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A recent article from the Sun Herald newspaper in Sydney Australia reflects a healthy move in the right direction for the environment and vegetable gardening there.

It seems that Kindergarten students from the inner city Crown Street Public School are learning about sustainable vegetable gardening practices by growing pumpkins.  These unusual instructional tools are being used in the Kindergarten Garden as part of this school’s participation in Australia’s Second National Junior Landcare Pumpkin Challenge.  This initiative is likely to attract around 15,000 Australian schools and their students to produce their own organic food.

Sixty thousand vegetable garden seeds of the pumpkin variety have been sent to schools and individuals in response to their registration for this event.

Schools and student groups have been directed to visit the Landcare Challenge website every month and record details of the weight of their pumpkin.  As pumpkins grow to substantial sizes they maintain the interest of these young gardeners across the competition.

Back home, we are nearing the time to harvest our pumpkins after their summer growing season.  Pumpkin vegetable garden seeds planted around from March to May are nearly ready for harvesting.  Many of these roast well, or make great winter soups and mash!  

Boston Squash can be grown in small areas and keep for a long time.  Its skin changes to deep orange towards the end of summer.

Burgess Vine Buttercup is one of the most popular and sweeter squashes.   A dark green in color, it has a paler green button on its under size.  Another seed variety that grows on compact vines this is also suitable for a smaller garden.

Waltham Butternut is a better version of the well known butternut squash.  Necks of these butternuts are wider and straighter, there is less seed space and their flesh is thicker.  They store well and stay firm when cooked.  No more watery steamed butternut and they are great in pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving.

Thelma Sanders Sweet Potato Acorn Squash Originally from Ohio, this is another long lasting squash, full of flavor and able to be grown even across short summers.  It can be cooked in a variety of dishes but nothing beats cutting them in half and roasting them slowly.  Try this!

Pumpkin Halloween Seeds, best planted across March are great for making lanterns or for pumpkin pie.  Keep them in a dry, cool spot and they will keep well until the end of the year.

So as the Aussie Kindergarten kids are having fun planting their pumpkin vegetable garden seeds to learn about sustainability in their part of the world, we’re entering our pumpkin and squash harvest season.  If you missed out on planting these seeds this spring/summer makes sure you buy some in preparation for next year.

Warm regards

Antonio Fontanes

For theteam@MightyDigitalDownloads.com

Transforming Lives, One Person at a Time

Antonio Fontanes is from a family of successful gardeners and grows delicious organic vegetables year round. Want to learn more about how to grow great veggies? Go to my website www.vegetablegardens4U

You can still enjoy the thrill of whale watching from a number Australian towns as this part of Australia's coast is the migratory path for thousands of whales each year and a haven for whale watchers.  If you coordinate your Western Australia travel with whale migration there you can enjoy the breath taking spectacle of whale watching as well as land-based exploration.

At the end of April, humpback, southern right and even rarer blue whales travel north along this coastline towards warmer breeding grounds.  They leave their food laden southern ocean behind but later in the year make their way back south to grow and develop there.

There are whale watching cruises and land based lookouts available from each of these Western Australia travel destinations; Albany, Exmouth, Hillarys, Denham, Broome, Geographe Bay and Kalabarri.  The likelihood of sighting these magnificent creatures is high at the right time of the year, especially around noon.

If you visit Western Australia in June you can see humpbacks and southern rights around Augusta on the south coast.

Albany had a large whaling station right up until the early 1970’s but has turned this into an impressive interactive whale watching museum.  The best time to see whales in nearby King George Sound is July through October.  Albany is ‘Grand Central Station’ for humpback and southern right whales as they mate and calve around this area.

Dunsborough is just north of Margaret River and a popular destination for viewing some of the less prolific blue whales and thier calves in nearby Geographe Bay during September.

About mid-way up the very long Western Australia coast is Kalbarri.  Kalbarri is a little north of Bussleton a well known wildflower area around spring, (September, October and November).  At Kalbarri, especially from vantage points at Eagle George, Red Bluff and Natural Bridge you can see humpback whales swim north from June through November.

Probably the most spectacular of all whale watching experiences is at Ningaloo Marine Park about 100 miles south of Exmouth on the North West Cape.  This destination is over half way up the WA coast about 800 miles from Perth.  It’s worth flying there from Perth unless you have plenty of time and drive a 4-wheel drive.

On offer from late March through June each year is an opportunity to snorkel there with whale sharks. Yes this is possible!  Snorkeling at the Ningaloo Marine Park is one of the best snorkeling experiences you’ll find anywhere on earth and although whale sharks grow up to 60 feet in length they are harmless!

