Native Weeds

As I have mentioned before my most frustrating weed in my yard is Caltrop. Although it has to be admired for its persistence and ability to grow anywhere, and at a rate of knots, and the amount of seeds one plant can put out, which I swear most end up growing, but not for its ability to find bare feet!!

Moving into a different area to what I have grown up in came a whole lot of new weeds. My attitude was if I didnt know what it was it was allowed to stay, then once it grew if it didnt have prickles it was allowed to stay a bit longer. Then as they have flowered I have set about identifying them. Many of the plants that I had never seen before ended up being natives, most considered as weeds because they are so common but native never the less.

The previous owners used to religiously spray the whole backyard to get rid of the "weeds" so when we moved in it was completely barren, since I have moved in I have not sprayed at all (although I have been tempted by the caltrop) and have a range of "native weeds" that have sprung up. When something grows which I havent seen before,I take either a photo or a sample of it into work to try and have it identified by our environmental person, thinking I may have just found a rare and endangered species (well I have never seen it before). Most if the time I have been told that it is a native but it grows like a weed, grows like mad, producing lots of seeds (which will stick in your socks, but not really prickly like caltrop), then die off, but the beaded dragons and sleepy lizards have been seen to eat it, So it earns the right to stay in the yard.

I have also had a few acacias that have grown as well, (I am assuming out of bird droppings), these will definitely be staying, if these want to grow by themselves it saves me trying to buy tubestock and keep them watered all the time. As well as the fact that they have decided to grow near the side fence which I want to create a native screen against, to create a bit of privacy and also provide habitat for birds and lizards. Usually it is the self seeded ones which grow the best.

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.

First Corn

This is the first picking of corn, yes it was a bit small but what was even more disheartening was the discovery after taking the husk off, the fact there is only three kernels that have developed. This is however from the first planting and is one of the surviving plants after a "survival of the fittest" incident initiated by one chook that discovered it likes the fresh green leaves of young corn plants. Maybe the bigger planting (which has been relatively free of chooks) will be a little more promising.

The heat taking its toll

Well things haven't really been doing too much lately except almost dying in the heat and non-rain. Out the front I have agapanthus which I thought were fairly drought tolerant plants, but even those have withered away in the heat, what a few weeks ago were nice lush plants are now clumps of dry yellow leaves with a few green shoots here and there, even my frangipanies are looking a bit sad from the heat and lack of rain.

The corn patch has set some cobs but it didnt escape the heat either with quite a bit of the leaves being burnt.

The tomato plants dont seem to be going that well, the plants themselves look good but there is not too many flowers and the flowers that are there dont seem to be setting, not sure what the problem is there, might have to try again with a different variety.

This morning I went to the local flea market and bought a bag of pig manure and a bag of sheep manure from a nearby, farmer to go on the garden, will see how that goes I have only ever used horse manure on the garden.

Friday evening I got out the back with my hand shovel and attacked the Caltrop which again has spurted into life. I had thought that I might have to resort to spraying it because there seemed to be a lot in the back yard, which was well and truly on its way to setting seed, but after about an hour of walking around and slicing each plant I found, off below ground level with my hand shovel, I found there was fewer plants than I had originally thought, so I am happy that my methods seem like they are working. I have been collecting the seeds in a bucket by the back door, and that is starting to build up nicely.

Knited Dish Cloths

During our recent "lack of internet" I decided that I would do some knitting, and thought I would make up some dish cloths for cleaning. I get so annoyed when the chux cloth starts to fall apart, but I still keep using it wanting to get the most out of it before I let the worms at it.

Here it is at the start,

and here is the finished product

It was really easy to make and only took me two nights to do it while sitting in front of the TV. Now to find the motivation to use it and get those dishes done