The Money Mustache Community
General Discussion => Welcome and General Discussion => Topic started by: HappierAtHome on July 15, 2016, 01:15:00 AM
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I thought it was about time we had an Australian gardening thread, so that we can share our southern hemisphere gardening adventures!
Full disclosure: I am an enthusiastic but inexperienced gardener, so I will be asking many questions.
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My house is on a 455sqm block in the inner-city suburbs of Perth. The house is big, with a big deck and a few smaller paved areas, so there's not a HUGE garden though I believe it's big enough to cause me plenty of joy and heartache ;-)
Last summer I played with some tomatoes and a capsicum plant (grown from seed!). This growing season I'm hoping to be the queen of tomatoes, plus try out some zucchini and eggplants.
I have three dwarf citrus trees (mandarine, lemon and lime) in large pots. I've purchased a super dwarf nectarine to pot, and a pinkabelle (dwarf pink lady) for a garden bed. It'll get a leprechaun (dwarf granny smith) to be its pollination partner soon.
I have a lot of grand plans including apples, avocados and all sorts of other exciting adventures, but I'm trying not to bite off more than I can chew - at least not all at once!
I am extremely fortunate that my Dad is a botanist and former nursery owner, so he is my Personal Gardening Consultant and is very, very patient when I text him a few times a week with dumb questions. I have told him to start charging me $5 per question, but he just laughed at me.
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Introducing my gardening endeavours! Another inexperienced one here.
When I was living in an apartment in Melbourne I had mint, rosemary and garlic chives to pick on my kitchen windowsill, and that was about it.
Now in Perth. Earlier on I was living in a house with lots of outdoors space, so I took up more gardening. I had a harvest of tomatoes in summer this year, and radishes, lettuce and rocket in autumn and winter, and I'm happy with that as a beginner. Currently living in a unit with limited outdoors space, and that space doesn't get direct sun, plus not sure how long I'll be here, but I did move some of my veggies in pots with me, so we'll see what happens. Most of the lettuce and rocket are going to seed already so I'll have to deal with that soon...
Not sure how long I'll be staying at my current place. But if/when I move I hope to keep up with gardening!
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I forgot about herbs! I've had some basil and will definitely do it again when the weather starts warming up. Mint seems to die on me really quickly. I have parsley which is doing well, and rosemary which isn't dying OR visibly growing so... who knows?
I've never been able to get coriander going. Which is a shame because it's so tasty.
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Do I qualify to post here? Been keeping a cactus alive and I haven't yet killed a sunflower plant I picked from mum's garden a few weeks ago.
Not a lot of greenery in my apartment block but I'm slowly gathering a growing collection of potted plants.
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Sure, if you want to!
Zucchini can be VERY prolific. 2 plants can probably produce more than 2 zucchini-loving people can cope with even after you give some away.
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Hallo all! I have a Kaffir lime, 1 surviving strawberry plant, sweet potato, and a growing succulent collection. I'm renting, but have put a few plants in the garden anyway to make it nicer - the best two so far were native violets, which has become prolific in the shade of some camellias, and a pink dwarf kangaroo paw along the driveway which I plan on purchasing again. Unless they can be separated?
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Posting to follow! I'm feeling a bit lost for words atm so will add more later.
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I've not heard of being able to separate kangaroo paws, but you never know!
Zucchini can be VERY prolific. 2 plants can probably produce more than 2 zucchini-loving people can cope with even after you give some away.
Are they as easy as everyone says? I want at least a few wins with gardening this year :-)
Do I qualify to post here? Been keeping a cactus alive and I haven't yet killed a sunflower plant I picked from mum's garden a few weeks ago.
Not a lot of greenery in my apartment block but I'm slowly gathering a growing collection of potted plants.
What are your potted plants, marty?
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Yay! I garden in my rental property in Brisbane. I have what I call my Unproductive Orchard in pots. The Unproductive Orchard is mostly from pre moustache days and represents a large investment in plants and pots for limited produce return.
- dwarf avocado
- lime tree
- lemon tree
- native finger like
- 2 Coffee trees
- Rosemary
- miracle berry tree
- 2 olive trees.
Recently I added some reduced to clear orphans to the mix - brown turkey fig, paw paw and mango tree. Thanks Bunnings for your slightly old rejected.
My MMM gardening effort is the tomatoes. It is my attempt at zero cost gardening. The only inputs have been 5 bags of horse manure ($10). Everything else I scavenged. The seeds were taken from previous crops. It is a red pear cherry tomato. I ate the first ripe one this morning. Mmmmm so good.
Oh and there is a passion fruit vine on the front fence that is super productive.
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That is one heck of a tomato patch!
Do you know why the orchard is so unproductive?
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Oh they are all potted... I don't have a garden as such :D
2 Cactai, one that is just branches with leaves (not sure what kind it is...). And a sunflower plant which is gorgeous...
Having said that it probably is not sunflower... just has yellow flowers that open and close at different times of the day
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PDM - what kind of avocado is it? Just occurred to me that some breeds are much better at self-pollinating than others, so that might be part of the issue.
Marty - I think if you can keep the cacti alive for a few more months you should try a tomato plant in a pot!
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PDM - what kind of avocado is it? Just occurred to me that some breeds are much better at self-pollinating than others, so that might be part of the issue.
It is the ok one for self pollination. Avos have A ands B types and I've never really got much past that other than when I bought it it said it was the good type for self pollination.
The Unproductive Orchard is mostly unproductive through poor plant choice. Olive trees that take 6-7 years to fruit. Coffee plants that take 2-3years. Probably unfair to the lime tree that gives heaps of limes each year. The finger lime tries hard ( that is its flowers) but probably needs more shade and love. Them all being in pots doesn't help. Less room for error with watering and feeding.
But what about those tomatoes! Break even is 3-4 punnets ( about 1 kg). That is a point of pride for me. For too long I've ploughed cash into the garden. Leading to $30/kg tomatoes or there abouts.
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MMMoustache gardening question - what is just not worth the cost/effort/time to grow in your vege patch?
I'll start - carrots. At 99c per KG I can't even come close to that.
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Hallo all! I have a Kaffir lime, 1 surviving strawberry plant, sweet potato, and a growing succulent collection. I'm renting, but have put a few plants in the garden anyway to make it nicer - the best two so far were native violets, which has become prolific in the shade of some camellias, and a pink dwarf kangaroo paw along the driveway which I plan on purchasing again. Unless they can be separated?
Internet says YES to propagating kangaroo paw by division of clumps.
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Hooray! I'm gardening on the south side of Brisbane. Ground's difficult; I've been told that this specific area was graded flat by the U.S. Army during World War 2 to park tanks and planes on. However it happened, I've got about 4 inches of topsoil before it goes to pure clay. I mean, I have had amateur potters dig it up, work with it and declare it a 'nice terracotta'.
I've put in a raised bed that's about 40cm deep on top of the lawn. The space I had was underneath a high verandah, so I didn't have much hope for it because it gets about 2 hours of sunlight at each end of the day, plus more in winter because it faces north. It's currently giving me more zucchini than I can eat - my next plan is to get another one just like it and plant tomatoes.
My chickens are currently frustrating my efforts - they flew over their 4ft fence a few times before I clipped their wings, and ate all my tomato seedlings. Ah well, try again later.
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I forgot about herbs! I've had some basil and will definitely do it again when the weather starts warming up. Mint seems to die on me really quickly. I have parsley which is doing well, and rosemary which isn't dying OR visibly growing so... who knows?
I've never been able to get coriander going. Which is a shame because it's so tasty.
Great thread idea. Mint likes water and also shade and will take over like a weed. Can plant near the tap so it thrives on the splashes and drips. I had a chocolate mint last year which was divine to smell but despite my best intentions to make a chocolate mohito, I never did.
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Thanks for starting this thread, Happier :)
MMMoustache gardening question - what is just not worth the cost/effort/time to grow in your vege patch?
I'll start - carrots. At 99c per KG I can't even come close to that.
Onions.
Garlic 'would' be on this list too in terms of cost but the home-grown stuff is so much better than anything imported.
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I've posted this link in my forum journal already but adding it here as well. It's a recap of my gardening from the first half of this year on my personal blog. (http://theindolentcook.blogspot.com/2016/07/2016-gardening-update-tomatoes-radishes-lettuce.html) For those who like to look at pictures and read stuff. :)
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I'm partway through clearing out a bush that I planted next to the driveway and I'm thinking about planting food in the space. Not sure what yet. It's not great growing weather at the moment (we had snow a few days ago) so I have a bit of time to think about it. Maybe snowpeas or beetroots or I dunno, something random.
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MMMoustache gardening question - what is just not worth the cost/effort/time to grow in your vege patch?
I'll start - carrots. At 99c per KG I can't even come close to that.
Onions.
Garlic 'would' be on this list too in terms of cost but the home-grown stuff is so much better than anything imported.
I buy Australian garlic and it is SO expensive. I wish I'd grown some this year! I'm assuming it's too late now?
I'd add potatoes to the list.
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I think its too late, although one blogger from Melbourne has not long planned his. The year i planted mine late, they still browned off in December, but the bulbs were v small due to reduced time in the ground. I would think with the hot summer in Perth this is what will happen.
I posted this on my journal but thought I would repost it here:
Year round garlic
Posting this because I'm pleased to have finally sorted out this problem and in case its any use to anyone else. Once I tasted Aussie organic garlic and then grew my own from the cloves, I was hooked. No more bleached white shop garlic from China or Mexico for me! Organic garlic won't last a year from harvest to harvest, so trying to stay self sufficient in garlic became a mini challenge for me.
Finally this year all my garlic is processed and I am set. Here's how I do it.
1. Plant some of last years garlic late March-April. Plant more than I want to eat: extra for next year, for early plucking and for shooting. Maybe 2-3 times what I plan to eat in the standard way.
2. Any left over will start to shoot by May June, so it needs to be dealt with. There are 3 options:
2.1 peel garlic and heat/cook in olive oil at 130degreesC in the oven for 1.5 -2 hours. Sterilise a jar/s and lid in oven for the last 20min. Using aseptic technique, pour oil and garlic into jar, seal tight and keep refrigerated. Garilc preserved in oil is DANGEROUS due to the high risk of botulism. But with the cooking and refrigeration it becomes safe…for several months. Must keep it continuously in the fridge though.
2.2 peel garlic and freeze ( thank you Allie)
2.3 put garlic clove into a little water and in a windowsill and let it shoot. The shoots taste delicious in cooking. Great if you have a lot of cloves left over.
3. The 3 options above ail keep me going until September or so. At this time the garlic can be plucked as a sort of delicious garlic shallot - the bulbs don't start forming until later. Keep plucking or using up frozen/ preserved garlic.
4. Harvest in November/December. Use fresh and as drying.
5. Keep using garlic you've grown until April, when it starts all over.
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This is an excellent thread, thank you so much for starting it!
Our gardening efforts to date have been: put some seeds in the ground and then come back six months later and say "oh, that grew and that didn't". Also our efforts have been hampered by rats and possums. So the plan going forward is to put a bit more effort in plus build some protective cages, basically we need to garden inside an aviary! My friend suggests baiting the rats since I've seen them and they are non-native but I haven't quite got to the point mentally where I can kill something so cute & fluffy (although I'm a total hypocrite because I eat lamb and veal) so I'll see if we can keep them out.
The things we have had luck with are herbs and chillies. I think the oils in them deter the vermin and they seem to need little attention. We seem to have all the oregano (goes wild and is easy), mint, rosemary (so hardy, love it), thai basil (huge bushes of it from seed in one season, and it comes back after winter) that we need. About mint - ours dies back regularly but then comes back, so we just let it get on with it. We did grow a few tomatoes and pick them while green and ripen inside before they were stolen! Anything fruiting got stolen basically, including choko and avocados, both almost inedible off the vine/tree! Our massive avo tree produces about 10-15 watery fruit a year and we get about 5.
I am very inspired by the tomato and garlic stories. Do you think the rats will avoid garlic? About carrots - we resprouted the heads of a few organic ones and managed to grow new tubers (under rat proof wire), so that's an option for mustachian veg.
Is anyone in a crop swap group? I am a member of a Sydney one but have nothing really to swap :( But there is a beekeeper swapping honey for eggs & veg and people swapping cuttings. Well worth getting into one if you are good at growing more than you can eat of one thing. This one is on Fcebook.
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Also our efforts have been hampered by rats and possums. So the plan going forward is to put a bit more effort in plus build some protective cages, basically we need to garden inside an aviary!
The things we have had luck with are herbs and chillies. I think the oils in them deter the vermin and they seem to need little attention.
Do you think the rats will avoid garlic?
Bloody possums! For many years I've battled them. Your on the right path with cages. Bird netting works too. It really is the only effective way. Everything else fails (Possoff spray, garlic spray, chilli spray) etc.
I think they have a preference for tomatoes and leafy greens but will eat pretty much your whole patch if food is in short supply- including chilli and garlic and herbs.
However, since getting a dog out possum troubles have entirely gone! Only to be replaced with dog problems (she destroyed a mature potted lemon tree - uprooted and chewed to bits, and likes to bring inside manure from the garden and loves to demulch plants).
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Oh and check gumtree.com.au for heaps of cheap/free fencing material and wire. Usually a fair bit on there. Don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on infrastructure for a few bucks worth of tomatoes. I'm all about the ROI in the vege patch.
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Our wire has all come from the side of the street to date :) We did buy some bird netting but the effing rats chewed through it. Guess they're hungry. We've got a dog but the possums just give him the finger and carry on. I swear if I went out there one night I'd see one lifting up a possum proof cage while his mate grabs the goods. And he'd stand there and wave at me.
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Haha, I get that. Once I made up a great chilli spray and confidently sprayed it all over my tomatoes. That'll show them possums. Turns out the really enjoyed the nicely flavoured tomatoes.
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I'm not in a crop swap group (don't have any crops yet!) but I live in the same suburb as my brother who is similarly inclined towards growing his own, and we have plans for sharing fruit and veges down the track.
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Also our efforts have been hampered by rats and possums. So the plan going forward is to put a bit more effort in plus build some protective cages, basically we need to garden inside an aviary! My friend suggests baiting the rats since I've seen them and they are non-native but I haven't quite got to the point mentally where I can kill something so cute & fluffy (although I'm a total hypocrite because I eat lamb and veal) so I'll see if we can keep them out.
Yeah, I'd be careful about baiting - just because the culprits are non-native rats doesn't mean that there aren't native animals around that may end up eating the bait that wasn't intended for them.
I also had a rat thief that was taking my tomatoes and radishes! The rat liked to get the tomatoes when they are perfectly ripe, so I had to be just one step ahead of them - the moment they are ready to pick I had to do it, instead of being tempted to leave them to get redder. The radishes I covered with wire, that worked very well.
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I bag unripe tomatoes in a brown paper bag, and tie them on with a twist tie. This stops possums, birds and wallabies as well as the fly and caterpillar pests that otherwise decimate my yield. A bit labour intensive but it works.
Other than pumpkins, and herbs, I grow pretty much everything else under nets.
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Awesome idea for a thread HaH! I'm in western Brisbane on a typical Queenslander block of 464m2 with the house right in one front corner, so quite a decent sized useable block. We're doing renovations including things like pulling down a redundant carport, replumbing from the front in and moving front stairs, so the garden will have to wait until the construction is finished. At this point I have a pot with a cherry tomato and some basil, a mango tree and some bindi filled grass (I hesitate to call it lawn).
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We visited my parents and DH's grandparents this weekend, and now I have a huge stash of new succulent species, a bulb that was growing in air, and a gorgeous plant that appears to possibly be a begonia, with long black stems like bamboo and delicate pink flowers and spotted leaves. I love free plants :)
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Posting to follow but it's already so long that I need to catch up at a later time! Recently moved into a sustainable community type dwelling with communal garden beds, currently taken over by neighbour but this spring I am going to get my hands dirty and looking for inspiration on beginners plants. Most likely looking at tomatoes/capsicum/zucchini as it's what we eat most.
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MMMoustache gardening question - what is just not worth the cost/effort/time to grow in your vege patch?
I'll start - carrots. At 99c per KG I can't even come close to that.
Cabbage. They take ages to grow, everything eats them, and they're cheap to buy.
The first zucchini I grew were ridiculously easy. The next ones were a bit too wet, I think, and got mildewey, although I think they produced a decent crop anyway. Throw it in and see what happens.
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The first zucchini I grew were ridiculously easy. The next ones were a bit too wet, I think, and got mildewey, although I think they produced a decent crop anyway. Throw it in and see what happens.
Thanks englyn. Can't wait for my seeds to arrive so I can start this whole wonderful process!
Posting to follow but it's already so long that I need to catch up at a later time! Recently moved into a sustainable community type dwelling with communal garden beds, currently taken over by neighbour but this spring I am going to get my hands dirty and looking for inspiration on beginners plants. Most likely looking at tomatoes/capsicum/zucchini as it's what we eat most.
Have you let the neighbour know that you'll want some space to use too? If it's a communal garden then she really does have to share :-)
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Question: anyone have experience / knowledge around pregnancy and gardening? I know that while TTC and (hopefully!) while pregnant when that happens, I need to be careful with soil and gardening. If I wear gloves and a mask covering my nose and mouth, and wash my hands really well afterwards, that's plenty of precaution, right?
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Just splurged on a couple of dwarf citrus to eventually go in pots at the sunny front of the house :) I picked kaffir lime and he picked mandarin. We have a lemon tree in the ground that doesn't fruit so I've got to do a bit of research on citrus and what they need. In our stache there is a few hundred dollars allocated to establish a dwarf fruit orchard where I currently park my work van on some grass. Until we retire and that goes, there's no space! But I have lovely visions of ducks wandering round the orchard, eating bugs and feeding the trees.
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Just splurged on a couple of dwarf citrus to eventually go in pots at the sunny front of the house :) I picked kaffir lime and he picked mandarin. We have a lemon tree in the ground that doesn't fruit so I've got to do a bit of research on citrus and what they need. In our stache there is a few hundred dollars allocated to establish a dwarf fruit orchard where I currently park my work van on some grass. Until we retire and that goes, there's no space! But I have lovely visions of ducks wandering round the orchard, eating bugs and feeding the trees.
How exciting! How far off is retirement? And have you had ducks before?
Have you tried Epsom salts on the lemon tree? Also, my lemon seems to need a lot of trace elements (much more than my lime or mandarine). It's had three teaspoons added to its soil in the last four months and I think it needs at least one more.
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Ask the man of the house to pee on the lemon tree!
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MMMoustache gardening question - what is just not worth the cost/effort/time to grow in your vege patch?
I'll start - carrots. At 99c per KG I can't even come close to that.
Onions.
Garlic 'would' be on this list too in terms of cost but the home-grown stuff is so much better than anything imported.
I buy Australian garlic and it is SO expensive. I wish I'd grown some this year! I'm assuming it's too late now?
I'd add potatoes to the list.
Usually the rule is 'plant before the solstice' so it's a little late. You still might be able to plant them if you get onto it straight away but they'll be smaller cloves.
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Ask the man of the house to pee on the lemon tree!
Ooo really? Does that work? He has peed to repel possums and I'm not sure if it did...
In answer to HaH, retirement is a ever moving goal. If we sold up and moved down the coast, we could retire tomorrow (well, after selling the business etc etc etc). If we stay here, we have to work 1-2yrs more. We are swaying towards staying here.
We had ducks when I was growing up until the not so fantastic Mr. Fox got them. I love them! But thinking practically, ducks would wait a few years more as we'd do a little bit of travelling once retired and once the dog has crossed the bridge.
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Posting to follow but it's already so long that I need to catch up at a later time! Recently moved into a sustainable community type dwelling with communal garden beds, currently taken over by neighbour but this spring I am going to get my hands dirty and looking for inspiration on beginners plants. Most likely looking at tomatoes/capsicum/zucchini as it's what we eat most.
Zucchini is great for beginners. Don't plant too many plants or you'll be known as that crazy lady always giving away zucchini. With tomatoes - I find cherry sized to be easier and more rewarding than full size.
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I find with zucchini that I plant seeds for four plants each year. Often at least one dies while it is small, but never all four. Once they are a reasonable size, I pull out any excess plants - I can always do with room for a few more Chinese vegetables.
I have a 700sq m block with a big house on it. However, we have 3 plums (2 way blood plum - had its first fruit last summer, greengage, coe's golden drop - which never has anything worth eating, victoria), cherries (3 sour, 1 sweet), apricot, peach (threatening to get rid of it each year, but it is prolific), 8 apples (started producing last summer), lemon (usually we have a lot, but this year there aren't that many), grapefruit, bitter orange, lime, cumquat (the last two are small and haven't had fruit yet), hazelnuts (started producing last summer).
I have a problem with raspberries. They grow where I don't want them, and don't where I do. I have bought raspberry canes two years running, and they all died. This winter I plan to transplant all the rogue raspberries. That way we might get fruit (they are all together in a place we ignore, so we don't find the fruit).
I have a "perennial vegetable" garden as well as my raised beds. The perennial one has rhubarb, jerusalem artichokes (grow like weeds), ordinary artichokes and asparagus (need more plants) with raspberries at the back.
The raised beds are for annual vegetables.
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posting to follow :)
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I should add that from an economical viewpoint carrots are a waste to grow, but a good fresh carrot straight from the garden is very flavourful and glorious. And you can grow all manner of funky colours too. 'Paris market' variety is small but takes only 15 weeks to crop in my hands
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Posting to follow, I am very experienced in killing plants of every variety. But I got the first fruit on my lime tree this year (4 years after I potted it) so I am very excitied.
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Posting to follow, I am very experienced in killing plants of every variety. But I got the first fruit on my lime tree this year (4 years after I potted it) so I am very excitied.
Ooh that is exciting! I hope to get a flower or 2 on my plants... long way off having edible fruit :D
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Posting to follow, I am very experienced in killing plants of every variety. But I got the first fruit on my lime tree this year (4 years after I potted it) so I am very excitied.
Nice! The Australian Gardening Thread should be all about celebrating the success and commiserating the failures.
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Posting to follow, I am very experienced in killing plants of every variety. But I got the first fruit on my lime tree this year (4 years after I potted it) so I am very excitied.
Ooh that is exciting! I hope to get a flower or 2 on my plants... long way off having edible fruit :D
Thanks I am super excited about them. I just got back from an 8 week overseas holiday so most of my garden is over ran with weeds thanks to the large amount of rain in perth while I have been away, so the plan is to deweed and then try planting some easy to grob herbs/ vegetables and start again. Hopefully with more success than last time
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Member from across the pond....
I'm a keen gardener, ~1600m2 section in town. Most of it set out in the 'english park form', have owned for ~2yrs and been progressively getting rid of unsighly trees and planting NZ natives and pipfruit trees. Lots of roses, smaller vege garden area but have a large/old wooden glasshouse which I will need to reglaze as a future project. Plan to have alot of things in there which arent easy to grow in the colder south....
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Sounds lovely!
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Posting to follow, I am very experienced in killing plants of every variety. But I got the first fruit on my lime tree this year (4 years after I potted it) so I am very excitied.
Ooh that is exciting! I hope to get a flower or 2 on my plants... long way off having edible fruit :D
Thanks I am super excited about them. I just got back from an 8 week overseas holiday so most of my garden is over ran with weeds thanks to the large amount of rain in perth while I have been away, so the plan is to deweed and then try planting some easy to grob herbs/ vegetables and start again. Hopefully with more success than last time
Hang on, it can take FOUR YEARS to get a lime from a lime tree? I thought it was meant to be "a year or two" from buying my dwarf fruit trees to getting something from them... I'll need to work on my patience!
Member from across the pond....
I'm a keen gardener, ~1600m2 section in town. Most of it set out in the 'english park form', have owned for ~2yrs and been progressively getting rid of unsighly trees and planting NZ natives and pipfruit trees. Lots of roses, smaller vege garden area but have a large/old wooden glasshouse which I will need to reglaze as a future project. Plan to have alot of things in there which arent easy to grow in the colder south....
Wow, I'm envious of how much space you have to work with! Sounds like an amazing garden.
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Middle of winter doesnt look that great in the garden..... mother in law is downsizing their garden, I'll be getting most of her roses (some of them have sentimental value).
Going to put alot of effort into the lawn this spring too.... I'm spraying the moss with iron sulfate, then will hire a scarifier, topdress and add new seed.
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Posting to follow, I am very experienced in killing plants of every variety. But I got the first fruit on my lime tree this year (4 years after I potted it) so I am very excitied.
Ooh that is exciting! I hope to get a flower or 2 on my plants... long way off having edible fruit :D
Thanks I am super excited about them. I just got back from an 8 week overseas holiday so most of my garden is over ran with weeds thanks to the large amount of rain in perth while I have been away, so the plan is to deweed and then try planting some easy to grob herbs/ vegetables and start again. Hopefully with more success than last time
Hang on, it can take FOUR YEARS to get a lime from a lime tree? I thought it was meant to be "a year or two" from buying my dwarf fruit trees to getting something from them... I'll need to work on my patience!
I think it may be more of a reflection on my lack of gardening skills than a normal thing. 2 years sounds more accurate
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Happier at home thanks for starting this thread.
I hope everyone in Perth is well into the growing season because it is now. I am from NZ where you put anything in the ground and it grows so I have had quite the learning curve growing in perth. It took me a long time to get over the idea that the prime growing season was summer. it is not it is too bloody hot then unless you have perfect soil and shady conditions. so now i get stuck in in autumn to get plants going for winter and then keep at it every month to get plants started for summer. stopping most seedling propagation in december.
Yes value for money is important unless you really enjoy this as a hobby only.
We don't grow carrots, cabbage, potatoes, onions as they are so cheap at spud shed. But I reckon carrots and potatoes are quite fun for kids. Our problem is we have nematodes and shit sand so we can only grow in winter and only in raised/wicking beds in summer. soil improvement is key and you do have to spend money on this (soil solver) unless you grow in pots or pour water and organic matter on the soil for 10 years. but nutrients are important as perth sands are amongst the most impoverished in the world.
We have a fair amount of fruit trees (3 oranges, 3 mandarins, 2 lemons, kaffir lime, 2 tahitian limes, 2 bananas, 3 pawpaws, lychee, longan, starfruit, tamarillo, 2 guavas, 2 avocados, 5 grapes, dragon fruit, 2 feijoas (pineapple guavas for aussies), barbadoes cherry, 2 apples, apricot, quince, olive, 5 mulberries, peach, 2 mangos, 8 pineapples, 3 passionfruit, 2 figs.
The best value in order of most bestness at the top for Perth
mulberry - drought tolerant, abundant plus plus, can't buy in shops, fruits very early, minimal deficiencies in alkaline sands, provides shade also
pawpaw - grow from seed so free - lots of fruit, not that nutrient hungry, expensive in shops
guava (hawaiian) - early bearer, bears for 2-3 months, not nutrient or water hungry (but fruit fly so must bag with paper bags)
lemon eureka - early bearer and all year round but nutrient hungry, water hungry when young, many uses
oranges - our navel gives us beautiful fruit for 3 months but you have to bag and watch the nutrients
mandarins - 2 months fruit but bagging essential and nutrients as above citrus
limes good value and early bearing nearly all year round but how many limes do you need?
feijoa - love love these (from kiwi childhood) but can take years to bear (3 years for me) and fruit flies love them too so bagging essential - can't buy in shops.
figs - pretty easy to grow and expensive in shops. but fruit fly susceptible and fruit don't seem to like bagging
peach - so tasty and early bearing but all ripen over 2-3 weeks - bag for fruit fly
quince - yummo early heavy bearing, not nutrient hungry, some fruit fly, expensive in shops
passionfruit - abundant, early bearers, cheap/easy to grow from seed. expensive in shops but short lived 3-5 years and susceptible to snails and viruses.
apples - pretty cheap in shops and hard to keep from getting sunburned and need to bag from fruit fly
grapes - subject to attack by downy mildew (early croppers), ants (will eat the whole bunch) and rats (late croppers).
finicky and maybe worth it if you can nurse them to maturity
mango - i see great ones in the neighbour hood but mine are in the single figure fruit production after 4 years
avocado - very water hungry and need shade cloth for 6 months. long time to bear - mine 1 fruit after 4 years. tamarillo - water hungry and hates the hot sun (shade cloth or understory) but early bearing and free and easy to grow from seeds.
steer clear
lychee - mine has done nothing
rasberries - recurrent carking
persimmon - hates the hot and dry
veges I rate - tomatoes free from seed you have saved and the compost (i have never bought a plant), cucumbers but timing is important - too early mildew; too late, too hot, herbs ( but need to know different likes for each), silverbeat, spinach (only in winter), broccoli (plant in autumn and spring only), peas (only in spring), lettuce (winter, autumn only),
kale - grows for a whole year just keep picking the leaves, garlic (expensive and great if you have the space to grow),
There is a good perth based Facebook group called jettos patch where they have the most amazing garden i have seen in perth. And perth is very challenging. these guys are super inspiring.
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Very nice!
I should add my recommendation for blueberries. Grow em in large pots in camellia mix, they like acid soil & a good bit of shade. I got very heavy crops, small plants, easy to look after, no fruit fly.
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Very nice!
I should add my recommendation for blueberries. Grow em in large pots in camellia mix, they like acid soil & a good bit of shade. I got very heavy crops, small plants, easy to look after, no fruit fly.
This is exactly what I was hoping! Brilliant.
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Hang on, it can take FOUR YEARS to get a lime from a lime tree? I thought it was meant to be "a year or two" from buying my dwarf fruit trees to getting something from them... I'll need to work on my patience!
Fruit trees often take some time to start fruiting, and you get small crops at first. Then, after a few years, you get so much fruit you don't know what to do with it. Of course, this is on the even years - a lot of fruit trees seem to have a year with low yield and a year with high yield. My hazelnuts gave me about 2 nuts a couple of years ago, a couple of bowls of nuts last year, and I will probably start having too many in a couple of years. But they took several years to do anything - for the first two, I was sure they wouldn't survive summer. The apples took longer. It depends upon how good you are with them and what the soil is like, and how well they acclimatize to your garden.
I assumed you knew about them taking a while, and that was why you planted them first.
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I have a book (American) - The Self Sufficient Suburban Garden. He has five stages - beginning (two vegie plots with two or three plants your family will eat and are easy to grow); summer garden (four beds, one experimental vegetable, two or three plants you can produce a year's supply of); multicropping and extended season; year round gardening; the ultimate (includes livestock like fish, rabbits, chooks, bees...).
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Hang on, it can take FOUR YEARS to get a lime from a lime tree? I thought it was meant to be "a year or two" from buying my dwarf fruit trees to getting something from them... I'll need to work on my patience!
Fruit trees often take some time to start fruiting, and you get small crops at first. Then, after a few years, you get so much fruit you don't know what to do with it. Of course, this is on the even years - a lot of fruit trees seem to have a year with low yield and a year with high yield. My hazelnuts gave me about 2 nuts a couple of years ago, a couple of bowls of nuts last year, and I will probably start having too many in a couple of years. But they took several years to do anything - for the first two, I was sure they wouldn't survive summer. The apples took longer. It depends upon how good you are with them and what the soil is like, and how well they acclimatize to your garden.
I assumed you knew about them taking a while, and that was why you planted them first.
I knew they could take "a while", but didn't equate that with four years. Ah well. The trees are nice to look at even without any fruit ;-)
I think you actually gave me the advice (and happy?) to focus on planting fruit trees first, way back when I bought the place, as they take time to get established. I'm five trees into a twenty tree plan... hopefully I'll be at fifteen out of twenty by this time next year.
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This Weekend in the Garden...
So the weekend is here - prime time to get out in the garden. What are you planning to do this weekend in the garden?
Me:
-Harvest some cherry tomatoes!
Over to you all.
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What resources (websites, books, etc) would you recommend to start with?. My wife and I have been talking about growing some herbs and fruits, but we have no experience whatsoever and are not sure where to look at first. We live in Perth too and we the info posted by kiwiozearlyretirement helped us a lot to figure out what to choose initially. Thanks!.
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https://www.facebook.com/beyondgardens/
http://petercoppin.com/ (this guy knows ALLL about fruit trees in WA)
The Great Gardens team used to run great free workshops, but they seem to have stopped.
There's a permaculture garden design workshop available
http://www.greenlifesoil.com.au/events
which looks like a great place to start. The greenlifesoil place sells the best bulk compost in Perth, too.
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Thank you englyn, great info. We'll commence by preparing the soil this weekend!.
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Today it was 26C, crazy for July. We've had quite a few warm days and rain, so the veggies seem to have grown overnight.
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Oh yeah totally what Englyn said.
Blueberries go great in Perth - only in pots in camellia/azalea mix. I also move my pots into partial sun in summer as it is just too hot. They must never dry out. In summer we sit any pot outside in a basin and on hot days I fill this with water and the plant sucks it up through the day. Certain varieties fruit amazingly well and don't lose their leaves in winter. If anyone is interested I can check the variety. But they recently had to stop bringing them from over east as there was some quarantine issue. Ours crop for months from september till january.
Royaq I struggled to find resources for perth so have spent years researching online and in various books. I had a book supposedly for WA gardeners from the gardening gurus and they had some bad advice (like persimmons are great street trees). There is generic advice from https://www.agric.wa.gov.au for all sorts of different crops. The advice is in association with commercial growers. remember that the commercial guys are allowed to water their crops 5 times a day and they have very cheap water. Otherwise growing stuff in perth in summer is impossible.
There is a blog called gardening WA style by an ex kiwi now WA horticulturalist who gives useful scientific approaches to gardening in perth.
My best advice is:
gardening in soil - put in soil solver as earliest opportunity plus organic matter
consider gardening in raised beds/wicking beds for summer
shade cloth nearly everything in summer (if you don't have an over story of trees) shade cloth free from junk collection
accept that perth soil is severely deficient in nitrogen and nearly all nutrients so you need regular additions. And sometimes the easiest thing is to spray the foliage rather than pour it on the sand.
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Oh yeah totally what Englyn said.
Blueberries go great in Perth - only in pots in camellia/azalea mix. I also move my pots into partial sun in summer as it is just too hot. They must never dry out. In summer we sit any pot outside in a basin and on hot days I fill this with water and the plant sucks it up through the day. Certain varieties fruit amazingly well and don't lose their leaves in winter. If anyone is interested I can check the variety. But they recently had to stop bringing them from over east as there was some quarantine issue. Ours crop for months from september till january.
Royaq I struggled to find resources for perth so have spent years researching online and in various books. I had a book supposedly for WA gardeners from the gardening gurus and they had some bad advice (like persimmons are great street trees). There is generic advice from https://www.agric.wa.gov.au for all sorts of different crops. The advice is in association with commercial growers. remember that the commercial guys are allowed to water their crops 5 times a day and they have very cheap water. Otherwise growing stuff in perth in summer is impossible.
There is a blog called gardening WA style by an ex kiwi now WA horticulturalist who gives useful scientific approaches to gardening in perth.
My best advice is:
gardening in soil - put in soil solver as earliest opportunity plus organic matter
consider gardening in raised beds/wicking beds for summer
shade cloth nearly everything in summer (if you don't have an over story of trees) shade cloth free from junk collection
accept that perth soil is severely deficient in nitrogen and nearly all nutrients so you need regular additions. And sometimes the easiest thing is to spray the foliage rather than pour it on the sand.
I would be interested in knowing which blueberry varieties grow well in Perth
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Look what I did! 400gram of red pear cherry tomatoes. So tasty. First harvest and pretty happy with that. Organic grown with limited costs ($10 horse poo, saved/collected seed, reused stakes and gifted twine)
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Discovered why my snow peas/snap peas are not germinating - I've sown 2 lots with no result. Birds getting in under the bird netting Grrr. Stupid birds, I gave them a fright early this morning and they were flying around inside the bird netting unable to escape - they must go in and out at ground level. Lucky none got stuck. Will need to do some repairs and extensions so that I can lay it on the ground and put stones on it.
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Look what I did! 400gram of red pear cherry tomatoes. So tasty. First harvest and pretty happy with that. Organic grown with limited costs ($10 horse poo, saved/collected seed, reused stakes and gifted twine)
Yum! I have tomato envy.
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I'm procrastinating about going outside and gardening :p I'm still in the process of pulling up a big bush next to the driveway. I want it done so I can plant something edible there.
2 years ago (= 3 winters) I planted kale, expecting it to be an annual plant. But no, it's still going strong despite having gone to seed a few times. The leaves are inedibly bitter in summer, but after a frost the leaves become edible. In summer, we give away the leaves to a friend who has a pet rabbit (the rabbit LOVES kale) and in winter we chuck finely chopped leaves into stews and soups.
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I'm with you on procrastinating. All I feel I have done this weekend is look at things with hubby and say "yeah, we should totally do something with that/ move that". We have three (!) green tomatoes ripening inside on the windowsill where the rats can't get them. In other rat news, hubby went into the roof and found a dead one (must have been old bait up there?) so on balance this week I feel we're winning.
I've also emailed 2 x tree guys to quote on an out of control MASSIVE tree that needs a trim. It's way out of control and taller than the house so we're going to have to get the professionals in. It's some sort of fig and I swear it's doubled in size in the 3 years we've lived here.
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I cleared out most of the bush! Just need to dig up the actual stump next weekend and it's done.
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This Weekend in the Garden...
So the weekend is here - prime time to get out in the garden. What are you planning to do this weekend in the garden?
Just spent a few hours repotting the dwarf citrus trees into half-barrels, and potted the super dwarf nectarine. Tried to dig up some kangaroo paws to make space for the pinkabelle, but apparently I am actually too weak to dig up plants? So now waiting until my brother can find time to help (he's taking the paws anyway, so makes sense!).
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I pulled things down and ripped stuff out. There was no obvious change, except that I was more tired. Next weekend I'm trying out my shovel on it. There's a pile of, well, random building rubble in one of the garden beds, and I can't keep it weed free. It's a small garden bed with a large deciduous tree and a frangipani, shaded year round, so hoping to get a groundcover to grow or a low plant.
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I divided and replanted the coriander in one of my wicking beds and thinned and replanted some very tiny lettuce seedlings. Sowed just a few more tatsoi seeds.
Cut down a tree fern growing in the wrong place and chopped it up for the green bin. Raked leaves and started to turn over the compost heap on top of the leaves. Looks like some compost at the base of the heap. Collected kindling, and larger sticks. Chainsawed up some branches for firewood. Think the chain is blunt :(. Split a log for tonight's fire. DD broke the handle off the splitter ( she's so strong for a tiny 161cm and 50kg!).
