Clean up and replant

I had a big clean up in the garden over the last few days off. It was well over due.

The lemonade tree which although laden with fruit, failed to provide me with a decent, ripe lemon yet this season. Every time I checked fruit just beginning to show a little yellowing (you may remember from a previous post that you can't wait for the lemons on a lemonade tree to go yellow as by that time they are rotten) they haven't come away easily indicating they aren't yet ready. However when I come back on my next day off to check, they have split from the rain, or are lying mouldy on the ground under the tree. The mouldy fruit has become a problem, firstly because it's attracting fruit flies and secondly because the mould is a type of virus that then affects other fruit when the spores are dispersed on them, either by wind, water splashing etc.
I haven't been able to easily get to the fallen fruit to clear it away as the tree was so overgrown, it's branches forming a natural cage around the area, and grass and weeds making it difficult also. So in desparation I have given the tree it's first good prune in the now almost 5 years I've been there. Gone now are all the branches that grew haphazardly in all directions, gone are the branches so laden with fruit they were hidden amongst the overly long grass and overgrown weeds. Instead it's a mere shadow of it's former self, more streamlined, free of renegade tendrils that had sprouted from an unknown base graft, complete with needle like spikes along their reaching arms, free too of the swollen gall wasp stings that left new growth misshappen.
Once that terror was tamed I then had access to the ground below, cleaning up all the diseased fruit and disposing of it, removing the grass that slowly chokes the life force of these trees.
 And while on a roll, hacking  down the choko that once again is flourishing creating the beginnings of it's own mini jungle like atmosphere. Once again this year it's overtaken everything, growing along the fencelines, reaching out to snare the branches over unwary trees, crossing my gardens steathily on the ground hidden by weeds, or more obviously using stakes like a superhighway. My little pruning shears, already warmed up from the adrenalin of the assualt on the lemonade tree went into overdrive and in no time had tamed it back to something more orderly and controlled.

The choko reaching out to ensnare an unsuspecting Gooseberry bush.

 With the main culprits now demurely standing by it was time for the final onslaught, the lost gardens beneath, now buried under kikuyu grass, wandering dew and other unidentified weeds. With the help of the hoe, and the gardening rake these too had met their match!

That was Friday gone, Saturday I watched it pour rain all day, frustrated that I couldn't get out into the garden and do more, but inspired by my companion planting book I'd rediscovered.

And then today, with the sun out again, with everything clean and refreshed, I took my seed collection outside and contentedly planted Broad beans accompanied by Spinach and Beetroot in one bed, and Peas bedded with Radish and Turnips in the other. With a final flourish of confidence, stakes were thumped in and lines strung ready for this new growth to begin and take hold.



Useable lemons and chokos from the day's cleanup.

I've made some Lemonade from the lemons already and have plans to cook and freeze the the chokos for later. Anyone with inspiring suggestions for choko recipes? Please share, my husbands bored with them already, and there'll be more to come yet.





Weakness

Ok, I admit it, I have a problem.

It's a complete inability to avoid the temptation of garden "stuff". Today while I was shopping for things work related I came across seeds in a Crazy Clarks store. Who would have thought you could buy seeds there? And pretty cheaply too. Well, I felt a moment of hesitation before I zoomed straight over to see what they had I would like to get. I'd been reading about growing Broad Beans just recently, and although I've had zero success with them to date, I couldn't resist. Then came the Peas, justified because, well the last ones planted were dug up by the chooks and never really amounted to much, plus it's the time for them...oh, and lets not forget the Brussel Sprouts, definately my last chance to make a move on these. Last years Brussel sprouts grew beautifully in their little mesh enclosure, designed to keep the cabbage moths off, it's just that I left them too long waiting for them to get bigger and they kind of "blossomed", you know what I mean, they just opened up like a flower instead of that tight bun like usual. And finally, more mixed blue flowers, just because I've bought at least one pack of blue flower seeds every season, and never yet planted them, doesn't mean to say I have to give up my dream of a sea of blue flowers interspersed amongst my vegies. Bring on the next day off so I can get started!

Last years Brussel Sprouts and Cabbages captive in their netted growing area. 

New Birdie finally gets a home

For my birthday this year in January my parents gave me a Birdie. For all those not familiar with them this is a self assemble (luckily they'd already put it together for me) raised corrugated colourbond garden bed. The one they've given me is the same size as the ones they have been using with really great success, about a metre squared.
At the time I had no idea where I would like to put it in my garden plans so I just put it to one side, and ended up using it like a temporary compost bin until I could decide where it would live more permanently. Since then it has had all sorts of garden debris added, the occasional kitchen scraps, and even an "in the garden" worm farm (although no worms yet). The compost has broken down so quickly and I've overfilled it several times now.

