Garden pics from 20th August 2013

Here is two wheel barrow loads of horse manure from a neighbor

Arrowroot which is going well

Raspberry patch, is looking a bit untidy, but these canes have gone dormant over winter, although they are sending up new suckers which I have been digging up and re-potting.

A couple of the re-potted raspberries

Thornless Blackberry cuttings starting to shoot, and develop lots of roots.

Acacia Argyrophylla

Native garden, including a Quandong which is growing nicely

Some of the self seeded (non) rainbow chard

  

The orchard area, citrus to the left deciduous to the right

Strawberry patch

Passion fruit vine

Comfrey which something seems to be enjoying, but it will grow quite fast once the warmer spring weather comes.

Rocket which is going to flower. I'm going to let this go to flower and hope that the bees like it.

Orange and Mandarine, starting to put out flowers new leaves

Lemon tree 

Soon to be Snow Peas which will climb up the tee-pee, and seedlings of cellary, and kale, with more silverbeet/chard in the background

  

Raised garden beds with baby spinach, purple broccoli (think I put this in a bit too late) and carrots

New fruit trees from the Rare Fruit Society grafting day. Cherry, Plum, and Apple

More natives planted in the back paddock as a wind break/screen.

Whats happening in the garden

Well the last week we have been lucky enough to have a bit of rain, the garden has appreciated it but so to have those pesky weeds, I have just been outside to identify a few little boxthorn seedlings I had thought might have been some sort of useful plant, but no just a noxious weed, green and healthy but a weed all the same. I also noticed that the caltrop is starting to germinate around the place so I will have to keep ontop of that and pull them out before they flower and set seed.
I have planted some tomato seedlings (a Black Russian, 4 Big Beef, and a Cherry tomato) and a capsicum seedling where the rocket was in the middle, and because I let it go to seed there is now little rocket plants coming up amongst the tomatoes but they will stay there if they survive past the two leaf stage, I'll just have to make sure I keep them pruned back the last lot ended up quite big. Things are a bit messy and need a bit of weeding, but thats life, no airbrushed photos around here.

The plants in the native garden are powering along, especially the acacia argyrophylla which I want to use as a screening plant, its about halfway up the fence now and its only been in for around a year, and that was as a tubestock, so I am quite impressed.

The lawn has magically truned from being dry and brown into being lush and green, helped along by a very timely (not at all intentional) application of blood and bone (by DP) a couple of days before we got rain a couple of weeks ago

Weekend Jobs

Well that's another week over, so now its time to think about the weekend and what needs to be done, but most importantly what do I want to do. So yet again it is time for the lists to begin.

Inside:

• Sweep/vacuum floors
• Tidy up kitchen table and kitchen benches
  
• Sort out HECS money I owe to the tax dept, put in separate account and set up reminder to pay in March.
  

Outside, Frontyard:

• Pull up weeds
• Decide on locations for the plants from Arid Lands to go (some of the larger ones may go along the front fence, creating a screen/backdrop for other plants)
• Sort through seeds and see if there are any flower seeds that can be planted
  

Outside, Backyard:

• Clean poop from chooks house
• Give fruit trees a water
  
• Plant lucerne, red clover and nasturtiums under Fruit Trees, under the pea straw that is there (after they have been watered and the ground is nice and wet)
• Sort through plants under Carob tree and discard any dead ones and store pots
• Clean up under Carob tree throw out rubbish, and rake up leaves, just make things look tidy.
• Clean gutters, using our newly purchased ladder.
  

I'm sure there is lots of other things to do around the place but that's what comes to mind now, how much actually gets done is another matter.

It's the weekend again!!

Ok, well news is....

The rainwater tank is full, the weeds are still loving the little bits of rain that we have been getting.

The veggie garden is still going well, it looked especially good this morning with the sun on it after we had a little rain last night, the plants are now big enough that they are (mostly) surviving two naughty chooks getting in there, scratching for tasty treats of grubs and caterpillars.In the bed next to the veggie patch is what I believe is a Satsuma Plum, last year it was looking quite sick, with almost half of it dead wood, and I think after our rather hot and dry summer this year it may be completely dead now. So this afternoons job is to get the secateurs out and see if I can find any non-dead wood, and if I cant then to pull it out and I will have myself another garden bed.

From the fruit trees that were planted last year the Almond tree has a few buds on it and is waiting to come into flower and the Apricot tree is showing signs of flowering too, there is deffinate dead branches that need to be cut off but some definite "alive" ones aswell, (see what happens with a little rain and no "easy-fix" poisons, I choose to think of it as "living mulch")
The two apples still have a few leaves on the tips of the branches, the lemonade tree is slowly putting out new leaves, but I will have to wait and see if the Satsuma plum and Peach tree have hung in there after last summer, I cant see any definite buds but they dont look dead either, so it is a wait and see thing.

This week I have gone out an bought more plants from our lovely Arid Land Nursery:

• Melaleuca Pentagona (0.5 x 3m high)
• Eremophilla Deticulata ssp trisulcata, pink (2m x 2m)
• Eremophill Serpens, red stamen
• Eremophilla alternifolia, Magenta (2.5m x 2.5m)
• Eremophilla Galbra Roseworthy, red (ground cover)
• Eremophilla Galbra hybrid, plum (0.5m x 2m)
  
• Grevillea Flora Mason (2m x 2m)
• Grevillea Ellendale Pool (ground covering, 1m x 2m)
  
• Chamelaucium sp, geraldton wax
• Hardenbergia violacea, Purple Coral Pea
  
• Hardenbergia violacea Rosea, Pink Coral Pea

Hopefully I will get a chance this weekend to get them in the ground some of them will go in the native garden out the back but I also want to try to get something growing out in the front yard that wont need lots of watering, so what used to be a rose garden I think I am hopping to turn into another bird attracting native garden.