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My mint, as previously mentioned, has been struggling (and I killed my last mint plant, too!).
I've now shifted it into the shade, and I'm going to water it daily. Hopefully that will help it perk back up!
Does it need *any* direct sunlight through the course of the day, or is it happy to be in perpetual shade?
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It's a small garden bed with a large deciduous tree and a frangipani, shaded year round, so hoping to get a groundcover to grow or a low plant.
Oregano? Mint? both fairly indestructible once they get going, and suit a small garden bed because they'll totally take over the whole thing.
Blueberries, I think I had Sharpeblue and Misty. They were fairly indistinguishable varieties, and they're one of the plants that benefits from a couple of different varieties for better pollination. I gave them quite a good prune after the first year, which decreased crop the following year and dramatically increased crop (and pretty bush appearance; they're a very ornamental plant as well) the years after. I found some good info here, just now: https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/minor-fruits/growing-blueberries-western-australia?page=0%2C0 - this says they grow 2-3m tall, but mine were only about 1m after several years in a pot. I mulched with pine bark as they like the acidity and it looks nice.
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A nice local tree guy came over and told us that our massive tree (some sort of non-native fig - maybe common name weeping fig from my googling) is an absolute pest and will grow and grow. He thinks it was a recent planting, nowhere near as old as the house. If we trim it back, it will grow even more voraciously and its roots are going to get longer and chunkier (some run along at surface level across the lawn and we can't open our back gate!). We could trim it down annually (at a cost of ~$500 - it's got to be 40metres tall and 10 metres wide) but it would look v ugly each time. He said if we're up for it, the best thing to do is to chop it down (~$2k plus stump grinding). It's on the Council list that can be removed without permission.
Previous to this chat were thinking we could control it by trimming it and building a granny flat on piles not too far away in the yard, but this new knowledge of what a rampant pest it is totally rules that out. So the granny flat (our retirement plan if we stay in Sydney) means chopping the tree.
Two problems we have - 1) The tree provides screening from neighbours behind us, but this could be solved by the design of the granny flat 2) I feel terrible about chopping a tree down. Two of our neighbours have just got rid of silky oaks and we now have heaps more wildlife in our garden as a result. Where will the birds go I wonder? And there's possibly bats in there sometimes (there was a dead one underneath once). But then again, if we don't build a granny flat, we'd have to sell up if we are to retire early and move somewhere else and the next person to buy it will just chop down the stupid tree anyway. Maybe eventually it would be so much of a pest even if we stayed I guess it would have to come down.
Anyone got any experience of rampant weeping figs? Will it really take over the whole neighbourhood if we leave it? Would you abandon early retirement over a tree??
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Can you plant a different tree instead? If it will be your FIRE home, it's got plenty of time to grow!
It's a small garden bed with a large deciduous tree and a frangipani, shaded year round, so hoping to get a groundcover to grow or a low plant.
Oregano? Mint? both fairly indestructible once they get going, and suit a small garden bed because they'll totally take over the whole thing.
Blueberries, I think I had Sharpeblue and Misty. They were fairly indistinguishable varieties, and they're one of the plants that benefits from a couple of different varieties for better pollination. I gave them quite a good prune after the first year, which decreased crop the following year and dramatically increased crop (and pretty bush appearance; they're a very ornamental plant as well) the years after. I found some good info here, just now: https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/minor-fruits/growing-blueberries-western-australia?page=0%2C0 - this says they grow 2-3m tall, but mine were only about 1m after several years in a pot. I mulched with pine bark as they like the acidity and it looks nice.
There's little to stop mint running out of the garden bed and into the lawn. Since it's a rental and I don't care that sounds like a great option. Does mint like perpetual shade, as Happier asked? Because this area never gets sunlight, and hence might be why nothing grows properly there.
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Anyone got any experience of rampant weeping figs? Will it really take over the whole neighbourhood if we leave it? Would you abandon early retirement over a tree??
No idea, but maybe you could get a second opinion? Or at least get a definite ID so you know what you're dealing with. Do you have a local council guide to invasive plants, or maybe the state government does? I did do a quick google on weeping figs and it seems like they can do an awful lot of damage, so if it were me and I knew for sure that's what it was, I'd go for removal. And then plant some fast growing screening plants in its place.
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Some figs are very invasive - but I don't personally know about weeping figs specifically. They can develop extensive root systems. If you google it and look at the Burkes backyard entry, they say container only or they wreak havoc. Wollongong council has a list of trees they let you cut down without permission and weeping fig is not on it although Ficus elastic (rubber tree) is. If its on your council list that can be removed without permission I would guess its known to cause problems either onsite or environmentally generally. You are much better off getting rid of it and growing some native bird friendly species if thats your concern. Some species of Grevillea' s will grow really quickly, be minimally invasive and provide habitat quite soon. They maybe relatively short-lived ( years rather than decades) so you could use them as a starter whilst you are waiting some slower growers to do the trick.
Personally I've found non-native trees growing in the wrong place are best dealt with decisively sooner rather than later. They will only ever get bigger and cause more problems. Not sure if this species sucker, but if it does leaving too longer will just cause more and more problems. 2k sound pretty reasonable for a large tree removal but you could always get more quotes. Worth doing if you are staying.
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Thanks everyone for the input. I realised yes I can plant some natives that the birds will love (even bushes) and that will ease my conscience. There is a building going up next door which is going to kill off our old avo tree I reckon and that will be a good chance to stick in some natives along that fence. I didn't know this but the tree guy said that avos fruit after a number of years and then the produce is only good for another 15 years. After that it gets stringy which is what we have. So it would be no loss to replace it.
Screening wise - the granny flat will do that so no worries there. We'd put some sort of espalier on the wall we'd look at if poss and then we still have a nice green (ish!) outlook!
Getting a second opinion tomorrow about the rampant pest-ness of this tree and we'll go from there. Our behind us neighbours are going to have an absolute fit if it comes down....! Will have to bake a cake, minimum!
And then more to think about... there's timing of all this. Someone is renting space in our yard (near this tree) to store their boat for abour $3k passive income. We have to hack at some overground roots to make it work. Maybe we should take it down before the boat arrives (er, in 2 weeks).
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Maybe we should take it down before the boat arrives (er, in 2 weeks).
Sounds like a good idea.
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My mint, as previously mentioned, has been struggling (and I killed my last mint plant, too!).
I've now shifted it into the shade, and I'm going to water it daily. Hopefully that will help it perk back up!
Does it need *any* direct sunlight through the course of the day, or is it happy to be in perpetual shade?
Happier remind me you are in Perth are you. Mint likes the sun in winter and early spring but likes the shade in summer. Needs it to be moist at all times . I have mine in pots to stop the invasive nature of it and sit the pot in a basin in summer so it never dries out. Mint is extremely easy to grow from cuttings. get some from the markets or even better a friend for free. sit it in a glass of water on the window sill and wait a week or 2. it will form roots and there is your new plant.
I think perpetual shade will be problematic if you live somewhere cold. and it guess this is perth in the winter. But give it a go. what have you got to lose if you get the plants for free?
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I am going to try this pot-in-a-basin trick.
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I am really enthused about veggie gardening again now!
I will be starting to make some wicking beds over the weekend.
http://www.sgaonline.org.au/sustainable-wicking-worm-bed/
https://pkozul.wordpress.com/gardening/wicking-beds/
from leftover metal sheet / recycled shed (free), star pickets (?), builder's plastic (leftover from another project) woodchips (free), sand (have huge pile in backyard already), veggie concentrate from greenlifesoil. Will have to buy the ag pipe and stormwater pipe, probably. Hope to get some shadecloth cheap from gumtree.
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Tree guy no.2 came round on Tuesday and quoted about $1,700 to take out the tree. He said yes it will need to come out but he said there's no emergency based on where the roots have gone to date but by 5 years we (or our neighbours) could see some problems. So we are going to hack at the branches and one root that has grown too high above ground ourselves and then take it out in a year-ish once we've designed and costed the granny flat properly. That way we don't need to look into our back neighbours place for too long. We'll just plan the removal for a day when our boater has his craft out on the water. Although I am fully expecting said boat to go out a few times and then rot in our backyard. What are the two best days of owning a boat? The day you buy it and the day you sell it :)
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In other news, we are setting up our raised beds this weekend in a new location (they are being evicted by the boat!) and I got two books out of the library about growing edibles to help us. One is for kids - so much easier to follow!
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It's nice to have helpers in the garden...here are my two unhelpful helpers...
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I think nns asked about blueberries in perth
The variety I rate is sunshine blue. Holds it's leaves all winter and laden with fruit. It was a nellie kellie brand and i think recently they have had trouble getting them from over east due to quarantine issues.
Maybe other perthites can recommend other varieties worthwhile. We eat ours for months just picked the first one the other day which is weirdly early. Everything is early this year. Mulberries laden and peaches flowering. Feels like spring is in the air too.
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It's nice to have helpers in the garden...here are my two unhelpful helpers...
Cutest "helpers" ever!
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It's nice to have helpers in the garden...here are my two unhelpful helpers...
Cutest "helpers" ever!
+1
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Dad and brother took all of half an hour today to pull the kangaroo paw from the garden bed under my bedroom window. Brother says they look good in his front yard (he'd been reminding me he wanted them since I moved in!). The pinkabelle dwarf pink lady is now at one end of that garden bed, staked securely and probably completely unnecessarily.
Bro will be digging up (for his garden) the ornamental pears along the back fence within the next few weeks. This means I need to get on with ordering the avocado trees for that spot! I love some garden symbiosis.
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Today I spied the beginning of a broccoli head on my wicking box broccoli. About the size of a 5 cent piece. Caused much squealing in delight. I've found broccoli really hard to grow and have only ever had one or two heads. I thought there would not be enough light on these wicking beds to get any broccoli and was content to grow them for the leaves.
So, I haven't tracked broccoli growing before....will the head gradually get larger? Or will i just get a 5c size piece of broccoli?
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This weekend was spent fixing the backgate and pruning things. Our pine raised bed boxes got lifted and moved to a new location and next weekend we will cut out the turf underneath and fill them up with dirt.
Happy, your story about the broccoli reminds me of when we grew a single one inch carrot last year and dutifully shared it three ways. We have two capsicums the size of blueberries which is very exciting. They are on a plant in a pot that was a seedling that germinated in the worm farm. All seedlings in the worm farm are planted and then we guess what they are. It has been wrapped in wire for protection!
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My probably-sweet potato plants are still merrily growing away, along with the desperate strawberry plant. I won't know if my huge stash of succulent cuttings are successful for several weeks, when they'll finally put down roots...
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Today I spied the beginning of a broccoli head on my wicking box broccoli. About the size of a 5 cent piece. Caused much squealing in delight. I've found broccoli really hard to grow and have only ever had one or two heads. I thought there would not be enough light on these wicking beds to get any broccoli and was content to grow them for the leaves.
So, I haven't tracked broccoli growing before....will the head gradually get larger? Or will i just get a 5c size piece of broccoli?
They'll get bigger. Here is an article with some picture. http://www.nwedible.com/harvest-broccoli-cauliflower/
I usually let atleast one 'flower' properly for the prettiest little yellow flowers on top of that broccoli heads.
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Thanks PDM. I forgot Erica had a post on this. The plants/leaves are still relatively small - probably not enough sun - so how big it will grow is not clear. Erica says "In other words, big broccoli plants with big healthy leaves will make big broccoli heads and stunted little broccoli plants will make stunted little broccoli heads." Anyway at this point I'll give it some time and we'll see.
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They'll still be tasty and cute as tiny broccoli.
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They'll still be tasty and cute as tiny broccoli.
:) . I spy some heads starting on a couple of others that are in the sun, so we'll see.
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I need to dig some blood and bone into my garden beds in preparation for spring planting, but I can't find the blood and bone. I know I had some! Gah.
Seeds from Diggers Club should arrive any day now for me to start germinating. Can't wait.
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Maybe there should be a colder-parts-of-Australia gardening thread. All these people who can plant tomatoes before November are making me jealous, especially as the tomatoes in the shops are not very nice!
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Maybe there should be a colder-parts-of-Australia gardening thread. All these people who can plant tomatoes before November are making me jealous, especially as the tomatoes in the shops are not very nice!
+1 My kale is going bananas (not literally) but that's it. Growing zucchini and cherry tomatoes are my favouritest things to grow, and that will have to wait til November.
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I have tiny-teeny little leaf-pairs of kale, kailan, beetroot and lettuce popping up, none of them bigger than a grain of rice yet. Cute.
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Maybe there should be a colder-parts-of-Australia gardening thread. All these people who can plant tomatoes before November are making me jealous, especially as the tomatoes in the shops are not very nice!
Well, we're all jealous of your ability to grow berries and stonefruit, so there.
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Maybe there should be a colder-parts-of-Australia gardening thread. All these people who can plant tomatoes before November are making me jealous, especially as the tomatoes in the shops are not very nice!
Well, we're all jealous of your ability to grow berries and stonefruit, so there.
Ha ha! So we can all be jealous of one another together!
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Yes and your cherries.
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My garlic is putting up flower spikes already.
I planted it in late March early April and it had nice fat juicy stems but now some are flowering. I have cut them off but does this mean I will not get heads forming?
Seems early spring here - the black mulberry has so much fruit and the peach is covered in blossom. Luckily no frost so no risk to the baby fruit. Fighting the black furry caterpillars. They are everywhere and if I don't watch they eat the new apple buds depriving me of fruit. Anyone got any ideas to control these other than picking them off. I have bird netted my brocollis and kale for cabbage whites - so far so good. But those furry things are everywhere.
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Cherry tomato update: 1.3kg total harvest so far. :) estimating a 2kg total harvest.
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Cherry tomato update: 1.3kg total harvest so far. :) estimating a 2kg total harvest.
I hope that's just for today, not for the entire season. My father once gave me a book "How to Grow World Record Tomatoes" by C. H. Wilber. He grows cherry tomatoes in the US, and has grown them up to 28' 7" (8.8m) high, with yields of up to 324 pounds per plant (147kg). I've never got that much from a plant.
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Cherry tomato update from me: 2.
Tomatoes, that is.
Not a good return.
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I got some plants over the weekend... photos attached. Plants were cheap enough... the pots were $70 each!
Tomatos will be a future challenge.
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My overwintering tomato has a couple of pockmarked green tomatoes...its still going, so I hope it might come good and flower/bear some more now that spring is coming.
Wallaby has eaten all the new shoots of the mulberry. Looks like it will have to be netted urgently or the poor thing will die. Gah.
Progress though, have part repaired the damaged nets to one area. I think I'll have to lengthen them though to stop whatever it is getting underneath. Then, maybe I'll finally get a crop of snow/sugarsnap peas.
Started reconstruction on the other netted area where all the nets fell down. This time its star pickets with polytube screwed on.
Harvesting: corlander, sllverbeet, tatsoi, mint, and small lettuce.
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Cherry tomato update: 1.3kg total harvest so far. :) estimating a 2kg total harvest.
I hope that's just for today, not for the entire season. My father once gave me a book "How to Grow World Record Tomatoes" by C. H. Wilber. He grows cherry tomatoes in the US, and has grown them up to 28' 7" (8.8m) high, with yields of up to 324 pounds per plant (147kg). I've never got that much from a plant.
Total harvest so far. I'm stoked with my weekly 400gram harvest. Very difficult to compare success of harvests based purely on weight. Different climate, different varieties, different pests etc. But hey I'll just console myself with my delicious juicy organic tomatoes - even if I only get a few kilograms of them.
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Ah, Brisbane and winter tomatoes.
The first two stalks of asparagus are up, and they are nice fat ones, as thick as I've ever had. The crown is about 3 years old.
The tiny broccoli is still growing..its as big as broccolini now.
Harvesting..the odd lettuce, black kale,corlander, sllverbeet, tatsoi, mint.
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I got a free baby lettuce from a co-worker last week! Planted it in my garden, hope it survives. I'm swapping for a succulent in a jar for their desk.
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I'm swapping for a succulent in a jar for their desk.
This comment has reminded me - you know how to create new succulents from little bits of old ones, right? Do you think you'd be willing to show me how to do it? I want to create little clusters of potted succulents in a few shady spots around the house - if I bought a couple of succulents could you teach me how to make more from those? :D :D :D
(I'm sure there are guides all over the internet, but I'm the kind of person who learns much, much better from a real person who I can ask questions).
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I rescued a handful of volunteer seedlings from the compost tumbler and planted them, I think they're pumpkin. Something has eaten all but one of them :( and left my rows of tasty tiny lettuces and things completely alone?
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I'm swapping for a succulent in a jar for their desk.
This comment has reminded me - you know how to create new succulents from little bits of old ones, right? Do you think you'd be willing to show me how to do it? I want to create little clusters of potted succulents in a few shady spots around the house - if I bought a couple of succulents could you teach me how to make more from those? :D :D :D
(I'm sure there are guides all over the internet, but I'm the kind of person who learns much, much better from a real person who I can ask questions).
I can do that. I'm also attempting much larger succulent varieties at the moment, which is interesting because there's not as obvious a place to cut them and I wont know for weeks or months if they worked, because they are so long-lasting.
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My nectarine tree has its first flower of the season! I planted it a couple of winters ago (bought it bare-rooted) and it's already >2m tall.
Nothing else to report. Kale is still growing madly.
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My nectarine tree has its first flower of the season! I planted it a couple of winters ago (bought it bare-rooted) and it's already >2m tall.
Is that the super-dwarf nectarine, or a different one? Am I even right in thinking you have a super-dwarf nectarine?
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My nectarine tree has its first flower of the season! I planted it a couple of winters ago (bought it bare-rooted) and it's already >2m tall.
Is that the super-dwarf nectarine, or a different one? Am I even right in thinking you have a super-dwarf nectarine?
Wow, you have an amazing memory :D
Yes, I do have a teeny tiny dwarf nectarine. It's about 60cm high after about 4 years (I forget exactly how long ago I planted it). The nectarine I posted about is a different, newer tree :) I planted it partly for fruit, partly for shade on the north facing side of the house.
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I'm swapping for a succulent in a jar for their desk.
This comment has reminded me - you know how to create new succulents from little bits of old ones, right? Do you think you'd be willing to show me how to do it? I want to create little clusters of potted succulents in a few shady spots around the house - if I bought a couple of succulents could you teach me how to make more from those? :D :D :D
(I'm sure there are guides all over the internet, but I'm the kind of person who learns much, much better from a real person who I can ask questions).
I can do that. I'm also attempting much larger succulent varieties at the moment, which is interesting because there's not as obvious a place to cut them and I wont know for weeks or months if they worked, because they are so long-lasting.
Also, I have a 'DIY succulents' book I was given for Christmas I'm happy to lend out to all and sundry in the Perth group.
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I'm swapping for a succulent in a jar for their desk.
This comment has reminded me - you know how to create new succulents from little bits of old ones, right? Do you think you'd be willing to show me how to do it? I want to create little clusters of potted succulents in a few shady spots around the house - if I bought a couple of succulents could you teach me how to make more from those? :D :D :D
(I'm sure there are guides all over the internet, but I'm the kind of person who learns much, much better from a real person who I can ask questions).
I can do that. I'm also attempting much larger succulent varieties at the moment, which is interesting because there's not as obvious a place to cut them and I wont know for weeks or months if they worked, because they are so long-lasting.
Also, I have a 'DIY succulents' book I was given for Christmas I'm happy to lend out to all and sundry in the Perth group.
I would love to read that!
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Anyone get into the garden this weekend?
I started seeds for zucchini, eggplant and four kinds of tomato. They're in a seed raising tray with a clear plastic cover, will be interested to see how that works out.
Gave some blood and bone to my citrus, apple and nectarine. Nectarine has absolutely zero leaves - I really hope it's alive. Lemon and lime both have what I think are the start of flower buds which is super exciting :-)
Also did a little weeding and other boring stuff.
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@ Happier: Propagating succulents is pretty easy, so hopefully you won't take long to fill your spots.
Small amount of time in the garden only :(
My "tiny" broccoli got to roughly 3inches in diameter before it looked like the florets were getting too developed, so thats better than I thought. It was delicious. some of the others are coming along now also.
Separated out and planted some tiny lettuce. Harvesting tatsoi regularly now since its threatening to start to go to seed. Sowed some broccoli (? if this will work but it says spring as well as autumn on the pack) anda few tomato seeds.
Lots of leaves but still no signs of flowers on the lemon. Have not had a yield from this yet and its 2 or 3 years old now. When I google it, advice is just feed it more, so maybe I'll have another go at that.
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I got raspberry canes from ikea (two for $4.95) and planted those.
Two weeks ago I sowed some Everlasting seeds, last weekend I had little shoots, this weekend they have disappeared. Do everlastings have natural enemies?
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We're on holiday, but I bought a mix pot of succulents from the markets :) best kind of souvenir.
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We're in Italy so no.
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This weekend I got caught up with other stuff plus daydreaming about granny flats so not much got done. Bit of a shame since it was great weather and the cold and rain is supposed to be back shortly.
We were a bit spendy at bunnings because I couldn't wait any longer hoping some fine wire mesh would appear for free so I spent $15 on a roll of that to top up what I've collected from the street! Bird net would be cheaper but the rats chew through (still have not brought myself to lay bait).
We also bought the bits to collect rainwater. Were holding out to get a proper rainwater tank and plumb it to the laundry but that's not going to happen soon -it's too exxy as we'll have to pay for help. The second hand ones at the tip aren't even that cheap. We've got a bit of free drip hose from a downsizing friend, the one with the holes along it, so I think we can attach that? Also the mini tank brand we got has connector pipes for sale so you can add as many tanks as you want in a row. As I find other barrels for free I can add them on, it will look funny all mismatched but cool!
Our two capsicums are getting bigger but the leaves on the plant have suddenly turned a sickly yellow with green veins. They've been getting worm wee but have we been doing too much/ do they need something else? I'm constantly googling but never really get a straight answer. The fruit still seems to be growing. Our chilli plants look the same which makes sense as they're the same family aren't they? The chillis look v ill and didn't fruit recently.
I'm watching a bird collect dog hair and shedded bits of our outdoor mat for its nest, v cute.
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On the Gold Coast I planted Blue Lake bean seeds, carrots, beetroot, spinach and some companion flowers all as seeds. I planted potatoes from Diggers.
I've been doing a lot of reading about Permaculture and it seems to fit in with Mustachianism very well! I just recently make a seedling shade house out of an old shelving rack, a piece of shade cloth and cable ties, as for productivity, it helps to grow seedlings to a decent size before them taking up my precious small gardening space.
I would argue, that if you are able to grow fruits of veggies of any kind, they're worth it! Even for "cheap" veggies. The ones you grow yourself are organic (there was an article on permaculturenews.org from 2015 about pesticide levels in human blood and urine samples that I found quite disturbing). Also home grown veggies that are eaten right after harvest suffer none of the nutrient degradation that occurs during storage!
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We're on holiday, but I bought a mix pot of succulents from the markets :) best kind of souvenir.
Hmmm I bet that the markets near my house would have a plant stall. Note to self: wander down for a look this weekend.
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We're on holiday, but I bought a mix pot of succulents from the markets :) best kind of souvenir.
Hmmm I bet that the markets near my house would have a plant stall. Note to self: wander down for a look this weekend.
Definitely worth a try, you have great markets.
I came back to one dead strawberry plant and everything else, including the free lettuce, looking very pleased with themselves. I think if I try strawberry again it will be in a hanging pot.
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I just recently make a seedling shade house out of an old shelving rack, a piece of shade cloth and cable ties, as for productivity, it helps to grow seedlings to a decent size before them taking up my precious small gardening space.
You have just given me the BEST idea. I have been meaning to put a shadecloth blind over the kitchen window because it lets too much light in. I could install a shelf outside, run shadecloth from top of window to outside of shelf , and grow seedlings on the shelf. Then I can water them through the window while I make my coffee!
Good news: emptied the compost, so I now have another square metre or so of veggie space to plant.
Bad news: something ate nearly all my lettuce seedlings. I found and squashed a slug or two, so hopefully the remaining few are safer.
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I googled my yellow leaved problem (capsicum, chillis, lemon, basically everything) and it is most like a magnesium shortage. Today I got epsom salts and fed them that, so we will see. I also googled the likely nutrient makeup of our worm leachate that goes (diluted) on everything and it might have a high potassium concentration which would explain a lack of magnesium uptake I think? Anyway, we are cutting back on the worm wee and maybe will use a proper fertiliser if we need it.
I tried to build possum proof box frame thingies this weekend - bit of a fail! I sawed one tiny thin piece of wood, hardwood from someone's old screen, and it hurt so much I stopped there. Hubby is going to see whether our multi function thing might have an suitable cutting attachment but it might be time to buy a circular saw. We need one anyway if we are to do various projects. We did figure out a good design and we will cut stick and nail it together next weekend.
Really need to get some tomato seeds in...
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Mint is looking much better since being moved into a less sunny spot and kept dark.
And here are the buds on my dwarf lemon. Can't wait for homegrown lemons!
Also, photos of things I have successfully kept alive: gorgeous lavendar and petunias.
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The mini wombok I grew and have been successfully harvesting leaves from for couple of months, now look like they are going to make some sort of flower...guess I best harvest them entirely. I don't need to seed save. Anyone know what these things do - should I harvest now?
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The mini wombok I grew and have been successfully harvesting leaves from for couple of months, now look like they are going to make some sort of flower...guess I best harvest them entirely. I don't need to seed save. Anyone know what these things do - should I harvest now?
Yes
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Melburnian here. What are the most basic and easiest items to grow in a small garden?
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Weeds.
Or did you mean plants you want? Jasmine.
Or did you mean vegetables? Tomatoes.
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The mini wombok I grew and have been successfully harvesting leaves from for couple of months, now look like they are going to make some sort of flower...guess I best harvest them entirely. I don't need to seed save. Anyone know what these things do - should I harvest now?
Yes
Thank you. I am harvesting a couple a day: a few days later and the remaining ones are definitely going to seed.
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Weeds.
Or did you mean plants you want? Jasmine.
Or did you mean vegetables? Tomatoes.
Herbs and vegetables.
I'm thinking of trying broccoli. Any thoughts?
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I can't grow broccoli or most of the brassicas (broccoli is a brassica as are cabbage, cauliflower... and radish - although just about anyone can grow radishes) - they just get sooty aphids. Zucchini are easy, as are tomatoes (both produce well for anyone and you only need a couple of plants). Climbing beans (I plant them a couple of centimetres apart and cover a trellis with them so they really take up no room). These are all annuals, that you start growing in November. For vegetables you can plant now, try spinach (it will be ready about when you want to grow the others). Rhubarb is a perennial you can plant now.
Herbs - basil (summer), mint (if you don't mind it running riot), parsley are all easy in Melbourne. Thyme. Bay tree (you prune it back a lot, or can grow it in a tub). Marjoram. Oregano. Most of these are perennials, so you can leave them in.
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Cherry Tomatoes are the easiest tomatoes IMO - fewer pests.
Personally I would avoid broccoli first up - I have a lot of trouble with it with pests.
Rocket is fast and easy - therefore gratifying for a beginner.
Otherwise I second Deborah's suggestions.
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My mulberry tree has finally established itself, 4 years after it was originally planted. Lots of mulberries everywhere right now! The lychee tree is flowering again; I'll keep watering it more consistently and see if I get any fruit this year.
Other than that, I've got a spare raised bed now that the zucchinis have died back, so I might put some tomato seedlings in there and see if I can get some full-sized tomatoes this year. I've had enough of cherry tomatoes.
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What an awesome thread!!
Anyone is in a unit like I am? What grows best?
I have some light but not too much sunshine there (at least not in summer...)
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I can't grow broccoli or most of the brassicas (broccoli is a brassica as are cabbage, cauliflower... and radish - although just about anyone can grow radishes) - they just get sooty aphids. Zucchini are easy, as are tomatoes (both produce well for anyone and you only need a couple of plants). Climbing beans (I plant them a couple of centimetres apart and cover a trellis with them so they really take up no room). These are all annuals, that you start growing in November. For vegetables you can plant now, try spinach (it will be ready about when you want to grow the others). Rhubarb is a perennial you can plant now.
Herbs - basil (summer), mint (if you don't mind it running riot), parsley are all easy in Melbourne. Thyme. Bay tree (you prune it back a lot, or can grow it in a tub). Marjoram. Oregano. Most of these are perennials, so you can leave them in.
Thanks deborah and happy, great info
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What an awesome thread!!
Anyone is in a unit like I am? What grows best?
I have some light but not too much sunshine there (at least not in summer...)
When I lived in a flat, the person below me grew all sorts of things in polystyrene boxes. Mainly vegetables. The woman next door to her covered the stairway with succulents of various sorts. If you are after edibles, try things that don't have fruit (probably need more sun than you have) or much in the way of roots (you'll be growing them in shallow soil) - lettuce (try ones that you can pick leaves individually), other salad greens. Tomatoes do well in pots, but I think they need a bit of sunlight. Ditto chillis. A lot of herb gardens are sold for kitchens, so they should do well in a unit.
If you don't have much room, you really need to concentrate on things that you don't need much of (chillis, herbs), or that are quite prolific (tomatoes), or grow fast, and that you use a lot of the time.
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Personal Gardening Consultant (Dad) explained that the reason why my seeds aren't germinating is because I'm setting them up on my porch, which faces West. I now have them along the side of the house facing North, which is apparently much better for that. The things you learn.
Two siblings expressed interest in using my Diggers Club membership, and possibly sharing orders of bulk wildflower seeds. Yay!
Biggest recent undertaking has been the removal of most of my ornamental pear trees from the back yard. Three out of seven remain, though I have a taker for one. Brother has used four to fancy up his garden as part of getting his house ready to sell. My back yard now resembles a dirt pit, but on the plus side, nephlings had a great time digging and playing there on the weekend.
Plan is to replace them with citrus and avocado trees (I want evergreens because the trees will eventually function to block a neighbouring house's line of sight into our yard should that house ever be sold to someone who actually uses the second floor, and because I think evergreens do a better job of making that space lush and green). I need to map out which citrus varieties I want to complement those I already have in pots. In an ideal world I want fruit harvesting to be spread over as many months as possible.
Unfortunately Dawson's, which Personal Gardening Consultant says is his pick for the best nursery in Perth, has such a long waitlist for avocado trees that they have declined to add me to it. I have a few leads for other nurseries that may stock avocado trees.
Potted dwarf citrus out the front are looking good, buds are continuing to inch closer to flowering.
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Is it worthwhile attempting your own avocado germination? Or would that take too long?
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Is it worthwhile attempting your own avocado germination? Or would that take too long?
I hear it takes 7 years from seed to fruit. Probably not quite that long to get to a size that might start to make your yard look green and lush, but still quite a few years to get to a decent size to block the neighbours.
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Is it worthwhile attempting your own avocado germination? Or would that take too long?
I hear it takes 7 years from seed to fruit. Probably not quite that long to get to a size that might start to make your yard look green and lush, but still quite a few years to get to a decent size to block the neighbours.
They also don't grow true to type, so not a great strategy when a) I want to produce avocados to eat, and b) mature plant size is a crucial factor due to only having a small space.
Would be a fun project with kids though!
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When I chose fruit trees for my garden, I decided to get fruit that was not readily available in the shops. Well, that isn't strictly correct. I had to have an apricot and a lemon tree. They are a given, and I would be unhappy if my abode didn't have these.
But once I had the mandatory trees, I thought about things. I have a thornless blackberry and numerous raspberries. These were already there when we arrived. We LOVE raspberries, but they have been very disappointing. I am currently trying to get these transplanted to other parts of the garden before they start to bud, but I have to make room for them first. They are currently in one of my vegetable beds, and I want to grow vegetables there. However, whenever I have transplanted them in the past, they have taken but died in summer (and come back up in the vegetable bed). The same thing has happened whenever I have bought raspberry plants. The blackberry is corralled into a small portion of the garden. Each year it is stopped from suckering, and reduced to the space allotted to it. It produces oodles of fruit. Besides which, blackberries are expensive in the shops.
Canberra is marginal for citrus. We have a grapefruit that I planted when I came here. It produces oodles of grapefruit most years, and gets a trim back to keep it confined each year. The grapefruit are good, but we never eat them all. The lemon usually has loads of fruit, and we struggle to get through it all, but last year it set very few fruit, so we don't have our usual lemon supply this year. I have a Seville orange - if your orange isn't going to be sweet because citrus is marginal, why not get an orange that is supposed to be bitter? It is only in its third year of fruiting, but it was an excellent choice - I have never seen Seville oranges on sale, and there are a lot of recipes for them, that are often made with sweet oranges simply because the Seville oranges are so rare. So I can make these things with the right orange - and they taste so much better! I have also planted a lime and a cumquat recently because the other citrus are doing well in that area. Citrus is good because it ripens when nothing else is available, and can stay on the tree for a long time.
I have a peach. It produces fruit, but I often don't notice that they are ripe until it is too late. Blackberries, apricots and peaches are all ready at the same time, usually when heat is at its peak, at the beginning of January. So often the peach misses out. We don't really eat peaches (why would you when you have blackberries and apricots coming out your ears?). The tree has had a hard life. Whenever my behind neighbours trimmed one of their trees (since departed), branches fell on my peach. Twice I taped the top half of the tree to the bottom half in the hopes that it would survive. As a result it isn't the best looking of trees, and it has weaknesses, so branches loaded with fruit have been known to break off. It keeps on being told it is about to go, but last year I made some divine peach syrup and bubbly drink that was really outstanding, so it hasn't been cut down this year.
Cherries. I have a sweet cherry (it is the first thing to ripen in summer), and I love cherries. But I also have three sour cherries (Kentish and Morello - they taste different), again because they aren't available in the shops.
Plums. I have a Greengage, a Victoria and a Coe's Golden Drop (if it doesn't produce good fruit this year, it's gone). The Greengage and Victoria are really nice fruit, which isn't available in the shops. They ripen later than the other things, which gives me a longer fruit season. I planted a Japanese blood plum which is furiously blossoming at the moment, and hopefully I will get a few fruit from it this year. It is right beside the peach, so it will have enough room when the peach goes.
So most of my fruit is either non-existent in the shops or is very expensive. There is some point in growing things that are readily available, if they taste better from your garden or if you wouldn't buy them, but you will eat them if you grow them (one way of consuming more vegetables and fruit).
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Plums. I have a Greengage, a Victoria and a Coe's Golden Drop (if it doesn't produce good fruit this year, it's gone). The Greengage and Victoria are really nice fruit, which isn't available in the shops. They ripen later than the other things, which gives me a longer fruit season. I planted a Japanese blood plum which is furiously blossoming at the moment, and hopefully I will get a few fruit from it this year. It is right beside the peach, so it will have enough room when the peach goes.
So most of my fruit is either non-existent in the shops or is very expensive. There is some point in growing things that are readily available, if they taste better from your garden or if you wouldn't buy them, but you will eat them if you grow them (one way of consuming more vegetables and fruit).
I am totally jealous right now. My grandfather was an orchardist and had the most amazing fruit trees in his retirement garden. Green gage plums were my absolute favourite.
The last time I had green gage plums was when Husband and I bought some from a roadside stall in Tasmania about 10 years ago. So sweet and delicious.
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Yes, the greengage is one of my favourites. Honey turned into a fruit. If I ever move, a greengage will be a mandatory tree. I got it (like most of my fruit trees) from Bob Magnus (https://www.woodbridgefruittrees.com.au/) who posts them to people. But I think you're in Brisbane, so it might be too hot for plums.
What else did your grandfather have?
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From memory, and just in the back yard:
Fig, mixed fruit salad trees (he grafted onto stock), one was granny smith / red delicious / golden delicious, one was apricot / almond / green gage plum, blood plums, yellow plums, peaches (a couple of varieties), nectarines, cherries, walnuts, couple of different pears and maybe another few apple trees? The whole back yard (about 1/2 an acre with a small house) was covered with fruit trees. It was an awesome place to grow up.
But yeah, western Vic and I don't think a lot of those would work up here.
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Time for me to pick two citrus trees for the backyard.
Already have a Eureka lemon, Tahiti (Tahitian) lime and seedless Japanese mandarin, all in pots.
I'm contemplating a grapefruit and either an orange or another mandarin. I like grapefruit for eating or juicing (especially with some gin!). I like orange juice too, but find oranges to be a bit annoying to eat. I guess grapefruit are fiddly to eat too, but the juice is more exciting to me than orange juice. Mandarins, of course, are super easy to peel and eat.
Anyone want to weigh in / share some citrus wisdom?
I am also tempted to get a lemonade tree to pop in another pot out the front. Mostly because sweet lemons will have so much novelty value. I wonder how well lemonade juice goes with gin?
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Are you into Thai curries? A kaffir lime might be good. They have very interesting looking fruit, but, of course, you want the leaves. And Perth would be hot enough.
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Mulberry season! My mulberry tree (about 5 years old now) has hit its stride and established itself in my chicken run. My freezer is full of mulberries and I'm taking them to work to push onto coworkers. Jam! Liqueur! Wine!
I'm also trying to encourage my lychee tree, which is progressing slowly. Any hints?
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Are you into Thai curries? A kaffir lime might be good. They have very interesting looking fruit, but, of course, you want the leaves. And Perth would be hot enough.
I wouldn't use the leaves enough to justify a whole tree when there are so many fruit trees I want and only a limited amount of space for them (similarly, I've shelved plans for a curry tree and bay tree for now).
On a happier note, I've realised that I have the perfect space for two or three blueberry bushes. Yay!
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But a bay tree can be quite small. Many people keep it in a pot and cut it into a chupa-chup shape.
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Mulberry season! My mulberry tree (about 5 years old now) has hit its stride and established itself in my chicken run. My freezer is full of mulberries and I'm taking them to work to push onto coworkers. Jam! Liqueur! Wine!
I'm also trying to encourage my lychee tree, which is progressing slowly. Any hints?
Where do you live? Lychees are tropical. The one we had in Brisbane grew well (we didn't know about lychees and thought it was ornamental - WHAT A WASTE!)
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I'm contemplating a grapefruit and either an orange or another mandarin.
Anyone want to weigh in / share some citrus wisdom?
We used to have a bunch of trees (orange, lemon and mandarin as our citrus) and I highly recommend a mandarin tree. I was never a mad-keen mandarin fan before, but that tree ruined me for shop bought mandarins for life! It was very low maintenance, fruited well, etc. I also loved our peach tree, but had so many problems with fruit fly. The mandarin tree didn't have any troubles like that. TBH after the kids went to bed I used to pick 5 mandarins a night and sit there peeling and eating. Glorious!