Yesterday, after a fairly rainy week it was down to about two thirds in height again, and with the rest of the garden a little out of control, I decided to use it to plant out my the tumeric and extra ginger plants I'd struck into small pots over the last few months as they were starting to put down roots into the ground below the pots, and if I'm going to get any real harvest from them, I've only got a few months left at best.

My collection of garlic, tumeric and ginger I've managed to strike.

 So I topped the garden up all the way with a mixture of potting mix, composted manure and the leftovers from my abandoned worm garden and planted away.
I also popped in a couple of Pepino's I'd bought recently. Previously I had Pepino's growing in the front yard, but although they got a couple of fruit, they weren't very successful there (much drier area, lots of eucalytus leaves from big eucalypt overhead) and all but one have died back. I have to confess here, these new Pepino's came from a moment of weakness, when I also bought a punnet of coriander, two punnets of beans and a couple of comfrey plants which had now been sitting on the back verandah for two weeks.
In a last desperate act before sundown, I've also added the coriander to the new garden in the corners and a few of the bean plants (not the climbing type). The rest of the beans went into the top garden where the snake bean is now on it's last, but I didn't want to rip out it's climbing frame yet as the choko vine has taken it over. It may be important to note here that the beans may not make it, when I said desparate before I didn't mention the driving incentive came from the fact that my chickens had eaten every bit of leaf off them while sunning themselves on the deck! Not to worry, we'll still give them a go.

And the comfrey, well it's still sitting there waiting for my next day off. I have plans for another banana garden area...

One of the many chokos growing. The vines have taken over everything!

The bean eating culprits, not looking remorseful at all!

January Garden Update, it's all about multiplication...

My poor gardens have been so neglected of late. With the longer trading hours at work over the leadup until Christmas, and a lot of time spent inside the house to get things done ready to received visitors (my lovely sister and her kids) I haven't spent much time at all out in the garden.
Many of the seedlings I'd struck had grown too oversized and pot bound to be able to transplant into the garden. The gardens themselves had become overgrown with weeds and grass and the chickens had dug up anything that looked half decent! So just over a week ago I started the clean up. Out with the strangled seedlings (actually into the compost heap). All pots cleaned and stacked up ready for my next try. I'm pleased to say as I look around my garden, that much of what I've planted recently has been the offspring of last years plants, and my numbers are increasing.

Most of the ginger plants (I'm proud to say I've about 18 plants from last years roots, which started from 1 plant the first year and became 4 last year) planted out into one of the garden beds (new philosophy, not enough spare time to keep this many garden beds going with changing crops) where they will sit happily now for between 6 to 18 months. I normally like to harvest my ginger around August as the leaves die down, but these may not have had enough time in the ground by then to develop good sized roots. They've been given a good sprinkling of "Rooster Booster" to help get them kickstarted in the hopes of getting a great surprise come this winter, but the books all say they need at least 12 months, so we'll see.

The new Ginger bed, 15 plants here

I purchased some Tumeric roots from a fresh food market held near work each Wednesday and they had started to sprout so I popped some into pots to see if I could get them to grow and I'm thrilled to say I have at least one that has pushed up it's first leaf. I had already purchased a Tumeric plant last year along with a couple of Galangal plants (these two are both related to Ginger and given my success with that I figured I'd give them a go). I had wanted to buy more as they are a nice green plant with beautiful leaves, and they seem happy enough to grow in the garden under my giant Ghost Gum where not much else is thriving, but a little bag of roots for $3 seemed like a more cost effective way to get them going than $15 plants.
I weeded and tidied up another of the two garden beds near to the one now containing the ginger. They needed quite a bit of work as the chickens had slowly spread them almost flat. One has been planted out with my peanuts I'd struck from seed from the plants I'd bought last year (two original plants become about a dozen). These too had become seriously pot bound so I'm hoping I haven't left it too long to get some results from them.

Peanut shrub

In the clean up of the garden beds I dug up a couple of tomatoes that have sprung up and transplanted them into a better position near the fence line so I can tie them up and hopefully have a little more control over them as they grow! Each year since I first planted cherry tomatoes I've had them come up all over the place, many I just rip out as weeds, some I take pitty on as they seem so strong and healthy, letting them develop where they sit, only to get frustrated when they overtake other plants in the bed, so this time I'm determined to be the one in control!
To top off my gardening exploits, I put in some french beans in the third bed (my others were all dug up by the chooks in one of their escapades), some peas along the fence line, and lastly a few marigolds dotted around, just for good measure.