So now I shall be off to enjoy what is left of this wonderful day outside in the garden.

Rain, Rain, Lovely rain

Its a long weekend here (Queens Birthday) and as I sit here writing this the rain is starting to get heavier, in yet another shower that is passing through.

It has been raining steadily since Thursday afternoon, stopping for yesterday afternoon long enough to do a load of washing and hang it out to dry before starting again last night. It has been truly wonderful a nice soaking rain, not enough to cause the yard to flood but enough to ensure the ground is wet for more than the top couple of mm's (the usual thing around here).

Checking the rainwater tank yesterday (cant convince myself to go out today and brave the wet and cold today) it is at least a third full and I think after today's efforts should be pushing the halfway mark if not more.

Now if only it would stop long enough for me to get the natives (mostly eromophilas) that I bought this week into the ground. I managed to decide which ones were going where, dug the holes, and filled the holes with water (before I knew there was rain forecasted) but didn't get around to planting them so they are sitting in there pots, in their holes waiting for the rain to stop so they can enjoy their new home.

Some pics

I just thought I'd share some pics of what is happening in my garden

I haven't been spending much time in the garden lately and it was a lovely surprise to go for a wonder and see that after a few mm's of rain a few weeks ago things have suddenly sprung to life and I even have water in the rainwater tank.

This is something that greeted me last week in the native garden an Eremophila Maculata in flower

The Acacia Argyrophylla (Golden Grey Mulga) growing new shoots

The veggie patch which is struggling along, and I think I have decided that in the future I'll grow most things to seedling stage and then put them in the bed, It has been very difficult to try to work out what is weeds and what is a plant and then there is the elusive rocket thief which has left me with 1 rocket plant out of a row (decided that the two leaf stage plants were irresistible)

From left to right, there is rows of silverbeet, ruby chard, rocket, broad beans, beetroot, and carrots, and that bushy thing in the back is a pepino.

This is something I noticed this morning, one of the succulents in the front garden is flowering

I hope everyone is having a lovely weekend, the weather here is just wonderful, the nights are getting chilly but the day today is sunny with blue sky and just warm enough to lure you outside into it (which is why I am going to sign off and enjoy it while I can).

I have Bush Tucker

On the weekend when I was out the back pulling up some of my dreaded Caltrop I noticed some of my "Native Weeds" had some pretty little pink berries on them, looking similar to a pomegranate seed (fleshy around the outside with a seed in the middle).....hmmm interesting....Photo from: http://www.anbg.gov.au/gnp/gnp13/enchylaena-tomentosa.html

Once back at work I asked our environmental guys what it would be, and we consulted the plant books scouring the pictures, and "there that's it". One of my "weeds" is a Ruby Saltbush, and the pink berries are actually edible and used as bush tucker.

How great it is to be a slack weeder!!!

Goodbye Backyard Privacy

Friday saw the next-door neighbours house arrive. Went to work in the morning leaving a vacant next-door block, and returning to look out the kitchen window to see a brand new house plonked, about level with the middle of our backyard. Because we dont have high fences this now means that from their front windows they can see straight onto our back veranda (where we quite like to sit of an afternoon or evening and enjoy a couple of drinks and watch the colours of the sky and hills as the sun sets)

The view from sitting height on the back veranda.

The house arrival wasn't really new news we have known since about a month after we moved in that they were planning to put a transportable on the block, and had know that Friday was going to be that day for a couple of weeks.

Since first discovering that we were going to have human neighbours (a miniature horse has live there for a while now) I set to planting a natural screen with pants from our Arid Lands nursery, these were large tube-stock, which have grown well but are still probably a few years short of being big enough to successfully do the job they were intended for.

This is a Golden Grey Mulga (Acacia argyrophylla) which was planted around 6 months ago and I plan to be the main screening plant. You can see from the clothes peg it is nowhere near the heigh that it needs to be to do its job.

I am thinking of planting some relatively short lived plants behind these (between it and the fence) to create a temporary screen until the natives grow tall enough. My thoughts currently are leaning towards giant russian sunflowers, or perhaps some sort of non invasive bamboo that would grow in a fairly hot dry climate (if one exists)

What else might be suitable? Here's the criteria: grows to around 2m (minimum), allows the natives in front of it to grow and not be permanent. I think I'm looking at at least a couple of years until the natives will be tall enough, grow in a hot and relatively dry climate, surviving on minimal or hand watering, not need supporting like a trellis.

I'm interested to hear others ideas.

True "Blood and Bone" (plus feathers)

Last Saturday morning one of my four chickens was looking a bit sick, very lethargic and not herself, so I separated her from the others and gave her food and water, and hoped for the best, but she didn't make it through the night. Not wanting to just throw her body in the bin, or the compost, I thought to bury her somewhere. I wanted somewhere that she could stay undisturbed, so the vegie patch was out of the question.

This is a pic of them just after we had some rain, they got a bit wet playing in the (rare) rain.

There is an area of the garden I had been wanting to plant some taller trees to create a bit of a barier from the sidewalk and to sort of close in this section of the garden, and also to give some shade to the house from the afternoon sun, so thought this was the perfect opportunity. Out came the spade, watering can and gardening gloves, with hole dug, the chicken was laid to rest and an Acacia (Acacia Aneura) planted on top, this Acacia is supposed to reach between 4m to 10m and will provide a great habitat for native birds and bees.