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But a bay tree can be quite small. Many people keep it in a pot and cut it into a chupa-chup shape.
Yeah, but it still takes SOME space. I need to prioritise and then, if I have room left over once I have enough citrus, avocados, almonds, apples, blueberries and nectarines, THEN I can start allocating space to other, lower-priority edibles.
I will also need space for roses.
I'm contemplating a grapefruit and either an orange or another mandarin.
Anyone want to weigh in / share some citrus wisdom?
We used to have a bunch of trees (orange, lemon and mandarin as our citrus) and I highly recommend a mandarin tree. I was never a mad-keen mandarin fan before, but that tree ruined me for shop bought mandarins for life! It was very low maintenance, fruited well, etc. I also loved our peach tree, but had so many problems with fruit fly. The mandarin tree didn't have any troubles like that. TBH after the kids went to bed I used to pick 5 mandarins a night and sit there peeling and eating. Glorious!
So you found the mandarin tree to be more enjoyable than the orange?
I already have a Japanese seedless mandarin, so I'm contemplating the addition of a SECOND mandarin tree versus an orange tree. The relative ease of eating is what's swaying me. With two mandarin trees I could extend the fruiting period over more months, too, which would be useful.
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Where do you live? Lychees are tropical. The one we had in Brisbane grew well (we didn't know about lychees and thought it was ornamental - WHAT A WASTE!)
I'm also in Brisbane, so quite pleased to hear that yours did well. Did you do anything in particular to it to make it grow?
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Where do you live? Lychees are tropical. The one we had in Brisbane grew well (we didn't know about lychees and thought it was ornamental - WHAT A WASTE!)
I'm also in Brisbane, so quite pleased to hear that yours did well. Did you do anything in particular to it to make it grow?
Nothing at all. In fact, it was the seed from a plant that was in a front yard I passed on the way to school. I was really interested in the seedpod, and took one and planted the seed. Surprised that mum didn't get rid of it!
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I have been thinking about food thieves.
Sweet Cherries would be impossible without netting. Each year we take the netting off after we have harvested the cherries, and the remainder are gone within the remaining daylight hours that day (we leave those that have been pecked, are beginning to rot or are just too far to reach). Before we got cunning, we put the net around the tree, and the birds would sit on the net poking their beaks through and eating the cherries. They say that Australian birds (and parrots in particular) are the most intelligent birds, and their methods for getting at cherries back that claim up, so we were getting very few cherries. And cherries have cherry slug.
Apricots have it hard. The Eastern Rosellas love putting their beaks on both sides of an Apricot branch in blossom and zooming up the branch, reducing the number of apricots gained significantly. Cockatoos like green apricots, and sit on the electricity wires with one foot, while the other is holding the apricot and gently rotating it against the beak. Wattle Birds love poking a hole in each apricot (I think it encourages insects that reduce the apricot to mush that the wattle birds then treat as nectar), and trying to stop you from picking the apricots.
However, even though we have possums, they seem to avoid the apricot tree (and possums love apricot jam sandwiches, so they must like apricots). In fact, they seem to avoid all the edible plants, and concentrate on the Pin Oak - the nice tender juicy leaves just after the tree is in bud and the acorns. And it's not like we only have the occasional possum. We rarely look for possums in the tree, but our neighbour has counted as many as 15 in the tree at one time. And we certainly hear them, and see their presence most of the time.
Actually, just about everything LOVES the Pin Oak. The cockatoos leave detritus piled several inches high on the concrete each week of acorn season, and it is rare that cockatoos, correllas, king parrots or eastern or crimson rosellas are not eating acorns during acorn season. It is very rare to go under the Pin Oak at that time of year without something descending on you from above. Perhaps the Pin Oak does serve a purpose (other than annoying the whole neighbourhood with its leaves) - to divert wildlife from the things I want to eat.
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Oooo, I might plant a pin oak! (Whatever that is!)
Off topic kind of: Recently I borrowed Rhonda Hertzel's Down to Earth book from the library. Reading it makes me feel so peaceful and relaxed but also very inspired, so I have big dreams of growing and preserving things now. Maybe I should just concentrate on actually getting something grown first, but.. I just got a breadmaker for just $10 from a FB sale group - downloaded the manual and it says I can make JAM!! First things first, to clean the thing and check it makes bread..
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Jam in a bread maker is easy. I went through a phase of making a whole lot, but I was the main consumer, which was not good for me. I'm glad I got to taste REAL strawberry jam at least once in my life-time - its unreal. Rhonda's blog go the into this whole thing - I was looking for a way to bankroll quitting work and just doing simple living. I met her on a recent book tour and she's just like the Rhonda in the blog.
Strawberries are in season - my Coles are selling them for $1 a punnet...great timing for strawberry jam ;)
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Off topic kind of: Recently I borrowed Rhonda Hertzel's Down to Earth book from the library. Reading it makes me feel so peaceful and relaxed but also very inspired.
I really enjoy her blog.
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My gardening tip is to go away on holidays for three weeks and come home to an epic harvest!
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So I assume that you are now up to about 10kg total or more! Much better than 2! And you've got a long way to go yet. How long do tomato plants last in Brisbane? I have just sewn the seeds and expect to plant in November - and they last until May here. Your tomato plant is probably just getting into production mode.
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Unsure how much longer I'll keep the vines in. They're looking pretty ratty. I'm keen to devote my small cultivated area to zucchini and corn for summer. Might keep one or two tomatoes.
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Gorgeous tomatoes PDM!
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Fantastic PDM! And thanks for the tip-off on the strawberries, Happy.
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My super dwarf nectarine is flowering! For the last few months it's looked like I accidentally planted a dead stick. Now it's covered in beautiful soft pink blossoms.
When I get a chance to take a decent photo I'll post it here.
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My super dwarf nectarine is flowering! For the last few months it's looked like I accidentally planted a dead stick. Now it's covered in beautiful soft pink blossoms.
When I get a chance to take a decent photo I'll post it here.
That's fantastic!
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Nectarine blossom :D
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So pretty!
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Yum. I love nectarines. Is it a white or yellow flesh?
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Yum. I love nectarines. Is it a white or yellow flesh?
Yellow flesh. I don't eat stonefruit at all (though I will at least try our homegrown nectarines!) and Mr H only eats yellow flesh nectarines.
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I bought ALL THE TREES yesterday:
Two wurtz avocados
One hass avocado
One mandarin
One dwarf granny smith
One dwarf cox's orange pippin
Four blueberry bushes
Twelve strawberry plants
This week I want to get everything planted except the pippin, which will be living in a temporary pot until I've cleared the right space for it (they're hard to find, so I wanted to get one while I could).
Meanwhile, the seeds I've started are not doing much. One zucchini seed has sprouted into a real, if little, plant - maybe 10cm high? - and I have one amish paste seedling. Everything else is just dirt so far. I think maybe it's the unseasonable cold weather we've been having?
My flower seeds from Diggers have arrived, so I'm going to seed a few narrow flower beds and hopefully have some Summer colour. I picked varieties that can be sown this time of year and that attract bees and other beneficial insects.
If anyone in Perth is looking for wurtz avocados, they're on super long waiting lists at all the real nurseries but there's this somewhat shady backyard nursery in Leeming that stocks them, and its trees were in great condition and well priced. I'll definitely be going back there! I can PM the details to anyone who wants them.
I still have a few trees I want to buy within the next 6 - 12 months. A ruby red grapefruit, two dwarf almond trees, and *maybe* another nectarine (I'm in two minds about that last one).
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If flowering fruit trees are the thing, I suppose I had better post a few. Firstly the trees that are under threat - the peach and the Coe's Golden Drop Plum (its plums are always mealy)
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Next, the apricot (Moorpark), the Japanese Plum, the sweet cherry and the greengage plum
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If you want to see pictures of the tulips, weeping cherry and a king parrot, you need to go to my journal.
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Gorgeous flowers!
I've had a batch of seeds recently that took forevverrrr to sprout, but they finally did (3 weeks or something) and now I have a bunch of baby pea, squash, and kailan plants. Beans still nowhere to be seen. I was slightly mystified by the seeds needing the northern wall thing, then later I followed 'Beyond Gardens' on facebook and they just posted that seeds need 18-20 degree temps to un-hibernate. So I've brought my latest tray inside and I'm planning to leave them in the bathtub for a week or so...
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Harvesting asparagus, lettuce, silver beet, coriander, rocket and broccoli.
Black scale has attacked the garlic...its still at the "shallot" stage, with no bulbs. I've prayed with white oil. I doubt I'll get a mature crop now, and it was looking really good. They ate all my chives also.
Having a low strike rate with germination right now, not sure why, but have 4 tomato plants and some basil coming up.
I finally have a 2 small lines of snow/snap peas and one of beans about 10-15cm high.
Several things I left to self seed last season are growing - feverfew, parsley, calendular, and another flowering plant I don't know the name of.
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So many good growing stories! My next gardening adventure is demolition. I'm removing a nasty spikey palm-type plant with some family assistance this week. Will post before & after if I remember to take pictures.
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I finally did some gardening today.
I fertilised all of the fruit trees (guava, apples, nectarines plus grapevine). The strawberry plant out the front is loving all the rain and has a million flowers and is growing beautiful big green leaves.
I hacked back the roses down the side fence (I'd pull them out but they are well suited to the climate) and put the clippings in the compost heap. Normally I just leave prunings as mulch but I have learnt the hard way that usually rose prunings turn into barbed wire mulch.
I also hacked back some of the kale which has now gone through 3 winters and still going strong. It's bolted to flower and I suspect the weather has been too warm recently and the leaves will be bitter. However, it too is loving all of the rain and is now as tall as the washing line (when wound down), hence needing to hack it back so we can hang stuff out to dry. When it's not raining, that is.
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I've prayed with white oil.
haha praying as a method of pest control is probably about as effective as all the other methods I've tried
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I've prayed with white oil.
haha praying as a method of pest control is probably about as effective as all the other methods I've tried
I should try that on our possums! While we have been building possum proofing for our veggies they have moved into a nest under our solar panels! Next project is a nesting box for the furthest tree.
Does everyone else buy potting mix or make their own or just use compost when they are filling raised beds? We did a lasagne method to cheaply fill our raised beds (top layer was bought potting compost) but they need topping up as the layers rotted and everything sank to half the size. Costs a fair bit. Plus, do people buy straw to mulch their toms etc or just use whatever is to hand?
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I buy potting mix, and I haven't bought mulch yet but I think I'll get some straw mulch for the strawberries when they start fruiting.
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Get onto that mulching before spring finally gets here and starts frying everything! Up to 10cm deep for best results.
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I've prayed with white oil.
haha praying as a method of pest control is probably about as effective as all the other methods I've tried
I should try that on our possums! While we have been building possum proofing for our veggies they have moved into a nest under our solar panels! Next project is a nesting box for the furthest tree.
Does everyone else buy potting mix or make their own or just use compost when they are filling raised beds? We did a lasagne method to cheaply fill our raised beds (top layer was bought potting compost) but they need topping up as the layers rotted and everything sank to half the size. Costs a fair bit. Plus, do people buy straw to mulch their toms etc or just use whatever is to hand?
LOL @ typo. New method of weed control: spray and pray!
I do a combination. I'm blessed with an eternal supply of leaves and bark and also have guinea pig bedding (wood shavings) with manure and hay in it. I also usually end up with a pile of leftovers from their bale hay.
I have compost piles on the go, but I cold compost, not being devoted enough to do the hot version.
I do buy potting mix for when I'm planting in pots.
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My coffee plants recently flowered and have set fruit. Hooray. Much like brewing beer and baking bread, I consider this apart of my plan for after the apocalypse. I'll be rich! Oh oh want real fresh ground coffee? That'll be a bar of gold please. Or maybe a box of ammunition.
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Get onto that mulching before spring finally gets here and starts frying everything! Up to 10cm deep for best results.
We've been able to coast because the last owners of our house mulched generously. Now I have to actually mulch myself?! Wut. Learning new garden stuff every week at the moment.
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The Victoria Plum is finally flowering. It is one of my favourites, and last year it had 5 flowers and no fruit. Also some of the apples are flowering - Pink Lady, Huonvale Crab (a large crab or a small apple) in the back.
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Along the side the Gravenstein, Luxton's Fortune, and Egremont Russet are also flowering. So hopefully this year I will get a few apples.
All the apples have been cordoned along the fence. That way they don't take up much room. I worked out that I should get apples more or less over a whole year because the ones along the side all fruit at different times. However, the book I consulted was English, and they fruit differently here than there. This will (hopefully) be the first year I have more than just a couple of fruit, so I'm really looking forward to it. It has been a long haul with the apples. So much so, that I started planting along the back fence as well to see if they did any better there. I lost several and replaced them with others (I think the Gravenstein was a replacement), then they didn't flower. Having fresh apples from the tree year round makes them quite attractive to me so I have persevered.
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good mulch in Perth is free tree chippings from gumtree (or mulchnet, but dont' know if that's still going strong)
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Does everyone else buy potting mix or make their own or just use compost when they are filling raised beds? We did a lasagne method to cheaply fill our raised beds (top layer was bought potting compost) but they need topping up as the layers rotted and everything sank to half the size. Costs a fair bit. Plus, do people buy straw to mulch their toms etc or just use whatever is to hand?
I use the lasagne method to fill the beds, and then top up as they sink. Each winter we get a lot of leaves which get used on the beds, then all the weeds in early spring (there are an enormous number in my garden at the moment), dynamic lifter or equivalent, and compost and some soil if I have any. I top it with mulch. So only the mulch and dynamic lifter costs. After filling several times with weeds, I get in and stomp on them because they pack down further before putting the heavy stuff on top.
Since I am rotating the beds, only the bed that is going to get things like tomatoes gets topped up, because other things like soil that has properly degraded. Who cares if the bed those plants is in is only half full?
For tomatoes I use whatever is to hand - generally a bale of lucerne hay peeled off into pads and laid around the plant. But, if I haven't get the hay, I use something else.
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Guuuuuuys I think I killed all my seedlings. Today was the third day of "hot" weather (23, 32, 26 - or something like that) and the tiny tomato seedlings have withered into nothing. The zucchini seedlings are VERY wilted, but still alive. Waaa. I KNEW that it was time to pot the seedlings in my self-watering containers!
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Water them and cover them up with shade cloth - they might make it, or are they clearly terminal at this point? Tomato seedlings do wilt pretty easily.
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Tomatoes are dead dead dead, but yep, zucchini have been thoroughly watered and shifted to a good spot for tomorrow's weather.
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This is one reason why I start a few more tomatoes each year than is necessary (not as many as this year though - it was an accident - I thought I wouldn't get many, and was clearing out old packets, mainly from diggers). Zucchinis and squash I plant as seeds where I want them to grow and don't bother with seedlings - I take it they are still in pots - if so, I would plant them now. I transplanted some lettuces yesterday (something you aren't supposed to transplant) because I pulled them out with a weed. They all appear to have died.
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I am pleased to report my free tubestock kangaroo paw (and "possibly kangaroo paw variant") are flowering! The attached pic is one of the "possibly kangaroo paw". Flower is green :)
good mulch in Perth is free tree chippings from gumtree (or mulchnet, but dont' know if that's still going strong)
I need mulch. Will look into this (is it the right time of year to mulch? Yes?)
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I didn't know that kangaroo paws had flowers like that! It's amazing what plant breeders do!
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I didn't know that kangaroo paws had flowers like that! It's amazing what plant breeders do!
I'm not entirely convinced it's a kangaroo paw, and it's the fuzzy curly thick thing that's out of focus in the front that's the flower... I am hoping to get a better picture once it opens.
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yep, green roo paw.
yep, mulch now! Really any time of year is fine to mulch, but if you can get it done before the really hot days, that's best.
I think I killed at least one set of pea seedlings and maybe another row of something else. I'm not starting seeds in egg cartons again, they're a very convenient shape but just don't hold enough water to last a hot day and anyway the cardboard wicks it away so fast. The other seeds are in strawberry punnets and cut-down milk bottles and have weathered the weather (ha) much better. Also killed a bagful of lemongrass that my mum gave me but I didn't have a handy place to plant.
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I have just finished a path. We have paths of river pebbles with large rocks in the middle as stepping stones. They look great, and the first one solved the problem of the side path (which was originally crushed red rock) washing away every time we had heavy rain. The second path stopped the concrete getting buckets of soil on it each time it rained. So we were very pleased with the paths. When we created the raised garden beds, I got some rocks to create paths around them, and to create a path along the back from the raised beds to join the first path. This is the path I have been working on for the past couple of weeks, and have just finished.
Now to work out what to do with the remaining sand and rocks.
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I didn't know we were supposed to pinch out the early flowers on our roma tomato plant so now we have three nice big tomatoes growing on a six inch plant. I hope when we pick these it might grow a bit?
We finished 2 x possum & rat proof cage thingies for raised beds/large containers and although the workmanship is not that great, so far so good. Anyone want to see a pic? Something has nibbled a zucchini seedling though so I must remember to go on slug patrol.
We have a container with an old tomato plant from last year that never got pulled and is producing lots so we've left it to see if they are edible - suspect they will be floury and awful as it's unprotected and even the rats haven't touched them. The rats seem to be so starving that they have chewed holes through our compost bin. I'm wondering why they haven't chewed into the worm farm which has more food type items in it but I'll be grateful for now.
We still have possums living under our solar panels and we haven't done anything about it yet, eek.
My vision for the front garden has developed from dwarf citrus orchard to a piece of southern france/ spain, so I will shortly embarking on project lavender (2nd attempt) along the front of the house and on the front fence. I hope some rosemary might work too. DH wants an olive tree as a friend down the road got a bucketful of olives this year from theirs.
Finally, scored 2 x large terracotta pots from chuck out day! One 50 litre one will house an avo plant we grew from the pit (no idea what variety) and the other some spring onion seedlings. We also got a wheelbarrow which will become a planter.
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Nice work, Freshwater! Deborah, I like the sound of your garden paths. Pretty and practical.
I am in the process of weeding around the 'paw, got 3 out from under the weeds yesterday. The sand around is bare now so I'll have to look into mulch soon. I don't think I'm supposed to handle mulch (pregnant) so it might have to wait on being ordered until DH has time to spread it.
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There're two kinds of mulch, the dusty, spongy, composted stuff that you can get from garden centres that I could understand being better to avoid while pregnant that actually is worse than nothing for retaining water in the soil , and then there's the stuff that is basically lumpy woodchips that actually does its water-retaining purpose that I can't see any harm in for a pregnant person. For probably more backup to this assertion than you ever wanted: http://www.plantsman.com.au/page2/files/Mulch%20Ado%20About%20Something.pdf
While I was looking for that, I was reminded of these excellent threads for waterwise, Australian gardening that works:
Starting your new landscape http://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=21643
Vegetable Growing: A guide for home gardeners http://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=17096
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I finished my wicking bed on the weekend!!
It is 5m x 1m and full of nice soil and made of cream colorbond and planted with the seedlings I had been growing ready - peas and kailan and beans and squash and zucchini. I am very proud :)
Last night (with a fair bit of help) I created a kind of A frame to stand in it out of recycled pvc retic pipe that I can drape shade cloth over for the really hot days and also attach trellis to for the beans and cukes and things.
Next plans: put recycled retic pipe or garden hose over the edge of the colorbond so I don't cut myself on it. Plant beetroot seedlings. Attempt to transplant a big clump of bamboo from a raised brick planter because it's in the way of where I want to grow more stuff :)
Later Plans: fix two half wine barrels I rescued from a verge collection, that are falling apart a bit. Plant something in them, probably blueberries. Fix and adapt retic, needs new everything. Create some kind of garden bed in the remaining backyard area - this is a right angle triangle about 3m x 4m, I can probably put in a bed along the workshop (the long side of the triangle) and some kind of perennial herb garden in the middle.
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Wow, thats a huge wicking bed englyn! You'll be able to grow heaps of stuff in it.
I'm still mystified by the vagaries of gardening. After getting a bumper crop of lettuce, I 've using exactly the same technique for about 2 months now, and nothing is germinating. I am using a different pack of seeds, so although not out of date, maybe they don't like what I'm doing. Just resowed some of the previous variety in desperation. I sowed heaps of carrots also, and only have half a dozen seedlings. Basil has germinated - i thought it wouldn't be hot enough, I usually leave it til a bit later, so there you go. I have managed to germinate 2 cucumber plants from some out of date seeds....early days yet - still 2 leaves - before I'm sure they'll survive.
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Happy, my attempt to start some basil about a month ago didn't take :-/ I think it was still too cold here.
Today I spent a few hours catching up on work I should've done weeks ago. Dug up some of the awful spiky half-dead plants left behind by the last owners and planted the remaining blueberry bushes in the gaps. Started tomato, zucchini and eggplant seeds in big pots - taking deborah's advice to just skip ahead to their final growing spots. Also started a HEAP of basil seeds, so hopefully at least some of them grow!
Citrus trees have set fruit, and while I was tending to the nectarine today I saw two little fruit growing! No idea if they will continue to grow, especially as it's been affected by peach leaf curl. Strawberries have flowers growing and plenty of bees buzzing around.
We've now removed all the ornamental pears from the backyard (all happily taken by brother and neighbours), my Dad needs to show me how to reconnect the retic and then the new fruit trees go in. I already have two wurtz avocados and a fourer (spelling?) mandarin for that space; still need/want a ruby red grapefruit and a couple of dwarf almonds.
This weekend is already way too busy, but the one after is Mulching Time.
The flowers on my lavender are dying now - should I cut it back?
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None of my carrot seeds came up, either, I was a bit mystified since everything I planted next to them did. But they may have been out of date.
I've just sown basil and lettuce and cucumber, the silverbeet seeds are at the tiny-two-leaf stage, and I've just bought seeds for italian parsley and rocket.
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I have figured out the kangaroos can maintain my yard almost as well as I can, so I have just got rid of the mower.
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niiiice.
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Hi everyone,
Which plant/veggie would you start to grow on a unit's balcony?
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Hi everyone,
Which plant/veggie would you start to grow on a unit's balcony?
How much sun does it get?
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In winter, plenty! Through the day, the whole balcony will see the sun eventually.
In summer, I get sun only on one part of the balcony.
I'm exposed N, but have a balcony above and buildings on each side.
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This time of year, probably cherry tomatoes. In a self-watering pot.
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Basil would be good too right? Then you can have fresh basil all summer!
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Let me give it a try!
When do you usually buy? I have seen that you can buy all necessary stuff at bunnings
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Super dwarf nectarine has set fruit!
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Let me give it a try!
When do you usually buy? I have seen that you can buy all necessary stuff at bunnings
Which state are you in? I often buy from Bunnings because it's easy and cheap, but there are local nurseries I prefer. So people in your state might have good local suggestions.
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Let me give it a try!
When do you usually buy? I have seen that you can buy all necessary stuff at bunnings
Depends on the season and what you are planting.
The advice you have been given is good - its coming into summer, so you could sow tomatoes and basil NOW. You can plant them together side by side, they are companion plants. If you are somewhere very hot,don't dawdle with those tomatoes, they don't like it over 30C.
As a beginner Bunnings is fine, but you might get better stuff at a local nursery. Also my Bunnings carries stock that isn't necessarily seasonal, whereas my local nursery keeps better to the seasons. If you're a beginner, then you can buy stuff that looks ok but doesn't do well at home because its out of season. I mostly grow from seed now, but its taken me a few years to get to that skill level.
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So the rats moved on from pillaging the compost to the worm farm. They are now dead to me so we've set traps but I think we are dealing with the Rats of NIMH (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs._Frisby_and_the_Rats_of_NIMH) as they've removed the bait without getting caught. So the project this weekend is now to deal with the pile of leaves and other nesting material and then set traps on the path from their nest to the worm farm. We got a decent dog in (mine is too old) to locate the nest. He found an old one in a pile of leaves but now they are almost certainly living on our neighbours' side between the palings and some bamboo screening.
I think we have early tomato blight, the leaves have brown spots that are making holes :( I was expecting it on our old plant (Aunt Ruby's German Green) that didn't get pulled but not on our roma which is in a bed at least 5 metres away. The leaves haven't been getting wet so it must just be poor hygiene on my part moving between the old and new plants. Other plants bought from aldi next to the roma are unaffected. I wonder if snipping the few affected leaves on the roma will save all the plants. The old plant I will just leave be.
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Your rats sound tricker than my antechinus were.
Everything not netted is fair game for the wallaby. It pruned a patch of mixed flowers last night. I just had a few flowers and other things looking like they might flower. Since it was a surprise pack I was just getting interested to see what I'd grown. Might never know now. They also pruned the rocket, my snow/snap peas, and a container tomato. They don't like fever few, nor calendula.
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Eewwwww rats.
Picked up a free worm farm today! All my fruit and veges will be amazing if I fertilise them with worm tea and casings, right?
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Eewwwww rats.
Picked up a free worm farm today! All my fruit and veges will be amazing if I fertilise them with worm tea and casings, right?
With the worm tea etc, I'll say that it seemed (in my case) to be not balanced food and my plants that had some worm liquid went quite pale so I'm assuming from my googling that it's heavy on nitrogen but low on other nutrients. But YMMV depending on what the worms eat, just something to monitor. I've thought about digging it into the soil a few weeks before planting or pouring onto compost pile so that the richness gets processed a bit.
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There're two kinds of mulch, the dusty, spongy, composted stuff that you can get from garden centres that I could understand being better to avoid while pregnant that actually is worse than nothing for retaining water in the soil , and then there's the stuff that is basically lumpy woodchips that actually does its water-retaining purpose that I can't see any harm in for a pregnant person. For probably more backup to this assertion than you ever wanted: http://www.plantsman.com.au/page2/files/Mulch%20Ado%20About%20Something.pdf
While I was looking for that, I was reminded of these excellent threads for waterwise, Australian gardening that works:
Starting your new landscape http://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=21643
Vegetable Growing: A guide for home gardeners http://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=17096
It really depends upon WHAT you are using mulch for - to reduce watering requirements, keep the roots cooler, stop weeds from growing, gradually improve the soil as it breaks down. Most of the time I mulch to reduce the weeds and to improve the soil - that means pebbles are out as a mulch. However, I have pebble paths because they reduce the rate of water flow, retain rain on my block, and move the water to where I want it (so I guess they are acting as a mulch - we have a sloping block). We were amazed at how they stopped each downpour moving large amounts of soil onto the concrete. Really, having as much permeable ground as possible helps to build up water penetration on your block and reduce the need for watering.
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When have to put the traps out I bait them which crunchy peanut butter. It gets them every time.
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When have to put the traps out I bait them which crunchy peanut butter. It gets them every time.
I used peanut butter on one and cheese on the other. The rats licked them clean, fired the trap but didn't get caught!
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When have to put the traps out I bait them which crunchy peanut butter. It gets them every time.
I used peanut butter on one and cheese on the other. The rats licked them clean, fired the trap but didn't get caught!
It's time to up the ante.
Bait the traps but don't set them for a couple of nights. Let them get comfortable eating off the traps. Then on the next night set the traps. By then they shouldn't be so cautious.
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good points on mulch
True, but we're in Perth. Basically a good evaporation-resisting mulch is compulsory for things you'd like to stay alive over the summer.
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good points on mulch
True, but we're in Perth. Basically a good evaporation-resisting mulch is compulsory for things you'd like to stay alive over the summer.
Yah, like this point:
Really, having as much permeable ground as possible helps to build up water penetration on your block and reduce the need for watering.
Is, uh, not so applicable when everything is highly permeable sand. There are definitely clayey areas in Perth where they need to add sand, or a few places with high water tables, but mostly the water goes straight through and that is the end of that! :)
That said: remember, people, water goes downhill. Grass should be lower than the paving next to it so it can soak up the rain. Whoever designed the gardens at my rental did not understand this, so the weeds between the cracks in the paving get all the lovely water instead.
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Even in Perth you have the occasional house where concrete appears to have replaced lawn or any other permeable surface! And my relatives who live in Perth need to add humus to the soil and make it more friable - one of the types of mulching I alluded to.
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Roses don't need much water - if it's only 2, I'd water them by hand. Melbourne (and a lot of Australia) often has water restrictions, and may even have permanent water restrictions (see http://www.maribyrnong.vic.gov.au/Files/stage_1_water_restrictions_factsheet.pdf). This is as a result of the 8 year drought we had a few years ago. Whenever we get a drought, water restrictions can restrict the times and days when you can water (evening and early morning for hand watering, different regime for automatic - sometimes none) and the types of automatic equipment you can have (no sprays, just drippers). There are a number of sites about watering wisely - for instance http://www.melbournewater.com.au/getinvolved/saveandreusewater/Documents/Great%20ideas%20to%20save%20water%20fact%20sheet.pdf
A lot of councils give mulch away for free (or did when I lived in Melbourne), and certainly many tree removal people also do so. This is minced tree mulch, so meets englyn's requirements as well as being something that breaks down with time and adds organic elements to the soil. You will probably need some gypsum (add a handful and a handful of fertilizer - mixed in with a few handfuls of the soil - to the hole when you plant) as Melbourne soil tends to be clay.
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good points on mulch
True, but we're in Perth. Basically a good evaporation-resisting mulch is compulsory for things you'd like to stay alive over the summer.
That study is REALLY quite meaningless because it misses out on the evaporation rates that soil without mulch experiences. Evaporation is key in summers in Australia. That is why even the negative mulches in that study are recommended by all the water wise sites. People also include plant as a mulch in many books, because, again, this reduces evaporation rates.
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"Figure 3 shows the same data presented as a %age of the moisture lost from F which was the
unmulched surface. The worst mulch lost 73% more than the bare potting mix and the best lost
57% less."
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We've had to turn sprinklers on today. At least we made it to November. Mulching and letting inappropriate plants die seems to be a successful strategy.
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We've had to turn sprinklers on today. At least we made it to November. Mulching and letting inappropriate plants die seems to be a successful strategy.
This is similar to my strategy. Except I've been watering the fruit trees as they're still establishing their root systems and some of them don't catch any rain.
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We've had to turn sprinklers on today. At least we made it to November. Mulching and letting inappropriate plants die seems to be a successful strategy.
This is similar to my strategy. Except I've been watering the fruit trees as they're still establishing their root systems and some of them don't catch any rain.
My potted plants need watering year round, but I've been impressed my itty bitty kangaroo paw have managed to establish without extra water. Fruit trees are a good reason to hand water!
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What's everyone done / doing un the garden this weekend?
Personal Gardening Consultant (my Dad) is coming around this afternoon to help me reconnect retic that had to be disconnected for the removal of ornamental trees from the backyard. He'll also show me how to use the pH meter he gave me, to see whether the blueberry bushes need soil amendment.
Other than that, I need to add some dynamic lifter / DPM to a heap of fruit trees.
Next stage of the garden redo is to plant the fruit trees in the backyard (still three left to buy...) and then mulch, mulch, mulch. I'm hoping to do this next weekend.
Wouldn't mind picking up more self-watering containers and potting mix from Bunnings for my summer veges. I'll need to start planning what to do with all this available space in autumn and winter once my summer plants are dead.
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Today is weeding and wettasoil. DH and MIL have a lot of plants to pull, masses of tall grasses down the side of the house. I've done the little niggly plants/ areas.
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AV - I also need to do those things! Good reminder.
Debating whether or not to let the back lawn die, as we're going to redo it within the next year or so anyway. Tough call.
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No real gardening this weekend. Just watering a few times to keep plants alive in the first dry hot spell of the summer.
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Harvesting:
Lettuces, Grapefruit, Apple Mint, Asparagus, Lemon, Bay Leaves.
Weeding
Getting rid of junk, and tidying up under the oak.
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My potted citrus trees have strawberries growing around the base of each tree.
Within the next six-ish months I'll be potting some new fruit trees - likely apple varieties - for a space that is not yet free. Suggestions for what else to grow around the base of a fruit tree in a half barrel? Preferably edible perennials. If the answer is ''more strawberries'' that will be okay too.
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Why not various herbs? Mint goes rampant in the garden, but confining it to a tub would work well (normal mint in one tub, Thai mint in another?). Oregano. Basil is an annual, so that might be a problem. Thyme. It also means they are up higher and easier to pick. How many barrels do you have? You could always have more than one herb in a barrel if you don't use it that much.
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There'll be three or four barrels, so plenty of space. Herbs are a good idea, though I already have a herb garden - and I have to admit, the only fresh herb I use in any quantity is basil.
On a semi related note, I ordered my free seeds from Digger's Club last night (members get four free packets, chosen from a small selection, in autumn and spring). I picked basil, a gambler's pack of herbs, beetroot and flowers that look quite a lot like gerberas.
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I'm currently making Apple Mint (the type of mint) and Ginger Sparkling drink. But unless herbs are close to the house, I find I always forget about them.
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One good thing about the perennial herbs is, they just keep on keeping on with little maintenance and even if you don't cook with them they smell good when you brush past all year round. Oregano grows like a weed like mint, even I can't kill it!
For me, if I bought fresh herbs every time I used them to cook, I'd be buying more than I needed, which is frustrating and $$$$ each time. I know there's dried herbs and you can freeze fresh ones but some things like rosemary are just soooo much better fresh. I make soup with oregano rarely but it's good to have the plant ready to go.
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I was sick the weekend before last and had too much on this weekend so still haven't got around to sorting out all the dead leaves and the rats.
Found out today that our neighbours will be undergrounding our power lines this week as part of their house build, which sorts out the possum route to our solar panels/their nest. It's given us a kick up the bum to quickly build/ install a house for them elsewhere. I wonder if I can put one in a council owned tree out the front nearer their nest (and further from our veggies)? They are ringtails so we get to put up a smaller sized box at least. We have the ply ready to go, maybe tomorrow we can figure it out.
Our tomatoes are coming on great guns, even after removing blight. I have crowded them in way too much which is good to know for next year. I just didn't believe they would grow big I guess! The one roma plant seems to be more of a bush but it has about 6 fruit already even though I pinched some flowers off so all good.
Our green tomatoes are supposed to grown to beef tomato size then go soft and are then edible. However, they are growing to normal tomato size and then turning orange?? Maybe they cross pollinated or we have the wrong plant? It's not from seed and this is the one that's on it's second year (last year we were robbed of all the fruit).
Our capsicum and eggplant plants are also coming up well, who'd've thunk it from aldi seedlings bought on a whim. Also our zucchini sown from seed are leaving everything else for dead, I hope they flower. Will have to google to make sure they get what they need. Our kale seeds have finally come up.
I keep forgetting to look after spinach and lettuce planted in random gaps around the garden so I don't hold out much hope for those. A lot of it is in too shady a spot so got all leggy. The spinach near the back door is doing better.
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We caught a rat! It was quite small with a head that seemed quite large, so much frantic googling followed to make sure it was not some native critter. I think it is just a juvenile one as it has the right teeth and a roundish face, not like the pointy faced antechinus or bandicoot. Before I saw it DH was worried I was going to be upset bc he thought we might have caught a mouse, ha ha, it is still about six times the size of a mouse. Citrus was what got it, random.
Today was all about ringtail possum research. We learnt that they can have a few nests (dreys) dotted around and they tend not to use hollows. You can build a nest by tying together two hanging baskets to make a ball shape and hanging it in a tree. It's got a bit quiet around our solar panels so we think they have moved to another nest. There's a drey in our backyard in the one suitable dense tree but I don't think they are there right now. Anyway, short story is I don't think we need to worry about it if they lose the solar panel home if they've got other options in their territory.
We have decided that our green tomato plant must actually be another plant from last year - Black Russian! We have one orange tomato so we are waiting to see if it turns purple!
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I thought Black Russians went from green to black, without an orange phase - at least that's what mine did.
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I thought Black Russians went from green to black, without an orange phase - at least that's what mine did.
Then who knows what mutants we have created!
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I thought Black Russians went from green to black, without an orange phase - at least that's what mine did.
Then who knows what mutants we have created!
Are your climates similar? Maybe they do different things depending on temp? (Making this up as I go along).
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Should I, or should I not, pull the tiny little fruit that's set on my citrus trees off?
Some sources say this should be done so that the tree puts its energy into growing rather than producing tasty tasty fruit. Thoughts? Opinions? Anecdata?
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All I know is that, yes that's whats said. That being said my lemon, about 3 years old now is only producing LEAVES, so clearly I don't have an expert opinion. PS If I had lots of little fruits I might be tempted to pull them off just in case.
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The only Black Russian I know involves Kahlua, Tia Maria and Coke, so I'm not much help I'm afraid.
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The only Black Russian I know involves Kahlua, Tia Maria and Coke, so I'm not much help I'm afraid.
hmm. I'm not sure about the idea of coke with those liqueurs, but I'm willing to give it a try...
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Nonononono!!! Disclaimer (in big bold letters): I WAS 22 YEARS OLD THE LAST TIME I HAD ONE OF THESE!!!
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Nonononono!!! Disclaimer (in big bold letters): I WAS 22 YEARS OLD THE LAST TIME I HAD ONE OF THESE!!!
haha OK, I won't then! I feel maybe "and it was awful" disclaimer shouldve gone on that :D
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Nonononono!!! Disclaimer (in big bold letters): I WAS 22 YEARS OLD THE LAST TIME I HAD ONE OF THESE!!!
haha OK, I won't then! I feel maybe "and it was awful" disclaimer shouldve gone on that :D
I recall it as actually being quite good, but very strong and very sweet. Sickly even.
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Nonononono!!! Disclaimer (in big bold letters): I WAS 22 YEARS OLD THE LAST TIME I HAD ONE OF THESE!!!
haha OK, I won't then! I feel maybe "and it was awful" disclaimer shouldve gone on that :D
I recall it as actually being quite good, but very strong and very sweet. Sickly even.
eh that might be my kind of alcohol, though I've definitely noticed a trend away from sweetness as I've aged.
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For those who grow blueberries:
In the hot weather we've been having (mid-thirties) the blueberries start to turn / go wrinkly pretty much as soon as they're ripe. The bushes are getting plenty of water.
Does anyone pick theirs just before they're ripe, and ripen them inside? Does it work? Is that the best solution here?
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I didn't have that problem. My blueberries were under the patio and probably got a few hours of full sun a day then full shade.
I have covered my wicking bed with a little tent of 50% shadecloth. I haven't got the hang of filling it often enough, and everything except 1 zucchini died in the baking weather the last couple of days. I've just planted out some cucumber and squash seedlings that were ready, cross fingers.
