I haven't been on for ages and ages. Things started to go very bad for me early last year, got even worse for by the end of 2008 when essentially I was dying and no one could work out why ... then discovered I had stage 4 cancer (like, how could they have missed that??) and oh, eek! and all that. Then followed massive surgery, and about 7 months of chemotherapy! LOL (You have to laugh.) Anyway, for the moment now I am cancer free (if not quite free of the fear).
During those awful 18 months or so my beautiful garden went to wrack and ruin (I had to cancel my mail as I could not make the 20 step walk to the letterbox, so imagine what devastation was wreaked on my garden through inattention).
So - to backtrack a little - hello (again), my name is Cornelian and I live in Hobart in Tasmania (little country south of Australia and still subjected to its hated rule
). I have a lovely old Victorian house (also sadly neglected while I lay in bed for months at a time) and a half an acre garden.I LOVE growing my own food - I missed it dreadfully while I was so ill! (In fact, I felt so guilty about the garden and its sad decline I kept the curtains drawn on the side of the house that looked over the garden for about a year. I just could not look out.) For the past couple of months I have been drawing the garden back from the brink - clearing, weeding, pruning ... trying to persuade it to live again. I still have lots of weeding and pruning back to do
(this icon is so appropriate!) but I managed to get in 3 beds of winter brassicas and peas and beets, so at least I have something. Also I ordered in seven raised beds (made of corrogated iron). I have bolted them together and put them all in position, and last week ordered about 4 cubic metres of soil and compost to finish filling them (I put lots of pruning offcuts in their bases). I am still finding it difficult to do any heavy work so the filling is going slooooooowly. They will double my food growing area. :)
Last night I celebrated midwinter solstice. I lit a huge bonfire and scattered herbs from the garden about and on the fire and wrote down on paper all that had happened to me and all I still feared then tossed everything into the fire. Hopefully it will work.
I had lots of beer, too, which was good. I am determined to be as self-sufficient in food as possible in 2010. I have ordered in all my seeds, have done all the planning (thank God for the new raised beds), and apart from meat and dairy and flour and sugar and vinegar ... I think I will do well. I also love preserving so can make all my own preserves - sauces, condiments, jams etc etc etc.
I live for my garden - love it to bits. I made a big commitment to the future last week by ordering in a fig tree that will take 4 years to fruit. I still want to be here to enjoy its fruits. :)
So, hello again everyone. I think I have lots of catching up to do!
.... Let's hope that is truly in the past and that you and your garden will be healthy and flourish from now on. Welcome back. 
