Who else likes gardening?

[ecomama]

Hi everyone

I hope you're staying well today.

Who else likes gardening? I would love to connect with people here who are happy to share their gardening adventures.

For me I know that gardening helped heal my soul during tough times. I hope it will again.
Then with other things going on, it became a jungle.
I'm part way into rediscovering it again and doing A LOT of hard yakka atm, when I am motivated.

I have new dreams and ideas to put into the many bare places, as I remove thickets of lantana etc. This will all be on a tight budget and I'm ok with that.

I want to create a peaceful place where I can be.
I would like to grow food again (tell 'er she's dreamin' atm lol).
I would like to re-establish my worm farms and compost heaps.
Autumn is such a beautiful time of the year in the garden.

I'm 'alone' in my gardening journey and would love to share and hear about other's gardening antics. Hopefully we can troubleshoot any issues in our gardens and talk about any healing we're feeling too. There's a lot of knowledge we can share. I hope this thread can brighten your day!

Love Ecomama

Please

[ecomama]

Matchy69 said:Hi Em i have cauliflowers ready to harvest as well as silverbeet, carrots ,eggplants,sweet potatoes in the vegie garden.Everything is growing well especially with the rain we had here.

Gosh Mark, you could make a feast out of those veges alone! Sounds delicious!

[ecomama]

Matchy69 said:

Hi Em my Nectarine has still most of its leaves on with the on one falling off.My apple tree is the same.It is interesting the things that happen in the garden or dont hapen.The long range forecast for here has been for a warmer and wet winter.

I didn't know that apple trees dropped their leaves.... it's too hot in my garden for apples, I'd love an Heirloom apple tree, people say the apples from heirloom trees are far more delicious than the ones we can buy ordinarily.

Farmers tried growing apples nearby (must not have really KNOWN our climate) and they get cooked on the trees every Summer!

Half my nectarine has dropped it's leaves - like exactly half lol! It looks so funny because ALL of one side is bare and ALL of the other side is leafed up. So strange.

I grow bananas, oranges, macadamia nuts (but have only given them away until I learn how to deal with them to eat), nectarines, peaches, limes, LOTS of chillies that just multiply everywhere lol!
I grew strawberries but can't anymore atm. I grew raspberries too but they were too much trouble tbh.

Blueberries are a popular garden fruit here so I'm hoping to buy some in August if I can find any. Hopefully Green Harvest WILL open soon and I can get some mailed to us. I have seeds for Basil and I can't WAIT to sow them in August.

My chooks have been co-operatively getting their straw ready for me lol. I just put their old straw in an 11L bucket and close up the lid and a few months later it's totally BLACK soil. Magic happens!

I also really want to grow Loofahs for the first time, so we can dry them out and use them in the shower to scrub ourselves lol. I can get those plants / seeds from Green Harvest too.

I'm plowing through my MH work at a rate of knots, but not getting much done in the garden on my leave.
I guess the more mentally healthy I feel then the more I can do later?

Have you wanted to grow something new in your garden Mark?

Love EM

[Matchy69]

Hi Em yes apple trees are deciduous and lose their leaves during winter.Their is many varieties and some of the heirloom ones are great tasting.My tree is double grafted so it has two different varieties on the one plant.You do need two different ones for cross pollination for them to fruit.

I have grown loofahs years ago.My mum gave me some seeds and they were pretty easy to grow.They are related to cucumbers and that and grow on a vine so just similar growing conditions to that.

I allways wanting to grow something new and different in my gardenI will allways try new plants.

Happy gardening,

Mark.

[ecomama]

Hey Mark

Thanks for the tip on growing loofahs, it'll be fun growing scrubbing brushes lol! I didn't realise the growing conditions were the same as cucumbers, awesome!

Also do you do any Seed Saving?
I found chillies to be the easiest to do that with. The seeds are not so temperamental over the temps they are kept at etc. Just scrape them out from a known non - GM chilli and dry them without pulp on a paper towel. Then when they're dried pop them in a little container and ALWAYS label lol!
I'm pretty hopeless with labelling thinking "oh I'll remember what they are" and I don't. Plus I need to date them at when I saved them.
I have SO many seeds now, it's pretty sad lol, poor things.

I think basil seeds are nice to collect from the flowers. If you let your best plant go to seed and flower then you save those. SO fragrant! They smell like perfume because they are the base of so many perfumes. My house smells amazing when I do that. But they've been temperamental to store for me. I have a HOT house. Downstairs is cool but I stupidly stored my seeds on the downstairs porch in a cupboard and found later that it gets alot of sun in Summer. SO they're all probably baked sterile darn it.