I also planted out some shoots off the bamboo I dug up weekend before last, and they seem to be surviving.
Mulch collection after work today if all goes well.
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We're on holiday, but I bought a mix pot of succulents from the markets :) best kind of souvenir.
:)
That reminded me of something...
The cacti were a gift from the Mister. He went on a business trip to Arizona and, because he knows me, ignored the purses, jewelry, and clothing and went straight for the plants.
He forgot them at the airport and I was so upset that he called the airport on the off chance someone turned in his gift box o’ Cactaceae.
He figured he would end up going to Home Depot on the sly and buy me some more.
But as luck would have it, he is the only traveling salesman married to a woman who thinks a gift box of prickly plants is a good thing.
They were right where he left them hours later.
http://pancakesandfrenchfries.com/2011/04/the-toy-room-before/
:D
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I have zucchini flowers! Now like pumpkin do they need help pollinating or do I just leave them?
Had a chat to the possums last night while they were munching away on blossoms in a magnolia (?) tree (something pink). The mystery tomatoes are doing well, tasted one and it seems fine, not floury. Those massive old plants are too big to try to possum/rat proof effectively but the possums don't seem to realise they are there on the other side of the house. We were late getting back and it was already dark, so they watched us replacing our huge possum proof wire box on the new tomato bed.
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I'm a bit apathetic about gardening this spring, partly because I am so very tired and partly cos my shoulder is damaged and still recovering.
But... we are in peak strawberry season. A glut, even. :D Despite having some on our breakfast every morning and a strawberry smoothie on the weekend, we have 4 litres (yes litres!) from the one monster plant out the front. It's just one plant that has spread and spread over the past 4 years and in spring, gets a gazillion flowers which turn into strawberries. Unfortunately they aren't great strawberries (very tart) so we can't give them away so we are having a strawberry smoothie for dinner.
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Might they be ok in jam?
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Might they be ok in jam?
Possibly. Not something we have energy to try this year (it's been a long, difficult year) but I'll keep it in mind for the future.
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your strawberry plant sounds amazeballs. I haven't tried to grow strawberries yet. Still so many things to have a go at.
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your strawberry plant sounds amazeballs. I haven't tried to grow strawberries yet. Still so many things to have a go at.
One of the best parts of gardening: there's always a new plant or technique to try out!
But... we are in peak strawberry season. A glut, even. :D Despite having some on our breakfast every morning and a strawberry smoothie on the weekend, we have 4 litres (yes litres!) from the one monster plant out the front. It's just one plant that has spread and spread over the past 4 years and in spring, gets a gazillion flowers which turn into strawberries. Unfortunately they aren't great strawberries (very tart) so we can't give them away so we are having a strawberry smoothie for dinner.
FOUR LITRES!
Not a very healthy idea, but: what about dipping them in sugar and then eating them? Mmmmm.
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Some kind of coulis, or sauce for icecream? Might be easier than jam. Or perhaps you can make strawberry liqueur by throwing a bunch in a bottle of vodka or something, dunno, never tried.
I am envious of the zucc flowers. My one plant that survived is still only 5cm tall. Hurry up, dammit.
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Or dip in chocolate...but wait, Astatine is diabetic so maybe jam, sugar and chocolate are out.
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I will take those strawberries off your hands...
My lovely parents and in-laws helped us mow, weed and mulch our garden in time for our rent inspection. My kangaroo paw are looking very striking against the red woodchips.
We have a courtyard with a narrow garden bed around the edge, and two nasty spikey palm trees in it. The owners have given the OK for those to be removed, so I'm now looking forward to easier maintenance and a significant load of free mondo grass and golden cane palm from my mum to fill the beds. Very excited!
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The seedlings in the wicking bed are still alive and moist even! And I collected mulch with help from partner and mulched the strip near the drive and the raised bed where I planted out bamboo shootlings. Yay, adulting.
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Joining! I now have one acre to play with and lots of free time.
First job has been weeding and mulching the garden beds around trees. My lovely FIL, who has been caretaking the property for nearly two years, has been cutting the grass super short and spraying roundup with liberal abandon. It's time to rebuild the soil.
Our compost bin is set up and we are adding to it every few days. Only household green waste so far. We need a much bigger setup to deal with the green waste from the garden.
We have tiny strawberries galore. I planted a few dried up, donated strawberry plants last summer and since then they've multiplied to fill about 3 square metres. Unfortunately, it's been so dry that I probably can't continue to neglect them if we actually want a harvest this year.
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Should I, or should I not, pull the tiny little fruit that's set on my citrus trees off?
Some sources say this should be done so that the tree puts its energy into growing rather than producing tasty tasty fruit. Thoughts? Opinions? Anecdata?
It doesn't seem to matter. I did it with some plants, and not with others, and they have all grown. I really like to leave SOMETHING on so I can taste the fruit as soon as possible.
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Caught up on some weeding and mulching today. Mulching was just in the nick of time: strawberries are going great guns with one almost ready to pick and many a few weeks off.
The bad news is that it looks like the blueberries are almost done for the season.
Tomato seedlings are still growing well but it doesn't look like I've had much luck with eggplant seeds germinating. Wondering whether to just buy some seedlings (I LOVE eggplant).
Should I, or should I not, pull the tiny little fruit that's set on my citrus trees off?
Some sources say this should be done so that the tree puts its energy into growing rather than producing tasty tasty fruit. Thoughts? Opinions? Anecdata?
It doesn't seem to matter. I did it with some plants, and not with others, and they have all grown. I really like to leave SOMETHING on so I can taste the fruit as soon as possible.
Thanks deborah. I think I'll take the same approach: it seems a shame to not get a single fruit from the trees!
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Ate my first homegrown strawberry this morning. It was a bit bland and watery, not exactly the taste sensation I was hoping for.
But in better news, an eggplant seed has finally germinated!!
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The peas are looking good, with lots of pods (still unripe). I planted three packets of herbs in a pathway - coriander, parsley and something else. Something else didn't come up, but there are a satisfactory number of the other plants. Planted bean seeds today, and some tomatoes earlier in the week. One has died.
I have a number of wire mesh cylinders (6 inch mesh), which I plant the tomato plants inside, and push them in whenever they try to escape. No ties. Very simple. Anyway, I usually grow climbing beans up the wire mesh (one at the bottom of each vertical wire), and have a bean crop as well. I'm only planting them on one side this year, because in the past when I planted them all around the cylinders, the beans grew above the tomatoes and formed a blanket above the tomatoes, so they needed pruning for the tomatoes to get some sunlight.
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I think I picked the last of the asparagus this morning. It's been a great season. I have also been eating artichoke hearts for the first time from my garden. I bought some very decrepit globe artichoke plants last year (they were so decrepit that the shop gave me two and the other three were half price - so actually quarter price as the shop was closing down and everything was half price). Anyway SO kept them alive. I read recently that you should buy slips, rather than seedlings, because seedlings are not true to form, so I decided to taste them all and if they didn't pass the taste test, I was going to ditch them, but they were delicious.
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Tried to plant fruit trees this morning but it was so hot that I could feel myself burning within five minutes and I had to give up. Will try again this evening when it cools down.
When grapefruit are available again (this season's stock has been delayed due to the cool start to Spring here) I'll pick up some seedlings at the same time as my grapefruit tree. I want basil, eggplant and maybe some tomatoes. All of these have now sprouted but are growing soooo slowly. In future years I'll need to either rely on seedlings as well as starting some from seeds myself, or find a way to get seeds germinating and growing much earlier in the season. Contemplating some kind of miniature greenhouse setup.
Blueberries are now done for the season. We've had five or six edible strawberries so far; some plants are producing like mad while others are producing tiny, diseased-looking fruit (must get my Dad to look at those for me). Zucchini plant is bigger each time I look at it. Apple trees took forever to 'wake up' after Winter and the cold start to spring but are now green and lovely again.
Anyone have a favourite method for deterring grasshoppers? They latch on to my fruit trees and eat the fresh leaves :-/
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No idea on grasshoppers :( Maybe try the old chilli & garlic spray?
My zucchini got big but I'm not sure they're happy as a lot of flowers have fallen, including some females.
Every so often Aldi do this greenhouse thing which is wire shelves with a cover. I thought about doing what was common in the UK for me growing up - get a free window or four and create an A-frame structure with opening panes for access. You can also just put a window on top of box I guess.
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My garden is a slave driver!
IT IS CHERRY SEASON!!! My favourite fruit has ripened (on consideration, maybe it is my third or fourth favourite fruit). And most of the tree has been picked. And it is delicious! Unfortunately, there aren't as many cherries as last year, but this is a poor season, and many farmers got almost nothing.
IT IS RASPBERRY SEASON!!! My very favourite fruit is ripening each day, and you need to look carefully to find it and pick it. But, unlike cherries, it doesn't need any processing.
My sour cherries have ripened! They need picking NOW.
The mulch and mushroom compost has been delivered, so I need to spread it all, and I need to weed the front before I spread the mulch.
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I'm starting to use Linda Woodrow's method of saving space in the garden by planting out more advanced seedlings. I've nearly finished a shade blind to put over the kitchen window and the brick raised bed below it which will be my shadehouse.
http://witcheskitchen.com.au/advanced_seedlings/
http://witcheskitchen.com.au/leafy-planting-in-late-winter/
I love her blog, it always makes me feel so calm and grounded.
I scavenged 4 deep plastic trays from a bar freezer that was on the verge rubbish collection and I'm using them to hold milk bottle pots at germination/seedling stage. They keep all the dirt in, are easy to carry around, and on hot days I can overwater the seedlings so that there's a pool of water in the bottom of the tray that the pots wick up during the day. I had a batch of seeds that were taking forever to germinate until Happier mentioned that maybe hers weren't warm enough, so I brought the tray inside and put it in the bath for a week. Poof, germination! I think they were the squash, one of which is now happily living in my raised bed, about a foot across, and has a flower!
The squash and the beans that I grew from seed and the capsicum and cucumber seedlings I bought all seem to have grown roots far enough down in the wicking bed that they've hit the wet spot (I made the bed too deep, so it's not wicking all the way to the top). All looking happy. YAAAY!
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I'm starting to use Linda Woodrow's method of saving space in the garden by planting out more advanced seedlings. I've nearly finished a shade blind to put over the kitchen window and the brick raised bed below it which will be my shadehouse.
http://witcheskitchen.com.au/advanced_seedlings/
http://witcheskitchen.com.au/leafy-planting-in-late-winter/
I love her blog, it always makes me feel so calm and grounded.
Me too, I've learnt a lot from it
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The only thing we're harvesting right now is strawberries :-/
Tomato seedlings are growing sooooo slooowly. Next year I'm definitely buying some large seedlings at the same time I start germinating seeds.
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It doesn't really matter what size your tomato seedlings are now. I planted mine a week ago, and they were tiny. My neighbour's are enormous - and even have some tiny tomatoes on them. However, this happens EVERY year. I look over the fence, and see how much bigger theirs are than mine. However, mine always last longer and I usually get a better harvest from mine than they do from theirs!
Sweet cherries are picked - thank goodness, as the tree has cherry slug, so it can be sprayed with pyethrum. Most of the sour cherries are picked. Mushroom compost has been used on the raised garden bed to top it up. I now have lines of mushroom compost alternating with lines of what was already in the bed, so I could plant immediately, and 34 capsicums seedlings (from seed) and 6 eggplant seedlings (from the shop) are in.
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My zucchini are not pollinating, according to google. There are many small fruit but they get to the size of a cherry tom then fall off. I'll see what I can do re hand pollination but I think I need more bees, I hardly see them. Maybe we should concentrate on flowering perennials for a bit before we try again with the squash type veg.
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Plant lavender next to the zucchini?
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Yep, I won't have space near the veg but have a plan to put it out the front. I will try some borage or something else blue out the back. The zucchini is in a bed with mustard (lots of yellow flowers) and near an orange flowering ornamental plant but there's nothing buzzing round either of them either. I reckon blue might be the answer. Lots of my neighbours grow veggies so I will ask them how they go.
All the fruit fell off my lemon tree. Maybe I should just grow toms, mustard, lettuce and spinach. We have got a little eggplant tho so fx!
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Finally planted out the avocados and the second mandarin. Really hope that the avocados do okay - everything I read makes it clear how fussy they are!
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OOOOh, I've grown 4 carrots! Only 4 out of many germinated initially, and I had a poke around the soil at the top and I've got carrots - about 1.5cm in diameter roughly. I orange and 3 purple ones ( they were mixed heirloom seeds). I think I'll let them grow a little bigger.
I scattered tons of seed around a wicking bed, and nothing happened, but now I've got maybe half a dozen more very little carrots (at least I think thats what they are). How exciting. First time for everything. I still get this absolute buzz when I grow a new vegetable from seed for the first time. Just the fact that you plant a speck, and they turn into these amazing foods that look just like they are supposed to ( well mostly :))
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Congrats on the carrots, happy!
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That's fantastic!
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Oh my god, was beginning to think carrots were the holy grail, well done! We have a few replanted heads growing but who knows what we'll get. Sometimes an inch of carrot, sometimes a rotten mess.
We have 4 x little finger eggplants! Just waiting for them to get a teeny bit bigger.
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So was I! So much joy from such a common little vegetable :D.
Well done one the eggplant, I've never tried to grow them since none of us like them much.
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Two of the eggplants have been nibbled! Will be making possum proof cage number 3 at the weekend.
Picked a caterpillar or two ff the tomatoes today and chucked one partially eaten one. Srsly, wildlife, just leave me a few scraps, ok?
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I have been checking my sprinklers to make sure they're working, since I only turned them on a few weeks ago and we've done some digging etc. Well, this morning I found that slugs had actually climbed inside the sprinkler heads! I can't get them properly out, either. Any ideas?
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What about turning on the sprinklers at full blast?
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Can you take the sprinkler head off and sink it in a bucket of water overnight?
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Whatever you do, DON'T undo all the connections and decide that applying sucking pressure with your mouth would be a cheap, easy and effective way of getting the little buggers out.
Don't. Just don't. And I don't think I need to remind you not to ask me how I know this...
PS In case you do try it, be assured that it IS in fact a cheap, easy and effective way to unblock the pipes. Just not ultimately very pleasant.
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EEEEWWWWwww haha!
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Thank you for the highly specific advice, Primm - it didn't even occur to me, I was trying to poke them out with a stick. Heh.
The pressure from sprinklers being on had already smashed them up inside the sprinkler heads. I have lots of spares, so I'll put those on and see if I can soak the remains out of the stuffed ones. It's an irrigation system, so I don't think I can change the pressure they spray at, but I will check for later.
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Glad now I don't have a watering system, we have slugs! After this big dry I was considering it.
Harvested the first cherry tomatoes today. Since I can't eat them and they are quite a bit of work to process I haven't grown tomatoes for 2 years. This year I sowed a few random seeds from an envelope marked "heirloom cherry tomatoes (I'd saved the seed in previous years). I put them in 2 large self watering pots and have kept the reservoirs full. I wasn't sure how it would work but they are going ballistic and still setting flowers despite our hot weather. The first ones harvested are deep purplish (black) large cherries. Its a lucky dip, I'm not sure what shapes and colours I will get :). Looks like this will be an annual event now: DD eats cherry tomatoes like lollies.
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How's your garden doing in the heat, everyone?
Everything else is holding up well (tomatoes are so happy!) but yesterday my blueberry bushes had a few crispy brown leaves, and the newly-planted avocado trees were drooping. Should've thought to water them on Tuesday night ahead of the 42 degree day, but oh well. I think I'll construct some shade cloth protection for the vulnerable plants before the next really hot day.
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I have been weeding and shifting mulch in the early mornings. Need more (mulch not weeds). So far, so good. We get hot while we're away at Christmas - yikes!
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So far so good with the hot days. I'm a bit worried as we will be visiting family for 2-3 days at Xmas, but not much I can do other than mulch the bits unmulched, and water well before we go.
Cucumbers are producing steadily now, corn is finally gaining ground, and beans are happening.
I had one raid from the wallaby, who decided to jump the soft wire lattice fence about 4 feet high that I had put up recently. Pulled the fence down and squashed some of my newly germinating pumpkins grrr. Fence repair at least was quick and easy and its back up. Hopefully it got a fright and won't come back.
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We've left our plants to the whims of the weather, though our cat-sitter might give them a bit of water. The slugs have ceased their attack on my irrigation, now I just have to fix the parts certain plants have strangled.
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How are everyone's plants going over the silly season? Ours are doing well, but the native violets I attempted to transplant have dissolved into the sand. We had a stupidly high water bill I suspected was the irrigation coming on too many times, and sure enough when DH checked I'd managed to set it to go through its cycle 3 times each watering day. Whoops.
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My fingerlime is dying. I bought it, and it looked good - it was putting on new leaves, creating fingerlimes... But we had a heat wave while we were away, and my neighbour says that she's lost three plants since she started putting on the mulch (that SHE recommended). SO I don't know whether it's the mulch (still hot?) or the weather. But everything else is going gangbusters! The beans have climbed to the top of their trellis, and are invading the peach tree, the tomatoes have FLOWERS.
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No flowers on my tomatoes yet!
Today I potted up some seedlings we were given for Christmas, potted some tomato seedlings I started from seed, and generally tended to the potted plants with fertiliser and mulch. If I'm up to it tomorrow there's still plenty needing to be done...
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My fingerlime is dying.
Sad to hear this.. its disappointing when this happens. I've always been going to plant one.
I sowed lots of lettuce and now its looking like I might even have a glut soon :)
Harvesting: cherry tomatoes, lettuce, basil, cucumbers and beans.
Coming on: more carrots, boy choy, silverbeet, mo' lettuce, leeks, shallots, corn, pumpkin, sunflowers
Planting: beans, making sweet potato slips again.
The 4 carrots I grew turned out to be a short fat orange, parisian heirloom, a yellow one: small and an odd shape, and 2 purple ones - one a good shape and other was forked but otherwise ok. Level of difficulty: hard. Price to buy:cheap!
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I've got some seeds coming up! I found a great way to make my own seed-raising mixture: borrowed a friend's soil sieve, and went to town with:
1 part sieved dirt
1 part sieved compost (this was my grandfather's woodchip pile, it's been rotting for about 3 years)
1 part sand
1 part sieved aged horse manure
A bucket of this mixture will raise a lot of seeds! I have lettuce, zucchini, watermelon and marigold coming up. Once the zucchinis are a few weeks old, I will transplant them to a raised bed.
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So amazing when seeds germinate. I never cease to get excited.
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Spent the last day of leave making shadecloth shelters for my avocados and blueberry bushes. Blueberries are already quite scorched and the avocados are showing the first sign of sun damage. I'm hoping I've caught the blueberries before it's too late for them...
For the record, staples work much better than needle and thread for constructing shelters out of shadecloth and wooden stakes :-)
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So amazing when seeds germinate. I never cease to get excited.
I am also excited!
All my dwarf beans came up, and a punnet of amaranth (or was it malabar spinach. Something odd that I'm trying for hot-weather leafy things, anyway). I'm using large punnets that spinach came in and taping over the holes in the lid to make mini terrariums, which is keeping moisture in nicely and making for great germination rates.
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So amazing when seeds germinate. I never cease to get excited.
I am also excited!
All my dwarf beans came up, and a punnet of amaranth (or was it malabar spinach. Something odd that I'm trying for hot-weather leafy things, anyway). I'm using large punnets that spinach came in and taping over the holes in the lid to make mini terrariums, which is keeping moisture in nicely and making for great germination rates.
I cut plastic bottles in half and put them over small pots to do the same, works a treat. I even got some dill seed to come up that I thought was dud. Unfortunately I got just one lettuce and one eggplant using the same method but it is 2 yr old seed.
I harvested some finger eggplant from bought seedlings and we roasted them last night with a chicken. They looked good but boy were they bitter. They were just edible after roasting them for 45mins. Had all the leaves off our one lettuce tonight, hopefully it will grow back. We have grubs in our big tomatoes but they haven't touched the cherry toms so that's good.
We have a capsicum almost ready but no joy from the zucchini, the male and female flowers are hardly ever open at the same time so there's only been one opportunity for me to help nature with my little paintbrush. Not sure how many plants you need on the go for success, I've got three.
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I've had the same problem with zucchini also. They are supposed to be easy to grow, so I tried them a couple of seasons in a row when I first started out. Not much luck. I decided not to try any more, since we don't like or eat much zucchini, so a zucchini glut would be a bad thing.
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I'm contemplating ordering some garlic from Diggers, as my first foray into Autumn and Winter crops. Seems like it's reasonably low maintenance from planting to picking? Which could be perfect for me.
I've had a brainwave and realised that when we redo the fencing in the front yard, there'll be a perfect spot for a passionfruit vine or two, AND it's a space that's otherwise a bit difficult. Success!
My zucchini is producing flowers but not setting fruit. Meh. Flowers are starting to appear on tomatoes. Basil is going well. Eggplant seedlings are dying.
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My zucchini is very happily fruiting :D Have to look every couple of days before they get huge.
It has been very easy to grow in my patch, no hand pollinating required although it is surrounded by squash plants so that may help. And we love zucchini, I wish I'd planted more (I only had one survive out of 4 seeds or something). I have some new seedlings ready to go though.
Capsicums, though, I think they still hate me. How big are the plants supposed to grow before they flower? I don't think 15cm tall is it.
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Is it too late for me to start more zucchini seeds? I have a good patch where I could grow three or four plants together...
Capsicums, though, I think they still hate me. How big are the plants supposed to grow before they flower? I don't think 15cm tall is it.
Mine (last Summer) grew to about 20cm and produced one or two small, bitter little fruit. Ugh. I feel better about how expensive they are in the shops now that I know how hard they are to grow.
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I am impressed at the vegetable growing successes and attempts. I planted marigolds to make the yard pretty. I hope they didn't die while I waited over our 40C days to plant them. They still look green.
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My zucchini is very happily fruiting :D Have to look every couple of days before they get huge.
It has been very easy to grow in my patch, no hand pollinating required although it is surrounded by squash plants so that may help. And we love zucchini, I wish I'd planted more (I only had one survive out of 4 seeds or something). I have some new seedlings ready to go though.
Capsicums, though, I think they still hate me. How big are the plants supposed to grow before they flower? I don't think 15cm tall is it.
My capsicums must be 25cm Max and they've got biggish fruit. Not tasted them yet tho.
Congrats on the zucchini! Well jell.
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I'm contemplating ordering some garlic from Diggers, as my first foray into Autumn and Winter crops. Seems like it's reasonably low maintenance from planting to picking? Which could be perfect for me.
Yes garlic is low pretty maintenance. You need a slightly alkaline, not acid soil. Once planted mulch well to keep the weeds away. You need to keep the patch weeded, as it doesn't like competition.
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Out of 12 marigolds and 10 Mondo grass, I think I've only got 3 dead plants! They're hanging on by a thread, but the weather was not kind to newly planted plants. Next up is deciding on a small tree to provide shade from the corner of the courtyard - something easy to maintain that provides a little shade, and can grow in the existing planter area (a space 1m wide and a few metres long).
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Oo I love picking trees. How tall do you want it? If you want a really small tree look into pincushion hakea. It's beautiful and fairly foolproof, however, it thinks it's a bush, so you have to prune the bottom branches pretty hard to make it be a tree shape. Fast growing, too. Otherwise consider a lemon or lime tree. Or if you want your shade seasonal, an ornamental pear or plum (bonus: lovely blossom; if plum don't get the column shaped kind, they're useless ime).
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I'm contemplating ordering some garlic from Diggers, as my first foray into Autumn and Winter crops. Seems like it's reasonably low maintenance from planting to picking? Which could be perfect for me.
Yes garlic is low pretty maintenance. You need a slightly alkaline, not acid soil. Once planted mulch well to keep the weeds away. You need to keep the patch weeded, as it doesn't like competition.
Thanks! I'll test the soil pH this week or next and order my garlic :-)
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Pretty much every day this week we cut something from the garden to eat. Feels good :) Spinach, lettuce, toms, eggplant, spring onions. The last three were all plants from bought seedlings, I think that's the way I'm going to go next year. It still works out well cost wise.
My zucchini are just about dead, total waste of effort. The pumpkins are also unhappy, one died and two are still growing. I forgot about some new tomato seedlings and they are a bit dead. We had a caterpillar attack on our mature toms but I think I'm on top of it because we're getting some uneaten fruit now. However the plants' green growth is dying, I will try a feed and see if they come back.
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RE the tomatoes and caterpillars. Once you see the tomatoes starting to form, put a brown paper lunchbag over the bunch and hold it on using a twist tie. Keeps out caterpillars ( make sure there are none on there already), fruit fly, possums,birds and wallabies reasonably well. Its a bit labour intensive as you have to take the bag off from time to time to check if they are ripening, but well worth the effort in my neighbourhood.
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RE the tomatoes and caterpillars. Once you see the tomatoes starting to form, put a brown paper lunchbag over the bunch and hold it on using a twist tie. Keeps out caterpillars ( make sure there are none on there already), fruit fly, possums,birds and wallabies reasonably well. Its a bit labour intensive as you have to take the bag off from time to time to check if they are ripening, but well worth the effort in my neighbourhood.
Thanks. I will try this on the new ones. The big ones seem to be doing ok now. I pick them as they are just turning orange, otherwise they have teeth marks in them by the morning!
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Possums seem to be able to sense they are ripening at the earliest change of colour...ask me how I know!
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Spent the last day of leave making shadecloth shelters for my avocados and blueberry bushes. Blueberries are already quite scorched and the avocados are showing the first sign of sun damage. I'm hoping I've caught the blueberries before it's too late for them...
For the record, staples work much better than needle and thread for constructing shelters out of shadecloth and wooden stakes :-)
Unclear yet on whether the shelters are assisting the avocados, but the blueberries are doing much better than they were. There's a heap of new green leaves growing out from where the scorched leaves have been dropping. This is good because I really didn't want to have to start from scratch again with another $100 of bushes.
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Oo I love picking trees. How tall do you want it? If you want a really small tree look into pincushion hakea. It's beautiful and fairly foolproof, however, it thinks it's a bush, so you have to prune the bottom branches pretty hard to make it be a tree shape. Fast growing, too. Otherwise consider a lemon or lime tree. Or if you want your shade seasonal, an ornamental pear or plum (bonus: lovely blossom; if plum don't get the column shaped kind, they're useless ime).
3m tall, needs to be easy to maintain. It's to go in the corner of the courtyard, in the soil. Very, very sunny spot. I think it's maybe more of a "tall bush" than a "short tree" we might be looking for, but I'll take a picture and make a sketch to post here tomorrow.
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Oo I love picking trees. How tall do you want it? If you want a really small tree look into pincushion hakea. It's beautiful and fairly foolproof, however, it thinks it's a bush, so you have to prune the bottom branches pretty hard to make it be a tree shape. Fast growing, too. Otherwise consider a lemon or lime tree. Or if you want your shade seasonal, an ornamental pear or plum (bonus: lovely blossom; if plum don't get the column shaped kind, they're useless ime).
3m tall, needs to be easy to maintain. It's to go in the corner of the courtyard, in the soil. Very, very sunny spot. I think it's maybe more of a "tall bush" than a "short tree" we might be looking for, but I'll take a picture and make a sketch to post here tomorrow.
Yes yes any of these then. Usually a very short tree is ~5m. But any of these'll run about 3m & don't need much more effort than enough water & a good prune once in a while
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I came home after less than two weeks away. SO is good at watering, but no good with the identification of ripe fruit. No apricots this year.
The vegetables are going gang busters. Everything is looking so much bigger - especially the capsicums, which had been looking like they were trying to win an award for the least growth for the past couple of months (so much so that I planted them out in the hope they would finally get past the two leaf stage).
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This morning's strawberry haul!
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Yum! they look delicious Happier!
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Yay deborah! Yay happier!
How do I plant sweet potatos? I have one growing in the pantry and a spare patch of earth so may as well...
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...Bung it in the ground and see what happens.
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Yay deborah! Yay happier!
How do I plant sweet potatos? I have one growing in the pantry and a spare patch of earth so may as well...
You can plant it as is, or cut off the section that is sprouting and plant that.
Or you can grow the shoots to leaves by cutting a section and suspending it above water with the base just submerged, and then plant that.
Or once you have leaves on the shoots, you cut of that shoot, now called a slip and keep it in shallow water until it grows roots, then plant it.
I did the last method last year and it worked well, but the wallaby ate it, so no yield.
The slip method is supposed to reduce the risk of fungal and other diseases, but I have no point of comparison to verify that personally.
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Yay deborah! Yay happier!
How do I plant sweet potatos? I have one growing in the pantry and a spare patch of earth so may as well...
You can plant it as is, or cut off the section that is sprouting and plant that.
Or you can grow the shoots to leaves by cutting a section and suspending it above water with the base just submerged, and then plant that.
Or once you have leaves on the shoots, you cut of that shoot, now called a slip and keep it in shallow water until it grows roots, then plant it.
I did the last method last year and it worked well, but the wallaby ate it, so no yield.
The slip method is supposed to reduce the risk of fungal and other diseases, but I have no point of comparison to verify that personally.
I just stuck it in the ground, I pulled it up to check and it went kind of gross, so I pulled off the grid stuff and replanted it elsewhere. That was months ago, do I just dig it up whenever?
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The books say when the ends of the vines start to turn yellow, or at the end of the season when you get a frost i.e. I guess in Autumn. I still haven't got a harvest - but my slips are nearly ready to plant for attempt no 2.
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What's up in everyone's gardens this weekend?
I've repotted a tomato and moved a few things around for optimal sunshine, added fertiliser to my potted plants and restaked where necessary. Started seeds in small pots for zinnia (zinnias?) and dill. I don't like eating dill, but I like the way it attracts bees :-)
It looks like the very first tomato of the season has set on one of the plants on my front porch which is very exciting for me.
The Perth MMMers took a look at my garden yesterday and confirmed that: my raised lawn is indeed absurd, the 'infrastructure'* along one fence does minimise the available space, and there is no great spot for a small shed. That helps me to know that I'm on the right track with my longer term plans for redoing the backyard. Englyn says my zucchini is just too small and might produce fruit as it grows - yay!
*Massive built-in BBQ, limestone planters and weird raised platforms for potted plants.
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A chilli plant has sprung up on one of our gravel paths. Hubby showed me the other day and I dismissed it as a weed - today it is covered in chillis!!!!! It's doing really well so we are going to leave it. It must have grown from spilled worm food...
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Volunteers can be awesome.
Not too much action in the garden since I was decluttering and pressure hosing the front of the house and paving.
Planting: watermelon (hopefully not too late), some beetroot, buckwheat, mung beans and mustard as cover crops.
Growing: corn, multiple types of beans, turmeric, carrots, malabar spinach, sunflowers
Harvesting: herbs ( basil, oregano, thyme, mint), lettuce, tatsoi, swiss chard, leeks, cherry tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, rocket
I managed to fit in a section of weeding, then covered with mulch over newspaper
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All the succulents I moved from the shady patio to the courtyard have been fried. I need to move them back for now, and fingers crossed they survive so I can try moving them in winter instead.
Happy, your garden sound deliciously diverse!
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Diversity is in! I'm really getting enthused about permaculture methods at the moment. Especially the bit about more production with less work ;)
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Ordered my seed garlic yesterday! Two heads each of early purple and Melbourne market.
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Discovered a plague of tiny green grasshoppers on my tomatoes (probably on other plants too, but it was the tomatoes I was staring at). Time for some chilli and garlic spray!
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Discovered a plague of tiny green grasshoppers on my tomatoes (probably on other plants too, but it was the tomatoes I was staring at). Time for some chilli and garlic spray!
Sprayed this evening. A good spray of all my fruit trees and veges only took half of the mix, so I will probably go 'round again with the other half in a week or two.
I don't think I lost a single plant in the heat wave :D one tomato is a bit wilty, but I'm keeping a close eye on it.
While I was re-staking some tomatoes I saw a few tiny green baby toms on the way. Can't wait to eat some homegrown tomatoes; also cannot believe that I won't have had any before Feb. Serves me right for making such a late start. Next year I'm definitely buying at least a few seedlings in October or November to complement the ones I start from seed.
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It's all happening. Ate my first tomato a minute ago, and there are lots of tomatoes on some plants. The others are being overshadowed by the beans (I thought I'd planted the beans on the south side of the tomatoes, so they would both be OK, but no) which have large numbers of flowers, and tiny beans (probably will start harvesting in a couple of days given the weather - it's a total fire ban today), and some of the eggplants have fruit (but they take a while to get to harvest).
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REALLY hoping that the massive volumes of rain yesterday and today won't have drowned the seeds that germinated last week.
At least everything else should be loving the rain.
Quite a few tomato plants have now set fruit. Had to give them all an extra dose of Epsom salts on the weekend. Eggplant has developed several flower buds: I really want some homegrown eggplants before the season is over!
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Spent about one hour in the garden today and had to stop as I was dripping with sweat. It was silly to have a lie in and only start at 10am, and I know maintenance is better suited to winter, but how frustrating. There are now un-mulched palm leaves lying all over the lawn :( I pulled out some dead pumpkins from a raised bed and raked it over to plant spinach. Found the reason the pumpkins failed - a tree has sent up roots all through the raised bed. Hubby pick axed another area to clear grass and to put the bed box thingy - found another root as wide as my arm. I'm going to make the phone call to get the tree taken out, enough is enough!
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Freshwater, sounds like the tree might not be close to your heart! Annoying when roots get everywhere.
Some of my tomatoes still have yellowed leaves... I'm going to have to apply another round of epsom salts in a week or so if they haven't come good.
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Its going to be hot today, I hope the garden will survive ok. We continue to have very little rain.
Here's a recap of the veggie garden beds:
Mulberry tree is growing well in it net, lemon is growing vigorously, but no lemons still. 1 of 6 watermelon seeds has germinated.
Beans are all growing, but the satin bower birds love them and are decimating the leaves. Nothing bearing. And I found out scarlet runner beans won't flower unless its cold overnight :(, they are growing but won't make beans. Cover crops of mungbean and buckwheat are emerging. Sunflowers are flowering - the cockatoos got 2 big sunflowers, but these varieties are growing little ones down the stems so are still making colour. Wild rocket is going great. Planted out 2 sweet potato slips yesterday. Corn is producing and delicious. Parsley and rocket have gone to seed in a wild bed. Malabar spinach is struggling up a pole. Lettuce in the garden are finally growing - I hope to get them to go to seed and self sow. Cucumbers are still yielding but slowing down. Tumeric is enormous and starting to make flowers. Pumpkins have male flowers but no females yet.
I'm getting results from some permaculture techniques: "chop and drop" - pulling out weeds crunching them up and leaving them to mulch (not ones with seeds) and like-wise with spent flowers and veges. I'm trying to chop up veges and flowers with seeds that I want to re-grow, and them using them as mulch. I had a great and unexpected success from calendula last year. So I cut back the wild rocket to make room for the sweet potato, and used it as mulch on a bare area. I'm also trying to keep the ground covered with plants. In the past I've tended to clear, newspaper and mulch, but not get round to planting and grow more weeds.
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I think I'll put a sheet over the tomatoes - they pretty much died after previous hot days but there's some new growth worth protecting. HaH maybe try cutting the yellow leaves and getting new growth? I'd dip the scissors in a bleach solution between cuts tho.
With the weed mulch etc, what if the veg has disease tho? I'm worried but that with toms.
I had to pull out lots of dead mustard. The seeds weren't ready by the time it died :( In better news, a kale plant has come up and is doing well!
I went out again 4-7 last night in shorts - was cool enough but I'm covered in mossie bites. Arg.
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HaH maybe try cutting the yellow leaves and getting new growth? I'd dip the scissors in a bleach solution between cuts tho.
Nah, the yellow leaves aren't due to disease, they're caused by magnesium deficiency (chronic issue for Perth soils, no idea whether it's a problem anywhere else). Adding enough magnesium in the form of epsom salts cures it and the yellow leaves come good.
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With the weed mulch etc, what if the veg has disease tho? I'm worried but that with toms.
If I'm worried it goes in the green bin or the ordinary bin. Here in autumn silverbeet and tomato vines typically get a black mouldy disease whose name I've forgotten...these all go in the green bin to be taken off site.
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HaH maybe try cutting the yellow leaves and getting new growth? I'd dip the scissors in a bleach solution between cuts tho.
Nah, the yellow leaves aren't due to disease, they're caused by magnesium deficiency (chronic issue for Perth soils, no idea whether it's a problem anywhere else). Adding enough magnesium in the form of epsom salts cures it and the yellow leaves come good.
Tomatoes typically get a few yellow leaves at the bottom, but more than that is not normal. I've had to resort to epsom salts once or twice only, it worked a treat.
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HaH maybe try cutting the yellow leaves and getting new growth? I'd dip the scissors in a bleach solution between cuts tho.
Nah, the yellow leaves aren't due to disease, they're caused by magnesium deficiency (chronic issue for Perth soils, no idea whether it's a problem anywhere else). Adding enough magnesium in the form of epsom salts cures it and the yellow leaves come good.
Tomatoes typically get a few yellow leaves at the bottom, but more than that is not normal. I've had to resort to epsom salts once or twice only, it worked a treat.
Must be less of an issue for your soils! Every soil I've ever dealt with in Perth has needed regular epsom salts - especially for nightshades and citrus.
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It certainly pays to know the foibles of your locality. We must have mostly enough except on occasion for heavy feeders like tomatoes.
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Forecast to rain quite a bit for the rest of the week in Perth... I've made sure all the potted plants that benefit from water are where they'll catch the rain. And of course free water for the dratted lawn is always welcome.
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Forecast to rain quite a bit for the rest of the week in Perth... I've made sure all the potted plants that benefit from water are where they'll catch the rain. And of course free water for the dratted lawn is always welcome.
I hope your plants didn't get drowned.
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We bought two large second hand water tanks yesterday... Now to figure out some fancy watering system. At the moment our method is an old milk carton into the water barrel and onto the plants, so we've a lot to learn.
The other one is going to feed our washer and toilet, the professionals are dealing with that.
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Forecast to rain quite a bit for the rest of the week in Perth... I've made sure all the potted plants that benefit from water are where they'll catch the rain. And of course free water for the dratted lawn is always welcome.
I hope your plants didn't get drowned.
Lost some young seedlings and my zucchini plant - the zucchini was really my own fault, as I noticed it was looking a bit funny but ignored it while the rain was so heavy and steady, and once the rainy days stopped it had succumbed to powdery mildew. Ah well.