If you enjoy water experiences with water creatures and include Ningaloo Marine Park as part of your Western Australia travel, consider stopping en route or as you return south to Perth at Monkey Mia.  Monkey Mia is near Denham on the Peron Peninsula about 500 miles north of Perth.  Every day, friendly bottlenose dolphins from a pod of around 330, swim to shore to interact with visitors from around the world at this unique part of Western Australia’s coastline.
 
The Kimberley Coast is way north in Western Australia and this is yet another of the Western Australia travel destinations that promises extraordinary whale watching experiences; this time humpbacks as they move off the coast of Broome to give birth to their young from June to November.

Warm regards

Rowena French

For theteam@MightyDigitalDownloads.com

Transforming Lives, One Person at a Time

Rowena French has traveled Australia extensively, exploring much of this vast and very diverse country. If you’d like to read more about our favorite Western Australia travel destinations, or our other Australian travels, read our website at www.AustraliaTravel4U.com

When traveling Down Under we find its best to adopt the policy of ‘When in Australia, Do as the Aussies Do’. These Australia travel tips reflect what the Aussies ‘do’ in their country even in the ‘outback’ where you are most likely to encounter Australia’s wildlife in its natural environment. 

Road Travel. Aussies travel on the left hand side of the road.   Obtain an International License if your own license is not likely to be accepted.  Hitch hiking is illegal and dangerous so don’t!  Speed limits are 100-110 kph on highways and 50-60kph in towns and cities. Take care when entering a flow of traffic that will come from the opposite direction to what you generally expect.

Watch out for kangaroos hopping across country roads especially at dawn and dusk when they are most active.  Keep an eye out for them sitting on roads where they like to enjoy the warmth of the bitumen during winter.  If a kangaroo hops in front of you while you’re traveling at high speed, don’t swerve to miss it.  A head on hit is likely be a safer outcome than ‘rolling’ your car as you leave the road.

Avoid leaving young children in a locked car in hot weather as dehydration commonly occurs in this situation.  Take care to ‘Stop, Revive and Survive’ every two hours to avoid driver fatigue.

Another important Australia travel tips relates to safety in the ‘bush’ or ‘outback’.  Avoid traveling on outback roads without others who know the area well or at least with a reliable means of communication.  Australia’s outback is vast and being stranded if you break down in an isolated area is just not worth the risk. 

Banks and Shops. There is some limit to the number of shops open on Sundays in Australia.  Most tourist centers provide 7 day trading.

Banks open between 9 am and 4pm Monday through Friday.  Most towns have automatic teller machines for 24/7 transactions. There are facilities in all cities for changing foreign currency.

Safety. Protect your skin by wearing 30+sunscreen, especially in summer as well as a sunhat and protective clothing.

Aussie beaches are some of the best in the world but to stay safe when you visit them follow beach safety rules and only swim at patrolled beaches and between flagged areas where local lifesavers patrol daily.  Avoid swimming in northern Australia because of the presence of marine stingers (box jellyfish) October–June. Only swim in stinger protected beaches. To avoid the painful and sometimes fatal sting of well camouflaged stonefish, always wear thick sole shoes when walking on a reef or in shallow waters.

Air Travel to Australia is a long flight.  Reduce the impact of this by either requesting a seat with extra leg room near exit doors if possible, moving around the plane often or even by breaking the journey with a stop-over in Hawaii or even Fiji.  A stop-over will ensure that you arrive fresh and ready to start your vacation here having minimized the effects of jet lag.

Warm regards

Rowena French

For theteam@MightyDigitalDownloads.com

Transforming Lives, One Person at a Time

Rowena French has traveled Australia extensively, exploring much of this vast and very diverse country. If you’d like other Australia travel tips to help you plan your vacation here, go to our website www.AustraliaTravel4U

We’ve traveled to spectacular Alaska a number of times and learned the hard way about how to be selective when packing our Alaska luggage. This is our list of core essentials that we’ve found accommodates space and weight for Alaskan purchases on our journey home.

Alaska Luggage Packing List

2 prs jeans

1 pr shorts

4 long sleeved t-shirts

2 short sleeved t-shirts

5 prs socks

Underwear

Sweater

Sunglasses

Warm jacket, scarf, gloves and woolen cap (for glacier cruises)

Water proof jacket and pants (for off shore fishing trips)

Cotton sun hat

Leather walking shoes/Runners

Walking sandals

Toiletries

Small Hairdryer

PJ’s

camera

Buy on Arrival

Mosquito repellent

Sun cream

Overseas travelers can buy a cheap hairdryer or bring an adapter with their own

Take a camera that you’ve has plenty of practice using. Alaska is a photographers paradise but ‘photo opportunities’ come and go quickly so you don’t want to be caught trying to focus a new camera as a moose heads across the road and out of sight!

