Planting the first seeds...

According to the books, although I've been somewhat sceptical - it's time to start planting some seeds to be ready by the end of October to plant out into the garden.

Although most of the things I want to plant are probably not going to thrive with this cooler weather around at night still, they recommend planting out tomatoes, capsicums, silverbeet, spinach, beets and radishes among others.

Somewhat harmless to try - so off we go!~

As you can see in the pictures there are a few things sprouting up that I planted a week or so ago along with my cuttings that are still alive (yes... a lot didn't! Doh!).

 

My onions that I planted about a month ago have sprouted up and are now hardening off. :) A bit late to get them out into the garden - but I'm just happy that I got the shallots to germinate this time around! Onions were one of my "didn't have enough of veges" from last year - so this time I've gone all out! Hopefully I'll be able to store them properly so they don't rot. Watch this space!
 

• My goal for seeds this year is to accurately label, no matter how painstaking it is!

 

One hint I have seen is to put all those warmer liking veges like tomato and capsicum into the hot water cupboard until they sprout.

Will I forget about them and let them sizzle? Probably! Could work if I somehow remember to keep them alive! I think I'll give them a go in the greenhouse first before I take over the hot water cupboard with plants though! :) Our house doesn't really have window sills to use to keep them indoors unfortunately either.... I don't trust them on the floor with nosey children (& cats!) around that they wont be upturned!

I hope my poor little greenhouse can give them the warmth they need!~ Fingers crossed!!!

Out with the Old... In with the SPECTACULAR New!

I had a great adventure last week - making new bean supports! I wanted to still be able to rotate the beans... so I needed the support to be stable and sturdy, but able to be moved from bed to bed.

My good old bamboo trellis from last year has this rather bizarre unknown black sooty looking substance on it. Google couldn't help me. Neither could scrubbing. So I don't trust it to not kill off everything I grow with some random mutant disease, so out it goes! Instead a much better-on-the-eyes apparatus has been erected! I just hope it's stable enough, but it should be! (Fingers crossed!).

The best part about it was that it only cost $20 to make! Much cheaper than endless fancy bean supports. It was super easy to do, and its completely movable for next year (if it stays up - which of course it will!!! :P)

Just for a splash of spring - here is a picture of the blossoms that burst this morning on my plum tree! :)

Fruit tree heaven!

I'm finally feeling like I'm getting the structure of the garden under control. I've made various sections about the place - vegetables, fruit/orchard, a cottage garden and 'native' entertaining areas. After the longer autumn-feeling weather we've had - they have had a bit of a random burst of growth and are finally starting to take shape about the place! A long way to go of course! But does a gardeners paradise ever feel completed? ;)

My Grapefruit Delight!

After hubby allowed me to buy a Golden Special Grapefruit tree last month (YUM!) - I feel like I have almost everything  in the way of trees(who can say for sure they have enough fruit trees?!) that I want to eat throughout the year now! Pity most of the trees are only a meter high, so the yields are obviously not going to be that much for at least a couple of years! But if everything takes off and gets fruit on it - we should theoretically be self sufficient for most fruit seasons over the year! That's the goal anyway!

We do have a mandarin tree that was here when we arrived and that gave us about 3kg of fruit and its only 1.5m.... so I have high hopes for the rest!

I've separated all the citrus trees and stone fruit trees into different areas and after a few re-arrangements I'm finally really happy with where they are all placed. Sounds like a lot of effort - and it is! Taking into consideration the final size of the tree and that I wanted some to provide us a bit of privacy from other houses - it was quite a tricky expedition! Guess that's the blessing of being in a city and not rural!

Poor Mr Avocado

My avocado trees are looking a little bald..... I'm in the hope that they have lost their leaves due to shock and will re-bloom fabulously come spring time!

Buds!

Peaches, apples, plums and nectarines are all starting to bud! Whoop whoop! Time to get out that copper to control the fungus!