We bought two large second hand water tanks yesterday... Now to figure out some fancy watering system. At the moment our method is an old milk carton into the water barrel and onto the plants, so we've a lot to learn.
The other one is going to feed our washer and toilet, the professionals are dealing with that.
Are the tanks attached to a rainwater catchment system?
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Lots of tiny tomatoes have set now, and a few are almost ripe.
No eggplants yet - both plants look healthy and are producing plenty of flowers, but no fruit.
The downside to the recent rain is that I'm now even further behind on my weeding and general garden tidying.
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I got caught up on weeding only because we had a rent inspection. My marigolds are looking so lovely, I thought I might get some more and hope they self-seed.
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Are the tanks attached to a rainwater catchment system?
Not yet - we have two downpipes from the gutters and so each will get its own gutter outlet. One square metre of roof is supposed to put a litre in my tank for each mm of rain, minus some wastage. I'm pretty sure a couple of thousand was lost this weekend :( Hope to get them rigged up to the gutters before all the March rainfall disappears into the storm drains.
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What's everyone up to in the garden this weekend?
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I've just watered the pot plants and fruit trees ahead of the forecast 40 degree day. Bought a hose this morning: SO much easier to water without lugging around heavy watering cans!
Unfortunately the only nectarine on the tree rotted before ripening. Not sure what happened there. Had to pull a few rotting tomatoes, too.
Picked a few bright red cherry tomatoes and a huge bouquet of basil. Basil pesto pizza for dinner tonight!
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I remembered to water, that was about it. I was going to buy more flowers for the garden, but I already had cut flowers to arrange for a party on Sunday morning! Got that done and used greenery from my garden to bulk up the arrangements (budding camelia branches).
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I remembered to water, that was about it. I was going to buy more flowers for the garden, but I already had cut flowers to arrange for a party on Sunday morning! Got that done and used greenery from my garden to bulk up the arrangements (budding camelia branches).
Gorgeous!!
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Picked four cherry tomatoes this morning...
I can see why people say not to garden to save money. There vould be a point at which my garden turns a profit, but it'll be YEARS down the line. Even if that had been my aim from the start (which would've meant some very different decisions like ignoring fruit trees, and focusing on high-yield veges) I'm not sure I'd achieve it.
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Meant to add: basil has I think been my only profitable crop. We're getting a lot of basil, making pesto just about every weekend and freezing some for after the season ends.
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I think fruit trees do save money, but I'm not so sure about the vegies. It really depends on what you grow, how expensive it is, and why it is expensive. I like perennial plants for this reason. Asparagus is pretty cheap to grow, and is worth while. Similarly, if you plant Jerusalem Artichokes or Rhubarb you seem to get food from them every year, and they are either non-existant or very costly in the shops. I find raspberries yield sufficiently to be more than worth it. Oakleaf Lettuce in my garden self seeds everywhere, so I can have a lettuce any time between mid winter and the beginning of summer just by looking, and I don't spend any time on them. I have talked with you about bamboo, which I think is another vegetable that just keeps giving. If you have the right lemon, you get lemons all year round, and they are reasonably expensive to buy. The cherries I grow are more than worth their cost, as are Apricots and the various Plums. On the other hand, tomatoes and beans are so cheap, I wonder why I grow them each year.
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I think you can save money, but you have to be clever about it.
If you like to cook with fresh herbs, growing herbs with save you a mint. If you like tabouli, its dirt cheap to make your own if you grow a reasonable amount of parsley. Basil and pesto is another example you've already alluded to.
For most annual vegetables, to save money, grow from seed, and then save your own seeds. Its not as hard as you might think. I save on tomatoes, pumpkins, corn, beans, snow peas, cucumbers, lettuce, silver beet, chard, beetroot, asian greens, rocket, asparagus when they are in season. We have 4 guinea pigs and i save about $15/week by growing leafy greens of various sorts for them.
Things like potatoes, carrots and onions, you won't save money, unless you want to grow say purple potatoes which cost a fortune in the shops.
The other way to save money is to save on inputs by making your own fertiliser ( bokashi juice, worm wee and castings, comfrey tea, been manure crops) and compost.
PS you can even use diluted urine as long as you don't have a uni/aren't on weird drugs that might affect the soil or its organisms.
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So its been raining now for about a week. After all the dry everything is running amok. I finally had a couple of clear hours today so I sowed some lettuce seed, cleared a small garden bed and planted a few things, sowed seed for broccoli, cauliflower and kale, potted on some silver beet, moved some irises that were in a shady spot and not flowering.
All the corn is harvested and eaten for the year. Yummy. I planted lots of beans a bit earlier and really struggled to keep them going through the heat. I learnt something though. I planted some snake beans which are really a tropical sort of bean, but hey, plant in my subtropical climate in summer and Bob's your Uncle. They survived bird and wallaby attack and are yielding some nice beans now. 2 other varieties struggled with the heat, should have been planted spring or autumn - they've either died or are looking desperate. Surprisingly the scarlet runner beans have come on and are yielding...I read that they need cold nights to set flower...um , no. Maybe would do better a bit later but are going ok now. So now I have a formula - regular beans spring and autumn and snake beans in summer.
The sunflowers looked great but are pretty well spent/eaten. Tomatoes and cucumbers are finished.
Pumpkins are just finally putting out female flowers. Only 2 pumpkins growing on 6 vines, so far.
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I find that tomatoes don't really start to crop properly until autumn, and I am usually still getting a fair number in May. For me, they seem to survive the heat and then get cracking.
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Being frost free, I start my tomatoes in august and have a crop by December. I could start an autumn crop in Feb, but this year I decided not to. They won't set flower well when its over 30C so I do better if I get the crop going early.
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I'm sure I read somewhere that tomatoes are really perennial. My next door neighbour says she grows them in a very sheltered position, or brings them indoors for winter, and has them all year round. She's boasted of this in the past, but I've never seen it, and they can't live forever, because a few months ago she was complaining of earwigs eating all the leaves of her vegetables (including baby tomatoes), and I went over there (I couldn't believe that earwigs would do such a thing) to discover they were mainly brassicas, and the culprit was cabbage moth caterpillers!
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I'm sure I read somewhere that tomatoes are really perennial. My next door neighbour says she grows them in a very sheltered position, or brings them indoors for winter, and has them all year round. She's boasted of this in the past, but I've never seen it, and they can't live forever, because a few months ago she was complaining of earwigs eating all the leaves of her vegetables (including baby tomatoes), and I went over there (I couldn't believe that earwigs would do such a thing) to discover they were mainly brassicas, and the culprit was cabbage moth caterpillers!
My cherry tomatoes are on their second year. The yield is low and stops in winter and they are an odd tall shape now where I've had to cut away bad leaves but as a plant it keeps on keeping on. The other new tomato plant was producing before xmas but then died off in the January heat. It's back to full size again now though, with a few flowers so we'll see what happens.
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Interesting, I've had tomatoes stay alive, but never got much of a crop from them after the first yield.
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I think fruit trees do save money, but I'm not so sure about the vegies. It really depends on what you grow, how expensive it is, and why it is expensive. I like perennial plants for this reason. Asparagus is pretty cheap to grow, and is worth while. Similarly, if you plant Jerusalem Artichokes or Rhubarb you seem to get food from them every year, and they are either non-existant or very costly in the shops. I find raspberries yield sufficiently to be more than worth it. Oakleaf Lettuce in my garden self seeds everywhere, so I can have a lettuce any time between mid winter and the beginning of summer just by looking, and I don't spend any time on them. I have talked with you about bamboo, which I think is another vegetable that just keeps giving. If you have the right lemon, you get lemons all year round, and they are reasonably expensive to buy. The cherries I grow are more than worth their cost, as are Apricots and the various Plums. On the other hand, tomatoes and beans are so cheap, I wonder why I grow them each year.
I'm at the stage where I'm spending a lot of cash on fruit trees and various things needed to get them started (pots, soil, fertilisers) and not yet getting any yield from them. Maybe when I'm at the point of enjoying the harvest each year, but the spending is a distant memory, I'll think more like you do?
Lemons are an interesting example... they're generally pretty cheap here (slightly different climate I guess) and I imagine it'll take at least six or seven years before my dwarf lemon has paid for itself.
Asparagus and rhubarb are both on my list to start growing next year. Yum. I wish raspberries grew well here... but on the other hand, we can grow blueberries and strawberries fairly easily, so that's something ;-)
Tomatoes never seem to be cheap enough for me. Even in season, cherry tomatoes tend to be a few dollars for 200g. I'm determined to build 'good enough' skills at tomato growing to be able to eat entirely homegrown in season AND can some for the off-season.
I actually looked up expected yields of fruit trees in my Diggers book to post as part of this discussion, but I don't have it on me, so that'll have to wait until later.
I think you can save money, but you have to be clever about it.
If you like to cook with fresh herbs, growing herbs with save you a mint. If you like tabouli, its dirt cheap to make your own if you grow a reasonable amount of parsley. Basil and pesto is another example you've already alluded to.
For most annual vegetables, to save money, grow from seed, and then save your own seeds. Its not as hard as you might think. I save on tomatoes, pumpkins, corn, beans, snow peas, cucumbers, lettuce, silver beet, chard, beetroot, asian greens, rocket, asparagus when they are in season. We have 4 guinea pigs and i save about $15/week by growing leafy greens of various sorts for them.
Things like potatoes, carrots and onions, you won't save money, unless you want to grow say purple potatoes which cost a fortune in the shops.
The other way to save money is to save on inputs by making your own fertiliser ( bokashi juice, worm wee and castings, comfrey tea, been manure crops) and compost.
PS you can even use diluted urine as long as you don't have a uni/aren't on weird drugs that might affect the soil or its organisms.
I struggle to grow parsley! And coriander hates me :-P basil and mint, on the other hand, I feel like I'm doing fairly well with. The basil is still going gangbusters and I'm freezing a half-batch of pesto most weekends for the off-season.
I haven't even started looking into saving seeds, but then seeds aren't a huge cost for me so far. It tends to be the 'stuff that makes gardening possible' (pots, tools, soil etc) and fruit trees that cost me a bundle at this stage. Probably just the reality of where I am on the gardening journey: in a few years I won't have to spend any money on these things, and will be reaping far more rewards than I am currently.
I'm going to a worm farming workshop soon :-) and then I'm setting up my farm, and hopefully / probably buying and setting up some in-ground worm farms and an in-ground bokashi bin.
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I bought a red grapefruit tree on the weekend (only $20!!), so I now have all the trees needed for the garden bed along the back fence. The plan is to dig in a couple of in-ground worm farms, plant the grapefruit, mulch the bed and feel pleased with myself about it finally being finished. When I say that *I* will do these things, I mean that Mr H and / or my Dad will do them while I supervise, because I'm at that stage of pregnancy now.
The adjacent bed, which is along the side fence, is next on my hit list. That's the one that's getting dwarf almond trees.
I've repotted two zucchini, but given the drizzly weather this week I suspect there's a good chance of them succumbing to powdery mildew even with milk sprays :-(
More positively, we harvested a handful of strawberries, a handful of cherry tomatoes, and three amish paste tomatoes. Plus, as always, a large bunch of basil. As mentioned in my last post, I'm freezing basil pesto most weekends so I should be able to enjoy homemade pesto well past the end of the season.
Still no sign of fruit on the eggplants.
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That's odd. I have been harvesting eggplants for a month, and we have marginal weather for eggplants.
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That's odd. I have been harvesting eggplants for a month, and we have marginal weather for eggplants.
My plants are large and healthy, I've been giving them plenty of water and feed... who knows?
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The garden is in a bit of a hiatus at the moment. Other than leafy greens and herbs my main harvest is beans - scarlet runners and snake beans. And the odd carrot, which mostly don't taste that good , so I give them to the guinea pigs.
Pumpkins aren't setting much fruit this year. Sunflowers are done.
I've panted seeds for broccoli, cauliflower ( probably won't germinate, it didn't last year) and kale. Will start planting some green manure mix soon.
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I have some pumpkins coming along very nicely since I started manually pollinating them. (I still giggle in my head every time about helping my pumpkins have sex.)
Main harvest right now is capsicums. Last time I tried capsicums they were a dismal failure and this time they're prolific. *shrugs*. Still harvesting zucchini.
The beans have all pretty much carked it. I will need to try again another time somewhere less sunny.
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I'm waiting on cooler weather to plant an ornamental courtyard tree, based on advice previously given here. Is it cool enough yet? (Perth). We're still getting occasional hot days, but it doesn't seem to be summer any more.
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No idea whether it's cool enough yet or not. I planted fruit trees in December, so I'm probably not the right person to answer :-P
Which tree did you decide on in the end?
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No idea whether it's cool enough yet or not. I planted fruit trees in December, so I'm probably not the right person to answer :-P
Which tree did you decide on in the end?
I'm leaning strongly towards an ornamental fruit tree, but haven't actually decided yet - it will depend a bit on what's available when I go in.
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I'd give it another few weeks until we're reasonably sure we aren't going to get any more 35+ days, but I'm basing this on no actual information.
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Hello Aussie & Kiwi Gardeners, a Melbourne-ite here...
I got up early this morning to play in my garden so was rewarding myself on the inter-web and found this lovely thread.
I live on a very small block (under 500m square, in fact probably under 400m square).
After renting the Jewel Box for many years, DH and I had the opportunity to buy our place a few years ago and I quickly planted 2 apple, 1 pear (at the time I didn't realise it needed a mate to cross pollinate); an apricot; 2 lemon trees, a mandarin, 2 peaches and 2 blueberry bushes.
To be perfectly honest, there was no real thought process in this. My local nursery was having a wonderful sale (think $5 and $10 twig like trees) so I just bought whatever took my fancy (this was pre-MMM). On reflection I have planted them all much too close together, but will keep trimming them to keep them under control and see what happens. Miraculously my apple trees produced small (but edible) apples; the blueberries had blueberries on them; and all the twigs looked lovely in blossom in Spring.
I've been procrastinating about getting the veggie garden going. I've got a few pots of herbs growing and even have a Diggers membership...does that count??... but just need to give it a go. I've been able to grow the usual summer salady stuff (think lettuce etc), but would like to expand my repartee. I have a long term plan to have a thriving fruit and veggie garden going in our retirement (still about 6 years away) so need to get with the program.
This weekend, I planted a new pear tree to hopefully pollinate the other one; mowed a small 6.5m x 2.5m square patch of grass; contemplated whether I should put raised veggie garden beds where the grass is....; deadheaded a whole lot of roses (we inherited some of my late mother-in-law's roses) and generally seasol'ed everything in sight.
It has been very hot here over the last couple of weeks and I think long term I will need to look at a water tank...it might need to go underground given the lack of space! Hope everyone's garden are going well.
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Hi Sapphire, nice to see you here.
At my place its still raining. So far we've had at least 291mm, which is 1mm over record maximum. The weather station is a bit further south from me, so we've actually likely had more than that. Previous months when I was complaining about not enough rain, the fall was around 10-20mm. So I haven't done much in the garden. And weeds are growing and things are rotting!
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Hi Happy, 32 degrees here today, been very warm all week. Please send rain down our way.
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I bought joy today, in the form of pansies and more marigolds! I'm hoping at least something will self-seed once they're done.
I also bought the courtyard tree that I've been debating. I hope i picked the right one, because it was what i knew grew well in full sun, I've seen plenty of healthy ones in our neighbourhood, and i know DH likes them - but it wasn't an ornamental fruit tree like I'd planned. I opted for a small ficus.
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!!! I was very glad to hear you bought a tree but eek ficus. They usually have very invasive, large roots that crack walls and raised beds and even houses if too close. It's possible that some varieties don't and you've got one of them, but... unless the nursery has told you this is the case and you're very confident they're right (many nursery staff are not really very knowledgeable, I had a guy at Better Pets the other day trying to tell me that manure did the same thing as trace elements) , I'd be trying to swap it.
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Mmmm ficus... Our ficus benjamina was probably planted as a small shrub or grew from a seed dropped by a bird. It's doubled in size in 4 years that we've been here, the roots take all the nutrients and moisture and have torn up our yard. If it's a benjamina you have, don't plant it! Our tree guy said he cuts down ones and finds remnants of the tiny pots they came in - they just bust out!
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Dang, and I was pleased with myself. I'll leave it in it's pot and stew over it a bit.
It was this one (but the tag said full sun was fine..?)
https://www.bunnings.com.au/170mm-ficus-bushy-prince-benjamin-fig-bushy-prince_p3757185
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I can't upload a photo, but trust me if you saw mine... They are great for a patio pot or indoors.
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Would one of these work? We've got camellias along the patio, and a neighbour has a magnolia (a bit of branch sticks over the fence).
https://www.bunnings.com.au/5l-fairy-magnolia-blush_p3723852
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yep, benjamina = benjamin, by the looks of it. Avoid. Sorry.
I have no experience with magnolias but don't see any problem with that idea, other than that the soggy petals are a bit of a pain to sweep up off paths and things. Watercorp says they are waterwise, which is a good sign for likely future health of plant: https://www.watercorporation.com.au/save-water/waterwise-plants-search/plants-details/figo
After the third attempt to plant marigold seeds, I now finally have one (1) flower. It is quite pretty.
On the other hand, I have pumpkin vines EVERYWHERE. I picked my first pumpkin today, not sure whether it's fully ripe but going to eat it anyway.
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yep, benjamina = benjamin, by the looks of it. Avoid. Sorry.
I have no experience with magnolias but don't see any problem with that idea, other than that the soggy petals are a bit of a pain to sweep up off paths and things. Watercorp says they are waterwise, which is a good sign for likely future health of plant: https://www.watercorporation.com.au/save-water/waterwise-plants-search/plants-details/figo
After the third attempt to plant marigold seeds, I now finally have one (1) flower. It is quite pretty.
On the other hand, I have pumpkin vines EVERYWHERE. I picked my first pumpkin today, not sure whether it's fully ripe but going to eat it anyway.
Ooh, yum! My mum had a bumper crop of pumpkins this year so we'll be getting free ones in a few weeks.
Bugger about my plant-purchasing attempt, but I'll either return it or stick it in a pot because the mister is a fan of them. Glad that a magnolia should work. Learning is good for me :D
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I think we have two camellias and they are v dense so great screening. Plus! We have a possum nest in one. Although I hate them for their thieving, I can see them while they are sleeping and it's very cute :)
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https://www.dropbox.com/pri/get/image.jpeg?_subject_uid=366559273&w=AAChtfzvCg_XsBqJIOywuT4VHVH8xNx180PoeDDi7mByvg
Hoping this link to my ficus image works.
ETA: for scale, I think the raised bed in front is about 1.4m wide.
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On the other hand, I have pumpkin vines EVERYWHERE. I picked my first pumpkin today, not sure whether it's fully ripe but going to eat it anyway.
Leave the pumpkin to cure for a few weeks before eating, in a well ventilated area out of the sun.
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Still raining :(....garden becoming buried in moist green stuff and I can't get out to weed.
I've had no luck with marigolds. I bought some seedlings and planted them to deter pests, but the pests ate them. I sowed a whole pack seeds another time, got 1 scraggy plant, that put out 1 sad flower and died. One time soon I'll have another go!
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Planted the red grapefruit, dug in the in-ground worm farms and mulched the bed. That's two garden beds redone now; two to go.
Had a rough week and did not water at all. Some of the half-dead tomatoes out the back are now looking even more dead. Everything else is fine. Zucchini needs more milk spray for powdery mildew.
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Pumpkins are an amazing vegetable in that they are quite edible no matter what stage of development they are at (similar to zucchinis), so your pumpkin is edible.
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Short version of story: our avocado tree has been cut down and we have 13 avos of various sizes. A few will probably ripen ok but has anyone ever picked a too small avo and have it ripen / be edible? And do you think avo / guac would freeze :)? I could try to swap these for something on FB but they are quite stringy and watery (plus they fell into a muddy pool before we could retrieve them!)
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/freezing-avocados_n_1864437
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I don't usually get full cream milk, which is what you're supposed to use for powdery mildew.
However it just occurred to me yesterday that full cream milk made up from powdered milk is probably the same thing. And it is cheap and will keep in the cupboard until I need it and we already had some.
I have now sprayed All The Things.
I did a couple of garden tasks yesterday that I had been putting off for ages, soldered and waterproofed the retic wires, fitted the box to cover the valves, and chopped the tops of the IBCs I'm going to use as wicking beds. More garden space, here I come. Maybe I can get them finished over Easter.
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I had one tiny eggplant growing, but something (a rat?) has nipped it right off the plant!
Hand-fertilised a zucchini flower the other day. Hoping for my first homegrown zucchini.
I don't usually get full cream milk, which is what you're supposed to use for powdery mildew.
However it just occurred to me yesterday that full cream milk made up from powdered milk is probably the same thing. And it is cheap and will keep in the cupboard until I need it and we already had some.
I have now sprayed All The Things.
I wonder if previously-frozen milk would work? I buy full-cream just for this, so maybe I should try freezing it in small portions until the next time I need it...
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Still raining here:(. Garden is overgrown, and I've lost my sowing rhythm. More weeds than you can poke a stick at.
Harvesting beans, - yay for snake beans! a bit of lettuce and lots of basil. Mmmm several more batches of pesto.
Harvested some mature lazyhousewife's beans to save for seed.
Otherwise, I'm suffering gardening withdrawals.
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I'm hanging out for the weekend when I have muscle available to help me purchase my courtyard tree (take 2) and some pots, and re-pot a bunch of stuff. Hoping for a cool day tomorrow so I can get rid of some weeds in the meantime.
I hope the rain lets up for you soon, happy. I'm already missing it here...
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I'm hanging out for the weekend, too, hoping to assemble a couple of my new ibc wicking beds.
I got behind in my seed planting, I don't have much to plant out into the new bed and the big space in the old bed where I pulled the finished squash out. I did chuck in one silverbeet and some parsley that'd been in seed raising pots too long plus some beans (ditto) in the other bed earlier this week. And planted out seeds of broad beans, leek, and ... one other thing I can't remember right now.
I've recently read that oyster mushrooms are easy to grow and I'm very tempted, but not sure I have enough time in a day...
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Worm farms are now set up and ready for food scraps! Let's see if I'm a capable enough worm farmer to get worm wee and castings for my plants to eat.
Englyn, the worm farm people at last night's workshop use homemade wicking beds! They looked good.
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Ooh, I must remember to take some progress photos.
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Commenting from Melbourne to come back, read and learn! We have some water tanks (ibc thingys) waiting to become wicking beds and a backyard to overhaul.
Fairly new to gardening, but am looking forward to hopping in more and more as we approach FIRE :)
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Today it was sunny ( until it rained again), so I caught up a bit. The wicking beds are now sown out with lettuce, a few spring onions and a leek, broccoli and kale, bok choy, tatsoi , chioggia, and chard. Looks like a couple more carrots might be germinating, and last years chervil is coming back.
Containers in Zone1 were updated..planted out with chard and lettuce, in with some broccoli and sliver beet ( giant fordhook).
In the nursery I sowed miniwombok, borage and mexican coriander.
I'm working over my garden beds to a more permie style..with diversity, mixing flowers, soil improvers and food crops, interplanted highly piggly, not in rows. Today I concentrated on one bed: dug out a section with noxious weeds, planted some daylilies, removed spent sunflowers, and sprinkled remaining seed, pulled out buckwheat and mung beans - chop and drop for soil improvement, cut back wild roquette ( using chop and drop so it reseeds) planted out silver beet and some cosmos flowers. Fertilised the beans.
Havesting: beans..a few scarlet runner beans and enough snake beans for me to eat every day I steam veges, and then some. Yum I love snake beans. I had 200g excess today so I blanched and froze them in packs of 50g - enough for a serve for me at tea.
Its garlic painting time, but I've held off so far. So much rain, I'm worried the bulbs will just rot.
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Still getting a few strawberries! Seems far too late in the year for them, but I'm not arguing.
The zucchini flower I hand pollinated less than a week ago is already a half-sized zucchini. Keeping a close eye on it. I pollinated another flower this morning, so hopefully that one will set fruit too.
I was so happy to use my very first batch of worm wee this morning on an apple tree. I'm hoping to keep getting free (ish) liquid fertiliser for years to come from my worm farm :-)
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Latest enthusiasm: I'm growing mushrooms!
Oyster mushrooms are supposed to be pretty easy to grow. I'm working on producing a jar of spawn, I boiled coffee grounds and shredded newspaper and layered it with some pieces of stem of bought oyster mushrooms in a large glass jar. They are starting to grow mycelium!! This is the white fluffy looking underground "body" of the plant, the mushrooms themselves are the fruiting part.
Once I have a jar of mycelium spawn, assuming it doesn't rot or grow the wrong kind of mould, I'll break it up and chuck it in a large lidded bucket with holes in the sides to fruit. Not sure what the soil/substrate will be yet, maybe straw/newspaper mix.
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I have just seen two posts from GT in two different threads that I wanted to respond to, so I chose to come here:
Worm farms: How to use the worm wee
@ Deborah and GT, thanks - I already do this - I have a bucket under the tap which collects the pee.
Due to photobucket doing maintenance yesterday I missed posting this. Worm farm, jar, watering can and compost head, all within range of each other. Note spare third tray for worm farm in the background.
http://i1301.photobucket.com/albums/ag105/geofftewierik/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20170120_172211_zpshsbu01rp.jpg
That is an awesome bamboo in the background. Is it a clumping bamboo, and do you know what it is?
Seeds:
I should send you an Eden Seeds/Select Organics catalogue from down here.
Now, I got put off Diggers some years ago - I used to join them for a few years, accumulate too many seeds and then stop my membership. Rinse and repeat. They also didn't always stock what I wanted, so I started looking around. Then I found that their prices weren't that good either. Which seed companies do people use, and why?
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I have just seen two posts from GT in two different threads that I wanted to respond to, so I chose to come here:
Worm farms: How to use the worm wee
@ Deborah and GT, thanks - I already do this - I have a bucket under the tap which collects the pee.
Due to photobucket doing maintenance yesterday I missed posting this. Worm farm, jar, watering can and compost head, all within range of each other. Note spare third tray for worm farm in the background.
http://i1301.photobucket.com/albums/ag105/geofftewierik/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20170120_172211_zpshsbu01rp.jpg
That is an awesome bamboo in the background. Is it a clumping bamboo, and do you know what it is?
It's actually a Golden Cane Palm, Dypsis lutescens. We have them all along our WNW boundary fence and a few more dotted around the block.
Seeds:
I should send you an Eden Seeds/Select Organics catalogue from down here.
Now, I got put off Diggers some years ago - I used to join them for a few years, accumulate too many seeds and then stop my membership. Rinse and repeat. They also didn't always stock what I wanted, so I started looking around. Then I found that their prices weren't that good either. Which seed companies do people use, and why?
A friend had bought a subscription to Diggers for me years ago, I wasn't a fan of their marketing/seeds sent and have always bought seeds I need from places like Eden Seeds/Select Organic when living up here in QLD as they're climate appropriate. When I lived in VIC I bought seeds from New Gippsland Seeds & Bulbs.
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I've been gifted a 5 year subscription to Digger's, so I do buy some things from them if it looks unique and economical, but I wouldn't pay to renew. I'm in a subtropical rainforest and I find their offerings/seeds are slanted towards a more Victorian climate. I prefer to buy from Green Harvest, Eden seeds and Daley's Fruit Tree nursery.
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Woodbridge Fruit Trees have now opened their catalogue (they grow trees - mainly apples - and mail order, on a first come first served basis after opening their catalogue). The trees are sent in winter, and they say (in the e-mail they sent to me) they now send to WA (even though some parts of the site still say they don't). https://www.woodbridgefruittrees.com.au/
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Woodbridge Fruit Trees have now opened their catalogue (they grow trees - mainly apples - and mail order, on a first come first served basis after opening their catalogue). The trees are sent in winter, and they say (in the e-mail they sent to me) they now send to WA (even though some parts of the site still say they don't). https://www.woodbridgefruittrees.com.au/
thanks Deborah
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So today was a permaculture open gardens day - I toured 3 local gardens and learnt about keeping native and honey bees, growing coffee and a bunch of other things. It was really fantastic to see what was doing well in gardens in my area. We need to plant bananas! And papaya! And all the berries. Another interesting factoid - no one really bothers growing big tomatoes because of fruit fly. They stick with cherry toms and if they do grow regular ones, plan for fruit in v early summer and autumn, it just is too humid in summer.
I am going to get a native stingless bee hive, they are minimal care and you get a litre of honey each year. Interesting factoid - native stingless don't pollinate pumpkins... And given that I haven't seen one native bee in my garden in months, it's hand pollination only round here.
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One of my blueberries has started flowering. It's MAY. Goddamn climate change. Anyone want to weigh in on whether I should pull off the buds?
I am going to get a native stingless bee hive, they are minimal care and you get a litre of honey each year.
That is very, very cool.
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One of my blueberries has started flowering. It's MAY. Goddamn climate change. Anyone want to weigh in on whether I should pull off the buds?
Something else I learnt today - nothing seems to fruit when it's supposed to round here and all sorts of things were fruiting twice. Either it's climate change or the gardening world is AWASH WITH LIARS! I'd say just go with it.
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Where do you get native bee hives from?
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Where do you get native bee hives from?
I haven't researched all the options yet. There is a provider in Sydney and a great one from Brissie that spoke at a garden today. Both charge ~$500 for a hive incl bees and you get them by courier. It's steep and you can get a pound dog for less but you don't have to walk the bees. Plus there's the environmental benefit.
Keeping them is literally choosing the right spot (dry and shaded) and then let them do their thing. Collecting honey is easy and optional, very little processing compared to euro bees but you don't get a lot. I think if you're keeping them in Canberra you might have extra work to keep them warm in winter.
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European bees have been an environmental disaster for things like native bees, so I am keen to have natives. They are using them in Japan in greenhouses because they don't sting.
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Where do you get native bee hives from?
I haven't researched all the options yet. There is a provider in Sydney and a great one from Brissie that spoke at a garden today. Both charge ~$500 for a hive incl bees and you get them by courier. It's steep and you can get a pound dog for less but you don't have to walk the bees. Plus there's the environmental benefit.
Keeping them is literally choosing the right spot (dry and shaded) and then let them do their thing. Collecting honey is easy and optional, very little processing compared to euro bees but you don't get a lot. I think if you're keeping them in Canberra you might have extra work to keep them warm in winter.
A dry spot could be an issue for me... But keeping them warm wouldn't be an issue in Perth.
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I now own a dwarf pomegranate! It already has two little fruits starting. I love the foliage, and I'm reliably informed that it will happily grow into a small bush in a pot. I have no idea what I'll do with pomegranates, but I'll find out.
And the blueberry bushes at the nursery were flowering too. So it's not just mine.
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Pomegranates are cut in half, have the flesh covered seeds knocked out with the edge of a spoon over a leafy green salad. Provides a tangy crunch.
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Pomegranates are cut in half, have the flesh covered seeds knocked out with the edge of a spoon over a leafy green salad. Provides a tangy crunch.
Yeah, but then you have to eat SALAD.
I'm thinking, cheesecake topping.
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I have planted some lemongrass at the front of my house which is north facing. I don't think I prepped the sandy soil that well so I am clinging to hope that it does in fact grow like a weed as I was told at the weekend. I was given a clump with roots which I split into three. The advice said plant three metres apart so I planted it about one metre apart.
Uses for lemongrass - not only can you cut the stem near the base and use in cooking, but you can also trim the leaves and steep them for tea. One very useful plant. I am already visualizing having people over and asking if they'd like lemongrass or mint tea and then stepping out with my scissors.
Now to find a free a watering can to get rainwater from the tank at the back of the house to the front garden...
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I once planted lemon grass. It grew into an enormous clump. Someone said it was the biggest clump he had seen in Canberra. Then I decided it was in the wrong spot. So I moved it. It died of frost. I have tried growing lemon grass in the better spot several times since, but they all died of frost. This year I planted some lemon grass in the original spot. Hopefully it will last through winter.
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I once planted lemon grass. It grew into an enormous clump. Someone said it was the biggest clump he had seen in Canberra. Then I decided it was in the wrong spot. So I moved it. It died of frost. I have tried growing lemon grass in the better spot several times since, but they all died of frost. This year I planted some lemon grass in the original spot. Hopefully it will last through winter.
All the clumps I've seen here have been very big, I'm really hoping it takes off! Good luck with the original spot. All I've read suggests they like full sun, well drained soil and regular watering.
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I once planted lemon grass. It grew into an enormous clump. Someone said it was the biggest clump he had seen in Canberra. Then I decided it was in the wrong spot. So I moved it. It died of frost. I have tried growing lemon grass in the better spot several times since, but they all died of frost. This year I planted some lemon grass in the original spot. Hopefully it will last through winter.
All the clumps I've seen here have been very big, I'm really hoping it takes off! Good luck with the original spot. All I've read suggests they like full sun, well drained soil and regular watering.
Where it grew well gets little sun, and no watering but it is well drained.
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I once planted lemon grass. It grew into an enormous clump. Someone said it was the biggest clump he had seen in Canberra. Then I decided it was in the wrong spot. So I moved it. It died of frost. I have tried growing lemon grass in the better spot several times since, but they all died of frost. This year I planted some lemon grass in the original spot. Hopefully it will last through winter.
All the clumps I've seen here have been very big, I'm really hoping it takes off! Good luck with the original spot. All I've read suggests they like full sun, well drained soil and regular watering.
Where it grew well gets little sun, and no watering but it is well drained.
I am really starting to think we should ignore most location advice because just about everything seems to prefer the shade, and I don't blame them. I put an avo tree pip seedling on my front northish facing porch, granted in a pot but with the correct soil mix as prescribed by the internets, but it hates it. The seedling planted in the ground and located behind the garbage bins (and therefore forgotten about and overgrown with weeds) is going gangbusters. It's actually too near the fence and the gas and water lines so we'll unfortunately need to move it.
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I really need to plant my garlic. Which actually means get my husband to plant the garlic, because I'm not allowed to kneel or dig for another three weeks.
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My dad is bringing me peas to plant! i need to prep the sunny spot i have chosen for them.
I really need to plant my garlic. Which actually means get my husband to plant the garlic, because I'm not allowed to kneel or dig for another three weeks.
:(
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Hi, any advice on what to grow in winter? I feel like all my seedlings aren't making it past an inch high.
I'm in Canberra, so its currently frosty, cold and the sunshine in my garden is not too good.
I'm considering using lamps to get them going inside, has this worked for anyone else?
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No help from here, it's currently so warm that my capsicum and chilli are flowering :S
I successfully hurried up a bunch of spring seeds to germinate last year though just by putting them in the bathtub for the extra warmth.
What are you planting?
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Hi, any advice on what to grow in winter? I feel like all my seedlings aren't making it past an inch high.
I'm in Canberra, so its currently frosty, cold and the sunshine in my garden is not too good.
I'm considering using lamps to get them going inside, has this worked for anyone else?
http://www.cogs.asn.au/organic-gardening/seasonal-gardening/winter-planting-guide/
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What's everyone doing in the garden this weekend?
As well as some long overdue pruning and weeding (I barely made a dent in the weeds...) today I planted my garlic. I know it's super late to plant garlic, but I figured I may as well give it a go and see what happens.
Blueberries and strawberries are starting to flower, as is the dwarf nectarine. Lots of lemons at various stages of development, and looks like we might get our first lime before too much longer.
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I have been living on grapefruit and lemons for weeks and weeks. Otherwise I am too sick to garden at the moment. I think I officially have flu. We found out tonight that a friend went to hospital with the lurgy that is everywhere here at the moment. But today I am starting to get better!!!!
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I've cleared the mess around my lemon tree, pruned it, and will mulch and fertilise tomorrow. My veggie patch is just about entirely cleared out, just a few random pieces of garlic remain :( .
In view of the fact I am selling the house, my direction in the garden has changed substantially. I had a crew of 4 blokes come and prune, weed and generally clear out. I had to go inside for a fair part of the day as I was getting too emotional about stuff that needed to come out. These guys know how to prepare a garden for sale, so I needed to let them get on with it, not have conniptions every 5 mins. There's more to go down the back.
I still have some veges in 2/4 of my wicking beds. I 'm not sure how I will move them yet. Probably take all the dirt out and see how heavy they are.
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I admired my kangaroo paw, then glared at the weeds in my lawn. No idea how I'm going to get rid of them. Might need to ask a family member to spray with weed & feed or get DH to do it for me - the lawn is basically weeds with a couple of grass blades
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I have some lawn like that!
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I'm meant to weed my lawn?!
I thought weeding the garden beds was bad enough...
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If the weeds are green and you mow it all the same length, will it matter? I guess if there's bindis and stuff it does with kids... I recommend squinting at it rather than glaring and it will all look the same :)
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Weed problems here too - someone told me once to pour a bit of salt on the weeds and apparently that will kill them off...it might be quicker if I just throw it all over the "Lawn" and start again...
I have just grown my first cauliflower and have some broccoli looking ready to harvest. It's the first time I've tried something other than the usual salady type things so I'm feeling quite proud!
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Oooh cauliflower, I'm jealous. I never could even get the one pack of seed I had to germinate...probably a dud pack. I'll have another go in my new house.
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I spent a couple of hours this afternoon mulching and fertilising the lemon tree...maybe I can get it to set fruit before I leave. I won't get to eat it, but its more of a challenge than anything.
I dug up and separated some native irises and replanted them. And more weeding! Its so dry here ATM, I think I'm going to buy a sprinkler..who ever heard of such a thing in a rainforest? However its now August and I want the garden to really get going well for selling in a couple of months.
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If the weeds are green and you mow it all the same length, will it matter? I guess if there's bindis and stuff it does with kids... I recommend squinting at it rather than glaring and it will all look the same :)
Yup, I want to actually use the grass, not just look at it ;)
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Not doing much gardening myself at the moment, but I was walking the dogs and an old man down the street was pruning his big lemon tree in his front yard and he gave me a couple. Score! Squeezed it onto mexican chicken salad for dinner.
I have a real soft spot for old men gardeners. This guy and I have only exchanged waves/nods before. He was definitely rocking socks and sandals.
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Remind me, can weeds be killed with application of boiling water? Has anyone here tried that? I need to kill a lot quickly with minimal effort and chemicals (breastfeeding mama and I only get short breaks during naptime).
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Remind me, can weeds be killed with application of boiling water? Has anyone here tried that? I need to kill a lot quickly with minimal effort and chemicals (breastfeeding mama and I only get short breaks during naptime).
