Garden Prettification

One of the things* that excited me most about this house when we bought it was the garden potential. There are flower beds around the front of the house, filled with roses, irises, various protea, and a couple of natives - a grevillea and a lillypilly. The front of the yard, where a fence would go, is on an extremely steep angle, perfect for turning into terraced garden beds. The back year has garden beds around the edges, surrounding a yard large enough for a trampoline AND running around space, and theres a corner tucked away behind the garage** that's invisible from the house and therefor off limits to the children, but exactly the right size and position for a vegie patch. Sheltered on three sides by fences/trees/wall, but full sun most of the day. The eventual aim is to severely limit our reliance on the grocery store for vegies and herbs.

Unfortunately, the garden has not been top priority as far as expenses go. We had to buy furniture/kitchen things/laundry things. Then the oven died and we had to not only buy a new oven, but get an electrician and a plumber in to change it over from electric to gas. Then winter happened and this house is cooler than the other and we discovered we needed more bedding. Add that to the constant expenses of food, utilities, mortgage, car payment, clothes... The garden has been sorely neglected.

But recently things have started settling down. We found a new place to do our groceries, where a trolley containing 8kg of meat, 12kg of flour, 9kg of fruits/veg and various sundries only costs $130,*** and there is an Aldi right across the road from the market, so the weekend after hubby gets paid we stop in there as well and I stock up on the stuff they have super cheap - cheese which goes in the freezer until its needed, sultanas, canned tomatoes, cling wrap, etc. Combined with our new credit card****, we have a lot more wiggle room in our budget now, even with interest rates going up.

So we're prettifying the garden.

The easiest and cheapest prettification was the front garden beds. Pruning the roses, removing the agapanthas (they're everywhere, I hate them, and I think I might be allergic to them. They had to go), general weeding. It looks so much better, and cost absolutely nothing.

The biggest change was cutting down the trees in the back garden beds. Some moron planted a pine tree about 6 inches from the fence. Presumably the same person either planted, or at the least didn't remove, a camphor laurel. DUMB. Along with a couple of palm trees, and some other scraggly looking things, hubby removed 6 trees from the back yard, giving us (tiny) views of the lake, and space to eventually plant something attractive and useful - like citrus, or apples. And more than 6 inches from the fence.

The most exciting was discovering the banana tree is fruiting. Technically we didn't have anything to do with that, as it was here when we bought the place and they fruit on their own, but HOW COOL IS THAT??????

The most expensive thing has been the addition of some plants. In pots. Which made it even more expensive. But now we have 8 tomato plants, a lavender, a blueberry bush, and 2 pots which will have parsley and coriander planted in them as soon as it warms up a little bit. We also repotted the thyme and one of the basil plants that we already had.

We're not expert gardeners. I've managed to kill everything I've ever tried to grow, except the basil and the thyme. They just won't die. I can even kill lavender, and its supposed to be unstoppable. I suspect the tomatoes don't have enough space, and we discovered we'd bought the wrong soil for the blueberry, so its sitting forlornly on our deck waiting to be put in its pot. But the garden looks better, and if we kill the plants, we can always try again. Seeds are cheap, and we already have the pots.

But most of all, the children will get some experience in growing things, and hubby and I had a fun time tending our garden together. I think its the best date I've ever had.






* The others included the massive deck with potential views of the lake, an inside laundry, decent sized kitchen, 2 living areas, and a 2 minute walk to the local school. OH YES.

** Currently unusable due the third shed and massive amounts of junk/concrete/WEEDS, but hey. The space is there once we clear it up.

*** I know this is going to sound insanely high to Americans. But when you realise that COUPONS DO NOT EXIST, and the CHEAP price for chicken breast is $8/kg (about $4/#), well. Food is more expensive here. Shopping elsewhere, the meat alone could have cost that much.

**** My first ever. And yes, I know credit cards are generally a bad idea. But hubby sometimes has to go away for work, and he does NOT have a company credit card. Which means he has to spend our money. Which means I'm often left $300 short, with no chance of seeing it back for anywhere from 2-4 weeks. With the credit card, he can spend as much as he wants on customers without impacting on our ability to feed our children and pay for our house.

Shampoo

Today I used shampoo for the first time since last November. Don't worry, I haven't been walking around like a grot with skeezy unwashed hair, I've simply been using baking soda and vinegar* instead.

Since we've been programmed by companies to believe that nothing can get clean without bubbles (hair, hands, teeth, laundry, dishes..) many people find it difficult to imagine that you can wash your hair without shampoo.

Trust me, you can.

Not only do I generally wash my hair less frequently when using baking soda, it takes less time to wash, and my hair is in better condition. This morning I spent over half an hour in the shower trying to get all of the shampoo out of my hair (I don't use conditioner, ever, because I would be in there for over an hour trying to rinse it out - my hair does not like that stuff) where as I usually take 15 minutes on a hair-washing day - I know this seems like a long time, but my hair is long, I wash it twice (not including the vinegar rinse), and in reality a fair portion of that time is spent washing my hair before I turn the water on**.