Look at this! Poor Mr Loquat tree had a dire case of black spot all over it and was not a happy tree. In fact I thought it would die after it lost most of its leaves. But after many Bravo (Yates fungicide) applications over the last year - the black spot has definitely become less, although not completely gone yet. It even has a single bunch of fruit and new leaves!!!!! WOW! Can't wait to see what they taste like!

Brilliant! Some fruit!

Its that time of the year again!!! :)

Well its that time of the year again to prepare the beds for the next exciting summer vegetable garden! :) 

I'm feeling like I'm not as in the dark as I was last year - so I have much braver plans on how to use the space in my garden this year. We wasted space last year with failed crops and crops that we didn't fully use or preserve, so this year I plan to use everything that comes out of the garden - through better planning and more preserving mainly!

Still.. a lot to learn! I used growveg.com last year as a planner and it was fantastic. This year I'm trialing plangarden.com and I'm finding it no where near as good as growveg. Much harder to use, no guide on numbers of vegetable plants to put in the space you have/square foot gardening, and no colour co-ordinating vegetables/plans/years so you can monitor the rotation of crops. On the plus side it does have facilities to communicate with other gardeners and add photos of your garden. But it's free for a month so we will persevere!

Draft plan 2013 Summer

Here is my draft plan for the summer. I've tried to do a bit of rotation planting as well as companion. But going from different websites - its actually quite hard as there is conflicting information! So, it is what it is :)

Some of the additions this year are; eggplants, corn, melons and more herbs (not on the plan). I'm also going to get those lettuces growing! They failed last year.... how can lettuce fail? Not sure... apparently easy to grow... well not for me! haha. This time around there will also be less beets and zucchinis and more cucumbers (that were a dire failure last year!) and potatoes (which lasted for months after harvest!).

Its funny - you never have enough space! But I better not take up more of the valued cricket pitch!!

On a very exciting note - the compost has been successful! The whole layering and adding compost enhancer plan has paid off. So when we went to see if it was usable, a lovely rich, dark, worm filled compost was there - much better than the random rotting fruit that stunk to use last time! Definitely a winner there!

Something that did surprise me was that the raised garden beds dirt had 'disappeared' basically down to ground level. They weren't full to the brim to begin with, but it did surprise me that the dirt had reduced that much. Lucky for the compost! :) Is this normal? I have no idea! I was under the assumption that the dirt would get bigger or at least the same each year with all the compost and plants added.....? Maybe it's just because they are new and the dirt settled down over the months of no use? Bizarre!

So, I've put a cover of compost, sheep pellets and clay breaker (gypsum) in each bed and turned it (Thanks Mr Hubby!). It looks fabulous! A nice rich dark soil, compared with a dusty clay/grey bed. It will need some time to settle and mix in ready for springtime. I would love to add some blood and bone to fertilise it, but its rather expensive so not in the budget this time around!

This winter has been truly bizarre - no rain now for about 3 weeks here, then suddenly it pours continuously for a week and floods the place.....??! So now, it's time to get rugged up as winter has arrived~! Good time to settle next to the fire and plan Plan PLAN! :)

Don't they look gorgeous?!

Renovating the Pond

Well... not much happening in my garden! I can honestly say the winter crop has been a dismal failure! I found a stray potato plant looming there with a few beetroots. Carrots have been eaten by bugs and my my brocolli and Kale have disappeared from either slug infestations or random alien attacks! 

Nothing much I can do now for a couple of months when things get warmer and start growing again!~  Except of course - PLAN! haha. Always big ideas there!!!

So... its a good time to do some renovating around the garden while we wait!

Bit blurry sorry! But here is the ghastly hole-in-the ground. 

The pond was a massive ugly hole in the ground. With toddlers around it had to go! It had a concrete rim which you can see hubby smashing out so we can flatten it out.

Hubby working Hard smashing down the concrete exterior.
 Looks like the dead of night, but its only 5pm!