I imagine that would work. I have a spray bottle with white vinegar. You can add some salt if the weeds are somewhere you don't want plants to grow ever.
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Remind me, can weeds be killed with application of boiling water? Has anyone here tried that? I need to kill a lot quickly with minimal effort and chemicals (breastfeeding mama and I only get short breaks during naptime).
Boiling water will work, steam is better, it heats the cells and causes the cell walls to burst. Non toxic weed killing is done with steam wands.
https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2012/06/the-easiest-chemical-free-way-to-kill-weeds/
https://www.echo.net.au/2014/02/non-toxic-steam-weeding-trials-begin/
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Fabulous, I'll try the kettle tomorrow.
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Don't forget the same mechanism that kills the weeds will kill not-weeds as well. So be careful.
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Today's hailstorm stripped quite a few flowers and green blueberries (greenberries?) off my blueberry bushes :-(
But my garlic has come up quickly. My dwarf nectarine is in beautiful blossom now. The lavender is looking and smelling fantastic.
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Today's hailstorm stripped quite a few flowers and green blueberries (greenberries?) off my blueberry bushes :-(
But my garlic has come up quickly. My dwarf nectarine is in beautiful blossom now. The lavender is looking and smelling fantastic.
Sorry about your flowers and greenberries :(
My garlic has just come up and I also have several fruit trees that are just starting to blossom. Planted another apple tree today - bramley's seedling - positioned it near two other apple trees - apparently it needs to be cross-pollinated by two other trees...I had got my head around some fruit trees needing a mate...but two mates!
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Remind me, can weeds be killed with application of boiling water? Has anyone here tried that? I need to kill a lot quickly with minimal effort and chemicals (breastfeeding mama and I only get short breaks during naptime).
I used to use boiling water, it works really well. But you have to make sure you don't splash and burn yourself i.e. wear closed shoes and trousers. Also its fairly labour intensive if you have a large area. But if want to just do a bit at a time with a kettle in-between baby chores its good.
Then I got a weed-wand. AKA flamethrower. Much easier, but if you aim it at combustible material you'll have a fire in no time ( ask me about the tale of the burning bush, ahem and I also part melted the base of a little plastic greenhouse when the leaves underneath caught fire). The gas cylinders do cost about $10, so boiling water is probably cheaper.
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Remind me, can weeds be killed with application of boiling water? Has anyone here tried that? I need to kill a lot quickly with minimal effort and chemicals (breastfeeding mama and I only get short breaks during naptime).
I used to use boiling water, it works really well. But you have to make sure you don't splash and burn yourself i.e. wear closed shoes and trousers. Also its fairly labour intensive if you have a large area. But if want to just do a bit at a time with a kettle in-between baby chores its good.
Then I got a weed-wand. AKA flamethrower. Much easier, but if you aim it at combustible material you'll have a fire in no time ( ask me about the tale of the burning bush, ahem and I also part melted the base of a little plastic greenhouse when the leaves underneath caught fire). The gas cylinders do cost about $10, so boiling water is probably cheaper.
Good, I can do this during naps (bit of water for my cuppa, rest on the weeds in awkward spots). The weeds in garden beds are easy, but the ones in the paving, next to the fence etc are what I'm planning on boiling (cue evil cackle).
This weekend we removed the winter's weeds from the garden beds with help from family. There was a LOT. Weather was lovely.
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This weekend I planted seed potatoes. There's a garden bed down the back that used to be dedicated to sweet potato until the weevils got to it. The only way to get rid of the weevils, apparently, is to keep the bed sweet potato-free for three years. Unfortunately, the sweet potatoes are not down with this plan, and every time I dig the bed I get more small bits of sweet potato root out. Hopefully the potatoes will not be susceptible to the weevil.
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I put an orchid in the bathroom today, fingers crossed the cat doesn't eat it. I also re-potted a fern and some kind of pink and green leaf plant, so the inside of our house is feeling rather green.
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Yesterday I decided to plant some shallots and strawberries. In the process I discovered that the onion seeds that I planted back in JUNE have FINALLY germinated and are peeping up above the earth. It has been a dry winter.
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Dry is right. I'm trying to get my garden looking fab for sale and have bought a sprinkler: imagine that a sprinkler in a rainforest. My veges are still yielding - broccoli is doing well, I have a few heads of lettuce, silver beet, shallots. The asparagus crown I removed to take with me is now producing, so I haven't killed it. I'm planting some flowers and some shade plants in some empty beds - hopefully this weekend.
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Zucchini. What else can I do with zucchini after I've made bread, soup, taken them to work, grated them into every single thing I've cooked.
Next time someone remind me not to plant 4 fricking zucchini plants for two of us, when one of us (Husband) doesn't even like them.
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Zucchini Balls - Kabak. You can even grate them and get rid of the moisture and freeze the result.
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Already made zucchini chocolate cake?
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Spiralize them into pasta?
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Spiralize them into pasta?
Done it.
Already made zucchini chocolate cake?
Yep. Chocolate cake, chocolate and beetroot cake, carrot cake. All of the above.
Zucchini Balls - Kabak. You can even grate them and get rid of the moisture and freeze the result.
Ooh, will have to google that one, thanks!
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Spiralize them into pasta?
Done it.
Do it again? ;)
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I am so jealous of your zucchini, Primm! Do you have a crop swap group. They are set up so you can swap excess for others' excess. Mine is Facebook based but I've heard of other horticultural meets.
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Finally planted something at the "new" rental (been here 6 months). Pretty happy with the $10 each on sale pots from IKEA. A bit more designer style gardening than my usual dig a hole in the ground approach.
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Potatoes have sprouted! Now I'm hilling for dear life and wondering how high I have to go to get a good crop.
The elderflower that I planted last year when it was six inches high is now three feet high and producing flowers - I harvested my first home-grown elderflowers tonight and will make cordial!
The orange tree that my grandmother gave me shortly before she died is putting on a lot of new growth, but I'm contemplating taking off the flowers. There are a lot of flowers, and I'd really like the tree to get a bit bigger before it tries to bear more fruit.
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The elderflower cordial sounds exciting, Spiffsome!
I have been diligently watering the hedging plants my landlords kindly planted in our courtyard to cover the ugly fence. It's SO nice to finally have appropriate plants in there! I may have snuck a jasmine vine in as well, to make the area smell nice...
I'm contemplating getting a few herbs to keep in pots and some veggies for the small vegetable plot we have. I will have to look up what's appropriate to plant now, because I've got no idea! Track record says I'll get enthusiastic and plant it and then forget about it ;)
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First lot of beans got planted today.
(https://instagram.fsyd4-1.fna.fbcdn.net/t51.2885-15/e35/21827461_1750604768345264_8118950840552652800_n.jpg)
P.S. that's how big the backyard is, grey tiles, grass, then garage...
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I want to give a big shout out to kale. We've largely ignored the garden for 6 months, everything else has died but the kale grows on.
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I want to give a big shout out to kale. We've largely ignored the garden for 6 months, everything else has died but the kale grows on.
Was it just me or did anyone else think Triffids!
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First lot of beans got planted today.
(https://instagram.fsyd4-1.fna.fbcdn.net/t51.2885-15/e35/21827461_1750604768345264_8118950840552652800_n.jpg)
P.S. that's how big the backyard is, grey tiles, grass, then garage...
Now I'm thinking about growing beans...
I want to give a big shout out to kale. We've largely ignored the garden for 6 months, everything else has died but the kale grows on.
Was it just me or did anyone else think Triffids!
Freshie, is your kale making weird clicking noises and mysteriously shifting to new patches in the garden??
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Asparagus: how large a pot do I need per crown/plant? Just big pots (40cm?) or should I go for a half barrel?
It'll possibly get transplanted to the garden beds later on. But right now I can't commit to a good permanent spot for it.
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40cm pot will be fine.
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Who else is gearing up for Sprummer and true Summer?
As well as a whole heap of flowers, I've started seeds for green beans, yellow beans, sugar snap peas, zucchini, cucumber and tomatoes. And basil! I've potted up a bay tree seedling, and planted out two types of asparagus (purple bastard and Mary Washington) and rhubarb. Not sure if the rhubarb will make it, it was looking pretty sad.
Lots of flowers on the lemon, lime and both mandarins. The lemon and lime are both bearing fruit now. No flowers on the grapefruit yet. The wurtz avocados are flowering, but too young and small to bear fruit. The super dwarf nectarine has set an astonishing number of fruit, which will need thinning. No sign of flowers on the apple trees so far (only a few years old). Strawberries are flowering and starting to develop tiny green fruit. Blueberries didn't do well after losing almost every blossom in a storm - I've had one blueberry so far, and might get another two or three at most.
Lavender bushes are growing well and smelling amazing. One rosemary bush is growing well; the other looks like it's struggling.
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We're not really planting seeds this year because we're about to do new raised beds but won't get it done til the end of spring. I guess we could start some seedlings and hope we get our A's into G with the planter box building. It will be too hot soon for garden building.
We have our first passion fruit flowers! We planted five vines to become a sort of possum distraction from our veg; one died, one had to be dug up and hasn't found a new home yet. Of the three left, the one on a west facing fence is happiest and has about 7 flowers. They've been in for a couple of years but I don't know if these are our actual first flowers or if the possums just ate the buds before.
The possums seem to have moved out. I'm sure when our strawberries ripen and/or we get passion fruit they'll be back. We still have rats but I discovered that DH has been flinging citrus peel in the garden which they seem to LOVE, so maybe I can stop him doing that.
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In honour of our upcoming sale, we've laid turf and our garden is clean and tidy and looks fab. Its still NOT raining...total rain in September so far is 0.5mm - we would often get 100mm/month or more here. I now have 2 sprinklers, and the landscapers advice is that the new turf needs watering twice a day! So that is ruling my schedule. The lawn down the back yard is struggling, but its hard to water down there as well as the new turf.
I 've planted some plants, and have bought some more to pop in the bare patches.
I'm still disassembling my container vege garden. I'll be pulling apart the wicking beds and taking them with me.
Currently our spring flowering consists of bluebells, snowdrops, azaleas, camellias, clivias, grevilleas, hellebores, freesias and some little white daisies. Un fortunately most of them will have finished flowering when the house pictures are being taken in a couple of weeks.
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Happy, our camellias flower in Autumn! My garden goal for this year is to grow a few lettuces and keep the indoor plants alive without too many midgies or whatever the tiny little black flies are.
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Potted seed tubers for oca and Jerusalem artichokes today. Hoping for big crops of both.
It's been interesting to see how much the soil in my garden beds has improved, compared to two years ago when we moved in. I don't feel like I've done all that much to the soil, but I have mulched, added worms and worm wee+castings from my freestanding worm farm.
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Realised this week that our previous system of active worm farm and compost bin worked well for us. The current worm farm cant cope with the amount of vegetable green waste we produce, so it looks like I'll have to start another one tomorrow.
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Worm farm number 2 has been started. It may get a bit more sun than number 1, so that might be an issue. They're tucked away on the north side of the house (with the fence a metre away and the neighbours house a metre the other side of that) around a corner, at the moment number 2 is in full sun which won't be awesome for it.
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All my wicking beds are now packed away:( . I harvested the last of the silver beet. In desperation trying to get rid of all my containers/pots I planted out some society garlic and harvested the remains of the tumeric.
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I'm getting ready to start a garden for the first time! We moved to a new apartment a few months back and now instead of a tiny cement balcony, we have a much larger tiled balcony.
My partner is much more experienced in gardening so I'm going to let him take the reins in the planning but I'm really excited to get my hands dirty, especially with herbs and some vegetables. We're in Melbourne and looking at getting a bunch of herb seedlings from Bunnings, then trying a few seeds from scratch as well. Wish me luck!
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I started this thread to help us munch through the kale / triffids ;)
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/throw-down-the-gauntlet/eat-5-serves-of-vegetables-and-2-serves-of-fruit-a-day/
Might be an incentive to get some more things in the ground if the food bill escalates. At moment we have three strawberries, I don't think that counts as a serve of veg...
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The potatoes are hilled up and are now flowering nicely. The mulberry tree is fruiting happily, and looks set to drop a lot of fruit exactly when we'll be away in New Zealand. The elderberry tree is putting up another series of flowerheads, so I might get a second batch of cordial from them as well.
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My lime tree is flowering! It's a kaffir lime so I don't expect any fruit, but the flowers are nice and accompanied by fresh new leaves I can add to curry :)
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Picked eight ripe lemons from the tree yesterday - DELICIOUS! It's so exciting to have something homegrown.
In other exciting news, some of my seeds have finally sprouted. Plus fruit has set on the more established mandarin. Really hoping I get at least one homegrown mandarin!
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My non producing lemon tree has more blossom on it than ever before - here's hoping it will finally make some lemons...just after I sell the place doh!- but something for the new owners.
I have some elephant garlic planted under the mulberry tree - some of it seems to be surviving... might get to harvest it before I leave.
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Picked eight ripe lemons from the tree yesterday - DELICIOUS! It's so exciting to have something homegrown.
Congrats! What are you going to do with them?
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Picked eight ripe lemons from the tree yesterday - DELICIOUS! It's so exciting to have something homegrown.
Congrats! What are you going to do with them?
Juiced them and used the juice in cocktails with homemade blackberry liqueur! Delicious. Pretty sure the juice tasted better than juice from store bought lemons...
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Omg guys, GUYS!
We have our first passionfruit. Let's hope it ripens and we get it before the possums/rats.
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Omg guys, GUYS!
We have our first passionfruit. Let's hope it ripens and we get it before the possums/rats.
Yay! Fingers crossed!!
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Oooh. when I was a kid passionfruit grew wild down our backyard and we feasted on them. At my first house there was a passionfruit but I never got it to bear. I think in the right spot they go great, but otherwise are finicky...so well done.
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Oooh. when I was a kid passionfruit grew wild down our backyard and we feasted on them. At my first house there was a passionfruit but I never got it to bear. I think in the right spot they go great, but otherwise are finicky...so well done.
Hubby's been peeing on it :)
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No joy with our bean seed planting, my guess that they were too old has come to fruition. So last night I placed an order with Eden Seeds/Select Organics for some fresh seed and well have another crack at it.
Also located some tomatillo seeds at another online seed catalogue, confirming which ones J_S recommends before going down that path.
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GT which site has tomatillo seeds??
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DH and I have no spare spoons for growing zuchini or cherry tomatoes this year so we'll skip it for just this summer. However, we're hoping to get nectarines and a few apples this year. Grapevine is 5yo and has never grown any fruit.
The actual reason I'm posting is to ask a question. About 4 years ago I planted a pineapple guava bush thingy in the back corner of the garden hoping it would a) grow to 3-5 metres to block the view into a neighbour's balcony (we live in medium density townhouses with lowish fences) and b) maybe get some fruit. Despite fertilising, mulching and watering a bit during summer, it's only grown to about 80 cm high and stopped, and we've had some flowers but zero fruit.
I want to pull out the pineapple guava and plant it with a fast growing wattle or somthing so at least we get some privacy. Would it be worthwhile offering to someone to transplant it to their garden or will it just die and be a waste of time? (I'm inland, clay soils, frosty winters and dry hot summers if that makes any difference)
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GT which site has tomatillo seeds??
Green Harvest.
http://greenharvest.com.au/SeedOrganic/VegetableSeeds/TomatilloToTurnip.html#Tomatillo
Edit: just did a quick google and these pop up as well.
https://australianseed.com/shop/item/tomatillo-verde-puebla
https://www.southernharvest.com.au/seed_catalogue/55
http://www.theseedcollection.com.au/Tomatillo-Michoacan-Purple
https://fairdinkumseeds.com/products-page/brassica-lettuce-and-asian-greens/giant-tomatillo-mexican-husk-tomato-physalis-ixocarpa-seeds/
https://chilemojo.com.au/seeds-tomatillo.html
https://www.greenpatchseeds.com.au/tomatillo-tomaverde.html#fndtn-product_info
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Faced with a dilemma in the rental. Not sure what I can do with this front yard space in the way of productive gardening without infringing on the landlords already planted plants.
Pix:
Looking east out the front door.
(http://i1301.photobucket.com/albums/ag105/geofftewierik/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20171018_162645_zpsqzxyjoyt.jpg)
Looking north at the front door.
(http://i1301.photobucket.com/albums/ag105/geofftewierik/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20171018_162659_zpsuvt6iwvp.jpg)
Looking northeast at the front door, showing the park one house away that locked us into renting the place.
(http://i1301.photobucket.com/albums/ag105/geofftewierik/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20171018_162705_zpsaptovryf.jpg)
Looking northwest fron the front path.
(http://i1301.photobucket.com/albums/ag105/geofftewierik/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20171018_162719_zpsqbiiatu7.jpg)
Looking south west from the front path.
(http://i1301.photobucket.com/albums/ag105/geofftewierik/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20171018_162732_zpsxoyfy8ys.jpg)
Looking west from the front path, note that the bins need to travel along that garden bed to get to the street.
(http://i1301.photobucket.com/albums/ag105/geofftewierik/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20171018_162736_zpscg1xv06w.jpg)
Looking south from the front path northeast corner of the block.
(http://i1301.photobucket.com/albums/ag105/geofftewierik/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20171018_162744_zpsgwveid9z.jpg)
One low impact option is planter boxes along the white fence on the south side, and hanging a second lot from the top of the fence. Would use self watering pots due to the north facing situation, to enable plant survival in full sun.
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GT I would definitely put planters along the fence. Not sure what else to suggest other than putting raised beds on the mulch and agreeing to move other plants back when you leave. Would only work with those non-hedging ones though. Or maybe just plant perennial things like lemongrass inbetween the plants?
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I like the idea of planter boxes and hanging baskets!
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I started this thread to help us munch through the kale / triffids ;)
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/throw-down-the-gauntlet/eat-5-serves-of-vegetables-and-2-serves-of-fruit-a-day/
Might be an incentive to get some more things in the ground if the food bill escalates. At moment we have three strawberries, I don't think that counts as a serve of veg...
Ha ha, I shall follow you over there...!
GT, I'd go the planters - as long as it all looks much the same when you leave the house, landlord shouldn't worry.
My apricot tree has some green apricots on it which is quite exciting.
However peach trees, which were looking all beautiful and bloomy have suddenly become all leaf wilty...not sure if it's some sort of peachy disease...will have to visit local nursery for advice. My neighbour who has a weekender property elsewhere suggested it happened to her peach trees also, so maybe they got blasted with some hot weather (we did have a couple of suddenly warm days recently).
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I also agree with the planter boxes and hanging baskets...it seems most renters do some sort of container gardening.
How long do you plan to be in the rental?
You could just interplant the current planting with appropriate herbs/veges - I can't see what the plants are - they might not like the rich soil one would create for veges..
Or, you could try making a decorative foodscape - if it looks good will the landlord mind? You could ask. You could pot up whatever is planted and replant on moving out, or just replace them ( wouldn't be that much). But not too much you can do with the bed that will have bins dragged over it.
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My lime tree has kept its flowers and some look like tiny limes! This is not supposed to happen, I was pretty sure kaffir limes rarely fruit. Exciting anyway, I hope that means it likes the spot it's in.
My garden is otherwise a big task of pruning, deadheading and weeding that stares at me every time I leave the house. Maybe next weekend...
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Went with some planters along the south fence to start with. Yesterday kid #1 helped me plant some snow peas, sugar snap peas, corn, butter and normal beans as well as re-potted some Gerberas for colour.
(http://i1301.photobucket.com/albums/ag105/geofftewierik/IMG_20171026_163923_zpszjv5tfzc.jpg)
(http://i1301.photobucket.com/albums/ag105/geofftewierik/IMG_20171026_163940_zpsa1ilagyy.jpg)
We'd also bought some Petunias and Violas but ran out of space to fit them in so today I bought some more planters and soil and planted them out as well and placed them along the front path. Could probably fit two more planters across the front if we wanted to.
(http://i1301.photobucket.com/albums/ag105/geofftewierik/IMG_20171028_154646_zpsh2onp53e.jpg)
The trays the flowers came in were then used to plant out some old tomato and chilli seeds I had saved from plants, in the off chance they're viable. Kid #1 had fun peeling the seeds off the paper towel they'd been dried on and sticking them into the seed raising mix.
Still thinking about hanging baskets for on top of the south fence, it would definitely interfere with the corn and may get in the way of the peas and beans, so we're holding off for now.
Oh and the lawn got a haircut as well ;)
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Looks great GT.
My lawn had a haircut this morning too - I always feel so virtuous when it's mowed.
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The two tomato seedlings I purchased (as opposed to raising from seed) already have tiny tomatoes on them!
Everything raised from seed is growing sooooo slowly.
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We're getting our first harvest of strawberries from the mega plant in the front yard! They're not great strawberries but fine for chopping up and having on cereal for brekkie or putting into smoothies. Last year we were getting approx 1 kg of strawberries per week (I think?) and we could be on track for something similar. Unfortunately the glut is always shortlived - only a month or less.
There are also lots and lots of baby nectarines on the nectarine tree in the front yard. Hopefully can protect them from the birds this year, or at least some. Not sure if we will get many apples this year. I have 3 small columnar apple trees in the backyard and haven't seen many flowers.
Some of our herbs have survived and thrived on our neglect - rosemary, oregano, thyme and tarragon. The parsley is mostly self-seeded and unfortunately bolts faster and faster to seed with each generation so I want to plant at least one new seedling this spring. The chives are still chugging along but the sage seems to have carked it.
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Today's harvest of strawberries!! DH has been chopping them up and putting them on our breakfast cereal. They're also fine for smoothies (but less good for just eating straight).
:D
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Today's harvest of strawberries!! DH has been chopping them up and putting them on our breakfast cereal. They're also fine for smoothies (but less good for just eating straight).
:D
They look so good, I really must try growing strawberries
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Today's harvest of strawberries!! DH has been chopping them up and putting them on our breakfast cereal. They're also fine for smoothies (but less good for just eating straight).
:D
They look so good, I really must try growing strawberries
I find they're really hit and miss for productivity. We have another 2 or 3 plants in the backyard which give us maybe one or two strawberries per year and they're not much bigger than when we first planted them (at least they haven't died, I guess).
This one is out the front facing north with a bit of shade during the day. It's a similar micro-cliamte that the rosemary bush thrives in, if that helps with choosing a location for planting it.
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I seem to recall strawberries get worse each year, and only the first year is good. That's why dad used to propagate new plants from the runners that would then be next years 1yr old plants to ensure we always had a good supply.
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I harvested half a bucket of worm castings today...the first time I've really done it. I'll put some of them on my new compost heap that's growing pumpkins.
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I seem to recall strawberries get worse each year, and only the first year is good. That's why dad used to propagate new plants from the runners that would then be next years 1yr old plants to ensure we always had a good supply.
I've read that too, but not this mega-strawberry plant. It's been there for quite a few years (maybe 4 years, maybe 6? can't remember) and just keeps spreading out and going for world domination of the front yard. It's thriving on neglect, apart from a bit of water in the hot dry summer months.
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I seem to recall strawberries get worse each year, and only the first year is good. That's why dad used to propagate new plants from the runners that would then be next years 1yr old plants to ensure we always had a good supply.
I've read that too, but not this mega-strawberry plant. It's been there for quite a few years (maybe 4 years, maybe 6? can't remember) and just keeps spreading out and going for world domination of the front yard. It's thriving on neglect, apart from a bit of water in the hot dry summer months.
Could explain why they don't taste awesome though?
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I seem to recall strawberries get worse each year, and only the first year is good. That's why dad used to propagate new plants from the runners that would then be next years 1yr old plants to ensure we always had a good supply.
I've read that too, but not this mega-strawberry plant. It's been there for quite a few years (maybe 4 years, maybe 6? can't remember) and just keeps spreading out and going for world domination of the front yard. It's thriving on neglect, apart from a bit of water in the hot dry summer months.
Could explain why they don't taste awesome though?
Possibly. They're good enough on cereal etc though so we're usually just pretty stoked to have huge volumes from our garden.
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The two tomato seedlings I purchased (as opposed to raising from seed) already have tiny tomatoes on them!
Everything raised from seed is growing sooooo slowly.
Same here!
We have a self seeded tomato go gangbusters under the peach (I hope they are yellow heirlooms we got from the Margaret Riverfarmers markets).then some Roma seedlings DH got (don't like them). My beefsteak heirloom mortgage lifters are tiny and many did not make it as DH kept replanting them in the hydroponics grow bed grrrh.
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Today's harvest of strawberries!! DH has been chopping them up and putting them on our breakfast cereal. They're also fine for smoothies (but less good for just eating straight).
:D
That's amazing! We killed all our strawberries for three years straight. But still trying.
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Omg guys, GUYS!
We have our first passionfruit. Let's hope it ripens and we get it before the possums/rats.
Whoop!
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Rats stripped the bottom leaves from the kale. Didn't even eat them so doubly frustrating... We've put a cage over the top from another bed, doesn't quite fit but might deter them. I think they were attracted by some not quite rotten avo pips and egg shells from the worm castings.
I think we should just plant avo pips and grind egg shells?
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I'm starting to think about my new garden. Its a bit challenging since we will move from this house to another on the property in 1-2 years. The garden around this current house is already landscaped and planted - a bit busy and a bit neglected. My plan will be just to clean it up and consolidate on whats already there. Sadly stuff I want in zone 1 like my wicking beds, can't be there, since they really are not portable. I decided I'd start off with a little round bed - currently has bromeliads, (and weeds), move the bromeliads and plant it out with herbs. The broms are struggling a bit, its quite sunny, so it seems the thing to do.
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Impulse bought some seedlings at the farmers' market this morning: pineapple sage, cherry tomato, Lebanese cucumber, jalapeno, and two strawberries.
Based on what everyone is saying about strawberries, I need to learn how to propogate them and get in the habit of turning over my plants every year... Bugger.
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Peas of both varieties are up, looks like just one failed germination in all those new seeds. They've been given a water now that they're up and green shoots are seen everywhere.
(http://i1301.photobucket.com/albums/ag105/geofftewierik/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20171105_141031_zpsn8gytqf5.jpg)
Couple of corn have poked through the top.
(http://i1301.photobucket.com/albums/ag105/geofftewierik/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20171105_141022_zps6yym196z.jpg)
The beans continue to struggle their way through the top of the soil, but they're getting there. Good strike rate for them too. Probably two days away from giving them their first water.
(http://i1301.photobucket.com/albums/ag105/geofftewierik/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20171105_141042_zpsqpwnf6nt.jpg)
Colour out the front looks good.
(http://i1301.photobucket.com/albums/ag105/geofftewierik/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20171105_141055_zpsrg60wk2g.jpg)
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Cool, GT!
We've got a friend coming over this arvo to take away our 5yo pineapple guava bush. We bought a variegated tarata to plant in its place to hopefully grow up to 8m high as a screening plant. There is one in the neighbour's backyard growing well so fingers crossed it grows well and fast!
We also bought a cherry tomato plant, a flat leaf parsley plant and some water crystals.
Yesterday we also bought 2x curly leaf parsley and a random tomato plant from a fete.
We haven't done much gardening for the past couple of years so our 1mx1m herb garden had lost all its mulch, still had some self down parsley (but not much) plus a bunch of self sown things
We'll hold off on planting the tomato plants for 2 days because the location is exposed and the forecast for Monday is 40mm of rain (which is a lot for us) and then severe weather warning for wind on Tuesday. Ah, spring.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Planted an eggplant seedling. We've been roasting a bit of eggplant lately and I've never really had success with growing it before so thought I'd give it a go. Long skinng ones.
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Home again, and the garden desperately needs weeding - as well as a lot of other things! But my white peony has flowered for the first time!
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Home again, and the garden desperately needs weeding - as well as a lot of other things! But my white peony has flowered for the first time!
Welcome home Deborah!
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Home again, and the garden desperately needs weeding - as well as a lot of other things! But my white peony has flowered for the first time!
Welcome home Deborah!
And your posts are working again! Brilliant!
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Greenery is increasing in the garden.
(http://i1301.photobucket.com/albums/ag105/geofftewierik/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20171110_122356_zpsa5mixpzp.jpg)
(http://i1301.photobucket.com/albums/ag105/geofftewierik/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20171110_122343_zpsbekfwlc5.jpg)
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Looking good GT!
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Aww, adorable plant babies!
All my plants are dead in this heat.
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A King Parrot is sitting on the wires EATING A CHERRY!!! They will be netted tomorrow. Hopefully some will be left.
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My potatoes have failed. Tops browned, dug them up and ... nothing. One tiny new potato the size of a marble that I re-buried. Ah well, I'll try again in autumn. Because leaving bare dirt in this climate is an invitation to weeds, I bought some squash seedlings and planted them in the bare patch. Thanks to all the potato-related digging, the ground is quite loose and ready for planting. The weather obliged with a couple of overcast days and a bit of decent rain.
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Sorry about your potatoes Spiffsome.
Looks great GT.
In breaking news in our house - I think it was last year that I discovered pear trees need a friend to play with so I put in another pear tree.
Drum roll please...original pear tree has little pears coming out...I am very excited!
Deborah - I will need to net too I think...
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In breaking news in our house - I think it was last year that I discovered pear trees need a friend to play with so I put in another pear tree.
Drum roll please...original pear tree has little pears coming out...I am very excited!
Amazing!! I would love to see a photo of the tiny pears.
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Lots happening right now - but nothing ready to pick and eat!
Beans are flowering.
Tiny fruit on the mandarins have started to grow past the initial fruit set phase - might actually get to eat some this time!
Lots of tomatoes growing, but none are ripe yet.
Basil (from seed) is sprouting everywhere.
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Apple trees (granny smith and pink lady) are flowering for the first time - we planted these two years ago.
Jalapeno should be ready to pick soon.
Strawberries are looking promising.
Native everlasting daisies have started to flower - a month or two behind the rest of Perth!
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That looks great, HAH! Love all the pics.
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The cherries are netted. King Parrots, Cromson Rosellas and a Cockatoo have been viewing the netting (probably with some consternation). However, the peaches and apricots are not netted, and they can have some of those. The birds do leave enough peaches and apricots for us, which is why I don't net them.
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What do you use for netting? Last year a wattle bird attacked our nectarines.
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Your garden looks great, Happier. We can mirror your strawberries but our citrus tiny fruit got stripped by something. Happens every year. We are also losing unripe passionfruit to rats so I've got to step up and protect some more with rodent wire. We have 20+ fruit now across 3 vines.
Today we strung more wire on the fence so our biggest vine can continue to take over the world. And I made a bamboo trellis to help a star jasmine block out the neighbours window (hopefully). That project is to be continued next week. The bamboo was free from someone chopping theirs and we got a bit of proper trellis from the side of the street. We'll move jasmine from another part of the garden. It's going to be a bit of a hodge podge but the plan is that jasmine covers it all in time!
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Wattlebirds are the pits. They bury their beak in an apricot , pull it out and go on to the next one. This allows the bugs to invade, and turn the fruit into a soggy pulp so the wattlebird can treat it like nectar. We got a gigantic roll of netting from Bunnings a few years ago, and are gradually using it. It even keeps out the silvereyes (who were also eyeing off the cherries). I'll bring a bit to the meetup.
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Wattlebirds are the pits. They bury their beak in an apricot , pull it out and go on to the next one. This allows the bugs to invade, and turn the fruit into a soggy pulp so the wattlebird can treat it like nectar. We got a gigantic roll of netting from Bunnings a few years ago, and are gradually using it. It even keeps out the silvereyes (who were also eyeing off the cherries). I'll bring a bit to the meetup.
I think that's what they were doing with our nectarines! We weren't sure what the culprit was until we caught one in the act. Little blighters.
And cool, thanks. We have a couple of little netted sleeves from Bunnings for our little columnar apple trees but they'll be too small for our nectarine tree.
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I pulled up the end of our garlic today. We usually plant enough to last us for the year. Think about 200 cloves planted, and 200 plants grown. This year our water has been an issue. Our usual bore pump failed, and the replacement runs on a petrol generator (i.e. liquid gold) Cheap enough for animal water, but not for plant water. So the garlic suffered (as the last rains in Geraldton are in early September), and we have some garlic, but not as much as usual. It also looks drier than usual, so I am hoping it will be OK.
The next issue is to get water more reliably and cheaply. A $500 cable to the bore looks like the best solution. Water is not cheap when you are off the "scheme".
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In breaking news in our house - I think it was last year that I discovered pear trees need a friend to play with so I put in another pear tree.
Drum roll please...original pear tree has little pears coming out...I am very excited!
Amazing!! I would love to see a photo of the tiny pears.
Will try and attach photo....I can see you've mastered that skill very well!
Photos look great, love the apple "flowers".
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So my only produce is: a lemon tree in our new house, its struggling, needs some lurve, but its bearing a few lemons. Pumpkin and tomato seedlings growing out of a compost bin at our new house - will try to keep these going to get some sort of yield. There is also a banana bearing a hand, which is still green and the bananas look thin... won't have time to bag this, so not sure what will happen. At our old house there is some mint, some rosemary, and some Russian garlic which is still immature, but I am harvesting one by one.
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I've started to fill our courtyard with flowers! Cheaper than a bouquet and lasts much longer, or at least I hope it will since I spent this evening fixing the irrigation. Wettasoil is my next job, then mulch over the top. Lovely to read about all the produce!
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The grapefruit and the lemon have a lot of fruit, and are being eaten as we want them. The grapefruit will be cut back a lot soon - it's too high and has definitely overgrown the space it is supposed to occupy! My citrus get the citrus stink bug, so I need to be able to get at the whole bush to keep them under control, otherwise I won't have much of a crop the following year.
Yesterday I ate a couple of artichoke hearts, and I'll be having more of them over the coming week or so.
The weeding is gradually progressing - there is miles more to do, but a lot has been done already. I need to get some dynamic lifter.
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Deborah how do you control citrus stink bug?
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I didn't get a chance to cull nectarine fruit when the fruit were small (our tree is only 3 or 4 years old) and now some of the branches are bending very obviously, even though the fruit is only about 2cm in diameter. Argh. Don't want branches to break.
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Deborah how do you control citrus stink bug?
Ditto. Just googled and I saw one critter on our lemon tree 2 weekends ago. Something eats the immature fruit every year, this could be the culprit. There is one fruit remaining out of hundreds and I'd like to save it!
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Deborah how do you control citrus stink bug?
Ditto. Just googled and I saw one critter on our lemon tree 2 weekends ago. Something eats the immature fruit every year, this could be the culprit. There is one fruit remaining out of hundreds and I'd like to save it!
There's a commercial spray... But maybe Deborah has a secret method.
I didn't get a chance to cull nectarine fruit when the fruit were small (our tree is only 3 or 4 years old) and now some of the branches are bending very obviously, even though the fruit is only about 2cm in diameter. Argh. Don't want branches to break.
Can you cull now?
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The deborah secret method???
1. Each time you go past a citrus squash at least 20. People on the internet suggest getting pliers or tongs to take a bug from the tree, but I use my fingers to gently grab the varmit on both sides (doing it gently stops them from spraying you), immediately let it drop to the ground and use a shod foot to squash it. If I have no shoes on, my other hand has a stone to squash it against the concrete. My face is never anywhere near the bug (they have a very caustic spray, so don't let them anywhere near your face). This tends to keep them in check if you do it every day.
2. If you have black ones around, they are laying eggs (they go from green to orange to black). Trim back the tops of the citrus in spring to stop them growing too tall, and to get all the eggs.
3. Pyrethrum spray.
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I didn't get a chance to cull nectarine fruit when the fruit were small (our tree is only 3 or 4 years old) and now some of the branches are bending very obviously, even though the fruit is only about 2cm in diameter. Argh. Don't want branches to break.
Can you cull now?
That would be the sensible option, yes. But they seem very difficult to pull off now that they're this size (and I keep tearing the branch). Haven't really had spoons to do it (on top of minimal energy, I have a frozen shoulder one side, and an unhappy shoulder on the other side from radiation and surgery nerve damage and scarring). DH could do it, but also has a spoons issue atm.
Mostly it was just a whinge that it would have been easier if we'd done it when the fruit was small but it wasn't doable back then. Ah well.
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The weeding is gradually happening. Another raised garden bed has been weeded, and most of the side garden is done. However, there are metre high weeds under the apricot (which has some quite large green apricots on it) and through the garden beds that I have yet to weed. The fruit trees all seem to have reasonable crops this year, even though everything is still green. The weed pile is absolutely enormous already (I think I am more than a third done).
I have planted some tomatoes that self seeded, but there is a lot more vegetable garden to plant.
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Good luck with the weeding, deborah! And don't forget to be careful of snakes if your garden is a bit overgrown atm. Our neighbours lost their dog to a snake bite last week :( and we're not that close to bush/farm land.
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Dad sent home some advanced tomatoe seedlings with the girls from their weekend visit.
Scored an Oxheart, Tommy Toe, Money Maker and a Black Krim. I headed to the big green shed and picked up some more self watering pots and soil to plant them out today and grabbed another pot and filled it up with the standard herbs we use from the garden. Thyme, rosemary, oregano, sage, Italian parsley and for me a Habanero chilli.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bbvi7sUjnKh/
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Dad sent home some advanced tomatoe seedlings with the girls from their weekend visit.
Scored an Oxheart, Tommy Toe, Money Maker and a Black Krim. I headed to the big green shed and picked up some more self watering pots and soil to plant them out today and grabbed another pot and filled it up with the standard herbs we use from the garden. Thyme, rosemary, oregano, sage, Italian parsley and for me a Habanero chilli.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bbvi7sUjnKh/
Oh you got me jealous! I miss beefsteak tomatoes from back home in Europe. We have three mortgage lifters growing in the acquaponics but it looks like tomatoes are ages away.
We seem to be pretty lucky this year (or maybe two years of work are starting to pay off?) and have our first mangoes and Kiwi berries growing. Really pleased with our hydroponics (lettuce, strawberries) and the netted peach
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Getting ahead of myself somewhat here but... next winter I want to plant up my little orchard that I've wanted for ages in our front garden. We're having an overhaul of all our outside space at that time.
The space is about 5m by 5m, has a hedge at the front and a fence at the side and a concrete driveway on the other side. The utilities - water, gas, electricity run down the fence line to the house so the working area is probably more like 4 x 5. There's an existing small tree (umbrella tree?) at the fence and a passionfruit climbing on the fence.
