Kids Friendly Natural Immunity Booster (Orange Based)

This is my kids-friendly natural immunity booster that works for my five year old. I started giving this to him since he was around 4 years old. 

The combination is orange based, so we refer to it as "juice", but it has ginger and turmeric in it.

For this recipe, I used:

3 oranges

1 lemon

around 4 cm of fresh ginger (can be replaced with minced ginger in jar)

3 tablespoon of turmeric powder (adjust to your liking)

When serving, add honey to your liking.

I cut up the oranges and lemon into roughly segment of 1.5-2 cm, doesn't have to be precise.

And the ginger, I cut the up into tiny cubes, as small as possible.

Scatter the turmeric on the cut up fruits and mix to combine.

Put them in small to medium size jars or containers and put straight into freezer. 

When needed, defrost it and add 2-3 tablespoons of the mix into 500ml boiling water. Boil for 7-10 minutes, strain and add honey.

For adult, I also add a few (5-6) dried olive leaves from my garden into the boiling water as well.

The olive leaves will add bitterness, so it won't be kids friendly.

Viola Invasion?

This Spring, I have had a big burst of viola invasion in the garden. I use them as a live mulch for underneath the lemon-lime tree and Mandarin tree. The flowers are so amazing and I use them in all sorts of infusion and added them in salad. 

However, looks like no matter how much I use them, they seem to produce so much seeds. Obviously because of the nature of the flower, those seeds popped and scattered all over the garden.

These photos were taken from the violas around the Aloe Vera plants. As you can see, there are lots of tiny seedlings growing:

The pretty little flowers:

I use the flower together with Aloe Vera gel and juice for sunburn relief. They're awesome together. And that was why I planted them together. It makes things easier in harvesting.

Lettuce Harvest December 2019

I found a forgotten photo of one of my lettuce Harvest in December 2019.

We were happy with the harvest. It was probably the biggest lettuce head we had harvested so far.

I planted this particular batch in the raised garden bed, sharing space with the dragonfruit tree and a bunch of sunflower plants.

Happy Aloe Vera in Unexpected Spot

There is a tiny little patch of soil at my backyard, next to the laundry lines. I remember when I first moved in, I thought the spot looked horrible. It was dry, dirty (lots of dog hair, broken clothes pegs and rags). So, for a few months the spot was not occupied by anything. I didn't have the heart to plant anything there. 

I eventually tidied up that space, dug out some of the crushed rocks and topped it with some decent all purpose soil. I also realised how hot it is on that spot (brilliant spot for hanging laundry by the way). But, what kind of plant will survive there?!

At that time(probably about 2 years ago), my Aloe Vera was tiny and occupied a square plastic pot. I took a risk and planted it on the ground on that spot. Could be my luck or I do in fact have green thumbs, the Aloe Vera grew wild! 

I've harvested so many leaves of Aloe Vera for sunburn relieve and for face lotion. And this year, there were lots of little pups starting to develop. So, I separated them and replanted them along that same spot:

I also planted Johnny Jump Up Viola around them. I blend the Aloe Vera leaves gel and the viola flowers for sunburn relieve lotion, so I thought mind as well plant them at the same spot.

The original Aloe Vera plant had started developing pups again now:

It won't be long until I have to separate them again.

LittleMsGreenies is now GentleSoulGnome

Hello everyone,
After very careful consideration and reflection, I decided it was time to update my old blog name LittleMsBusy to GentleSoulCraft. Following that change, I also updated LittleMsGreenies to GentleSoulGnome to make things consistent between the 2 aliases.

This 2019 Spring is my 3rd spring season I live in Melbourne and marked 3 years of my backyard garden. Whenever I see my garden, I always see some things to improve, to fix, to add, and so on. A few days ago, I was scrolling through old photos and realised that things actually had grown and changed significantly.

