Trailing Tomatoes

2 Comments

Posted on November 18, 2015

I have written before about the cherry tomatoes which grow in various parts of our garden.

We seem to have literally hundreds which keep coming up in the garden in front of the verandah. I pull the majority of them out so that they do not smother the hibiscus which we are trying to get established. However, a few plants have got themselves very well established, including this one which has grown about 2 metres up the wire fencing to the verandah and then continued to spill over the floor directly outside our front door.

043

I finally got around to tying it up the other day so at least we can walk along the verandah unimpeded.

044

I am looking forward to being able to pick tomatoes from right outside the door!

Starting Out Small

2 Comments

Posted on November 16, 2015

We spent the weekend at home and had reasonable weather so were able to get out in the garden.

Tonight I want to share something which is quite exciting.

Here are some white agapanthus. I have a huge clump in the backyard which is now enclosed in the chicken run and these are some that we transplanted a couple of years ago from that clump. They are alongside the path at the back of the house and have really struggled. So to see them beginning to thrive and actually flower is rather special.

My eventual plan is to have the full length of the path bordered with white agapanthus so this is a start. Once they become established they are very hardy and need no maintenance.

These are some I prepared earlier!

These blue agapanthus which we planted about 8 years ago border the driveway and look like they have been there forever. They have just begun to shoot up flower spikes and will be in full flower in a few weeks. One day the plants at the back will be similar. I just need to be patient.

The Patch – An Update

4 Comments

Posted on July 5, 2015

In my post from yesterday I mentioned the new garden hose. GMan unpacked and set it up today. Here it is.

The hose retracts onto the reel inside the case which swivels on the black spindle. Here is another view with the hose slightly extended.

The 30 metre hose extends from the existing tap to the vegetable garden area. We do need more hose to reach the blueberries and the yet-to-be-built beds on the far side. We put some of the new fittings onto one of the old hoses and hung it inside the garden area. That way we can extend the new hose, attach the extra bit and we can water the whole of the vegetable garden area with ease.

GMan put this bracket on one of the posts to store the extra hose. The bracket was one that had come from my father and proved to be perfect for our needs.

I have really neglected the garden for several weeks but nevertheless we still have things growing. I weeded the flower garden that I made a few months ago and found that I even had some flowers.

These heartsease had managed to grow from seed and thrive among the weeds. I have weeded the bed and transplanted some so that there is now a border of them in front of the sweet peas.

Finally, I wanted to show you the garlic that I have growing and also the celery which is now ensconced in cut-down milk bottles to encourage the stems to grow upright in a bunch rather than spreading out everywhere.

I hope you have had a great weekend and that the weather has been kind enough to get outdoors.

Winter Morning

No Waste

Salvaged and Spread

1 Comment

Posted on April 18, 2015

Now that the weather has finally moderated it is a great time to be out in the garden.

We took the ute up to the neighbour’s place to collect the first of 2 loads of mulch that they had kindly offered to us. This was from when they had some trees trimmed and mulched about a month ago. Although we have had some light rain in the past day or two the ground was not too wet and GMan was able to bring the ute close to where we wanted to use the mulch.

The newspaper collection has been replenished somewhat, thanks to the generosity of friends and also some that GMan collected from his office.

Once again, the newspaper and mulch covered pretty much the same area. We now have more than half of the front garden deeply mulched.

Here are the first of the sweet pea seedling peeking their heads through the soil. There are also some almost microscopic seedlings which I suspect are the snapdragon or heartsease that I sprinkled in front of the sweet peas. I am very excited at the prospect of growing some old-fashioned flowers.

These are some of the flowers on one of the hibiscus shrubs in the front garden. It is in the part that is yet to be mulched.

It was 4.30pm and I had just finished photographing the garden handiwork when I noticed that this sunshower. It is the regular rain and relatively warm climate that we enjoy which keeps everything lush and green. Of course, the rich, volanic soil helps, too.

Permaculture Principles or Plain Commonsense

4 Comments

Posted on April 6, 2015

Whatever you want to call them, there are things we can do in the garden that will save money and resources.