Do you think I could fit 3 x citrus (lime, lemon, mandarin) and an olive tree? I would go dwarf varieties if necessary. Around all the edges I've already got lemongrass and the passionfruit but want to plant lavender and rosemary in vast quantities so it feels Mediterranean.
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Depends what you want. Plenty of Greeks in Melbourne plant one large lemon in the middle of the garden on each side of a path to the front door, and that is their front garden, so two citrus would do you. On the other hand, you could plant them a couple of metres apart along the fence (or even replace the existing hedge with them, and plant rosemary and/or lavender as an under-story), and get them to form a hedge. You'd probably lose fruit to the passing foot traffic.
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Getting ahead of myself somewhat here but... next winter I want to plant up my little orchard that I've wanted for ages in our front garden. We're having an overhaul of all our outside space at that time.
The space is about 5m by 5m, has a hedge at the front and a fence at the side and a concrete driveway on the other side. The utilities - water, gas, electricity run down the fence line to the house so the working area is probably more like 4 x 5. There's an existing small tree (umbrella tree?) at the fence and a passionfruit climbing on the fence.
Do you think I could fit 3 x citrus (lime, lemon, mandarin) and an olive tree? I would go dwarf varieties if necessary. Around all the edges I've already got lemongrass and the passionfruit but want to plant lavender and rosemary in vast quantities so it feels Mediterranean.
There is something called lemonade teee which is three types of citrus grafted on one tree. But from what I hear one or two tend to take over.
Is there a reason you want an olive tree? There are a lot of wild growing ones around Perth. Our neighbours have three growing on their verge and are struggling to give them away...
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Getting ahead of myself somewhat here but... next winter I want to plant up my little orchard that I've wanted for ages in our front garden. We're having an overhaul of all our outside space at that time.
The space is about 5m by 5m, has a hedge at the front and a fence at the side and a concrete driveway on the other side. The utilities - water, gas, electricity run down the fence line to the house so the working area is probably more like 4 x 5. There's an existing small tree (umbrella tree?) at the fence and a passionfruit climbing on the fence.
Do you think I could fit 3 x citrus (lime, lemon, mandarin) and an olive tree? I would go dwarf varieties if necessary. Around all the edges I've already got lemongrass and the passionfruit but want to plant lavender and rosemary in vast quantities so it feels Mediterranean.
There is something called lemonade teee which is three types of citrus grafted on one tree. But from what I hear one or two tend to take over.
Is there a reason you want an olive tree? There are a lot of wild growing ones around Perth. Our neighbours have three growing on their verge and are struggling to give them away...
I like lemonade trees! The one my parents have just seems to be a sweeter kind of lemon.
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Hubby's keen on the olives, he's been wanting one a while. I like the look of them. I might ask my friend who has one just how much is involved in processing them.
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I just harvested potatoes in Brisbane! I thought I'd get nothing, since the tops were pest-eaten and sad, but I managed to get about 2 kg out of 2 square metres. Not great as far as potato yields go, but better than nothing. Two green tops are still thriving, so I've let them go until we eat the first lot of potatoes. Hilling them achieved nothing; all of the potatoes were below the original seed potatoes ...
The chicken run is three feet high in weeds (since we have no chickens in there at present). Next week I'll weed the entire area and lay down some mulch. The council has mowed the park at the end of the street and I've hauled a wheelie bin full of lawn clippings back already, so I can drag back a few more loads and cover the entire area. We're not getting chickens again until the new year, so lots of time for bugs and worms to get happy in that patch.
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Harvested strawberries and the very first cherry tomatoes of the season today. One of my bean plants is growing better than the others and has its first little bean growing! And there's at least one tiny apple forming on the pink lady.
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Just seeing if my pear photo works....
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Flush with success from Pear Photo...introducing budding apple photo...
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Nice :)
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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The tiny apple and pear are so cute, Sapphire!
Do you have to bag/net for fruit fly where you live?
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I've been away for a week, and of course it has RAINED. It is going to rain all week (except Saturday). Everything will rot!
I have picked a litre of raspberries this morning (excluding the moldy ones). So we will have lots of my favourite desert! The cherries look like they are ready to be picked too.
There are beans coming up amongst the tomatoes I transplanted from where they had self seeded, so they need to be moved.
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Oo raspberries, my favourite!
We spent the Sunday 'thinning' the garden. We got some outside advice and this will help us fight a mealy bug attack - every plant on one side of the yard has them - and generally help everything out. We have officially given up on our poor lemon tree - it was too boxed in to ever come good and we're putting one in the front instead (sunnier, less humid). I did take some healthy cuttings from it so maybe I can get a little pot plant going.
A week ago I took some mint cuttings, so those were planted up in pots on Sunday and I showed some bought mint seed. Apparently rats hate it and so I thought I'd proogate multiple plants and place pots around the garden near whatever's fruiting. There are other smelly plant deterrents but mint seemed a cheap solution.
Lastly I continued the process of propagating succulents that we already had for Xmas presents. I'm running a bit late but maybe the cuttings will root in 3 weeks??
Still waiting for our passionfruit to ripen - maybe 2-3 more weeks, just in time for our holiday!! Luckily we have friends staying at ours for their holiday so they won't go to waste.
Next weekend will also be a gardening one!
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We finally got our bore sorted, and nothing grows in Geraldton without water. So the next couple of weeks will be planting summer veggies. I will update with pics as we go.
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The first of our peas are appearing already.
(http://i1301.photobucket.com/albums/ag105/geofftewierik/IMG_20171205_085412_zpsjztj4dzu.jpg)
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The squash plants are going amazingly well in the heat - three weeks from seedlings and they've basically exploded. At the moment, one plant is covered in female flowers and the others haven't caught up yet, so I'm getting a lot of underdeveloped baby squash. Hopefully that will improve.
I've weeded half of the chicken run and laid down grass clippings over the top to cover the soil. The run itself is about thirty square metres, so the area available is pretty huge. I'm going to plant melons - the plan is to let the patch go and run itself since it's down the back yard. Possibly some zucchini as well. The fence that originally kept chickens in is going to keep chickens out when I get a new batch in the new year.
The front garden is in full survival-of-the-fittest mode - I transplanted some sweet potato slips to cover the soil there, and they've taken off and are challenging the kang kong (water spinach) for supremacy. Every so often I have to pull them both away from the yarrow and the tomatoes to allow the less aggressive plants to thrive, but the original problem (rock hard bare soil) is well and truly solved.
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Sounds good Spiffsome.
I have mystery pumpkins with some tomatoes mixed in self seeds from one of the compost bays at my new property. A rather unhappy looking lemon has produced a few more. It needs some love as soon as I get time. I have another mystery citrus, which also looked sick, but there are a few little green fruits starting, so as soon as I can I will give it citrus love and hope they might grow and I can figure out what it is.
I was layering up a compost bin, and disturbed a small snake in another bin. It looked black at first glance and I thought it might be a baby red belly black, but a bit more light on the subject revealed a grey colour with the characteristic markings of a golden crown snake. Weakly venomous and quite shy, so no real threat. It was under hay and leaves in the sun - they love to sun themselves in warm leaf litter - another clue to its identity. Went and got my phone to take a photo but it had gone when I came back.
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Poor old Peas copped a hammering in yesterdays heat and fried their tips.
(https://instagram.fmel5-1.fna.fbcdn.net/t51.2885-15/e35/25009508_779090248968432_1616318643002408960_n.jpg)
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Keep us updated on the mystery citrus, Happy!
Your poor peas, GT. My succulents have a lovely sunny spot in our courtyard, and are shriveling up. Apparently there is such a thing as too much sun (especially hot afternoon sun). I have some indoor plants I am shifting all over the house until I find a good spot for each - a fern which thought the north bathroom window was too hot, an orchid, a maidenhair fern which are as fussy as a diva and a chain of hearts which appears to be under water stress (yellow leaves) so I assumed overwatering and drained it a bit, and am hoping it will pull through.
At least my monstera is happy and produced a single leaf since I took it back outside. It has a bad midgy problem I have yet to solve.
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Garden is looking a bit better at the moment, flowers are powering along, first tomatoe, peas and beans are appearing.
(http://i1301.photobucket.com/albums/ag105/geofftewierik/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20171214_103627_zpsvss3yeod.jpg)
(http://i1301.photobucket.com/albums/ag105/geofftewierik/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20171214_103658_zpshi06dqzj.jpg)
(http://i1301.photobucket.com/albums/ag105/geofftewierik/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20171214_103720_zpsny64yuiq.jpg)
(http://i1301.photobucket.com/albums/ag105/geofftewierik/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20171214_103805_zpsdqygqt2q.jpg)
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The things I learnt today:
Currawongs love cherries.
Currawongs like sitting on the deck railing or on the deck itself when they eat cherries.
When birds eat cherries, they make a mess similar to that made when they eat mulberries.
Note to self: next year pick every cherry before taking the net off the tree, even if you decide you have picked more than you will use.
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Wow GT, you made that happen fast, very impressive and it looks great!
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The things I learnt today:
Currawongs love cherries.
Currawongs like sitting on the deck railing or on the deck itself when they eat cherries.
When birds eat cherries, they make a mess similar to that made when they eat mulberries.
Note to self: next year pick every cherry before taking the net off the tree, even if you decide you have picked more than you will use.
Bet they regurgitate/poop lumpy purple ick everywhere
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I've found a fantastic substitute for spinach. Kang kong, or water spinach, is a vine from South East Asia that grows well in boggy soil but will thrive in raised beds as well. Cooked, it tastes very much like the traditional spinach. I have been using it with feta cheese to make spinach-and-feta pastries. They're very good.
Generally speaking, I'm finding Asian greens and vines to be more suited to the Brisbane climate than European things like the brassicas.
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Our ornamental plum tree is tall (2 storeys high? something like that) and some branches (laden with plums) keep banging against our colour-bond fascia/gutters every time there is wind. So we borrowed one of those secuteurs on a long pole with string (I have NFI what they're actually called) from friends who were a bit sceptical that it would work on branches that high. But! Success! DH has managed to cut back all of the branches that were touching the house. Huzzah!
Now we just need to get our mulcher back from the same friends so we can deal with all the off-cuts. (they've had our mulcher for at least a year but we haven't needed it til now)
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Good to know about the water spinach. I wonder if it's similar to or the same as Warrigal greens which is like spinach but needs to be cooked.
Here are some finger eggplant, grown from last year's plants that were relocated to an empty spot.
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Warragul Greens is Australian native.
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Good to know about the water spinach. I wonder if it's similar to or the same as Warrigal greens which is like spinach but needs to be cooked.
Here are some finger eggplant, grown from last year's plants that were relocated to an empty spot.
Similar but different? I think Warrigal greens are toxic if eaten uncooked whilst kangkong/water spinach can be eaten raw but is typically cooked to make it taste better?
Both probably good for sub tropical climates? I've never had much luck with proper spinach. Then again haven't really tried these alternatives.
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Nectarines are starting to ripen. Omg YUM!!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Jealous of your stone fruit in Canberra. Too hard to grow here.
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Jealous of your stone fruit in Canberra. Too hard to grow here.
It's a lot of work! I haven't had to do pest management but the fruit has nearly broken the tree. And the ripe fruit has all come at once, when we're on Christmas shutdown so we can't off load kgs to colleagues.
That said, it is pretty yummy. And a friend made nectarine jam from our fruit today :D
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Took the first harvest off the beans this week.
(https://instagram.fsyd4-1.fna.fbcdn.net/t51.2885-15/e35/25012165_1943135606009180_4680143480683495424_n.jpg)
Shared them around with the neighbours.
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Nice, GT!
One friend made nectarine jam from the bag of nectarines we gave her on Xmas day and another friend will also try making some.
Our nectarine tree is near our bedroom window. Late at night (well after sunset) we could hear a big flappy thing in the tree. Couldn't see what it was but I am intrigued. Maybe a flying fox? There is a colony in my city but it's a reasonable distance away. Anyway, whatever it was didn't damage the tree.
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Took the first harvest off the beans this week.
(https://instagram.fsyd4-1.fna.fbcdn.net/t51.2885-15/e35/25012165_1943135606009180_4680143480683495424_n.jpg)
Shared them around with the neighbours.
Yum!!
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Nice one GT!
So my only veges are volunteers from the compost heaps we inherited. So there are several pumpkins going crazy, and they are up to producing female flowers. Unfortunately some are butternut shape and some a regular pumpkin shape. I've tried pollinating (aka flower sex) but I can't really tell if the male flowers are coming fro the same plant as the female. So nothing has "taken" so far. I also have a handful of cherry tomatoes. In another bin are more tomatoes, but no fruit so far, and another curcubit...?cucumber or zucchini...lots of flowers but not fruits yet (or ever?).
There are mystery flowers shooting up from an area I would actually prefer to be lawn/clear....think they might be dahlias, from the early look at the buds/flowers. Hate to pull them out, but I don't want them where they are. Maybe let them flower this season for fun and them remove.
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Is anyone else sweating through this Brisbane heat right now? All build-up and no rain, it's completely unfair.
My squash seedlings are loving it - they've turned into monstrosities producing yellow button squash larger than my fist. I had one that made me an entire dinner tonight with bacon and cheese!
I'm about to pull out the entire bed of water spinach. It's gotten too old, and the leaves are tough and bitter, so I'm going to pull them all up and pickle the stems the way they do in the Philippines. The ex-chicken-pen has a few zucchini plants, but I'd also like something else in there until April, when the tomatoes are due to go in. Any ideas for something that will thrive in this muggy heat? Sweet potatoes and pumpkin are not options, unfortunately.
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Those squash sound delicious. So jealous!
We went away for 10 days and I expected everything to be dead when we got back. Luckily our house guests had been busy watering and most things are doing exceptionally well. The basil has gone wild and we have tomatoes coming through. There were 3 ripe strawberries waiting for us and a big eggplant. I put a few passionfruit in wire cages for protection - one had ripened and fallen to the bottom of the cage and it's been hollowed out by some cheeky critter reaching through. We have had one fruit ourselves but should get more if we are on the ball.
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I planted a few things in pots a couple of months ago, some of them have thrived (the capsicums/chillies/tomatoes) and others have struggled (the oregano and coriander didn't last long).
It seems that no matter how often I water the tomatoes, the leaves still appear limp and shrivelled. Given it's going to be 42 here tomorrow (today now), I might have to put extra water on. It feels like they're not getting enough water even when it rained heavily in late November-early December.
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Tomatoes like lots of water. The more you give them the better they grow. And they like consistent water, otherwise they split.
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Dean, my oregano comes back from the dead sometimes, I'd keep watering and see. With the tomatoes, they might want some shade. And really soak them daily if they are in pots.
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Not sure what to plant now my beans are finishing off. It's still too early in summer to plant something like brassicas? Got the February heat to think about.
Maybe a second round of beans?
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How are cherry tomatoes in Brissie? That could be an option. And easy to deal with any excess - give away to friends, coworkers or chop in half and freeze for chucking in a soup or stew in winter.
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How are cherry tomatoes in Brissie? That could be an option. And easy to deal with any excess - give away to friends, coworkers or chop in half and freeze for chucking in a soup or stew in winter.
Reminds me I need to change my location, currently living in Melbourne :)
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How are cherry tomatoes in Brissie? That could be an option. And easy to deal with any excess - give away to friends, coworkers or chop in half and freeze for chucking in a soup or stew in winter.
Reminds me I need to change my location, currently living in Melbourne :)
lol! Well, Melbourne might be ok for cherry tomatoes too. I suggest cherry tomatoes over normal sized tomatoes because it's faster to get a crop (the growing season where I live can sometimes be a bit short, depending on when the first frost hits).
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Also cherries have less issue with pests and diseases.
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I planted up a bunch of volunteer tomato seedlings (from worm castings). I have three huge out of control plants that all have different looking fruit which is pretty cool. Will see how it ripens.
We've eaten our own passionfruit this week which was incredible, never thought I'd see the day. And our 2 yr old eggplants are going crazy. I did drown some stink bugs though. Who'd a thunk they like eggplant?
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My unproductive ornamental garden has issues. Any idea what's causing these hard white growths and how to get rid of them?
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Is it salt?
Remove salts and hard water deposits from the potted soil once a month by flushing the potted plant with lots of water, about a gallon for a one-quart plant. Keep the water in the bottom of pots or terrariums to a minimum.
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It does look like salt or something similar. I will try that, thanks Deborah!
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I think we're about to head into our third glut of this growing season - I can see some red cherry tomatoes! There are so many many green ones that I suspect within a few weeks we'll be at the stage of giving them away to people. (I love giving away homegrown produce :))
Funnily enough each of our gluts are all red: strawberries, then nectarines and now red tomatoes.
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How many tomato plants do you have, At?
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How many tomato plants do you have, At?
Two this year.The other tomato plant is a roma tomato. The green fruit look like baby pears!
We weren't going to do any growing food this year (except from pre-existing herbs and fruit trees) but did a couple of impulse buys. We bought one from a fundraiser fete and the other from a proper garden nursery.
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Will my rhubarb plant go dormant / die back to a crown, like asparagus does?
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Probably - depends how cold it gets in Perth
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FFS the maximum in the shade temperatures for the next week are:
35 (today)
39 Fri
39 Sat
39 Sun
39 Mon
36 Tue
33 Wed
As much as I hate watering plants, we now have the hose on the tomato plants, the nectarine and strawberry plants out the front (they get full north sun) and the new screening plant I forget the name of (it's in the pittosporum family, possibly from NZ, possibly something tarata? tatara?).
Tomorrow we'll need to water the hydrangea so it won't die in the 4 days of 39C.
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Before this week, I would have said that Cockatoos like peaches. But I now know that they absolutely adore hazelnuts.
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Added some hanging pots of semi-cascading petunias to the back porch.
(https://instagram.fmel5-1.fna.fbcdn.net/vp/fcfe929f71aa23312343d03148c2ff83/5AF32578/t51.2885-15/sh0.08/e35/p750x750/26227285_334138563740073_2205135449280741376_n.jpg)
(https://instagram.fmel5-1.fna.fbcdn.net/vp/10e7f4fdb1ab2568602ce04ab874c396/5B03D04A/t51.2885-15/e35/26872547_343705982772908_4618373956817125376_n.jpg)
Neighbour John gave me two left over tomatoe seedlings, so I planted them out, one already has fruit, the other looks like it's struggled.
And the dwarf bay tree finally got potted out into a bigger pot from the plastic one it arrived home in.
Also worded up John we were planning on popping a passionfruit on the fence between us out the front, in case it was an issue with it growing over onto his side. No problems for him and he offered us some trellis for it to climb on. As it will be in a pot, I'll grab a grafted Panama Red as it's our preferred fruit, and the graft should help it survive the colder Victorian weather.
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Those hanging pots look gorgeous GT! I like hearing your creative ways of gardening in a rental.
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My pineapple sage has died, so I will replace that at some point soonish. I think I left it for too long in a tiny pot, then didn't water it diligently enough when I transferred it to the garden.
I have ordered a fig, babaco and pomegranate. There's an empty garden bed waiting for two of them (I think the fig and pomegranate) and the other will be potted. A few of my large self watering pots will become available within the next few months as annuals meet their maker, and I think we will use them to construct a planned 'green screen' of dwarf apples along the side of our front porch.
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Will my rhubarb plant go dormant / die back to a crown, like asparagus does?
Mine didn’t.
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Will my rhubarb plant go dormant / die back to a crown, like asparagus does?
Mine didn’t.
Thanks englyn!
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Surprise flowers! I pulled some out before they flowered as I thought they were weeds. But no, Dahlias! took these photos a couple of weeks ago - there's more now and a deep red one.
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They're gorgeous @happy !
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Has anyone here kept homegrown garlic to use as seed garlic? I can't decide whether to separate out the cloves for storage or leave the heads whole. The internet is not being helpful (different sites say different things).
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I don't know either but I was waiting for a bulb I have to sprout and have left it whole. They've sprouted like that before. Since you've already googled - when do I plant them ideally?
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@HappierAtHome Yes I have. I usually keep the heads whole, just because I am always late planting it - i.e. I start to see some shoots and this finally gets me into gear to do it. I suspect it probably doesn't matter.
@Fresh Bread - April is good.
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I don't know either but I was waiting for a bulb I have to sprout and have left it whole. They've sprouted like that before. Since you've already googled - when do I plant them ideally?
The rule of thumb on one of my FB gardening groups is "just before Anzac Day".
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@HappierAtHome Yes I have. I usually keep the heads whole, just because I am always late planting it - i.e. I start to see some shoots and this finally gets me into gear to do it. I suspect it probably doesn't matter.
Thanks!
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Nice flowers, Happy, you must be chuffed.
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Gorgeous flowers, Happy!
I've got some fruit on my lillypillys! My succulent groundcover is also flowering, to DS's delight as he rips it out delicately between his fat baby fingers. Getting ideas from this thread as to what tasty food to plant at the house we just bought.
We've got a heap of paving to rip up, and I want to replace a large swath with grass to start with. Any recommendations on type and when to plant it?
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Sir Walter Buffalo, anytime up to early winter for you in Perth.
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+1 Sir Walter for grass to plant. We don't have any grass, which pleases SO mightily. When everyone else starts their mower, he sits there with an incredible smile on his face!
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Today I made jam from our European Plums - Greengages (3 bottles), Coe's Golden Drop (3 bottles) and Victoria plums (6 bottles). The Greengages and Coe's Golden Drop unfortunately ripened and fell to the ground while I was away (in the main), but there were enough to make jam for the year. The Victoria plum crop is ENORMOUS and the tree appears to have as many as when I started. Last year it had 3 plums - it seems to have got into a biennial cropping cycle, which is why there is so much jam (it is SOs favourite). I will start bottling them tomorrow.
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+1 Sir Walter for grass to plant. We don't have any grass, which pleases SO mightily. When everyone else starts their mower, he sits there with an incredible smile on his face!
Sir Walter Buffalo, anytime up to early winter for you in Perth.
a quick internet search tells me this is also low allergenic. Excellent.
Next query: do I purchase enough to cover the area I want, or do I purchase enough to cover some % and then let it infill? I'm guessing it will be a 10mx5m area, but I haven't measured yet.
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A friend of mine bought a piece of Sir Walter, and divided it into 4 patches. Over the years he gradually covered the whole lawn area with it. So you can do it that way if you're patient.
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Next query: do I purchase enough to cover the area I want, or do I purchase enough to cover some % and then let it infill? I'm guessing it will be a 10mx5m area, but I haven't measured yet.
I'd just buy the amount needed to cover the area. You want it all in and growing in one hit as you'll be wanting to use it soon as Duckling will need to be out on the grass and you don't want to have to fend him away from areas where you may have patchy grass cover waiting for runners to help spread it over the area.
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Periwinkle, grass and some other weedy things keep coming under the fence from our neighbour's yard. DH and I are tempted to plant some mint there to see if the mint might win the battle of the weeds in that part of the garden. Plus, we'd have mint. (we have a mint plant in a pot sitting under the garden taps to catch drips, mostly it just looks unhealthy and on the brink of dying)
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A friend of mine bought a piece of Sir Walter, and divided it into 4 patches. Over the years he gradually covered the whole lawn area with it. So you can do it that way if you're patient.
I suspected as much. Possible, requires a trait i do not have for this endeavour.
Next query: do I purchase enough to cover the area I want, or do I purchase enough to cover some % and then let it infill? I'm guessing it will be a 10mx5m area, but I haven't measured yet.
I'd just buy the amount needed to cover the area. You want it all in and growing in one hit as you'll be wanting to use it soon as Duckling will need to be out on the grass and you don't want to have to fend him away from areas where you may have patchy grass cover waiting for runners to help spread it over the area.
Right, I will find suppliers so we can get quotes as soon as we have keys. Yeah, he's gonna be digging in whatever bare sand he can find as it is XD
Periwinkle, grass and some other weedy things keep coming under the fence from our neighbour's yard. DH and I are tempted to plant some mint there to see if the mint might win the battle of the weeds in that part of the garden. Plus, we'd have mint. (we have a mint plant in a pot sitting under the garden taps to catch drips, mostly it just looks unhealthy and on the brink of dying)
Oooh yes, make them battle it out! I put $5 (imaginary) on the mint. My parents lawn smells delicious whenever they mow it thanks to an escapee from 10+ years ago.
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My garden should have several sorts of mint. Apple mint, Spearmint, and common mint. Mint seems to die back in winter, and doesn't get enough rain in summer to do much good. However, the apple mint seems to go wild. I'll give you some if you want it - add it to the list of stuff I'm giving/loaning you at the net meetup, or when you come around - if you want some.
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Periwinkle, grass and some other weedy things keep coming under the fence from our neighbour's yard. DH and I are tempted to plant some mint there to see if the mint might win the battle of the weeds in that part of the garden. Plus, we'd have mint. (we have a mint plant in a pot sitting under the garden taps to catch drips, mostly it just looks unhealthy and on the brink of dying)
Lemongrass is also a good barrier plant, if you can grow it in Canberra
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It grows, then dies when we have a frost.
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Periwinkle, grass and some other weedy things keep coming under the fence from our neighbour's yard. DH and I are tempted to plant some mint there to see if the mint might win the battle of the weeds in that part of the garden. Plus, we'd have mint. (we have a mint plant in a pot sitting under the garden taps to catch drips, mostly it just looks unhealthy and on the brink of dying)
Oooh yes, make them battle it out! I put $5 (imaginary) on the mint. My parents lawn smells delicious whenever they mow it thanks to an escapee from 10+ years ago.
LOL It would be funny to set up a time-lapse video of something like that and watch the Battle of the Weeds.
My garden should have several sorts of mint. Apple mint, Spearmint, and common mint. Mint seems to die back in winter, and doesn't get enough rain in summer to do much good. However, the apple mint seems to go wild. I'll give you some if you want it - add it to the list of stuff I'm giving/loaning you at the net meetup, or when you come around - if you want some.
Oooh, thanks for the offer. A friend in our city has normal mint (well, I assume it is) run amok if it's not in a pot, maybe it depends on micro climate? (or luck, maybe) Does apple mint taste reasonably similar to common mint? If yes, would love to take you up on that offer, thank you xx
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Next lot of seeds are coming up.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BfHp4CRjpFP/
Just need to pop the broccoli seedlings into their tubs.
Noticed there's an infestation of black aphids on the remaining corn cobs, will pull all the plants out today or tomorrow. Trying to work out what to do with the stems. If I can put my hands on my secateurs (I assume they're in the garden shed...somewhere) I could chop them up into 10-20cm lengths and pop them into the worm farms.
The Oxheart and Tommy Toe tomatoes are finally colouring up, plenty of Black Krims ready to eat and the last of the Money Makers are getting a blush too. Based on this seasons growth, I'd be going for Black Krims and Oxhearts next year and maybe investigate another variety or two.
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Pumpkin? In Melbourne? In February? It will have a hard time maturing before winter.
I like the green zebra tomatoes - I have always got a bigger crop from them than from some of the other varieties. Purple Cherokees are excellent (but oxheart are probably similar) - you can cover an entire slice of bread with one slice! And they are REALLY nice grilled (as are the Jaunee Flammee). Charles H Wilber (who had the Guinness world record for the world's tallest tomato plant, and the one with the heaviest crop, seems to like Better Boy (which I don't think is available here) and cherry tomatoes.
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Golden Nugget pumpkin, 75 day turn around, should be OK in May, maybe.
Again, the plants are more for the kids than anything else, it's the whole growing and learning thing they're getting out of it.
Just cut back all the corn plants and chopped them up into the worm farms. Ripped out the root balls from one tub, chocker block full of roots, including under the tray in the bottom to keep the dirt out of the water as part of the self watering pot. Did my best to pull out the major roots (added to the worm farm), break up the root mass as best I could and then topped off the pot with fresh soil. Will give it at least a week before I pop the broccoli seedlings in. Will tackle the second pot tomorrow with the girls.
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Guinea pigs love corn leaves and stalks if you happen to have any or know someone with some.
A few more volunteer tomatoes ripening:
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I have a fence line running north to south on the western side of my house. There's 3m between the house and fence. Would this area be suited to fruit trees? It's currently paved with some kind of conifer trees growing along the fence line.
**Also any garden design or plant growing books, podcasts, websites that people recommend?
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I think yes. Probably things that are okay with heat as they will get the hot afternoon sun.
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I have a fence line running north to south on the western side of my house. There's 3m between the house and fence. Would this area be suited to fruit trees? It's currently paved with some kind of conifer trees growing along the fence line.
**Also any garden design or plant growing books, podcasts, websites that people recommend?
[/quote
Something vine like growing against the fence will work too. Kiwifruit (needs male and female vines), Passionfruit or the like.
I always go back to the Gardening Australia website http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/ either for a quick search, fact sheet or a starting point to then hunt elsewhere. The Earth Garden forums were a good source of knowledge years ago, but they've migrated to Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/groups/447193975415704/ and apparently http://www.ozgrow.com/ is good too.
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What's everyone doing in the garden this long weekend?
If I'm not too sick, I will be:
Weeding and mulching the backyard garden beds.
Re-staking the new citrus trees in the front yard.
Planting out my garlic.
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I will be wielding various pruning devices in my battle with spikey plants, and cursing pesky paper wasps and ants.
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Just watering for me. Everything is currently in that should be in and seedlings that will be potted out wont need doing for a couple more weeks.
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Planting the plants I bought a week ago (native to the area) in the front garden. Moving the Poas that have been overgrown by the grass trees. Discovering weed mat and removing it (in the process needing to move more plants).
At least 20 years ago, I bought hoselink fittings (they weren't called that then) but we needed to get the normal click-on stuff because I didn't have converters, and shops stopped selling the hoselink stuff. This week I bought some from them directly for the new hose for the front (the others aren't long enough) - the parcel arrived the next day!!! I now have attached everything, but I have discovered that various other fittings around the garden need updating, so I have ordered some more that will arrive after Easter. I have now converted all the hoses to hoselink stuff, so we won't have both any more. AND ALL THE O RINGS AND WASHERS ARE BEING REPLACED where needed.
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Planting our garlic, leeks and beetroot.
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Cleared under the lemon tree and fertilised and mulched, and made a border around the tree. Did some pruning on it: looks like it hasn't been pruned in ages. It will take a while.
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I just measured all my garden beds and paved areas. Heading to the Perth Garden Festival today to get ideas. Chances are I'll come home with several plants I love but don't know what to do with
XD
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Made some compost last week and its hot!
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Made some compost last week and its hot!
Woohoo!!!
Turn it over to aerate and get it all hot again?
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Yes I did that yesterday. I've really managed to get compost hot before, (OK so its probably warm other than hot). I'll try to keep turning it every few days and see what happens.
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The few plants in pots I've got here finally started fruiting, there's a few capsicums and a bunch of chillies that are still dark green.
I'm not sure just how much longer they'll last, now the warm weather seems to be over.
I've had a few random plants grow in the courtyard that I believe could be murnong plants. Tempted to cook up the roots and see what they taste like.
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I want to identify some plants in my garden, has anyone used an app for that and found it good?
Fingers crossed your capsicums and chillies ripen, @alsoknownasDean!
Today we're chopping stuff up for vergeside collection and planting some peas! I also have to pick up the dead wasps and bees from our recent spray. I feel bad there were bees caught in the crossfire of our wasp removal, but relieved it only seems to be a few. Next year I'll be more prepared and try different methods if it happens again.
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There is defo an app but don't know what it's called. Next year you can be on the look out for wasp nests forming and knock them down when there's only one or two wasps.
Today I made a raised bed from reclaimed decking boards. It's great but I am buggered now. And the internets are refusing to let me upload a photo.
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Nice one.
Today I set up 2 more polystyrene boxes, one wicking and one not...planted seeds for lettuce in one, and nasturtiums and leeks in the other. I started on a third, and ran out of posting mix and it got dark before I could try to find some compost to add. The boxes I set up before have yielded a nice succession of cut and come again lettuce, bok choy, tatsoi, basil and coriander. A few shallots are also growing - I grew them from stumps after I used the shallots.
There's another apple cucumber and a couple more tomatoes in the volunteer bed. I've another 5 jap pumpkins growing. I'm waiting for these guys to die off, since I want to clear where the pumpkins are, and use the compost bay where the others are. But they keep on coming, largely due to the still warm weather.
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I've got 2 pumpkins in my kitchen! Pumpkin soup tomorrow with one that came off the vine before it was ripe. 8 left on the vine.
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Hey Australians! G'day and Bonjour!
How do you guys grow those trees with the little bears sticking out of them. I want to grow one of them. So is it really tomorrow over there right now? Did the RedSox win today? Let me know and I'll split my bet with you when I collect! Goodbye or as you say, Adios!
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I impulse bought a dwarf mulberry tree today! Woot! I'm planning to keep it in a pot. Also picked up some blueberry bushes to replace the ones that died over summer. Looking forward to potting up and planting tomorrow.
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Hey Australians! G'day and Bonjour!
How do you guys grow those trees with the little bears sticking out of them. I want to grow one of them. So is it really tomorrow over there right now? Did the RedSox win today? Let me know and I'll split my bet with you when I collect! Goodbye or as you say, Adios!
We grow those trees with great love and care. If not done correctly you can end up with drop bears. (Google them).
The redsox lost as usual, but no surprises there. Collingwood will win on Wednesday.
And in Sydney it's almost Monday. Melbourne is Sunday night. Brisbane is still around 2005, Adelaide is about 1985, and Perth is still trying to leave the 1950's.
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Compost is still hot :). I turned it this morning.
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I planted peas and lettuces! Fingers crossed they grow! Despite the rain, the ground wasn't very damp for very deep, so I might have to do some hand watering.
Also, is a bit optimistic to say Perth is trying to leave the 1950's...
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I planted peas and lettuces! Fingers crossed they grow! Despite the rain, the ground wasn't very damp for very deep, so I might have to do some hand watering.
Exciting! Fingers crossed :D
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I planted peas and lettuces! Fingers crossed they grow! Despite the rain, the ground wasn't very damp for very deep, so I might have to do some hand watering.
Exciting! Fingers crossed :D
Several something's sprouted! Either lettuce or weeds, hard to tell.
I also bought a strawberry plant, so I'll plant that into a hanging pot tomorrow :D we visited Bunnings today and they had mango, avocado and mulberry trees all in a line, ready for me to plop in my cart... But we don't have a planting plan yet, and definitely didn't have space in the car, so my orchard remains a mere whimsy of thought a while longer.
I did start pulling up the paving today, though! Really quite easy because they never cemented the edges. The quality of bricklaying must've been quite good since there had been no apparent movement in 20 years since laid, and they were all tightly packed. I need to arrange when my lawn delivery will arrive before getting stuck into brick removal. I also need to check what other steps need to be done to prepare the area for lawn, and decide on any edging between lawn and garden bed we might want.
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What about retic for the lawn?
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What about retic for the lawn?
we'll lay that at the same time, I guess. We have retic around part of it in the garden bed, just need new sprayers. Emailing for quotes today!
Vegetable garden update: I suspect I have a capsicum, many little lettuces, I definitely have lots of pea plants and the raised garden bed might be full of sand, not stuff with nutrients, so I might need to add something to it. Probably should've checked before planting...
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My peas have also come up! I planted 3 or 4 seeds against a trellis on a fence. That fence doesn't get sun all day but we'll see.
The rats have got bored with our tomatoes and are having a fine time with our pumpkins, little fuckers. Upside: we might get some tomatoes.
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The basil is nearly all gone for this season. I planted some boy choy, tatsoi and lettuce seeds today, as well as the cut off bottom of a leek. The jap pumpkin is still going - I fertilised another flower today, surely too late in the season but we'll see what happens. The fruit on a mystery citrus are starting to look like mandarins.
Grass is going up under the lemon tree I mulched a few weeks ago. I knew I should have laid some cardboard. I will have to redo it now.
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I'm also still hand fertilising pumpkin flowers. It would be mad if it works as I've had about 7 female flowers open over the last 3-4 days and there's more on the way. As the first wave of pumpkins are ripening. Mishaps and rats mean that we've already picked 5 pumpkins slightly unripe. There's four biguns left plus one more that is half eaten out.
About the rats - we have a cat prowling our garden. He just appeared this week and he is very interested in the rat runs and hangouts and is spending a lot of time here! Not the most humane solution but I hope he gets them.
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Pumpkins can be eaten at any stage of development. They just can’t be stored.
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Jumping back into this thread as I have plants again. All completely indoors.
I have black aphids on my garlic chives. I've grown them indoors years ago and never had aphids on them or any other herbs I was growing that time. So I don't know why it's happening now. I sprayed them with a water, oil and baking soda solution as per a recipe I found online, then I got impatient because they weren't falling off immediately and just snipped the garlic chives off and threw them out with the rubbish. Figured that would be the end of it. But now the new growth has black aphids on them too. :((( Where are they coming from? Are they hiding away in the soil just waiting to jump on any new growth? How do I eradicate them without using stuff that's toxic to humans?
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Straight up white oil does the job for me. They're an issue on my Camelias, so they get fortnightly sprays of white oil to keep them at bay.
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Interesting thing I learned about aphids at the weekend (although not helpful for indoors): to encourage & grow the population of beneficial predatory insects that feed on pests we should keep a sacrificial plant that's covered in caterpillars, aphids etc. Half my garden is covered in mealy bugs so I'm not convinced it's going to work but I have got a couple of chewed kale plants that I'm not going to rip out.
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About the rats - we have a cat prowling our garden. He just appeared this week and he is very interested in the rat runs and hangouts and is spending a lot of time here! Not the most humane solution but I hope he gets them.
My brother had a rat and mouse problem and "got" (i.e. it arrived) a feral cat and it worked a treat.
I have black aphids on my garlic chives. I've grown them indoors years ago and never had aphids on them or any other herbs I was growing that time. So I don't know why it's happening now. I sprayed them with a water, oil and baking soda solution as per a recipe I found online, then I got impatient because they weren't falling off immediately and just snipped the garlic chives off and threw them out with the rubbish. Figured that would be the end of it. But now the new growth has black aphids on them too. :((( Where are they coming from? Are they hiding away in the soil just waiting to jump on any new growth? How do I eradicate them without using stuff that's toxic to humans?
I had this happen to me too - I had clumps of chives and garlic chives flourishing - then the black aphids moves in, and despite my best effort one by one the clumps got infected and died off. Agree with GT, go for white oil.
The permie solution is to never completely eliminate pests, and encourage beneficial predators - in theory eventually a balance will be achieved. i suspect it takes years of organics/diversity to achieve thisetc
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Straight up white oil does the job for me. They're an issue on my Camelias, so they get fortnightly sprays of white oil to keep them at bay.