French Beans on the way

Reading this it sounds like everything in the garden came to a holt, but as I look around my bananas have grown, and look about ready to pick the first bunches,

 my snake beans have been producing steadily, my spinach has somehow survived the incredible heat through summer and it still going, the rosella seedlings are now about 2 foot high and growing quickly with recent rains,

One of the Rosellas

the Purple prince chilli that stayed no more than a seedling for the last 12 months has actually grown only a little but produced it's first chillies,

The purple prince, worth the wait

the water chestnuts have multiplied as well, quietly growing from last seasons bulbs I kept and put into another tray in the pond in the hope of getting enough to be able to move some into a new pond sometime this year,

The water chestnuts will start to die off ready for harvest

the gooseberries are growing some leaves back after the beetle problems left them stripped, the cuttings from the Brunsfelia (Yesterday, today and tomorrow bush) are holding their own, the raspberries are shooting canes up everywhere, the pineapples have produced new leaves,

the fig has 3 fruit on it, the lemonade tree is loaded down with fruit,

new growth one the potted citrus, the new paw paw has grown noticably,

there's frog eggs in the pond,


Those white bubbles are frogs eggs

 and the purple passionfruit has set fruit and the local pair of curlews have hatched two babies.

This protective parent has both chicks under her wings.

It all leaves me with hope that even without my contant input, things still have a way of getting slowly better.

Spring gardening update

So I've been really slack and not done a posting for so long. I got frustrated as I had people making lovely comments on my posts and then when I went to their posts and tried to leave a comment, I failed. I couldn't make it happen!!! Anyway, in a grumpy state, I gave up. Yes, I have tried again, unsuccessfully. But time has past, I'll give it another go shortly, but in the meantime, my garden is growing, changing with the season. If I don't make a note of it here, then next year I won't have a record to go back to, and after all, that was a large part of the point of this blog in the first place. Kind of a garden diary, as my other attempts have left large holes. (I have a diary I was making notes in....somewhere???)

Moving on....

The apple trees have flowered, and again this year they have had some tiny little fruits on them. The tree on the shadier side of the gate had one, which today is now on the ground, in perfect condition, so whether it's been wind, or just that the tree knows it's too soon to bear fruit in only it's second year? The other one has three little apples still holding tight. This was the tree that had a couple of small fruit on it last year, so maybe there's hope yet. From my reading it seems that the trees don't normally produce in their first few years.

One of three little apples, about the size of a golf ball.

The macadamia nut tree had flowered with the most flowers I've seen on it yet, and seemed to have lots of little nuts forming, but with the storms last week and all the wind, I noticed today that it seems like many of the higher stems are now bare and only the lower protected branches still have nuts on.

Lots of flowers on the macadamia looked promising.

Hubby got this one! Little did I realise it would be the one & only!

The peach tree that was so badly damaged last year when another big tree collapsed on it during a storm produced quite a lot of fruit, so too did the nectarine. However they both fell victim to fruit fly and we only got just that first single peach, the flys made short work of the rest. (Note to self, even if the fruit is looking fine and there are no signs of infestations still get a dac pot up and going early JUST IN CASE!!!)  These little flies went from nothing to millions in just a couple of days, so there's no time to be unprepared. All the books said to have the dac pots up when the plants were flowering, but everything just looked so healthy and I kept forgetting and it hadn't seemed to be an issue (famous last words). So by my rough calculations I would think I'll need to have the lures on the trees by early to mid September next year, just to be sure.

Nectarines, just days before being completely wiped out by fruit fly.

With Spring's arrival, the sweet peas I planted just after St Patricks day back in March finally started to grow and flower. Not as great a display as I'd originally hoped for, but I had thought they were done and failed months ago, so they'd not received any tender loving care for some time. I'm collecting some of the seeds so I can try to raise more for next year, rather than buying punnets like I did this year.

Oh, and I almost forgot the most exciting thing of all, one of my banana plants has had a bunch of bananas slowly growing ever larger and today, to my delight the other banana tree has put forward a great big flowering stem, so hopefully this too will be productive soon.

Anyhow, that's all for tonight. Bed time for me. So much more happening, but that can wait for another night.

This is on my mind...

Inspired by Rhonda from Down to Earths blog (link at right) here's my contribution to todays "This is on my mind..."


For all the long term gardeners out there, this may not look terribly impressive, but looking at this image brings tears of pride to my eyes.

