Tag Archives: garden

Speeding Towards December

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I have felt a bit like a juggler for the past couple of weeks as there seem to have been many competing priorities that I am trying to balance.

As well as getting organised to visit family in Queensland for 10 days in the latter part of November – yes, we are here now, we were putting the finishing touches to our plans for our overseas trip. We depart in mid-December for 5 weeks in Europe. This is all in addition to multiple volunteer commitments and the day to day running of the household.

Meanwhile, here are a couple of photos of our front garden. The native shrubs have grown considerably in the past couple of years and have been covered in magnificent flowers.

A view from just outside the front door. The plant in the pot in the foreground is an olive and it is covered with thousands of buds. Here’s hoping……………………

Vertical Elements

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We have ongoing plans for the garden but the wheels turn fairly slowly here as everything carefully considered.

A couple of weeks ago we decided to reposition a couple of the small raised garden beds which we bought early last year. This is all part of the grand plan to have defined pathways and sections of the garden rather than a wide open space.

They now run north/south rather than east/west. You can see the old positions by the patches of dirt in the foreground of the photo.

I had also seen somewhere online that people had used reinforcing mesh to create an archway between 2 raised garden beds. So, yesterday we purchased one large piece of mesh from the hardware which was delivered in the afternoon and we set to work on our plan.

This is the second one we built and I am hoping to use it to grow climbing beans. There is a tomato in the bed on the left and spinach on the right-hand side.

The first one we did is a bit more difficult to see because of the background. It is high enough to allow clearance for the shed door (not regulation height) to open. I have planted a couple of cucumber seedlings close to the arch in the garden bed on the right. There are also capsicums in that bed. The box in the foreground is onions and the lettuce is thriving on the other side with coriander in pots nearby.

We also have cauliflower, strawberries, raspberries and rhubarb in other spots not shown in the photos.

It is great to have some permanent vertical structures in the garden which are both decorative and functional.

Beating the Birds

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I have been fully occupied for the past few days doing some writing that was not blog posts nor in any way blogworthy. It was administrative work for a local voluntary organisation that I belong to.

Today we ventured out in the garden to do a few jobs and one was to net the fruit trees to keep the birds at bay. Last year was our first summer in this house and although we harvested a bounty of fruit we did lose a portion of the crop to our local feathered friends.

We have 3 espaliered fruit trees near the side of the house – a nectarine and two nashi pears. They are now suitably enclosed for at least 3 months while the fruit mature out of harm’s way.

The raspberries are thriving in a patch near the back fence and we did cover them last year which resulted in most of the crop feeding us rather than the birds. Last year it was a pretty simple matter of throwing some netting over them. I have some slightly grander plans this time and will get onto that later this afternoon once it is a bit cooler.

Meanwhile, the building work in the pantry is complete and GMan is finishing painting the new wall and cornice. I have started rearranging some of the cupboards and shelves and I should be able to unveil it soon. Watch this space for details and plenty of pictures.

Flowers and Fencing

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I really enjoy this display of sweet peas that we can see from the kitchen and family room. I planted them from seeds I collected last year that were hanging over someone’s front fence. I will definitely be saving the seed pods again for next year.

This was the original front fence when we arrived.

This has now been demolished and the new posts are in place for the new fence. The rails have been salvaged and earmarked for another landscaping project.

It will be 1.5m high so will offer a bit more privacy and security as we are on a major regional through road. There will be electric gates for the vehicular access as well as a pedestrian gate in the centre of the fence.

There will be more photos once it is complete.

Garden Update

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It is nearly two weeks since my last post and I could make the excuse that I have been busy but that is not true. I have been well occupied and juggling a few different aspects and I have simply not felt enthused to write. However, I am back with a few blog post ideas buzzing around in my head so I hope there will not be quite such a hiatus in the foreseeable future.

Today I want to show off some of the progress we have made in the garden. As always, it is small steps.

The weather is slightly warmer, or perhaps ‘less cold’ would be a better description. Either way, the bulbs and spring blossom are in full swing.

I did not plant these daffodil bulbs until early June so they were a little later than many of the bulbs around our town which are almost finished. I am enjoying their sunny faces which are just beyond our back terrace.

While much of the blossom around town is ornamental, I am very excited by the flowers on our espaliered nectarine tree. If every one of those becomes fruit……….Yummo, in a few months time. I will keep my fingers crossed.

A couple of months ago we cleared out the remnants of last summer’s crops and I planted some garlic as well as cauliflower and red cabbage seedlings. I hastily covered them with some fine netting to protect them from any bugs.

Yesterday was a glorious spring day bathed in blue skies and sunshine so we spent a few hours out in the garden. The seedlings had grown enough that I really needed to create a better frame for the netting. I sourced some thin metal roads that we had salvaged from an old clothes airer and some irrigation piping that had been left by the previous owners and managed to create the perfect framework for the netting.

Here is a closer look.

Cabbages and garlic.

Cauliflower.

Some flat leaf parsley which GMan salvaged and repotted about a month ago.