Ugh so I have to spray them regularly? I want to eat these garlic chives so not really keen on spraying them with a mixture that contains dishwashing liquid. Maybe I should just give up on them and plant something that insects hate.
I wonder where they're coming from though? I cut everything down to almost the roots and the first sign of new growth they're back. So some are hiding in the roots or in the soil I'm assuming? Something else I'm considering is buying diatomaceous earth and mixing them into my soil.
Interesting thing I learned about aphids at the weekend (although not helpful for indoors):
I had this happen to me too - I had clumps of chives and garlic chives flourishing - then the black aphids moves in, and despite my best effort one by one the clumps got infected and died off. Agree with GT, go for white oil.
The permie solution is to never completely eliminate pests, and encourage beneficial predators - in theory eventually a balance will be achieved. i suspect it takes years of organics/diversity to achieve thisetc
So sad, in the other apartment I stayed in I grew garlic chives for years and they were fine. Maybe I was on a higher floor so insects are less likely to make it that high up?
Yeah, given everything of mine is completely indoors (no balcony, no courtyard) I just prefer not to have any insects at all, beneficial or not lol.
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I planted salad greens (cos, beets, spinach) right before the storm hit today. Fingers crossed they get watered in nicely with no effort on my part!
I also bought a random assortment of shade/indoor plants that looked nice, so I'll pot those up over the next week. My carport has a garden bed adjacent that is perfect for shade plants, so I'm currently collecting ideas on how to turn it into a green wall.
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Tree ferns and a fernery?
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For the first time, I have an overwintering tomato! I've thought it might be theoretically possible in my climate, but at my old house by autumn the tomatoes got infested with a mould/fungus and even if I got the plants to survive the tomatoes were affected as well. After researching I just used to pull them up and try to reduce the spore load in the garden.
So this is the tomato plant that grew as a volunteer in one of my compost bays. It has 3 tomatoes slowly ripening, and last week it started setting flower. Its looking healthy - and hasn't got the mildew, possibly because its not prevalent at this site, or because we've only had a third of our usual rainfall this year. I assume it has a warm microclimate being surrounded by corrugated iron. The only downside is that it is occupying one of my compost bays that I'd like to use...but I'm loathe to pull a productive plant and am now very interested in following through to see what happens. BTW I picked 2 of the tomatoes as they were starting to colour change and experience shows something will come eat them once this happens (?possums). They'll ripen safely inside.
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Wow! That’s fantastic. I’ve heard it can be done, and that tomatoes are actually perennials, but I haven’t known anyone who has. Well done!
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Well its only June so we'll see what happens. Its looking good so far.
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That’s amazing Happy, well done! Very low chance of that happening down here...
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Our tomatoes go all year round but it's colder where you are than where I am, happy. I have heard from our local gardening group that winter tomatoes are sometimes not sweet. I have left one volunteer that produces big tomatoes for sauce etc and one producing the yellow grape kind as its hanging over the fence so I thought it would be nice for the neighbours to pilfer some if they get there before the rats.
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Interesting - it would make sense if they are not so sweet. What a thoughtful neighbour you are!
Absolute record minimum low temp here is 5C, and it wouldn't go under 6C most years, and even then only a few nights a year would be less than 7 or 8 C. So I knew they should survive the winter in theory. I was however, gobsmacked to see it setting flower...I assumed if they survived they'd be nonproductive until the weather warms up.
I'll save some seeds and maybe even strike some cuttings, particularly if it manages to produce some fruit over winter.
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I have a mystery citrus tree. Looks lemony, very juicy, but a smooth skin like an orange. Possibly a Meyer lemon, but I thought those were small and these fruit are reasonably sized. My MIL has informed me the fruit are amazing and I'm never to get rid of the tree :)
Our veggie patch is going well. Duckling's peas are still alive, despite routine pluckings and helpful digging with his tiny shovel. My peas, meanwhile, have all been chopped off. Maybe a bird? They were cut to exactly the same height all the way along the row.
Our leafy greens look great, though, and Duckling had his first lettuce leaf. Success!
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Sounds like a Meyer to me.
Pics and dimensions would help confirm.
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Went to Seasol the garden today and realised I didn't have any Seasol, just some Charlie Carp, so now out the front of the house smells like a bait bucket. :(
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Hi all! Another Canberra based Peep who likes to garden but doesn’t get to spend enough time doing it.
I just finished making a little greenhouse thingy (from old Canberra red bricks and a bit of leftover suntuff panel) to raise seedling in. Well not really a green house. Only 1m by a half.
Looking forward to trying it with a few tomato seeds in mid August.
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Deadhead bulbs like daffodils once the flowers start dying off and before they set seed, yes/no?
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You are supposed to. I never have the energy to do it, and my daffodils and jonquils definitely don’t mind.
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For people that have bought fruit trees and bushes recently - where from? I was at the garden centre today and got a lemon and a finger lime. The other dwarf citrus looked a bit sad so I looked online but there doesn't appear to be anything in stock at Daley's or Diggers. Do people normally just join the waiting list for stock?
I'm after a dwarf mandarin, and anything else that might survive in a pot for now. I saw Diggers Club had a choc pudding tree so that's tempting.
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I just go visit ALL THE NURSERIES, helps that I've got the free time to do that.
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I sign up for stock notifications at Diggers for the trees I want. Usually a lot of stock becomes available at once, and being a member helps keep the price down. Diggers might seem like they are out of stock of everything, but my experience has been that they still have better availability overall than many nurseries here - it's impossible to get the same range of avocados elsewhere, for example.
I have bought quite a few fruit trees at Bunnings, but it's not my favourite option. I'd rather not support a huge chain when there are better alternatives, Bunnings doesn't have a great range and their plants aren't always in the best condition.
Here we have Dawson's nurseries, which are great for fruit trees, but they're not at all convenient for me so we don't end up getting out there often. Their range doesn't entirely overlap with Diggers, so in an ideal world I would buy from them more regularly as well as ordering from Diggers.
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There's a few nurseries far out that I will be making plans to visit because they're such a long drive, Dawson's is also a bit tricky for me and Waldecks has a few things. Not that I've bought anything beyond a small young blueberry from Waldecks yet.
We've gotten 70% of our new paved path down, which means I know where the garden bed is in the backyard now! All the plants along a 8m stretch have been removed since we moved in, including a frangipani, 2 big hibiscus stumps and a grevillea. Planning to try a trellis with native climbing flame pea and native clematis, if we can find the second.
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Waldecks had a couple of mature sunshine blue :D :D :D
Of course I bought one. I was only supposed to be picking up some native violets. Also bought strawberry. Did not buy plum, nectarine, pear or apple trees but they had ones I really wanted...
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Woohoo. Awesome on getting a mature one.
I avoided buying a bunch of discounted bare rooted fruit trees today. Instead buying more pots and rose/gardenia mix and planting out 6 of my blueberry bushes.
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Does anyone have big garden plans for the weekend?
Mine will involve dragging the various plants we've chopped up/ pulled out/ decimated over the past 5 months and stashed around the house onto the verge for green waste pickup. Hopefully the yard will look a heck of a lot tidier afterwards.
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Yup. Hoping to mulch citrus trees, repot an asparagus crown, turn some compost, start to set up a small straw bale garden. I want to compost and mulch and plant out a garden bed. And sow some more seeds. Probably some lettuce, leafy greens and more flowers.
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Does making garden beds count. We have about 10m cubed of soil/clay to hide, so some raised garden beds are coming. We also have a pile of compost that needs moving before Monday so the guys coming to remove the asbestos can do their job. If we remove it, we don't have to pay them to do so.
Attachment doesn't work. Probably too big. You can see it here:
https://belgraverebuild.com/2018/08/27/7-the-garden-taking-shape/
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Hoping to shift some roses and maybe even do a bit of weeding (unlikely).
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I like the look of your raised veggie patch middo! We have a heap of dirt and bricks that I'm considering using to make raised beds. I have to pull up more paving to do that, though, so I'll probably still end up with an excess of bricks...
Today I took the kid to the local garden store, a Waldecks. They have Digger's Club seedlings! I got some heirloom tomato varieties, plus some fun plants like rockmelon, watermelon, pumpkins, and herbs like thyme and basil. Thought I might try growing the herbs at the base of my dwarf trees in the pots. They also had a Loquat and two dwarf nectarines (early season and a mid/late season) that I really wanted, but I promised the hubby I wouldn't get more trees because I can't fit them in the car! Dawson's delivers trees and plants, though, so we'll make a trek down there to pick the ones we want and arrange delivery. Nectarines were Tuscany and Royal Gem.
This is my first spring with a garden I own, so I'm getting seedlings and next year I'll try growing from seed.
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We were at Bunnings yesterday to buy some other stuff and got sucked in and looked at their plants. We bought Diggers yellow zucchini plants (4 in a small pot) that will go in our little veggie garden bed out the back. 4 plants will be far too much but I'm gonna assume that possums or something will eat at least one or two of them. Our self-seeding parsley occasionally gets eaten down to the stalk overnight.
And I bought another Pittosporum to plant along the back fence. I have mixed experience with 'fast-growing' screening plants. Some die, some grow slowly and the occasional one will actually grow tall. We live in medium density housing so screening plants are important.
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Does anyone here have a West Indian lime? I have two Tahitian lime trees, but am considering a West Indian lime as apparently they fruit all year round.
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Hi, Australian gardening peeps, how's it going! I'm getting to the last of my dwarf and snake beans, not sure what I'm going to do with all of these beans but at the moment they're being casseroled. I was given a whole bunch of basil seedlings and a raised bed for a birthday present, so now I have a flourishing garden bed covered in various types of basil. It's all gone to seed, but I let it flower because the bees liked it. Now I have lots of basil seeds, which may or may not come up.
Marigold is also self-seeding in another garden bed, and the cherry tomatoes are happily fruiting away. Brisbane weather is great, lots of sun but not a lot of water right now.
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Yup. Hoping to mulch citrus trees, repot an asparagus crown, turn some compost, start to set up a small straw bale garden. I want to compost and mulch and plant out a garden bed. And sow some more seeds. Probably some lettuce, leafy greens and more flowers.
updating:
-citrus trees mulched and fertilised, but the bed under the lemon remains incomplete, still growing weeds since I never get to sheet mulching. Lemons forming, but not much fruit apparent on the mandarin tree.
-asparagus was repotted, and the 2 asparagus pots seems to be doing well.
- hot and cold compost has been made, with more on the way...
- the few lettuces I managed to grow stayed small and have now run to seed. So not much productivity there, but I'm dreaming that they will start self seeding round the garden like Deborahs.
- flowers from seed included a few nasturtiums, borage and calendar, just 3 or 4 of each.
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We planted several edible flowers and herbs in a toddler-level pot this week. Also finally mulched the garden beds, so maybe plants will not wilt quite so much as they have been.
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Gardening this week is just keeping pot plants watered and alive. I’ve some plants that are 5+ years old and been waiting for their forever home. Soon my pretties, soon. Also been reading all the gardening magazines online from the library and reserving sustainability/gardening books. Planning out my 4 bed raised vege garden.
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Gardening this week is just keeping pot plants watered and alive. I’ve some plants that are 5+ years old and been waiting for their forever home. Soon my pretties, soon. Also been reading all the gardening magazines online from the library and reserving sustainability/gardening books. Planning out my 4 bed raised vege garden.
Make it 6. Some things just take too long to grow to make a 4 bed system workable, i.e. onions, potatoes, corn, garlic.
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Gardening this week is just keeping pot plants watered and alive. I’ve some plants that are 5+ years old and been waiting for their forever home. Soon my pretties, soon. Also been reading all the gardening magazines online from the library and reserving sustainability/gardening books. Planning out my 4 bed raised vege garden.
Make it 6. Some things just take too long to grow to make a 4 bed system workable, i.e. onions, potatoes, corn, garlic.
I'm more worried about only really wanting to grow tomatoes, capsicum and egg plant. Tough to do crop rotation when you focus on the one family. I guess I'll grow zucchini and beans too. Root crops don't really do it for me. Leafy greens too.
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We have tomatoes and pumpkin coming on in Melbourne. The cherry tomatoes are eating now, the others in a couple of weeks. We also have chillies getting close to eating. Many herbs for our more italian dishes (sage, basil, oregano).
We have found the local wallabies are very partial to our beetroot leaves, so the beetroot are suffering. Netting (or dogs) will fix this issue.
My wife is starting a potato bed for next winter. Something removeable and cheap and easy. I'll let everyone know how it goes.
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We finally seem to be getting some plants to last longer than a few weeks - basil, dianthus and chives are enjoying the heat. Lettuces are crispy.
Our single grevillea in the backyard is bringing in a few varieties of wattlebirds, honeyeaters and we've seen other birds around the yard (hellooooo corellas eating all my conifer nuts). We're still planning and rearranging structural elements in our backyard, but I'm really excited about getting more plants to bring in more birds later.
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Today I witnessed parrots eating.our green tomatoes.
:(
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Bugger @middo. You need more nets.
I'm harvesting lots of cucumbers, and cherry tomatoes and a few bush beans, lettuce and silver beet leaves. I had lots of silver beet seedlings but they mostly have succumbed to heat/humidity without much production. The tomatoes are not flowering much now, its too hot. Recently planted out 6 runner bean seedlings - they look to be surviving. I'm spreading parsley seed all over the place, since I like it to self seed and grow all over the place. I have some lettuces flowering so hopefully they will do the same.
I have a big back up of seedlings/small plants to plant out. I really must get moving on this. Also I need to sow some leafy green seeds..lettuce and pak choy and tatsoi now we are past December.
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I moved pots around and then my succulents promptly started cooking in their terracotta pots. Sigh. I also bought cheap end of season capsicum and strawberry plants just to keep something growing in the raised garden bed, as I'm finding soil with plants is better quality than soil left by itself.
How's everyone doing in the heat? Got anything green left?
Also, I'm trying to pick a Lilly pilly variety for hedging but I'd also like to use it to cook with. None of the websites I've found have been helpful on the flavours of different varieties, does anyone know if it matters? I can talk to someone in store but they tend to know more about growing them than eating them...
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I'm finding things are rebounding ok from the heat. The various volunteer tomatoes have copped it as they are neglected but the pumpkins no established are fine. The strawberries are loving it.
We have Lillpilli cascade which gives nice fruit, I've heard it's sweeter than some others. The birds and possums take most of it. I will say that it brings a lot of bees though so you might want to think about whether you want a flowering hedge. Out the front we have that stock standard Murraya(?) and it's very dense and private, if not a bit boring to look at. We let it grow to 7 feet tall by about 2.5 foot deep, it's chunky.
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Everything is green and growing at our house. Its a fungal time of year here in Feb...the cherry tomatoes are marked, and the chard/silverbeet which I planted out too late is mostly succumbing without more than the odd small leaf yield. The cucumbers are still bearing but slowing down. The 2 bush beans continue to give about 2 beans every few days, just enough for a taste. The runner beans I planted look like they're surviving, my trellis collapsed...I straightened it up today and soon I must tie them up. Lettuce has gone to seed. I bought 2 capsicum starts, but they are not doing well: I've never had success with capsicum, I really don't know what I am doing wrong.
I'm just starting to make ground on all the small pots of things I purchased. It kind of got out of hand. I will refrain from buying any more until this lot are established.
We finally made progress on mowing up on the street. We all but finished the uphill side. I'm afraid we sprayed vast thickets of lantana last year, and whilst I really hated doing that, it seems to have been successful and the weed regrowth (not lantana) is much easier to slash.
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How's everyone doing in the heat? Got anything green left?
Well, my new geraniums are still perky no matter how hot it gets! :-)
Today I transplanted plants from pots into garden beds, dug out some succulents to give to a friend, and dug out a butterfly bush for someone on Buy Nothing. It's a bit risky planting out anything in this heat... Please keep your fingers crossed for me that everything survives!
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How's everyone doing in the heat? Got anything green left?
Tail end of tomatoes at the moment. Tommy Toes are starting to ripen, Black Russians are done and Mortgage Lifters may have one or more left in them.
Apples are ripening, two Cox Orange and half a dozen Grannies.
Blueberries have been toasted twice on their new growth this year with 45 degree days a couple of weeks apart. Have finally managed to plant out the last of my Blueberry varieties into bigger pots and set up onto the neighbours garden beds. So I'm up to 36 plants of 12 different varieties. The only one struggling is the Magnolia variety, it's been in the sunniest spot in the garden and it's suffered. And I found two more new varieties during the week...
New growth coming through on most of the citrus.
And to help with future hot days I've almost finished setting up the irrigation system, should be done this week.
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It has always annoyed me, the number of books that claim that they are Australian, but really aren't. For instance, I am holding "Organic Gardening in Australia - The Complete guide to natural and chemical-free gardening". It looks Australian, but it isn't. It was first published in 2001, and "this edition first published in Australia in 2003". Obviously it's English - like so many others that are there to lead Australian gardeners astray. The pictures are all too green (because they are British pictures), and the text may have been altered slightly (in small areas) to try to cater for Australian conditions.
It's a problem because when an Australian picks up these books, real Australian conditions aren't thought of. They give bad advice about when to plant, what to plant... I tend to call these books English, because they are, even if they have Australia in the title.
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I have that problem with gardening books too. I do my best to always check where and when they were originally published before I bother reading them.
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The results of our first attempt at gardening in Belgrave, Victoria are in now:
Cherry tomatoes - a winner
Normal tomatoes - fed the parrots and we have harvested 2 from memory.
Beetroot - fed the wallabies
Chilli's - yum, but not enough yet
Pumpkin - being away for a dry spell dropped the developing ones, so we are still waiting for our first crop
Chives - winner
Basil - surprisingly hard to grow as it's so cold.
Sage - easy
Leeks - still growing, but very slow
Broccoli - a bug infested disaster
We live and learn.
Winter planting will include onions and garlic. I think we may give them a head start from the normal shortest day to longest day. Maybe some lettuce too. And we will plant a cage around the veggie patch and net it.
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Went through my bags of dried bulbs and pulled put all the known and unknown tulips.
Known knowns:
Hamilton - Pale Yellow
Commerce - Double Peony Red
Spryng - Brilliant Red
Mascara - Triumph Red
Queensland - Double Fringed Pink
Spitfire - Double Peony Red
Gerrt Ven Der Valk - Red/Yellow
Ad Rem - Scarlet with Gold edge
Antarctica - White
Known Unknowns (drying tray got dropped and they mixed up):
Candy Prince - Violet
Flaming Flag - White with Purple streaks
Unknown Unknowns:
Double Orange
Double White
Single White
Yellow with Red streaks
Double checked my expected planting date of the first week of May, worked back 6-8 weeks and now know I need to have my tulip bulbs in the fridge the first week of March to chill them down for the appropriate time before planting them out.
The conundrum is now, what to plant them all into? I'd earmarked 18 self watering long pots for bulbs this season, 7 across the front of our place, 7 across the front of the neighbours and four spare that'll fit in "somewhere". And it won't be enough for the tulips plus all the Jonquils, Daffodils, Ixias, Ranunculus, Bluebells, Grape Hyacinths and Fresias that I have.
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The conundrum is now, what to plant them all into? I'd earmarked 18 self watering long pots for bulbs this season, 7 across the front of our place, 7 across the front of the neighbours and four spare that'll fit in "somewhere". And it won't be enough for the tulips plus all the Jonquils, Daffodils, Ixias, Ranunculus, Bluebells, Grape Hyacinths and Fresias that I have.
#gardeningpeopleproblems
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How much would I like tulips! But that would be ridiculous in Sydney, right? I know I can cool them etc but it would look silly... It would be ideal for my difficult nature strip though.
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I’d love to come and take some tulip bulbs off your hands!
The quarantine laws are interesting. Nothing to WA from the east. Nothing to Victoria from NSW or ACT... Of course, if they do it right, garden supply places can.
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How much would I like tulips! But that would be ridiculous in Sydney, right? I know I can cool them etc but it would look silly... It would be ideal for my difficult nature strip though.
Nope, not ridiculous for Sydney at all, so long as you do the fridge cooling of the bulbs before planting, plant late May and expect flowers in August/September.
I’d love to come and take some tulip bulbs off your hands!
The quarantine laws are interesting. Nothing to WA from the east. Nothing to Victoria from NSW or ACT... Of course, if they do it right, garden supply places can.
Swing past next time you visit your folks. I'll hook you up.
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I’d love to come and take some tulip bulbs off your hands!
The quarantine laws are interesting. Nothing to WA from the east. Nothing to Victoria from NSW or ACT... Of course, if they do it right, garden supply places can.
Swing past next time you visit your folks. I'll hook you up.
WOW! That's awesome! Thanks. I'm down next week for the week but I doubt I'll make it then, but a week after that I'll be down again, and I'll be near you on 2nd March - I'll be able to swing by in the afternoon.
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I've just realised I'd need to dig up bulbs and cool them every year... Added layer of difficulty.
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I've just realised I'd need to dig up bulbs and cool them every year... Added layer of difficulty.
It depends where you are as to whether you need to cool them. And what bulbs they are. And whether you want more of them to flower than you otherwise get. We have a few tulips (not enough), and they flower without digging up, but we are in one of the coldest zones in Australia. On the coast, you really need to dig them up. But I have never had problems with daffodils or freesias blooming, no matter where I've lived. Also, I think bulbs in containers need this more than bulbs that are in the ground.
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I've just realised I'd need to dig up bulbs and cool them every year... Added layer of difficulty.
It depends where you are as to whether you need to cool them. And what bulbs they are. And whether you want more of them to flower than you otherwise get. We have a few tulips (not enough), and they flower without digging up, but we are in one of the coldest zones in Australia. On the coast, you really need to dig them up. But I have never had problems with daffodils or freesias blooming, no matter where I've lived. Also, I think bulbs in containers need this more than bulbs that are in the ground.
I'm ten mins walk from the beach and we've never had a frost.. I might put a handful or crocuses in under the tree and it can't hurt.
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Posting in anticipation of having a garden!
We are trying to think of something to plant to commemorate buying the house. Something that will hopefully outlive us.
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I’d love to come and take some tulip bulbs off your hands!
The quarantine laws are interesting. Nothing to WA from the east. Nothing to Victoria from NSW or ACT... Of course, if they do it right, garden supply places can.
Swing past next time you visit your folks. I'll hook you up.
WOW! That's awesome! Thanks. I'm down next week for the week but I doubt I'll make it then, but a week after that I'll be down again, and I'll be near you on 2nd March - I'll be able to swing by in the afternoon.
That'll work out fine - see you then.
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I've just realised I'd need to dig up bulbs and cool them every year... Added layer of difficulty.
It depends where you are as to whether you need to cool them. And what bulbs they are. And whether you want more of them to flower than you otherwise get. We have a few tulips (not enough), and they flower without digging up, but we are in one of the coldest zones in Australia. On the coast, you really need to dig them up. But I have never had problems with daffodils or freesias blooming, no matter where I've lived. Also, I think bulbs in containers need this more than bulbs that are in the ground.
If you don't want to dig up tulips then I'd recommend Grape Hyacinths, Jonquils, Daffodils and Freesias for set and forget. And if you did a bit of planning you could get 4-5 months of flowers with a few varieties of Jonquils or Daffodils. I.e. for Jonquils Paper White (June), Grand Soleil d'Or (July), Erlicheer (August), Silver Chimes (Sep). Just took that info from the latest Hancocks Daffodils brochure - worth hitting them up for a copy that they'll post out to you or take a look at it online. http://www.daffodilbulbs.com.au/index.php?route=product/category&path=59
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Which Rosemary variety gives the best spears for kebabs?
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Alright - has anyone installed these bad boys?
https://gardenbeds.kingspanwater.com.au/product/slimline/
I'm thinking 4 of them - 2.4m*1.2m*0.51m.
This is my chance to build my dream vegetable garden. I want raised beds for visual appeal, I also don't trust the soil around a house from the 60s and want to keep dogs etc out of them.
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Alright - has anyone installed these bad boys?
https://gardenbeds.kingspanwater.com.au/product/slimline/
I'm thinking 4 of them - 2.4m*1.2m*0.51m.
This is my chance to build my dream vegetable garden. I want raised beds for visual appeal, I also don't trust the soil around a house from the 60s and want to keep dogs etc out of them.
I have only installed old railway sleepers as raised garden beds. Setting them up as no-dig was the best option at the time with the dodgy soil that was underneath.
I follow a number of people who do have the corrugated iron ones and their only issue seems to be during summer that the metal becomes hot to touch and can burn roots that are against them. To compensate they plant further in to ensure the roots don't have to go to the edge of the container.
Damien at Mudflower seems to have done OK with his at his new place.
http://living-mudflower.blogspot.com/2018/08/raised-vegetable-beds.html
Depending on the brand, some come with a rolled edge at the top and for those that don't a hose split down one side and fitted around the top protects the user from that metal edge.
I've got a 3000L corrugated water tank out at the rental that leaks at the bottom and it's destined to become three round raised beds.
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Posting in anticipation of having a garden!
We are trying to think of something to plant to commemorate buying the house. Something that will hopefully outlive us.
Something edible? A shade tree? Or I think certain roses are meant to be very long-lived.
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These have a rolled metal edge, and some kind of liner - "Food grade internal polymer lining"
I didn't think about the heat - they're pretty deep at .5m so the volume of soil plus mulch should help. I'll likely do up shade cloth etc for the summer months if needed.
This is a permanent set up so planning on spending a bit to get it right.
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Posting in anticipation of having a garden!
We are trying to think of something to plant to commemorate buying the house. Something that will hopefully outlive us.
I have taken and grown some frangapani cuttings - one from my parents house on the Sunshine Coast, the first place my wife and i lived together at and one from her grandmothers place. I like that they're easy to strike and you get a connection to another place.
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Something edible? A shade tree? Or I think certain roses are meant to be very long-lived.
We have lots of shade trees there already. I am thinking maybe a lemon. We definitely want to have lemons growing.
I have taken and grown some frangapani cuttings - one from my parents house on the Sunshine Coast, the first place my wife and i lived together at and one from her grandmothers place. I like that they're easy to strike and you get a connection to another place.
Excellent idea! I think my FIL has a frangapani cutting he has in a pot for us. It’s from the old tree at the caravan park where Mr Pancakes has holidayed since he was a baby. If it turns out it isn’t for us, we will grab one next summer as the kids always knock bits off climbing it.
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My parents had metal raised garden beds. Definitely a problem in summer drying out and too hot to touch. They were the type with the edging, and it kept on falling off in summer.
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I have a raised metal garden bed, but it's VERY tall, maybe 1m high. Gets ALL the sun in summer and everything inside is crispy except my basil. I reckon 0.5 m ones would be great. I'm hoping once I add some shade for next summer it will be OK. Thanks for the link GT.
Mine has the edging and no problems with it popping off.
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I have 3 sided corrugated metal compost structures about .6-.8m high. Empty or half empty they work great to grow late season veggies, mostly volunteers , creating a little microclimate inside. I'm using one bin to grow sweet potato: I was late getting the slips in, and I'm hoping this will keep them growing up to winter and maybe even through winter.
The garden is quieting down now. Quite a few of the straw bales have collapsed down. Currently harvesting just the odd cucumber, and a few green beans. The second clutch of volunteer tomatoes will start to ripen soon. I've used this break in harvesting to try to catch up on neglected sowing and planting. I've sewn basil, lettuce, pak choy tatsoi and flowers and a couple of my own pigeon pea seeds. I've been pulling out last years parsley and sprinkling seeds all over the place. The basil has germinated already, its always quick. I've begun planting out the netted vege garden that the goats have helped to clear. In one section I've placed pidgeon pea in a pot, and comfrey at the back, for an ongoing supply of mulch, and a sacred basil at the end of the row. At the front is a line of clumping onions. All mulched with dead vegetation from the pen, mixed with goat fertilised hay/chaff.
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Anyone have any recommendations for Pomegranate varieties?
I have Elche (4m plant) and Gulosha azerbaijani (2m plant) in mind to buy and there's 30% off Poms at one of my local nurseries this month.
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We had a pomegranate when I was a kid. It must have been a 4metre variety. It was lovely to climb in. I don’t think we ever ate the pomegranates. We were heathens.
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We had a pomegranate when I was a kid. It must have been a 4metre variety. It was lovely to climb in. I don’t think we ever ate the pomegranates. We were heathens.
I see your heathen story and raise you my heathen story. My parents built a house on a large block with two existing full grown avocado trees (a hass and a sharwill). Both must have been 20+ years old and 10m+ tall. We climbed them, threw avocados at each other, mashed them with our feet, let them fall to the ground and rot - every thing except actually eat them. We just weren't an avocado eating family. I don't remember anyone eating a single one in the 18 years i live there.
Next minute...move out of home...we're back there every season to load up a box with avocados to take away.
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We had a pomegranate when I was a kid. It must have been a 4metre variety. It was lovely to climb in. I don’t think we ever ate the pomegranates. We were heathens.
I see your heathen story and raise you my heathen story. My parents built a house on a large block with two existing full grown avocado trees (a hass and a sharwill). Both must have been 20+ years old and 10m+ tall. We climbed them, threw avocados at each other, mashed them with our feet, let them fall to the ground and rot - every thing except actually eat them. We just weren't an avocado eating family. I don't remember anyone eating a single one in the 18 years i live there.
Next minute...move out of home...we're back there every season to load up a box with avocados to take away.
Our story isn't as bad as that, but we rented a place 25 years ago that had a feijoa tree. Everyone said we were lucky, and they were great to eat. We tried one. Only one. Interestingly, when we offered them to those that said they were good, they never quite got around to getting them.
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DH is determined he wants an olive tree. ACI, he wants two olive trees. I'm tossing up between Kalamata (nice black olives, bigger leaves) and Manzanillo (smaller and can be eaten/brined as green olives). Anyone have opinions on olive trees? Plan at present is to put them on our northern boundary fence to add to the greenery and shading on that side. Garden bed is about 1m wide. I'm leaning towards 3 trees for visual balance unless we can manage that by making the 3 spaces between trees and shadesail poles to do that work instead, which would be better as there isn't quite space for 3 trees.
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1m wide and how long?
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1m wide and how long?
6m, or thereabouts.
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1m wide and how long?
6m, or thereabouts.
I would squish three trees into that. Which may or may not be good advice.
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Picked up two of those corner raised bed Aldi were selling recently. Haven't filled them yet.
My other two raised beds are full of tomatoes. Lots of little green ones. They are just starting to turn red. Hoping the weather holds until I can harvest a bunch.
Lettuce is looking a bit sad overall, but the baby spinach looks pretty good.
I have one pumpkin plant that looks healthy, but I don't think it has flowered at all.
Need to get around to giving the old apricot tree a heavy prune. Any suggestions on the best time to do it?
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Good luck with the tomatoes JLR!
I bought some seeds, going to keep myself occupied with attempting germination. I am hoping this will stop me from buying plants to kill via neglect, seeds are a lot cheaper for the same level of entertainment!
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Need to get around to giving the old apricot tree a heavy prune. Any suggestions on the best time to do it?
Post fruiting, end of summer while it still has leaves, on a hot windy day with no rain expected for a day or two.
Apricots are susceptible to infections in open wounds and pruning late summer on a hot windy day prevents moisture getting into the cuts and causing an infection leading to gummosis. It also still has time during the end of summer and autumn to generate energy through it's leaves and heal wounds and prevent infection during wet winter months
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Speaking of seeds, where do people like to get seeds from? I started with diggers, but they seem not to have the range that other places have, their advertising is a bit excessive (this wonderful seed that is rarely available), they drop seeds that I want, and their membership policy irks me (you have to be a member to see much of the information about a seed you’re buying, you buy only from them to maximise membership use, and you just don’t need enough seeds on an ongoing basis to justify membership) and have been buying from other places like Eden Seeds, which seem to have a much better range.
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I have bought from The Seed Collection and quite like them. There was a duff packet of lettuce that would not germinate but everything else seems ok and they have some interesting varieties.
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I find my Diggers membership well worth the fee, but then I'm in the accumulation phase of gardening ;-)
Just received my first seeds from Yilgarn so will have to report back on them.
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I was given a 5 year membership to Diggers so I am still using them from time to time. I find Green Harvest and Daleys fruit tree nursery better suited to my requirements and tend to use them in preference more and more.
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I tend to buy seeds from whoever has what I am looking for at the time, I generally aim for five or more packets in a buy to make it worth my while in postage. Also I can get to a couple of places (Diggers/New Gippsland) when I'm on my way home from gardening at the property.
Green Harvest, Eden Seeds, New Gippsland Seeds, Diggers are where I generally look for stuff online.
Bulbs I get from Hancock's or whatever I find in nurseries when I am out ND about.
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I use Eden seeds (just placed an order) and Green Harvest - primarily because they are pretty local to Brisbane and in my mind that makes all the varieties adapted to local conditions (may not actually be true).
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Today I went to the plant sale and bought some plants.
Soil is very dry. At the plant sale they advised people to dig holes, water them for FIVE days, then plant plants. Our soil is not quite the driest it has been in recorded history, so I guess it is reasonable advice. But FIVE days?
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Over Easter we built a raised bed on the property at Gembrook.
(https://instagram.fmel5-1.fna.fbcdn.net/vp/aefa4224635cf45a537455adc0d52387/5D710F12/t51.2885-15/e35/58019642_678122632622934_4642624366698940320_n.jpg?_nc_ht=instagram.fmel5-1.fna.fbcdn.net)
It's 3m x 1.5m of untreated cypress in 75mm x 200mm dimensions bolted together with 130mm M10 stainless steel coach bolts and washers in pre drilled M8 holes. Good for at least 15 years.
Due to the slope we had to dig the bottom layer into the ground.
(https://instagram.fmel5-1.fna.fbcdn.net/vp/91066e9975e151724e149df3a49a6d10/5D5C4D44/t51.2885-15/e35/56355408_680158369084114_1395496618174994141_n.jpg?_nc_ht=instagram.fmel5-1.fna.fbcdn.net)
And once we'd done that the internal volume would have been too small for a no dig layered bed to be built. So we took the second timber bed we'd built and flipped onto the top of the first one, creating a nice depth for the initial layering. The intention was always to build up layers as required to at least 600mm in depth, but it was thought it'd take a few years to get there.
(https://instagram.fmel5-1.fna.fbcdn.net/vp/79bfccf1a2833e4726922782b65a2e96/5D757719/t51.2885-15/e35/56666993_268646430683070_5263626583286645104_n.jpg?_nc_ht=instagram.fmel5-1.fna.fbcdn.net)
Heading out there again this Friday for me normal gardening maintenance and I'll be setting up the layers of the No Dig bed.
From top to bottom it'll be thin layers of.
Sugar cane mulch
Worm castings
Compost
Coconut Coir (I have three bricks from the worm farms that we never used)
Pea Straw
Sheep Manure
Lucerne
Cow Manure
Wood Shavings/Sawdust
Chicken Manure
Lucerne
Horse Manure
Newspaper
Blood & Bone
And all that is totally dependant on what I can get hold of on my way out there. Horse manure is generally available in bags at the front of properties on the road for a couple of bucks each. Bagged up sheep and cow manure, Lucerne, Pea Straw all from the nursery. Wood Shavings/Sawdust from the pet store where I know I can get an uncontaminated with treated pine source. Worm castings, Blood & Bone and Newspapers (collected from grandparents over the weekend) I have at home.
Layer it all down, well watered in for each layer and let it sit for a while, letting the tenant plant out stuff if they want to.
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How did you join the layers together? Where did you get the cypress?
I'm trying to work out what to do with our raised garden beds. We got some kits from Aldi a few years ago, and joined them up. Ended up with 4 boxes - 3 are double height (60cm?) and two of them are 2 joined together while the third is three. They are coming apart (even the single, that was put together only a few years ago), so are beginning to leak soil (actually, there's no soil - it's all weeds and paper and manure and blood and bone and leaves and lucerne, but it's good stuff), and I don't know what to do. The wood is still OK, but it's warped. SO has put some corner brackets on some corners, but the whole lot need to be redone.
Does anyone have any ideas?
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How did you join the layers together? Where did you get the cypress?
At the moment they're sitting on top of each other. It takes two people to move a layer, so it's not easily moved. I am looking at screwing them together on the inside with a couple of galvanised plates alahttps://www.bunnings.com.au/dunnings-120-x-35mm-m10-galvanised-bracket-plate_p1076773 and some short stainless coach bolts just to avoid any future slipping issues.
Cypress came from a mob called I Got Wood http://igotwood.com/ in Bulleen. It was the end lot of stuff they'd got in ages ago so was well aged. I have another 3m length and a 2.7m length sitting in the garage, along with four 1.2m lengths left over from cutting up the 2.7m lengths to get the 1.5m ones I needed to build the beds. May use the 1.2m lengths to either build compost bins or use as surrounds for trees. I chose 75mm wide sleepers to assist in preventing the bowing issue I've seen in 50mm wide sleepers.
While we were out there, we worked out we can fit in 9 beds of that size easily in the area we planned on using. So for me to use the same sleepers I'd be up for another nine 3m (six at 3m long and three cut in half for another six at 1.5m lengths) sleepers per bed to get 600mm high we are after. So 72 sleepers for the other eight beds and another 2 to go with the remaining sleepers we have in the garage to finish off the bed we've already started. That's a fair chunk of cash at roughly $35 a sleeper, ~$2590, plus bolts and gal tie plates. Change from $3k would be scarce.
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I'm trying to work out what to do with our raised garden beds. We got some kits from Aldi a few years ago, and joined them up. Ended up with 4 boxes - 3 are double height (60cm?) and two of them are 2 joined together while the third is three. They are coming apart (even the single, that was put together only a few years ago), so are beginning to leak soil (actually, there's no soil - it's all weeds and paper and manure and blood and bone and leaves and lucerne, but it's good stuff), and I don't know what to do. The wood is still OK, but it's warped. SO has put some corner brackets on some corners, but the whole lot need to be redone.
Does anyone have any ideas?
How wide are the timber panels of the boxes? 25mm, 50mm? You can get galvanised joiners, generally used for sleepers, to joing lengths of timber together or form corners.
https://www.bunnings.com.au/search/products?q=galvanised%20joiner&redirectFrom=Any
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I wanted to show our planters while they were under construction. I used 200 x 50 x 2400 mm treated pine sleepers, and cut some up as vertical supports buried into the ground (with a bit of quickset down the hole).
It is probably not the absolute cheapest solution, but it should outlast our stay here.
But my pictures are too big to upload.