Growing up we never really grew much in the way of crops, not even many flowers for that matter, even though my family had been involved in the fresh produce market. So when I started my first garden just over three years ago now, I really struggled with how to go about it and had to do lots of research and investigation to get it right. Three years later I'm still learning, having some failures, some successes.
The reason these vegies delight me so much is they've been grown by my neice and nephews who are under 10 years old.
When I discovered the joy of success from my first little garden, I was hooked for life. From small beginnings I've come a long way. Along the way I've tried to share that joy with my family and I'd like to believe it's rubbing off on them. My sister's family has spent many weekends being dragged around my garden as I show them seedlings taking shape and pick what is available. They were keen to start their own garden and put their first one in at Christmas. Above is some of the results from that small garden.
My mother and father encouraged me as I struggled at the start, praising every small bunch of herbs or cluster of tomatoes I managed to pick to share. My mother now has a fabulous small garden that's producing well. We share walks in it with my youngest niece and now my brother is thinking of putting in a small vegetable garden for her as she talks about "Nana's garden" all the time. It reminds me just how important it is that we share not just book learned knowledge, but our passion for the practical down the generations.

First lettuce. Before this he didn't even eat it. On this day he picked a leaf and gobbled it down!

Looking for strawberries at Nana's

Picking tomatoes from Nana's garden ( if you look closely you'll see that these are a "plant", bought in especially so she could find them as it's a little too early for ripe ones yet)

Showing me seedlings they've struck in their special little grow bed

The kids enjoying the pleasure of my garden, especially the chooks

Holidays

Well I've been on holidays for a week now and feel like I've not achieved half of the things I would have liked to have done. The time has been good though, I've had time with family which is something I always treasure, some time in the garden, and yesterday and today, some time in the kitchen.
We've had two new students arrive from China today. Amy and Rose (not their Chinese names, they take English names to make it easier for everyone while they are here) joined us yesterday and will stay for the next 6 weeks to get a taste of Australian life and learn english. At only 11 years old, it would have to be very scary for them coming all this way and living with strangers. We'll try to make their stay a memorable one.
With some time at home I've taken the opportunity to make some fruit bread today and a batch of yoghurt tonight ready to use in some new recipes I saw on the Food channel today. I was motivated by a recipe for spicy eggplant.


You can see the white eggplants here amongst other goodies harvested late last week.

I just happen to have about half a dozen little round egg shaped white eggplants I picked the other day just waiting for inspiration to strike. It necessitated a trip to the shops for all sort of spices I just don't (correction "didn't) have on hand. It was a joy to buy lots of new goodies, including All spice, Cayenne Pepper, Fenugreek, Black Mustard, Saffron and Cardamon pods. I can't wait to try them out tomorrow. They aren't all for the eggplant, some are for other dishes. I'm not sure if I'll get to try them all out before I return to work, but I'd really like it if I can.
The garden has had a bit of a clean up. Hubby insisted I chop down the choko vines that have not only run rampant through our garden, but also ventured into the neighbours trees. The chokos looked like Christmas baubles hanging off the branches of their palm trees! It was hard for me to do, especially as I was getting such a great crop off them this year, but Hubby is sick of them now, and groans with each new harvest I drag in. I can't complain, he has made heaps of pickles using them, and some Chutney as well. I've smuggled them into all sorts of meals, both savory and sweet, and we have more in buckets that we haven't gotten around to using yet, and they are starting to sprout! Definately a sign that the time had come.


Chokos hanging like Christmas decorations off the fence

Clearing all the vines has let more light into some of the garden beds. One I've planted out with some French bean seedlings and a few broccoli tucked into one end. The other had nothing much except a large old capsicum bush in it (after the chickens had excavated the snow peas for the third time and there was no saving them). The capsicum hasn't been producing well, so it was time for it to go. The beds are usually "made" over by the chickens (we place their pen over the garden, they dig it up and work in sugar cane mulch over a few weeks) but I've been too impatient to wait as they are still working what was the sweet potato bed and will probably be there for at least another week or so. I've mounded it up for the time being, placed some weathered sugar cane mulch into it and given it a top up with some composted cow manure and leaving it to sit ready to try some more peas, or perhaps some silverbeet or chinese cabbage.

You can see the French beans starting to come up around  a wire frame made from old fencing wire that is used as a trellis

There's still more clean upI'd like to do in the garden before my week is out, including pulling out the remaining pumpkin vines that aren't doing much now and tieing up my peppers that have fallen over with the support of the choko vines that had enveloped them. So little time, so much garden...