Here are a couple of projects we have been working on this weekend.

When we came here there were numerous shrubs/small trees planted close to the front verandah. They provided some screening and privacy from the road. Over time we planted a screening hedge of native shrubs along the boundary so the ones closer to the house became less important from a privacy point of view. We extended the area in front of the verandah and slightly reduced the amount of lawn. The shrubs have been pruned several times to try to keep the blow the level of the gutter.

Last year I decided on the final format for this area. We will have a selection of flowering hibiscus in front of the verandah. We bought 5 hibiscus at the Garden Expo in July last year and they have been progressing well. However, one of them was beginning to struggle and we realised that it was being shaded by one of the grevilleas. We cut down the three remaining shrubs, mulched everything that was small enough to go through the mulcher and cut the bigger branches into manageable lengths.

While Gman was mulching Istarted laying out newspapers (usually about 6 sheets at a time) and hosing them down to stop them blowing away. The we piled the mulch we had made at one end.

This shows a close-up of the small logs that we used to create the back edge of the area to be mulched.

Here is the mulch spread out. It was convenient that we ran out of mulch and newspapers at about the same time. We are going to bring home whatever newspapers we can collect from work in order to continue our project. There is still quite a bit to do as you can see from the next photo.

You can also see some of the hibiscus. They seem to really be enjoying the full sun now that the overhanging shrubs have been cut down. We have been offered a huge pile of mulch from the neighbours so that will go towards completing the mulching of this area. The next job will be to buy some more hibiscus.

Finally, I wanted to show you the garden bed that I started last weekend. It is now dug over, edged with rocks and seeds planted. We have no shortage of rocks as they are everywhere on the block in all shapes and sizes. I have planted sweet pea, snapdragon and heartsease seeds in the hope of having a border of colourful spring flowers. The sweet peas are in a furrow close to the fence which will do double duty of keeping unwanted animals out of the vegie garden and being a trellis for the sweet peas.

Progress in The Patch

4 Comments

Posted on March 28, 2015

Our vegetable garden area has been a work in progress for several years and continues to be so. However, I feel as though we have taken a giant leap forward today.

We had a load of soil delivered yesterday.

This was the view of the area yesterday.

The three beds in the foreground have been established for some time and the top one currently has lettuce and bok choy and the bottom one has beans and bok choy while the middle one is empty after having cleared out the remnants of tomato and cucumber plants. This bed needs topping up with additional soil. In the background towards the chicken coop is a clump of sweet potato growing in a small cut-down rainwater tank. Of course, it has overflowed and is growing across the ground towards the fence.

The lower two beds in the background have a small amount of leaf litter and mulch but are yet to be used. At the top of the second row is the sixth raised bed partially built. We still need to finish cutting the iron to size and attach the sides.

We started early today and moved the soil to fill the completed beds. This is all that was left this afternoon when we had finished.

Then it was time to add the sides to the final bed. Remember the sweet potato I pointed out in the earlier photo? We dug it all up and harvested a bucketful of decent sized sweet potatoes. There were lots of small ones but we have sacrificed them for the long-term plan. I planted several pieces of vine that had significant root growth as well as numerous potatoes that were shooting. These all went into the bottom bed. The remainder of the soil from where the sweet potatoes were growing went into the base of the last bed. We then salvaged several wheelbarrow loads of leaf mulch from behind the rainwater tank and finally added the garden soil.

Here are the 6 raised beds filled with soil and I have planted some cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and kale seedlings that we bought last weekend. There is still plenty of space so I am planning to plant some seeds as well.

The other thing I did today was to trim and tidy up the basil which has gone completely rampant. I even found some new plants so I potted some and planted others in the garden bed. I have tied the clumps of basil up to the fence to stop them spreading all over the ground. The basil are in the foreground of the photo below.

Tomorrow, I am hoping to dig another garden bed along the fenceline as it heads towards the front of our property. The plan is to plant flowers in that bed. I have bought sweet pea seeds and intend to grow them using the fence as a trellis. but more about that another day.