DIY Window Herb Garden

I love cooking with fresh ingredients so have had setting up a herb garden on my to-do list for a while.

In the past my herbs have sat outside, but this usually results in them getting feasted on my the punk teenage possums that live in the tree next door.

This time round I hatched a plan to keep my herbs possum-safe and close at hand for when I am cooking.

I don't have much space in my kitchen so getting the pots up off my counter was essential. This is a very easy project and I finished it in a couple of hours.

Step 1

Measure up your window and cut a piece of dowel to fit. Make sure the dowel is thick enough to bear the weight of the plants you are going to hang there.

Step 2

Measure out the number of hooks you will need for your pots and space them out out evenly. Cup hooks are easy to screw in by hand. To make it easier hammer a guide hole (usually only 2-3 taps then take the nail out) and use pliers to twist the hook in once it gets too tight for you.

Alternatively you can use s-hooks - no screwing in of hooks necessary!

Step 3

Measure up your window sill how high you want your pots. Remember your pots will hang lower than the dowel and you want them to be at a comfortable height to access the pots, but not so low they are in your way - especially if they are over your sink.

Drill in curtain brackets on either side of the window and place your dowel in the brackets.

Step 4

You can purchase pots that are designed to be hung from hooks, but if you don't have these you will need to drill your own holes. Ensure the hole is big enough for your hook and they are in the same place on each pot to keep them hanging straight.

Steer clear of ceramic or glass pots (if you are drilling your own holes) as you are likely to have a broken pot instead of one with a hole in it. I used galvanised metal pots from ikea, but you could also use plastic ones.

 Step 5

Pot up your herbs in pots that will fit inside your hanging pots. You don't want to pot them straight in there for a couple of reasons:

1. You won't have drainage (believe me, you don't want your pots dripping water all over your kitchen) so your herbs will get way too soggy and will die.

2. While your herbs will do well in a sunny window eventually you are going to have to give them a holiday outdoors. Or if they are annuals you will just compost them and replace. This is much easier if you can just take the interior pot out.

Ta-da

Now you have your kitchen herb garden. I have been using my fresh herbs regularly in my cooking and nothing tastes as good as food you have cooked with fresh herbs, especially ones you grew yourself.

Some tips - I have got another group of herbs outside (in a place where the possums can't get them) ready to swap over when my indoor herbs are ready to replace. This rotation schedule makes it easier to keep your indoor kitchen herb garden looking fresh all year round.

Things I learnt while painting my bedroom

1. Painting in the middle of a Brisbane summer isn't smart

I've nearly passed out couple of times and had to force myself to take some time out. I have drunk about 3 litres of water, but that seems to have made me feel more unwell.

I've also revived an old trick I learnt while working in a fish and chip shop in my youth - wet a hand towel and roll it up like a sausage; Pop it in the freezer for an hour; Take it out and drape around your neck until it thaws. It's a good idea to have at least two on the go so you can swap them over when the one you are wearing feels more like some kind of sweaty fur stole.

2. I hate sanding

As simple as it sounds. I freaking hate sanding. My apartment has lots of heavy gloss trim that I have to wear down so the paint will stick to it. Plus there is a sliding door that separates my bedroom and the bathroom that I'm afraid to take out because I know if I do I will never get it back in again. So this had to be sanded while in situ... not fun.

3. Don't stop to Instagram half way through the second coat

Yes, you may feel inspired to take a photo of your new fresh white walls (see photo above). But when you come back you will have forgotten where you were up to, the paint will be drying on your brush and roller and you will realise you just posted a picture of essentially a blank white wall with paint drying.

4. Sometimes it is smarter to just turn the fan off

Heavily related to point 1. It may be 32 degrees and your t-shirt rapidly becoming more sweat than fabric but if you intend to stand on a ladder to reach the fiddly bit at the top of the wall, turn the bloody fan off. I know it's a tight race between heat stroke and a concussion, but all in all I'd say it's smarter to turn the fan off, at least just for the duration of the fiddly high painting*.

5. I REALLY hated the colour of my bedroom 

You know you've made the right decision to repaint when you find yourself doing a little dance of joy as you cover up the last of the old paint job. I still have a bit to go before the bedroom make-over is complete, but if I only get as far as painting over the nausea inducing cream that my apartment is covered in I will be one happy girl. 

And I think I've earned a glass of wine.

*I am pleased to say that I intuitively figured this out before I gave myself a concussion.

DIY Terrarium

My bathroom was in desperate need of some greenery so it was time to knock me up some terrarium.

The only thing I had to buy was the sphagnum moss so this whole project only cost me $10, and I'll be able to use the moss for other potting projects.

You will need...

