Last Saturday was International Permaculture Day and a gardening group I keep tabs on had an Open Garden and SSS (Swap, shuffle and share – lovely!), so we dragged the kids off for an explore.  One was not at all happy about it, then of course said it was one of his best days ever – after he got to play with other kids, enjoy some very yummy morning tea and visit a great playground on the way home! 

I really enjoyed seeing, listening and visiting the permaculture garden.  The blurb had said they had planted food forests so I wanted to see it in action – and it didn’t disappoint.  One of the best things though was showing Michael.  He mentioned that he hoped that our food forest would look a bit “tidier”…lucky he said this to me, now I can aspire to that – I was quite happy with a ‘free-form’ food forest, but we can keep it tidier too.  Win-win, we will both be happy!

My best photos from the morning show you fairies, frogs and flutterbys J.

All lovely ideas for our place!  And I had to look it up, that is a Wanderer (Monarch) butterfly.

Back on the home front, I am determined to get some good plants from seeds this season, so I started some last week (on their correct moon day) and put them under little greenhouses.  Then today I have transplanted the ones that have sprouted, doing it while they are still tiny and planted deep as per Linda Woodrow’s advice (to minimise transplant shock – then you plant them out in the garden when they are nice and big to give them an even chance against bugs etc).

You can see the transplanted ones on the bottom tray, then one tray that I am covering with a cupcake carrier lid (works well J), and the top one is a hardware-store seed raising mini greenhouse (I lucked out and got it for $3 from the op shop J).  That one certainly retains the moisture the most, to be expected really as it is the only lid that ‘fits’.

Wish my little baby plants some luck!