Finally we got it all flattened and added the much needed dirt to the hole! Now it looks fabulous! We will grass it and hope that the grass will grow in winter! :) I've put a row of gardenia's and grasses along the edge just to give it some sort of landscaping!

Finished!

A great result for a weekends work! :) 

I'm so excited to be getting some much needed chores done around the place!
But now, it's time to get inside and put the fire on!!!!! :)

Winter Blues.. :(

I had it all planned and seeds planted to get winter veges off with a bang! But have been too sick to do anything in the garden and my poor un-green-fingered hubby has not been thrilled about the prospect of taking over for me.

So the garden has had plenty of weeds and not much else happening. How weeds still grow in drought is beyond me! But we have gone from drought to hail and thunder storms pretty fast. Winter is now upon us and apart from my cuttings I took a few months ago - nothing is growing.

I am enjoying the feijoa season though! You either love them or hate them. But personally you just can't have enough trees! I'm making a feijoa hedge to see how that works. Apparently they are good at shaping and growing into a hedge... not sure if they will fruit much though as after I pruned back one tree there was no fruit on it this year. But there is nothing like feijoa muffins, feijoa cakes, feijoa fruit puddings.... mm

www.rootsimple.com

Pommegranates have been really disappointing. Even with all the sun they still rotted off the branch. It's a prickly horrible tree. The fruit was its only lifesaver! Maybe I'll give it one more year to save itself.....

Surprisingly my spring bulbs are showing (bit confused with the weather I think!). Hibiscus plants have all had a burst of growth and flowering too. It's nice to see such bare sparse gardens finally starting to grow a bit. Will be a few years still before they look how they are supposed to.

Anyway this is just a brief update from me! It's cold and I need to get closer to the fire! :) The only good thing about winter rain! :)

Cottage Garden Paradise!

I decided that all hard working gardeners need to have a sanctuary to be able to sit back, relax and enjoy their gardens! So I've mulched area in my garden that I've named the "Cottage Garden". 

I leveled and paved part of the space (as everything here has a bit of a slope!) to put the swing seat on and my plan is to plant it out with fantastic scents and gorgeous flowers!

So far I've planted a few things, but because things are so dry and most of the cottage garden plants are annuals I've decided to hold off until next spring before I decide what I should put in it. It's looking alright (Aside from the numerous weeds that seem to not be effected by the drought!). I got a few Dahlia's on clearance that have burst into flower, a rose and a couple of Daphne plants.  I never had much luck with these and I'm worried when the full winter rains come and bog up the horrible clay soil here they will just die off. But the flower and scent is worth a try!

I also moved a sick and dying Kowhai tree that was basically a stick to be a feature tree there. Obviously it's loving its new position as its regrown its leaves and is looking much healthier! Its gorgeous yellow flowers will be bright and cherry with the white and pink clematis that will hopefully make its way up the trellis along the fence! 

I was always told that you use yellow and orange where you want your focus to be, as it naturally draws the eye first.

There are so many plants that I would like to put around the garden, but having the money to buy them makes it a very expensive endeavor!

So I've decided to attempt to do a bit of propagation! - Yes, laugh now! I've read lots about the different ways of doing this, how you can't do it on some plants that were various degrees of 'wood-y-ness' but seriously - I just gave up reading and decided to do it the "Simple, give it a go" way! I'm guessing some (haha! Maybe most?!) will fail but here is my method:

This is the rooting hormone I chose -
basically I picked it as it was the cheapest!

Buy rooting hormone
Cut the plant
Clear off most leaves
Dip it in rooting hormone
Shove it in the dirt!

I've done hibiscus, lavender, hebe, hydrangeas and even given my bougainvillea a go too!

The hydrangeas and bougainvillea are looking a bit sad and droopy. One of the hibiscus's leaves fell off... but the others are still green and looking alright in the greenhouse!

If these actually take off - talk about savings!! I can finally get some plants growing up and along the fences here! Maybe I can give roses a try next! :)

Bring on next spring already!!! :)