1. A glass jar, vase, bowl or any other vessel to plant your plants in

2. Some rocks, pebbles or sand for drainage

3. Sphagnum moss

4. Potting mix

5. Some little plants - cacti, succulents, ferns and moss are perfect

6. Little things for decoration - pretty rocks, shells or ornaments are perfect

and... 7. If you are putting a lid on your terrarium you will need some charcoal to help filter the air

I had a glass jar that was given to me years ago. The paint's been progressively chipping off and the lid got broken somewhere along the way so it seemed like the perfect option for my terrarium.

I scraped off the remaining paint with a blade and cleaned it up ready to go.

Add a layer of rocks, pebbles or sand.

(If you are putting a lid on your terrarium add your layer of charcoal next)

Add a layer of sphagnum moss.

Add a layer of potting mix.

I took some cuttings from a few rangy succulents that are on my list of garden to-do's on the holidays and planted these in the potting mix.

Tip - use a pencil or stick to poke a hole in the potting mix first so you don't damage the bottom of your cutting when pressing it into the soil

I added my two little ornaments: a rabbit my Aunt brought me back from Greece and a tiger I bought in Japan - very international.

Water your plants in with a little amount of water and you are done. Easy!

 Perfect for my bathroom

Happy DIY'ing

Baking Day - Low Fat Dog Biscuits

Last year I made my puppy Peanut Butter dog bikkies and after Christmas she put on about 5 kilos. So this year I decided I should go for a low fat option.

Low Fat Oatmeal & Wheatgerm Dog Biscuits

Ingredients

• 2 cups wheat flour
• 3 cups oatmeal
• 1/2 cup wheat germ
• 6 tablespoons low fat margarine
• 1/4 cup golden syrup (or molasses)
• 1 cup evaporated milk
• 1 cup water

Method

1. Preheat oven at 160'c and line 2 baking trays with baking paper.

2. Mix wheat flour, oatmeal and wheatgerm together in a large bowl.

3. Then mix in margarine, golden syrup, milk and water.

4. The dough will be stiff to stir. Cover with a tea towel and let rest for 1/2 hour.

5. Roll teaspoons of the mix into balls and place on baking trays. The don't spread too much so don't panic about spacing them out. Flatten with a fork. 

6. Bake for 1 hour rotating 1/2 way through. Cool on a wire rack.

Happy baking.

Christmas DIY Overload

I think everybody gets stressed at Christmas time. Some people are stressed because they have all the family coming for lunch and spend the weeks leading up to the big day cleaning every surface and preparing menus and desserts. Some people stress about how much Christmas is going to cost - another gift to buy, all that petrol driving from one place to another. Everything adding up. Some people stress because of the time commitments that seem to be endless - work parties, friend get together's, your family, their family, the other relatives that couldn't make it the first date.

A very ambitious plan

My stress comes from too much DIY. I'm doing my best to live my life without buying so much stuff, and that includes gifts for others. I'm aiming to upcycle, recycle and create from eco friendly resources as many Christmas gifts as possible. We generate so much stuff in this life and after an experiment I did a couple of years ago that involved not buying a single item of new clothing I just don't feel comfortable buying more stuff any more.

I've got a list of all the gifts I want to make and have been doing my best to cross them off. But right now, I am getting a great big dose of reality that there just isn't enough time. There isn't enough time to bake what I want to bake, to sew what I want to sew, to make the wrapping paper I want to use.

I realised this morning that I'm not enjoying the process any more, so it's time to let go. I've taken a good hard look at my Christmas list and have crossed off the more ambitious gift ideas and instead am going to go to the Bris Style Markets tomorrow night. I figure if I can't do it myself, I'm more than happy to support other talented creators.

What's your biggest Christmas stress at the moment? Time for an offload.

Pinterest Road Test - DIY Clay Decorations

Clay Christmas Decorations from The Woodside Kitchen

The Woodside Kitchen's
original clay decorations

I've been looking for a good bake at home clay recipe for a while. The last time I made salt clay, my dog ate the decorations right off the tree. So finding one that didn't appear edible was a good thing, and corn flour and bicarb soda does not sound appealing to me. 

So first things first ingredients...

The Woodside Kitchen gave the ingredients as Cornstarch, Baking Soda and Water, but there was a lot of discussion in the comments about the decorations cracking or staying rubbery which comes down to some different names for ingredients depending on where you are. What you want to use is:

1/2 cup of Corn Flour
1 cup of Bicarb Soda (or Baking Soda - basically needs to be sodium bicarbinate)

3/4 cup of water

Ensure you are using the correct ingredients otherwise you will not get a hard clay decoration or you may get cracking.

 The mixing together is very easy. Just put it all in a saucepan, stir together then heat over low-medium heat.

There were some questions about whether you could do this in the microwave... I did not test this, but if you are going to give it a go only heat it in small increments (20-30 seconds) at a time, and stir in between. If you try this, please let me know.