This was how the original garden looked like in 2016:

And now the backyard has a 4 beds crop rotation going, a very tall bay tree (that I brought along with me from Sydney), an overgrown Marshmallow trees and Dahlia:

The outdoor sitting area is surrounded by lush green grass, instead of the original crushed rocks:

So, this weekend, I'm going to appreciate my surroundings more and consciously remember that the perennials around me are doing well, growing stronger and taller, instead of focusing on what needs to be fixed and tidied up. I will of course do some weeding tomorrow morning, but I will definitely look at my plants with a different view and appreciation of them.

Let me know below if you have experienced this in the past and I welcome you to share your stories.

Bok Choy Trouble

Who doesn't love to cook and eat this popular Asian green! And, the snails and slugs in my garden also loves munching them. So, I had to retreat indoor when planting them.

They turned out excellent and I have been harvesting them a few times.

In fact, after the success of my first attempt, I planted a few more for succession harvesting.

I'm thinking that it could work with Melbourne autumn and winter weather, as the temperature near my window sill can be warm. I'm going to try and continue planting through autumn and winter to check if it will work and keep you all posted.

Superfood Sprouts

I came across a book in the local library about superfood sprouts. So, I decided to give it a try growing them. I ordered a few different seeds from TheSeedCollection and they arrived soon after.

The first seed is alfalfa:

They are the tiniest seeds and I was a tad concern when I saw them, as I wasn't sure how much I should put in one tray. I also planted another tray 2 weeeks after to get continuous supply. They turned out alright:

I put them in sandwich and salad. They taste super awesome. 

The second one is Japanese Radish:

They taste milder than radish and they are yummy in curry and also sandwich and salad 

The third seed is Sweet Pea. I'm very familiar with the look of them because of the mulch I frequently use. 

This is my son's favourite as they are sweet and crunchy. I put them in his sandwich, stir fry and curry when I put the radish sprout on mine.

The last sprout is Fenugreek:

I don't have the photo of the seeds for some reason. The problem I've been having with Fenugreek sprout is the seed shell. Some of them are quite tough to eat and I'm still unsure on how to avoid this from happening. 

I also still need to figure out a better seed raising medium to minimise waste. These sprouts are supposedly can be consumed root and all. At the moment I'm only harvesting the top bit and composting the medium and the root.

All in all, it's very fun to grow your own sprout. They are so easy to harvest and use in different style of meals as well.

Soapmaking and Flower Drying

Happy New Year 2020 Everyone!! After a few months of blogging break, I finally had some quiet moment to put something together. And, I'm hoping I'll be more active in updating my blog this year. 

In the last few months I had a busy learning experience in making my own soap. After hesitating for a few years, due to the fact that I will need to handle chemical during the soapmaking process, I finally did some more research and read about the process. 

I already dried herbs and flowers gathered from my own garden. So, I already have the ingredients needed to make the infused oils for the soap. My adventure started with shopping trips to buy a few safety equipment and lye at the local Bunnings store and some utensils from Kmart.

This is the first batch of soap that I made using rose petals and calendula infused oil.

And here are some Lavender and Calendula drying on racks.

Ever since that batch, I made 2 more batches of soap. A batch for my son who has on and off eczema. I made the soap with Calendula and Chamomile infused olive oil and oatmeal. I'm happy to see his eczema hadn't returned ever since. Although, it could also be the weather warming up in Melbourne.

Another batch of soap that I made was for the purpose of replacing the liquid dishwashing soap. I made this soap with fresh Aloe Vera that grows in my garden and Lavender infused oil. I have been using this soap bar for dishwashing and happy to reduce packaging waste from the liquid dish soap.

The last batch that I made was shampoo bars. I can't wait to use these bars as my store bought shampoo bar was finishing up soon. I used Rosemary and Mint infused oil for this as I wanted to reap the antibacterial benefit of both plants. Again, I have them growing in my garden as well. 

So, I think this is a natural progression for my passion in gardening. I had planted quite a collection of beneficial flowers and herbs since I started gardening and now I use them for other things than just tea and cooking. 

I will try to remember to take photos the next time I collect, dry and infuse flowers and herbs and post them here. Most of the time I enjoyed the moment so much that I forgot to take my mobile with me to capture the moment. Also next time, I will post the link to my favourite website that I use as reference to learn to make soap.