Greetings from Melbourne, Australia

[AlexSBayley]

Hi all,

New here, just discovered the forums, and delighted to join you all.

My name's Alex (I also go by Skud online in many places), and I live in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, in a share house with two other women. We have a small block with as much veg garden as we can fit in it (landlords and the constraints of mostly-container gardening permitting). Currently, in early spring, we're growing lots of green things, just planted zucchini and squash, and have tomato and pepper seedlings progressing nicely. We're expecting to be about 50% self-sufficient in veg this year, mostly just needing to buy root veg and mushrooms and a few things we can't easily grow, like coriander/cilantro which invariably bolts here in the hot summers.

I work from home building a website for people who grow their own food (it's called Growstuff, but I won't/can't link it as a new member, which is fair enough) so I get to combine software development with a bunch of self-sufficient skills in the home. We bake sourdough bread, make ginger beer, make our own stock and preserves and breakfast cereal, and I knit and sew and generally try to make-and-mend things rather than buy them. I find that the combination of coding at my kitchen table and attempting partial self-sufficiency is a good combo... each gives me a break from the other, and helps keep me happy and mentally healthy. A lot of people seem to feel isolated working from home, but I don't find that so much.

I guess that's it for now. I'm going to dive in on some other threads and hope to get to know many of you soon!

A.

[tosca]

Hello and welcome.