Buy bear repellent (pepper spray is popular) when you arrive in Alaska if you plan an extensive walking and camping vacation. Make sure you get a copy of the National Parks and Wildlife’s excellent bear safety pamphlet as well and be well prepared for every aspect of your safety.

Take light weight rainproof pants and top if you plan to visit southern Alaska where it rains frequently in summer or even if you take a fishing trip off the coast when it may rain.

Buy a bottle of Mosquito repellent when you travel to Alaska in summer. Mosquitoes thrive in the wet or receding snow in warm Alaskan summers and they’re big! Alaskans call the mosquito their ‘state bird’.  We were surprised at how they were so silent so include repellent in our luggage as soon as you arrive.

Err on the side of taking less rather than more clothes or other gear if you are uncertain about the best luggage to take. Clothes are generally inexpensive and easy to locate in supermarkets and other outlets in Alaska . Anchorage stores have a wide selection of sports gear for hunting and fishing. Better to take less Alaska luggage than get stuck lugging around its dead weight for your whole trip.

Always take an equivalent to our trusty 'blue bag' as carry on luggage during long planes journeys or for the many day cruises, rail trips or short plane flights you can take during your Alaska vacation. Our blue bag is the most used of all our luggage and travels everywhere with us!

Warm regards

Rowena French

For theteam@MightyDigitalDownloads.com

Transforming Lives, One Person at a Time

If you’d like more information about how to keep your Alaskan luggage light with plenty of room for reminders of your Alaskan vacation, read How to Pack Alaska Luggage and Avoid Excess Baggage Costs Part 1 on my website at www.alaskatravel4U

The process of creating vegetable gardening compost is the same as creating compost for any garden. Gardening compost is a cheap, healthy organic fertilizer relished by the best veggie gardens. It helps soil hold more water and assists you to produce successful organic vegetable crops. To create organic gardening compost for your vegetable garden, follow these easy steps.

Find a shaded part of your vegetable garden protected from hot winds for your gardening compost pile. Make sure it has a cement or solid sand base. Edge your pile with cement blocks or timber planks and divide it into three bins to make the composting process efficient. Each bin should have a floor area of around 12 square feet and be about 3 feet high. One is for new material, another for material to be turned and the other for completed compost.

Begin the pile by spreading your compost material 6-8 inches high. This material can include grass clippings, leaves and other garden waste. Dust with agricultural lime and a handful of complete fertilizer containing nitrogen.

Cover with a layer of garden soil and repeat this layering process until it is about 3 feet in height. Turn the heap every two to three weeks with a digging fork or shovel to assist with the decomposition of your gardening compost. Turning allows the pile to cool and aerates providing the microbes working in it some fresh air. Not all microbes (bacteria and fungi) need air to survive, but those in your compost pile do.

Water a little after turning but make sure not to over water as compost heaps work best with the right amount of moisture. To this end, cover the compost bins with Hessian or even an old piece of carpet to avoid the effect of heavy rain.

Watch the temperature of your compost pile as it can get very warm and should not exceed a temperature of 150F. Your finished compost should be ready for use after about three turns in around 8-10 weeks when it’s warm. The composting process will take longer in cooler weather.Distribute the compost 2-3 inches over your vegetable garden and turn it into the topsoil.

To save the time it takes to establish a compost pile of your own, you might consider buying a ready made compost bin (ranging from around $100- $300) or in a smaller garden or even a patio garden, a less expensive compost pale (approx $29-$39). Whether you build or buy your compost piles, know that gardening compost is the cheapest and most environmentally friendly organic fertilizer for your vegetable garden.

Warm regards

Antonio Fontanes

For theteam@MightyDigitalDownloads.com

Transforming Lives, One Person at a Time

Antonio Fontanes is from a family of successful gardeners and grows delicious organic vegetables year round. Want to learn more about how to grow great veggies? Go to my website www.vegetablegardens4U

I’ve traveled to Alaska many times and enjoyed different cruises there often. This is largely because so much of Alaska's impressive scenery can be viewed from the water.  Some of the most appealing cruises take a day and these generally run daily from May to September from Alaska’s coastal towns. They are guided by well informed locals and compact in length.  All you need to do is book early, arrive on time and sit back and enjoy unique viewings only available from a boat!

