Garden show 2011

I went to the Qld Garden Expo today at Nambour. I went last year and loved it, so definitely wanted to go again this year. It was really cold when Kasey and I got there, but it soon warmed up to a beautiful day. I didn't go to any of the "talks" or demonstrations this year, I was there to mainly stock up on some more fruit trees and I wanted to get some bamboo plants, even so, we were there for 6 hours. But I came home with lots of treasures..

Fruit trees galore, including a fruit salad tree which has peachcott, plum, nectarine and peach all on the same plant. I also bought avocado, wampi, lychee, curry plant, japoticaba, black sapoate and some lovely anthuriums for the greenhouse in red, chocolate and black.

 I also bought an outdoor mushroom kit which will grow for a few years in the garden, the lovely big field mushrooms, as well as 2 shitake mushroom kits, 1 of which can be stored in the fridge until after the first one is finished, and it can then be put out.

I bought these lovely 2 purebred australorps at the show, they are enjoying a lovely dust bath in their new home, while the other bigger chickens are out of the pen...I think they may be in for a bit of a hard time once the other chickens go back in to their pen later this afternoon.

 I also bought this home canning kit, it has tongs, a jar lifter, lid tongs etc and a jar funnel. I also got  a couple of dummy eggs, as the girls like to lay in the wrong spot, so I hope this will encourage them to lay in the right spot. They wer also giving away these shower timers so I grabbed a couple to "encourage" shorter showers.

I picked up this sweet little sign, down from $25 to $10...

And of course, the obligatory face painting while at the show....

I bought this book the other day, I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but will get to it soon. I haved also booked in to a 2 day cheesemaking course at the end of October, we make 10 different cheeses over the weekend, so I am really looking forward to that. I have also found a local who sells native bee hives, so will purchase one of those over the next few weeks, so slowly starting to implement the ideas from my permaculture course.