Anyway what I'll do when I have enough ground (I've raked the leaves up down the back) is to put a few packets of same season sowing into a large stainless steel bowl. Then add some black compost. Roll it all into a ball then throw them out there.
I'm not an orderly gardener like you! lol. I like a jungle where the kids can have an adventure carefully moving leaves and stems to find things growing. It's fun.

Love EM

[Matchy69]

Hi em I use to seed save and sollect my own seeds all the time.Not so much these days.I use to collect seeds out of fruit and grow them.I use to plant some,sell some and give some away.Some of the fruit i use to grow by seed were Jackfruit,Loquat,Avocada,Black Sapote,Paw paw,Icecream Bean and a heap of others i cant think of at the moment.

I use to grow mullberries by cuttings and have one here and it get big black mulberries on it.

Happy gardening,

Mark.

[ecomama]

Dear Mark

What an awesome fruit salad you could have made out of those tasty fruits you've grown!

Your mulberry must be planted in a very good position to get big fat black mulberries. Could you describe where it is for us please?
Like is it planted near a fence or wall? Mine is in a VERY hot position against a metal fence - it fruits very early but the fruit is quite tiny. But it's got wood rot so is on it's way out. Those who shall not be named lol hacked at it badly and have damaged it beyond repair.
What are the natural water conditions for it or do you water it? Mine gets run off from a water tank above it, but I never water it between times so my bad.
What's the soil like? The neighbours had their washing machine water run off to this spot and I was horrified! SO MANY WEEDS there doing their best. I don't trust that they've changed their ways when I'm not home.

You don't have to answer all my questions but I'm curious to know how you get such great fruit :-))

EM

[ecomama]

Hi guys!

How are your gardens changing in this season?

Are you doing or planning anything in your garden atm?

Our nectarine is beginning to BUD UP very early but only on the half that lost all it's leaves.

The peach tree is budding too.

My orange tree is patchy with it's fruit but I had huge lilly pilly branches crushing on it. I cut them down. The oranges that are growing are the size of grapefruit! And so juicy, I'm eating 1 orange for dessert after dinner every night. Love this tree. If I take more of the lilly pilly branches off then I think it'll go gang busters next year.

My Tahitian lime looks a million bucks since all the lantana has been take away from it. It can see the sun now! lol. We only got 1 juicy lime from it this week - no more left.
But I'm thinking of adding something to it to help it rejuvenate - any ideas?
I might try nitrogen rich weed tea in August.

I'm beginning to level up the lower sides of the food trees to try to retain some of the goodness in the soil. I'm using branches then filling around the trees with Autumn leaves and a little bit of compost.

The lantana is only in one corner of my garden now PHEW, it covered almost 600sq metres so a massive job. The cut off lantana piles have composted down brilliantly.

Now the lantana is gone from the top of the garden our Cape Gooseberry is spreading everywhere! It gets out of control but I love the tomato like berries in their little paper lantern cases. One grandson love popping them open and eating them on the spot lol.

Happy gardening!
EM

[Matchy69]

Hi Em Cape Gooseberries make the best jam.One of my favourites.

Im planning on shifting a couple of my fruit trees but not sure where to put them yet.I need to work out what i am going to plant in the rest of my new garden.

I harvested some cauliflowers they were delicious.Everything growing well in the vegie garden.

Its been a good citrus season.I have had plenty of fruit and nice to eat.I have been having a tangelo and mandarin every morning and making a honey/lemon drink every morning.I need to get to and make some marmalade.

Happy Gardening,

Mark.

[ecomama]

Cape Gooseberry JAM? Wow a concept I haven't thought of lol. It's fruitless atm so when they come in, I'll ask you for a recipe lol. We just eat them in place of tomatoes.

Remember how you said you had propagated a Mulberry tree? Did you do this in the same way as you described previously? I'm not propagating from our mulberry. I need to find a robust one in the community somewhere and snip that one lol. I propagate more than I need in case most die, they usually don't lol but then I can give the rest away.

Apparently my MAJOR Lilly Pilly only has about 3y left sadly. When it goes, I want to plant a mulberry there but into the garden more, not near the LHS fence. I think a Mulberry will fare better there where it can have "cold feet" in Summer at least. Then when it's Autumn the leaves will fall higher up in the garden and naturally mulch the lower areas, where all the other fruit trees are.

EM

[Matchy69]

Hi Em just find a mulberry tree that bears good fruit and take some cuttings.You can take them reasonable thick an inch thick or thinner.Just the same method.I usually do cuttings this time of year for them.