An Alaska day cruise whale watching around Resurrection Bay and further off the coast of Seward is likely to provide close up views of wildlife and sea creatures for most of the day. Cruise goers are often treated to sights of orca (killer whales), humpback whales or grey whales and even to sightings of Stella sea lions, bird rookeries, puffins, eagles, and even porpoise and sea otters. Puffins are amazing creatures only venturing on to land to nest. They can dive underwater for up to one minute and this is a sight worth seeing!

An Alaska day cruise from the town of Valdez through the edge of Prince William Sound can see you exploring the spectacle of the Columbia Glacier.  This is Alaska's largest tidewater glacier and is well worth visiting.  Columbia and the nearby Mears Glacier both feature active calving along their faces. As a result a large number of floating ice bergs move in and around nearby waters across the warmer months of each year. Regardless of the time of the year, always take warm clothes on this day cruise as glaciers have a substantial impact on the surrounding air temperature.

Alaskan wild life features in these glacier day cruises as this is the habitat of whales, sea lions, puffins, seals, sea otters, eagles, goats, bears and other land and sea creatures. As Valdez endured the Alaskan earthquake of ’64 and the ’89 oil spill a 6.5 hour day cruise in the pristine waters surrounding this interesting town always include historical information around these events.

Further south, consider taking an Alaska day cruise from Juneau to the spectacular fjord Tracy Arm and Sawyer Glacier there.  Be prepared for a long day (8.5 hours) as traveling to the Taku inlet from Juneau takes a while. It is well worth traveling the distance and this part of the journey is made interesting as it follows the migrating pathway of whales along Alaska’s coastline. Viewing these creatures breaching and tail waving is common.

The rest of the trip is breathtaking as well. Waterfalls, bears, mountain goats, seals, sharp glacier-ravaged cliffs, deep teal colored waters and the striking contrast of white ice flows and then the calving glacier – up close and very real, stimulate all the senses in this very unique experience. There is nothing quite like a day cruise to Tracy Arm!

An Alaska day cruise is often an experience not able to be replicated on large cruise liners because if the navigation maneuverability of smaller cruise vessels. So consider one or even each of these Alaska day cruises when you visit.  You will remember them as highlights of your vacation. For more information about Alaskan cruising go to my website http://www.alaskacruisetravel4u.com/

Warm regards Rowena French

For theteam@MightyDigitalDownloads.com

Transforming Lives, One Person at a Time

Rowena French has enjoyed a life-time love affair with Alaska, returning often, ‘just once more’, to experience another aspect of this spectacular part of the world.

Keeping weeds cleaned out of the rows and between the plants in the rows should always be approached as soon as seeds or plantlets are planted to keep them to a minimum. Where hand-work is necessary, do it immediately.

As weeding requires constant care in vegetable cultivation I suggest that you buy a wheel hoe. The simplest types will not only save you a good deal of time and energy but they weed better than you can by hand. You can grow good vegetables, especially if your garden is a very small one, without one of these tools, but you will never regret the cost of this investment.

When you follow these practical suggestions as part of your vegetable cultivation you will reduce weeding to a minimum.

Get at this work while the ground is soft. As soon as the soil begins to dry out after a rain is the best time. Under such conditions the weeds will pull out by the roots, without breaking off.

Immediately before weeding, go over the rows with a wheel hoe, cutting shallow, but just as close as possible leaving a narrow, plainly visible strip which must be hand-weeded. The best tool for this purpose is the double wheel hoe with disc attachment, or hoes for large plants.

Make sure that that every inch of soil surface is broken up, not just the weeds pulled but. It is just as important that the weeds just sprouting be destroyed, as that the larger ones be pulled up. One stroke of the weeder or the fingers will destroy a hundred weed seedlings in less time than one weed can be pulled out after it gets a good start.

Use one of the small hand-weeders until you become skilled with a wheel hoe. Not only may more work be done but your fingers will be saved unnecessary wear. With a wheel hoe, the work of preserving the soil mulch becomes very simple. The skillful use of the wheel hoe can be developed through practice during your vegetable cultivation. The first thing to learn is that it is necessary to watch the wheels only. The blades, disc or rakes will take care of themselves!

For more information about the importance of vegetable cultivation in a successful vegetable garden read my article ‘The Benefits of Effective Vegetable Cultivation’ on my website www.vegetablegardens4U

Warm regards

Antonio Fontanes

For theteam@MightyDigitalDownloads.com

Transforming Lives, One Person at a Time

Antonio Fontanes is a well seasoned vegetable grower from a family of experienced gardeners. Want to learn more about how to grow great veggies? Go to my website www.vegetablegardens4U