Far From Green

06/09/2026

PART 2: Rodent proofing our chicken coop 🐀🐔

Yesterday I lost the battle against daylight.

Today, we finished it. 😂

The chicken coop is finally back in place on its new paver base, everything has been cleaned out, and I’ve filled the inside with h**p bedding for a deep litter system.

The idea is to make the coop easier to keep clean, keep the girls comfortable, and make it a whole lot harder for rats and mice to decide they’d also like to become members of the household. 😅
Fingers crossed it helps with Snakes. 🐍

And yes, it’s Father’s Day.

And yes, my husband still ended up inside the chicken coop with the power tools helping me finish it. 😂

Happy Father’s Day, babe, thanks for helping me with my project. 💀

The girls are back in, the coop is finished and I am VERY happy with how this turned out.

Now we wait to see how the h**p deep litter bedding performs. 👀

Would you use h**p bedding in your chicken coop?

05/09/2026

Rodent proofing the chicken coop… except apparently I forgot the sun sets. 😂🐀🐔

Today’s job was supposed to be simple: create a solid paver base under our chicken coop to help stop rats and mice digging underneath.

Sounds easy enough.

Until you remember I’m doing this with three kids, one tiny “helper”, a trolley full of pavers and a rapidly disappearing amount of daylight. 😂

I actually got a decent chunk of it done… but not quite enough to call this chicken coop rodent proof yet.

Then the kookaburras started laughing.

Honestly, fair. 😂

So this is officially PART ONE of rodent proofing our chicken coop.

Tomorrow we continue laying the pavers, get the coop back into position and hopefully make it considerably harder for anything furry to move in underneath.

Because apparently growing our own food wasn’t keeping me busy enough. Now I’m renovating chicken accommodation too. 🐔😂

Would you have used pavers underneath your chicken coop, or done it another way?

31/08/2026

This is my second fruit salad tree from the same growers, and I think that probably says a lot about how much confidence I have in them 🌳😂

Multi-grafted trees can feel a little intimidating. You’re not just buying one variety and hoping it settles in, you’re trying to keep multiple grafts happy on the same tree.

But after my experience with my first Fruit Salad Tree, I was actually really comfortable giving another one a go.

So here we are.

Another tree.
Multiple varieties.
And me once again trying to squeeze as much food as physically possible into the 450m² I have available 😂

The grafts are looking great, there’s plenty of fresh growth and so far it seems very happy.

I’ll keep sharing how it develops because I know a lot of people were curious about these after my first tree.

Would you grow a multi-grafted fruit tree, or would it make you nervous? 👀

29/08/2026

I celebrated hitting 100kg of homegrown food for 2026… and apparently the garden wasn’t finished 😂🌱

This is the latest little haul coming out of my 450m² growing space.

Papaya, passionfruit and yet another bowl overflowing with mulberries, native raspberries and strawberries. 🍓

And this is exactly why I started weighing everything.

One harvest doesn’t always look like much. A handful here, a bowl there, something picked while I’m outside with the kids…

But keep doing that all year and suddenly you’re standing there looking at more than 100kg of food that didn’t come from the supermarket.

And there are still four months of 2026 left. 👀

Now I’m VERY curious where this total is going to end up.

150kg? 175kg? Dare I say 200kg?! 😂

Follow along because apparently we’re finding out.

28/08/2026

108KG. I actually did it 😭🌱

At the start of 2026 I set myself a goal to harvest 100kg of food from my own backyard.

And today I officially passed it.

108kg harvested so far. 🤯

I genuinely wasn’t sure I’d get there. There have been failed crops, ridiculous amounts of trial and error, things eaten by bugs, things eaten by chickens, plants I definitely should have given up on sooner 😂 and plenty of moments where I wondered what on earth I was doing.

But somehow all those pumpkins, bananas, corn, papaya, passionfruit, potatoes, peanuts, ginger, turmeric and everything in between have added up.

And the funniest part?

It’s only the end of August.