So why did I revert to shampoo this morning? The simplest answer is, it was cold. The more involved answer is, I didn't realise I had no baking-soda-solution until I was already in the shower cubicle, and I decided it was far too cold to go traipsing through the house to make some. If it was summer I might have gone and done it, but I already couldn't feel my toes. I'm not going to let that happen again. (I did briefly consider just not washing my hair and waiting till tomorrow, but my hair REALLY needed to be washed.)

Once I realised I was going to have to use shampoo, I welcomed it as an experiment. Its been so long since I used shampoo that I'd almost forgotten how different it feels, and I admit, I probably used a little too much - in my defense, my husbands shampoo comes out of the bottle a lot quicker than mine used to - but I don't really think the amount I used had an impact on the way my hair feels.

If I can possibly avoid it, I have no plans to use shampoo ever again. I've stopped colouring my hair, and haven't been to the hairdresser since last October, so other than my own laziness, there is no reason for me to use shampoo again.

Which is good, since I don't really like it when my hair feels like the nylon strands they use for doll hair.



WASH YOUR HAIR WITHOUT SHAMPOO:

You will need:

• squeeze bottles (I bought some, other people have had success with very well rinsed detergent bottles) (Actually, these are not absolutely necessary, just easier. For quite a while I made each batch as I needed it, instead of 'in bulk' and used it out of a pyrex measuring jug)
• baking soda (also called bicarb)
• apple cider vinegar
• water
• hair

NOTE: This is what worked for me, for my very-fine-but-gosh-theres-a-lot-of-it, naturally-dark-blond-but-coloured-lighter-for-the-past-4-years, hates-conditioner-with-a-passion -which-is-fine-because-it-hardly-tangles, almost-waist-length hair. The proportions you need will depend on your exact hair. I had to fiddle around a little till I found what works well. Don't be discouraged if it doesn't feel right the first couple times. Change your proportions till you get it right.

"Shampoo":
For every 2 cups of water, you want to add about 1-heaped-Tbsp bicarb. This becomes tricky, because Australian measures are different to US measures. For 2cups - 1pint (about half a litre) - you want about 1/8cup bicarb - for me, this is easier as 2 heaped tablespoons, since there are 3tablespoons in 1/4cups and I don't have a 1/8cup measure. 4cups - 2pints - 1quart (about a litre) - use 1/4 cup.

"Conditioner":
The proportions for the conditioner are similar, excepting that since vinegar is not a powder and therefor won't dissolve, you put your 1/4cup vinegar in your container and top up with water until you reach your 4cups (2 pints, 1quart, about a litre) of liquid.

- You may find that your bicarb solution is gritty. If that happens, you need to boil your water before adding the bicarb - while it is still hot. It will fizz like crazy, so do it slowly, but it will dissolve better.

- You may find, like me, that your hair washes better if you start it from dry. My best friend has to start hers from wet. Whichever works best for you, focus on your scalp. This is where most of the oil is, and you may find the ends of your hair dry out if you add too much soda there. For my hair, I use about 3/4cup per wash, pouring on a little, working it in, pouring more on elsewhere, working it in, etc etc. If your hair still feels dirty, and/or your scalp still feels oily after rinsing the soda out, do it again. The first time will loosen all the oil and dirt, and the second time will well and truly wash it out. Twice is usually enough, no matter how oily your head feels before hand***.

-"Massage your scalp" the same way you would with your shampoo. It works out all the dirt and flakes.

-Make sure you rinse your hair thoroughly between the soda and the vinegar. Ever mixed an acid and a base (alkali)? You don't want that on your head. If you don't believe me, put a teaspoon of bicarb in the bottom of a jug and pour in some vinegar. I don't imagine it would feel nice on your scalp.

-Use your vinegar solution the same way, but pour a little more through the rest of your hair, not just your scalp. Your hair will feel dry if you don't use some sort of acidic rinse to counteract the bicarb. Be sure to rinse it out well, too. The smell is not noticeable once dry.

-Apparently vinegar is better for brunettes, and lemon for blonds. I imagine you would use about the same proportions of lemon as vinegar, but here, vinegar is cheaper than lemons, so I haven't tried it (despite being blond).

-I like the smell of chamomile, so sometimes I rinse my hair - after the vinegar - in dilute chamomile tea, too. I've convinced myself that it makes it soft and shiny, but I may be delusional.




*Separately. Don't try using them simultaneously, it would be messy and feel terribly odd.
**Yes, I wash my hair before I turn on the water. It seems to get cleaner if I use the solution on dry hair rather than wet, and it saves water.
***Did you know the shampoo companies aren't just trying to rort you out of more money by making you use more? Your hair will actually get cleaner if you wash twice - the first time loosens everything (oil, dirt, dander, peanut butter...) and the second time washes it all away.