Myth busting: Children who wear cloth nappies toilet train earlier than those who wear disposables.

I recently overheard a couple of older ladies talking about how, when they were raising babies, there was only cloth nappies available and consequently children toilet trained earlier than children these days who wear disposables. I overcame the desire to join in their conversation and tell them about my experience.
My son, Brendon, is two and a half years old. He has always worn a combination of cloth and disposable nappies. He usually wears the disposables when we go out or to sleep in, and the cloth nappies the rest of the time.
Over the last few months, one of the mothers in my mothers group has toilet trained her son, he is now even dry at night, and has never worn a cloth nappy. The other mothers in my group were starting to consider toilet training as all their children (all boys by the way) were telling them they had done or needed to do 'a poo or a wee.' Brendon was not showing any indication of being any where near ready to toilet train, and he is the only one who wears cloth nappies in the group.
I discovered one thing in common amongst the children in the group either toilet trained or showing that they were ready...all had nappy free time. This is something I had never really given Brendon much of.
After chatting with both my mother and mother-in-law about it, both suggested putting him in underpants (jocks) on warm summer days. Over the last few weeks my husband and I have been doing that, and just putting up with cleaning up the accidents. Fortunately we have exposed floorboards in most of the rooms in our house! Over the last week or so we have been rewarded, firstly Brendon started to notice he had done a wee...it's pretty hard not to when it is running down your leg and you are standing in a puddle! However, recently we have noticed huge progress when he uttered the words "Mummy, I did a poo." He then tells me it is hard to walk when you have a poo in your jocks or your nappy (cloth or disposable, he is now noticing when he does a poo in either).
About 12 months ago, Brendon was happy to sit on the potty and do a wee. All of a sudden one day he said no to the potty, and now refuses to sit on it. I did manage to get him to sit on it last week one day when he said he wanted a particular toy that he figured out Dad must have bought him and hidden in the house somewhere. I told him if he did a wee or poo on the potty or toilet he could have it. He sat on it for quite a while but nothing came out. What did come out was an explanation of why he doesn't like to sit on it, he told me it is uncomfortable. The potty he has is one with a hard plastic seat. He does have a cushie tushie for the toilet, but doesn't seem to like sitting up high on the toilet. So now I am on the hunt for a soft seated potty, perhaps one a bit gimmicky (I'm thinking flashing lights/music/etc) to entice him to sit on it.
So to those ladies who say that babies that wear cloth nappies toilet train earlier than those who wear disposables, I say that myth is BUSTED. My myth is that babies that have more nappy free time toilet train earlier than those who don't. Brendon now wears jocks when we are at home, unless I am putting him down for a sleep. Sure, we go through about 3 pairs of jocks per day, and I am forever cleaning up puddles off the floor (and the lounge and his high chair...), but it isn't as much of a hassle than I thought it would be.
By the way, I also tried disposable training pants, but they didn't work either. It seems the only thing that gives Brendon the feeling of being wet is when he is wearing jocks.

Picking my first honeydew

When is a rockmelon not a rockmelon? When it is a honeydew. When the seeds germinated, it looked like a rockmelon plant. I knew I had lots of rockmelon seeds in my compost, so assumed they were all rockmelons. However, now that the fruit has appeared, it is evident that one of them was actually honeydew. I was surprised as I rarely buy honeydew. So here is the first one that I have picked, weighing in at 1.1kg. Reasonably nice tasting but honeydew is not one of our favourite melons in this household. Now waiting to pick rockmelons!

"Garden fresh" pizza

On Thursday night I made pizza. Home made pizza is both delicious and very cheap to make. It is even cheaper now that most of the topping on this pizza came from my garden!

I made the pizza dough in my bread maker. I picked basil, tomatoes, green and yellow capsicums and I had some of my dried thyme as well as my olives. The only shop bought toppings on the pizza were the tomato paste base and the cheese!
Here is the finished product, good enough to eat. Yum, Yum!

My garden works while I'm away

One of the advantages of growing your own vegetables is that it still happens even when you're not there. We recently went away, albeit only for four days, but when I came home, there was nearly 3.5kg worth of produce ready to pick! This photo shows the zucchinis and tomatoes (one chopped up ready to be used for dinner that night), but I also picked strawberries.
However, I also discovered there was work to do for me when I returned. Powdery mildew attacked one of my zucchini plants, so I had a trip to the shops to get some lime sulphur for that. My pumpkin plants are going berzerk, lots of growth and a few flowers, but no pumpkins yet, so I had to pinch out the growing tips. My rockmelons are also going berzerk, so I had to pinch out the growing tips on them as well, but at least they have plenty of fruit on them. One of them is decidedly looking more like watermelon while the other looks like rockmelon. Entirely possible given they sprouted from seeds out of my 'not yet aged enough' compost heap.
I noticed when I went shopping this week that I didn't have to get much from the green grocers...just some bananas and one or two vegetables that I don't grow. I have been getting so many zucchinis and tomatoes that I am making a lot of meals out of them, cutting down on my grocery bill. I admit I wouldn't use zucchini's quite as much if I wasn't growing them in abundance, but I may as well use them up while they are in season.

Home Gardening Economics part 2

I noticed some of the prices of produce at the shops today, and have had a look at what I have picked from my garden. Hopefully this will inspire you to grow your own if you don't already.

Tomatoes at $3.99kg - I have picked about 3.13kg this season, worth $12.50. The seedlings were free, but I had to buy cow manure, seasol and fertiliser to look after them.
Zucchini are also $3.99kg - I have picked about 5 kg so far, worth $19.95. I don't remember how much the seedlings cost, would have only been a few dollars. Once again, planted in cow manure and have used seasol and fertilers on them.

Time to start planning the next stage of the garden

I have been getting quite a bit of produce out of my garden, and have been enjoying the fresh produce. However, I have noticed that some things are starting to die off or go to seed.

My lettuce has gone to seed, as has my parsley. My sweet corn and sunflowers are dying down... so it's time to think about my autumn/winter crop. I will be considering rotations crops and companion planting, so will allow the sweet corn and sunflowers to die down so they add nitrogen into the soil ready for the crop that will go in after them.
However, as some things are reaching the end of their life, other things are just fruiting. I have some rockmelons growing now, and have noticed some baby eggplants as well. I hope they reach maturity so we can enjoy home grown rockmelons and eggplants!

Growing sweet corn

I have learnt quite a bit about growing corn over the last few months. The first thing that comes to mind is location, location, location. I planted 8 sweet corn along the southern end of my back yard, and one over near the western fence. I thought the southern end would be a good spot for them, as they would get the northern sun. I was wrong. They are shaded by the shed to the east of them, as well as the trees right behind them, stopping the summer sunlight that would be going straight overhead. So they are shaded most of the day. The one over near the lemon tree is not shaded by anything, so gets sunlight most of the day. In this photo you can see the size difference in the corn cobs of the one picked from the southern fence compared to the one near the western fence.


You can also see that the small one is irregular, while the large one is full of kernels and looks much more appetising.
The sweet corn have now reached the end of their season, so here is my plan for the next time I plant sweetcorn:
Plant over near the western fence and make sure they have lots of sun.
Start early in the season so that I am more likely to get a few more ears of corn off them before they die off. I planted these in mid to late November last year.
Fertilise regularly as they are heavy feeders.