It's done when it becomes stiff and silky (like smooth mash potatoes to borrow The Woodside Kitchen's term)

Scoop it out into a clean bowl and cover with a damp cloth until it cools slightly so you can knead it.

I left it for about 15 minutes and it was still warm when I kneaded it (I was impatient) but you can wait longer, especially if you are giving it to your kids to knead and want to make sure they don't burn themselves. The damp cloth will stop it from drying out in the meantime.

Sprinkle some more cornflour on the bench or breadboard (easier cleanup) and knead out as you would any dough. Mine was quite sticky so used more cornflour to keep it doughy. The kneading and rolling out is lots of fun (and cleanup is very easy) so feel free to let your kids have fun.

 

Roll out to 1cm high then cut with cookie cutters, or mould into whatever shape you want. I also did coin size disks that I intend to paint up and stick magnets on the back. I'm also replacing my tree star that my dog ate ;) which I moulded by hand.

Lay your decorations out on a tray with some baking paper. I skipped putting corn flour on the paper and regretted it - they all stuck and I had to sand the paper off, so don't forget that!

If you are planning to hang these on your tree, remember to poke a hole in them for your ribbon (I used a chopstick). I also pressed little circles around the edges, but you could do anything to decorate, or keep them plain for painting.

Pop them in the oven to bake. Here's another point that comes up when sourcing recipes the world over... The Woodfire Kitchen says 1 hour at 175', but I suspect this is Fahrenheit (which would be 80'c) As I cooked mine for only 1/2 hour at 175' and they were rock hard I suspect this is the case. I'll test again at 80'c and see how they go. If you beat me to it, please post in the comments!

The Woodfire Kitchen recommends flipping them over half way and this would stop any bubbling or cracking - and give a nice even finish. As I said, mine were rock hard 1/2 hour in so I just took them out. I had some bubbles and a few small cracks, but nothing worth worrying about.

One thing I did do was give them all a quick sand to clean up the edges and take off any imperfections, which I think made all the difference.

Now time for painting!

I gave them 2 coats of white acrylic then painted some lovely Scandinavian designs in red. You could also finish them all off with a coat of lacquer to give them a nice gloss finish.

Overall a pretty easy project, but I'm glad I did a quick Google search to confirm ingredients before I started as they could have gone very wrong without that clarification.

Have you tried this project? Let me know how you went.

Road Test Results

Ease - I'd put this as low-medium difficulty. There was some confusion about the ingredients but with a quick Google search I got to the bottom of these

Time - A bit time consuming. All up about 6 hours as you have to wait for baking time and drying time between each coat of paint. But this is up to you as to how much effort you put in.

Ability - Beginners can do this project quite easily. However if you aren't used to painting details keep this to a minimum. Try block colours or even use stamps.
Cost - Cheap as free. I had cornflour and bicarb in my cupboard. But even if you had to buy the supplies you could get away with this project for around $5.

Cleanup - easy, the uncooked clay dissolves in water so can easily be cleaned up. I would tip any extra on a patch of garden you don't mind much about though as it may clog up your sink.

Links

Original Inspiration - The Woodside Kitchen
Pinterest Inspiration Pin - Cornstarch & Baking Soda Clay Christmas Decorations

The Next Stage of Pizza Ovening

I was going to hold out posting this until it was fired up, but I couldn't wait.

Last weekend my dad and I finished the dome on the long awaited Pizza Oven. And while it is not yet finished (the dome will be covered by an outer wall, then we have to render and tile), it has now reached the stage where it can be used as a functional oven.

Needless to say we are all pretty excited - Mum actually bought some bubbly for the occasion.

The last steps of the dome...

As I said last time, the top of the dome is very fiddly as you have to cut all the bricks to fit and they need to hold their own weight against each other so they don't fall in when you take the inside structure down. It's a whole lot of physics that I don't really understand, but I was very glad that my dad works in engineering and has a better grip on these things.

All the bricks fit, now we can  get the mortar in

Just because you're working doesn't mean you can't have nice nails.

The last bit of mortar!

We let the dome dry overnight before removing the inside structure as we wanted to make sure it was well and truly dry and wasn't about to crack

The next day...

We got the inside structure out and the dome didn't fall down! I was pretty tense at this point so was thrilled that it worked. 

You may notice a hole above the arch though. There was one brick that wasn't quite set when we put the inside structure in and it fell out. I had every intention of patching it back up once the dome was finished. This was an INSANE decision - I did it, but with a lot of swearing and mortar in my hair. 

How stoked are we that it worked!

Inside the dome, doesn't that brickwork look professional...

Dad doing one more layer of mortar to neaten it up. We ran out not long after this, but he assures me that he has finished this rendering since then so the oven will look nice for Christmas.

It looks almost professional (I'm very proud) :D

Next update on the Pizza Oven will be the first firing!

Leave your suggestions on what to cook in it below...