Late summer actvities -garden and sewing room

It is late summer and the frangipani has been stunning, over by the pomegranate tree where the fruit is getting red, hanging like so many absurd Christmas decorations. This is the time of the year when my garden doesn't have many flowers, but after a few hours of rain the other day I think my roses might be thinking of a new flush of flowers. 

I am harvesting basil every few days and making pesto which goes straight into the freezer. As long as I prevent them from setting seed I can get more leaves for a little bit longer. I was pleased that I found some lemon juice ice cubes in the freezer for my pesto, as my Meyer lemons are weeks away from being ripe, and the Eureka hasn't been prolific after it's huge haircut in the winter. 

I set up my seed cart and have been propagating every few days. The marigold seeds I collected have already sprouted! These are for my DGD who wants to grow flowers at her new place when they get here.  It is a wonderful feeling to see your seeds come up -I have just been out to check and I believe the clove basil is up, as are the spring onions. My curry leaf tree has black berries on it at the moment, so I am experimenting with growing them too. Next few days I am going to be making some newspaper pots for further seed raising. 

We experimented with some large olive barrel pots in the hard sunshine near our garden shed -lots of heat and unrelenting sunshine. The tomato I planted was a bit of a disaster, the capsicum is OK but the fruit is getting sunburn. I have moved the tomato with DH's help, to a shadier place (yeah, I know, all the books say 'full sun' but I don't think they mean Perth sun at 43C). I will be moving more pots over the next few days. 

In my last post I mentioned I had set up an ironing station at the end of my sewing bench. This has turned out to be one of those amazingly helpful additions to my sewing room- I can roll my chair to the iron and back to the machine in just a moment. The quilt on the design wall is an improv one I am working on at the moment. 

 We are still going down the beach a couple of mornings per week. This week I found some seaweed with tomato like ends.

I have a collection of shells - they are sometimes on display and sometimes I have to go looking for them. Today I found them in a basket on my potting bench, all covered with spider webs! I am now cleaning them up -maybe it is time for a turn inside again (without spiders of course). 

We were back at DH's sister's place this week. I put up some pelmet/valances I made with the free curtain fabric I picked up a few weeks ago. DH fixed some kitchen shelves more securely so that they won't move if she puts something on one of the ends, or inadvertently bumps them.  

DH is progressing well on the removal of the finish on the bed we bought at the tip. Next step will be putting a darker stain on it and then a wax finish. 

So that is our week's activities, thanks for visiting and thanks for all your kind words about our bedroom furniture from last week's post. 

Finally: 

For your enjoyment: a wonderful segment on a family living on a quarter acre block and being radically permaculture inspired people.  Click here