Until next time.

In the Garden

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The past week has been full of activity which didn’t leave a lot of time for writing.

Lat week we had our first overnight guests as well as other visitors for lunch one day.

Meanwhile GMan has made a start on refashioning the garden a little. This photo shows the garden as we inherited it although the trees have grown somewhat. In fact they had grown so that much of the canopy was actually above the gutter. They are deciduous and as it is autumn (or officially winter in the past few days) much of the debris was ending up in the gutter. What wasn’t in the gutter was on the patio and subsequently being walked into the house.

So we agreed that these two specimens needed to go. This is the result. The next step is to hopefully dig the stumps out so that we can add some plantings more appropriate to the location and space.

Yesterday morning was a trip in the ute to the local rubbish dump to take a load of tree cuttings. The weather did not co-operate and this was the view. GMan persevered and had it unloaded fairly quickly.

We know that there will be more removal and renewal of plantings as we gradually decide on our preferences for the garden.

We would like to devote a bit more space to food production and some of this may be at the front of the house in the north-facing space but that requires some realignment of existing elements. In the meantime, we planted some broccoli seedlings this afternoon and rigged up some temporary fencing to protect them from the dog.

A New Garden

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There was an area on the southern corner of the house which had been a bit of no-man’s land. At times we had stored excess pavers and sheets of corrugated iron as well as some potted plants waiting to be planted.

A couple of moths ago I began working on cleaning up this area. Any remaining materials were relocated as were most of the plants. I decided to plant the aloe vera plants from multiple pots and edged the area with some rocks.

Then some cardboard to suppress any weed growth.

I had planned to put some mulch over the entire area, however, GMan suggested small rocks. There were plenty in our neighbour’s paddock next door as there was an enormous amount of rock and soil which had washed down from higher up the mountain during the recent heavy rains.

So I set to work.

That was a couple of weeks ago and then I was caught up in other jobs so it was put on hold.

However, this weekend GMan I spent several hours filling and moving buckets of small rocks to finish the area and here is the result.

I am very happy with how it has turned out. I managed to turn an eyesore into a low-maintenance feature. A definite improvement in my opinion.

Too Wet

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I have been working on a few small projects over the past few days but did not have a full story or photos to share.

All of that has come to a grinding halt as we retreat indoors as the predicted wet weather has struck. There was light rain during most of the day yesterday but it really began in earnest about 6pm. In the next 12 hours we recorded 176mm (7 inches) of rain.

This is what our backyard looked like when I awoke this morning. We have had intense and/or prolonged rain in the past which has resulted in a view like this but is has not happened for several years.

These are a series of photos of the lowest section of our back yard. The water is over a metre deep in some parts. The cause is two-fold. The driveway of the property next to us acts like a dam which causes the water to back up. We live on a mountain and the water from the steeper land above us finds its way to this area which would have been a natural watercourse in times past.

While the bottom of the garden floods, there is no risk of any inundation of the main part of the garden or the house due to the slope of the land.

This might look and sound quite dramatic, it is not a major problem as we have chosen to leave these areas of our garden as open grass so it suffers no real ill-effects as the water usually drains relatively quickly through the porous, volcanic soil.

It is not actually raining at present, however, the forecast is for continuing heavy rain for the next 48 hours.

We will not be venturing out as we have everything we need here and there is bound to be some localised flooding as well as potential landslips and and fallen trees.

Are you sufficiently prepared to manage if you need to stay at home for a number of days or longer? Please share your tips and ideas.

The Last Pick

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We have several citrus trees here and the fruit is generally ripe during our cooler months from May through to August. The earliest one is the grapefruit closely followed by the Washington Navel orange and mandarin. The two Valencia orange trees are much later and seem to have an extended season with fruit lasting quite happily on the tree for a few months.

In the past we have finished picking in mid-November but the season last year lasted even longer. Today I picked the last of the fruit from the older tree beside the driveway. I thought there might be about 30 but there ended up being 93 fruit!!

I have juiced and frozen all of the juice as I do with all of the harvest. This provides us with enough juice for the entire year. It is just as well that I have plenty of freezer space as there is currently 29 litres frozen juice.

The juicer I bought in 2018 is worth its weight in gold. You can read more about it here.

The 2022 crop is already doing well and larger than the size of a golf ball.

There are still a small number of fruit to pick on the other tree but they can wait for a week or so until I have used some of today’s haul.

An Evolution

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This week we spent some time in the garden and on of the jobs I tackled was tidying up the entrance pergola.

The mandevilla were growing out of control and needed a bit more training up the trellis. I also trimmed some of the lower growth and swept the pavers. We cleaned up and mulched the adjacent garden area. The flowers and small shrubs will thrive as the weather begins to warm up.

It looks much better.

There are not a huge number of flowers at the moment but this shot from November last year shows it in full bloom.

In March 2018 the area was very different.

By September of 2018 things were progressing but the plants were still in their infancy.

It is always useful to look back and remind yourself of how much progress you have made.