I haven’t even finished weighing the potatoes yet. 😂🥔

This whole project was about seeing just how much food I could produce for my family from the space I have available, learning as I go and pushing our little garden much further than I thought possible.

100kg was the goal.

Now I’m VERY curious to see where we finish the year. 👀🌱

If you’ve been following along with this slightly chaotic experiment, thank you. We’re definitely not finished yet.

23/08/2026

20/08/2026

I took the first capsicum off this little plant a few weeks ago, gave it a tidy up and basically told it, “Right, your turn now.” 😂🌱

And LOOK at it.

There are capsicums hiding everywhere.

I know removing the first fruit doesn’t magically guarantee a bigger harvest, but I wanted to see what would happen if I let the plant put more energy into growing before carrying a heap of fruit.

So far… I’m pretty happy with that decision. 👀

This is exactly why I love experimenting in the garden. Sometimes it works, sometimes it absolutely does not, but either way I learn something.

Now we wait and see how many of these actually make it to harvest before the bugs, birds, kids or general garden chaos get involved. 😂

Would you remove the first capsicum from a young plant, or leave it alone?

14/08/2026

How much of my lunch can I actually grow myself? 🌱🥚

I’m trying to grow as much food as possible for our family of five using the 450m² of growing space I have available, and today the garden actually provided most of my lunch!

I headed out to three garden beds and came back with radishes, Asian greens, spinach and some slightly questionable chives 😂 Add fresh eggs from our backyard chickens and suddenly I had an actual meal sitting in front of me.

An omelette packed with homegrown spinach and chives, with a fresh garden salad on the side. 🥬🥚

Is it 100% self-sufficient? Nope.

Am I even remotely close to feeding a family of five entirely from 450m²? Also nope. 😂

But THIS is the experiment.

I want to find out just how much food I can actually produce from the space I have. I’m planting, learning, pushing the limits, getting things wrong, changing things and trying again.

Every meal that comes from our own garden feels like another little step closer. 💚

Now I just need those chives to get their act together… 😂

What’s one thing you grow that regularly makes it onto your plate?

10/08/2026

Well… this might be the least impressive unboxing on Instagram 😂🌳

But this little dormant stick is EXACTLY what I wanted!

I’ve just bought my second Fruit Salad Tree, and this time I went for a multi-grafted stone fruit tree.

One tree. Multiple varieties. Very little backyard real estate required. 🙌

This one has:
🍑 White nectarine
🍑 White peach
🟣 Blood plum
🍑 Yellow nectarine

And according to the tag, I’ve scored a yellow plum graft as a freebie too! 😂 So my four-way tree may actually be bringing FIVE varieties to the backyard.

It might not look particularly exciting right now, but it’s dormant and bare-rooted, which is exactly what I want for planting. Give it a little time and hopefully this stick is going to earn its keep. 😂

This is exactly the kind of thing I’m experimenting with as I try to squeeze more food production out of our little backyard. Why give an entire patch of ground to one variety when I can make one tree do the work of several?

Now to get it planted and see what happens! 🌱

Not sponsored or affiliated. I bought this one myself, and actually came back for a second tree because I loved the idea so much, and these guys are this awesome! 🩷
Fruit Salad Tree Company thank you 🙏

Would you plant a multi-grafted tree?

09/08/2026

Apparently my mulberries didn’t get the memo that it’s still winter 😂🌱

It’s AUGUST and I’m standing in the garden eating ripe mulberries straight from the tree… and they’re actually GOOD.

I genuinely expected them to be a bit sad and flavourless because surely they shouldn’t be ready yet?! Nope. Sweet, juicy and disappearing faster than I can bring them inside. 😂

This weather has completely confused the garden. Mulberries ripening, fruit trees flowering early, things growing when they normally wouldn’t… I feel like every time I walk outside there’s another “hang on, WHAT are you doing?!” moment.

Micro farming definitely keeps me guessing. 😂

Anyone else’s garden completely ignoring the calendar this year?

I guess I better start my spring routine? 🤷🏼‍♀️