies and roses, my two favourite blooms (I think this comes from my English blood)!

I had to carry bags of potting mix and flowers up our (multiple) flights of stairs, but it was well worth the sore legs and achy back...

~ My favourite place to eat breakfast ~

~ My herb garden ~

~ My bulbs are sprouting ~

~ My dwarf lemon tree ~

~ Strawberry plant and a few rouge bulbs ~

~ Just in case you were concerned, Prada is wearing a 'tiny dog' sized body lead. This means we can let her out on the balcony to get some fresh air and sun, while preventing her from jumping onto (and god forbid over) the wall of our balcony ~

How does your garden grow? Are you like me and approaching the cooler months? Or are you finally seeing the sun again after months of snow?

Sam xox

Spring is here.

There is really something about the first day of Spring. The sun feels a little warmer, the birds sing a little louder and our moods lift...

Sadly I missed out on most of this today as I had to attend work training. Being couped up inside a space the size of a kitchen for 8 hours really put a dampener on my Springtime skip (the training was, however, amazingly valuable for my work practice).

To try and restore balance to my first Spring day for 2010, I came home and sat in my garden ... well ... my tiled three-story high garden.

Oh Spring, how I have missed thee!

Sam xox

A brilliant idea from Bondi.

Inspiration comes when you least expect it.

I attended an appointment for work this week that involved a walk to a cafe. On the way I came across this...

The sign read...

I thought this was such a neat idea and a lovely gesture. I am going to try this out and put up a similar sign in my apartment block. No doubt it will not be as professional in appearance, but hopefully it will have leave the same warm feeling when read.

Sam xox