Author Topic: Australian Gardening Thread  (Read 144725 times)

Fresh Bread

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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #350 on: January 22, 2017, 12:13:13 AM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #351 on: January 22, 2017, 02:34:37 AM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #352 on: January 22, 2017, 03:18:04 AM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #353 on: January 22, 2017, 01:15:18 PM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #354 on: January 22, 2017, 06:40:34 PM »
Ordered my seed garlic yesterday! Two heads each of early purple and Melbourne market.

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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #355 on: January 26, 2017, 05:28:53 PM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #356 on: January 28, 2017, 05:27:10 AM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #357 on: January 29, 2017, 03:07:30 PM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #358 on: January 30, 2017, 11:47:36 PM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #359 on: February 03, 2017, 08:36:20 PM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #360 on: February 04, 2017, 02:18:03 AM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #361 on: February 04, 2017, 02:22:34 PM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #362 on: February 04, 2017, 03:34:50 PM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #363 on: February 04, 2017, 04:35:30 PM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #364 on: February 05, 2017, 03:30:00 AM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #365 on: February 05, 2017, 03:31:53 AM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #366 on: February 05, 2017, 04:10:23 AM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #367 on: February 05, 2017, 08:40:30 PM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #368 on: February 06, 2017, 07:32:35 PM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #369 on: February 12, 2017, 05:33:05 PM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #370 on: February 12, 2017, 10:28:58 PM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #371 on: February 19, 2017, 10:17:41 PM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #372 on: February 19, 2017, 10:19:27 PM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #373 on: February 20, 2017, 12:40:17 AM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #374 on: February 20, 2017, 03:08:11 AM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #375 on: February 24, 2017, 06:21:34 PM »
What's everyone up to in the garden this weekend?

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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #376 on: February 24, 2017, 06:30:31 PM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #377 on: February 25, 2017, 01:34:17 AM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #378 on: February 25, 2017, 01:44:38 AM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #379 on: March 04, 2017, 09:59:08 PM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #380 on: March 04, 2017, 10:08:02 PM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #381 on: March 04, 2017, 11:35:36 PM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #382 on: March 05, 2017, 05:08:48 AM »
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.
« Last Edit: March 05, 2017, 05:11:02 AM by happy »

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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #383 on: March 05, 2017, 05:26:42 AM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #384 on: March 05, 2017, 07:11:55 AM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #385 on: March 05, 2017, 01:40:53 PM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #386 on: March 05, 2017, 02:20:33 PM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #387 on: March 05, 2017, 08:03:09 PM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #388 on: March 06, 2017, 12:44:34 AM »
Interesting, I've had tomatoes stay alive, but never got much of a crop from them after the first yield.

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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #389 on: March 12, 2017, 09:21:20 PM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #390 on: March 12, 2017, 10:11:14 PM »
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.

deborah

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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #391 on: March 13, 2017, 07:01:04 PM »
That's odd. I have been harvesting eggplants for a month, and we have marginal weather for eggplants.

HappierAtHome

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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #392 on: March 13, 2017, 07:47:28 PM »
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?

happy

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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #393 on: March 14, 2017, 02:20:51 AM »
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.

englyn

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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #394 on: March 15, 2017, 09:40:09 PM »
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.

Anatidae V

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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #395 on: March 15, 2017, 10:45:44 PM »
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.

HappierAtHome

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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #396 on: March 15, 2017, 10:50:19 PM »
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?

Anatidae V

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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #397 on: March 15, 2017, 11:15:52 PM »
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.

englyn

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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #398 on: March 15, 2017, 11:27:53 PM »
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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Re: Australian Gardening Thread
« Reply #399 on: March 19, 2017, 01:37:58 AM »
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.