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

[Airies]

Ecomama I love reading your posts , most descriptive. Spring is just around the corner. My citruses have woken up, new growth on my my smallest blood orange. Hopefully in 3 years will be awash with fruit. I spent 2 big days in the garden., parting up Dutch irises getting 70 plants from a bunch, then digging and planting to fill some spaces where yakkas had been. Still found some roots from a yakka. Why they insist on planting these near houses or along fencelines has me beat.

With regsrds with your weed tea have you used it on the past on your citruses. I'm a great fan of worm castings. Occasionally make a worm tea with castings soaked in water, molasses and aerated with an aqaurium pump. Personally I think castings in a watering can does the same thing.Love reading posts from fellow BB Gardeners here. My mum was an avid gardener and I now realise it was here escape. I like to think it is mine also and she's looking down at me. I try and spend an hour a day in the garden. Mines small but there's always something to do. I was after some galvanised watering cans at a garage sale , missed out but scored an old hickory handled hay fork , and old bulldog spade with a beautiful wooden handle. The spade I use and the stories it could tell. Happy gardening 🙂

[ecomama]

Hi Airies!

Yes you can smell or sneeze Spring in the air lol.

I just came in all sweaty from doing some work in my garden. Gosh I love it. I'm sure our ancestors are looking down on us proudly. 😍😍😍

WOW what scores from the garage sale! I haven't been to one for ages lol.... I'm still over flowing with stuff I've found on the side of the road lol. The Grecian pots with withered succulents in them are looking grand and the plants are LOVING life again now. Saved in the nick of time.

Weed tea - YUM. lol. Crikeys I have 11L buckets all over my gardens back and front full of the stuff.
WARNING - it smells like COW MANURE and stinks to high heaven when disturbed or when you go to use it. If it spills onto your shoes or anything.... ummm... yeah, stinks.

It's great for anything that needs nitrogen! So anything GREEN. My grass LOVES the stuff!
Recommendations from permies is to use around a cup full in a 6L watering can so it goes a long way.
And only every 3 weeks or so.

Something about being like a "reverse scurvy" thing.... ie large doses of Vit C then none creates a scurvy affect. Same with this but with nitrogen. Not too much all the time.

I'm STILL filling my green bin with sticks and did so again this afternoon.

The big round paved / brick fire pit didn't happen due to it raining all that weekend.
I want to build it soon for 3 birthday parties in 3 weekends soon lol. Happens when you have multiple children at the same time!

The fire pit will be wonderful to sit around but also GREAT to burn lots of this dead timber.

I've used lots to create steps, garden borders, tree borders, and along areas where the chickens dig under path - like a Hugelkultur thing. I'm using thinner sticks behind the huge logs on steps with lots of huge cardboard (from furniture packaging bought recently) and this has prevented the chickens scratching it away. Also stopped erosion alot.

But for the areas that I really need to build up higher, I decided today to build Hugelkulturs for real. As they decompose, they'll create integrity to stop erosion. Then I can work backwards with the terraces.

So jealous of your Dutch Irises lolololol. Your blood oranges sound awesome. My last oranges are hanging from the tree - huge and need picking asap. SO JUICY and yummy I wish I had them all year round lol.

Happy gardening!

EM

[Tay100]

Hi Matchy69

Right, I see- so good that you did that, I'm sure she would appreciate that!

Hi Ecomama,

That's so helpful, I'll take note. Love reading through everyone's responses too!

[ecomama]

Hi Tay100

Are you up to any gardening lately?

I'm still just cleaning up!

I have live fertilisers being chickens and wild brush turkeys visiting every day so the soil is black in all the areas I feed them in.

Pretty destructive though.

Still banking up my wannabe blueberry patch. I've used upturned pots to protect the soil all along it. I'm going to have to cage it somehow before I plant them.

Apparently we have strange things going on with seeds sent from overseas from random addresses TO random addresses. It's happening her and in the U.S. from foreign countries.
It's caused a biosecurity alert not to open them but I guess I'd find a way to report them and seal them up till I'm advised what to do.

The last thing we need is massive crop failure on top of all else.

It's BEAUTIFUL coming home to my flowering bromeliads.

I wonder how Matchy is going....

EM

[ecomama]

Hi gardening peeps

We planned to make a fire pit yesterday lol and couldn't get to all the bricks for the tree loppings!

So we burnt off for 6 hours. I discovered a corner retaining wall I never knew was there at the back corner. I also saw why the aged fence was being pushed over. ex had dumped so much garbage down there, just another whatevs really, so I was digging up all sorts of stuff out of the soil.

I found (can't believe I'm saying this lol) 7 metal poles buried - yes BURIED in the ground.
I had to sort piles of rubbish, a pile of treated timber, logs for fireplaces and burn what we could, being lantana stalks and other small dried branches for 6 hours. Ugh.

We made a 6 metre gap from the back fence up YAY!

I'm going to take the metal poles to the recyclers lol. Over time ofcourse. Only on in my car per trip I think - they're so heavy. It's dangerous putting them on my roof racks so I might ask the recyclers if they pick up. IDK.... not a trustworthy bunch that mob. I've had their attempts of ripping me off before.

My bush lemon has LOTS of lemons yay... our Tahitian Lime tree has so many flowers so I'm excited for a huge crop there. The peach tree looks like it died, not sure why. Nectarine is huge and budding.

I noticed my huge lilly pilly tilting which is not a good sign... the darling thing is on it's way out, I just didn't want to cut more off it. Looks like I'll have to, just to stop it falling on my orange tree.

We took out more tobacco trees ugh and lots more lantana. Sadly we have to bag up the tobacco because it spread with a splinter. The lantana burns well if totally dried out.

I reckon it would cost me $30k to get all the trees lopped / pruned so I'm doing it myself.

Today my main job is to try to use a tall ladder to get up to my front gutter and clean out the PLANTS growing in it! UGH! That gutter feeds into my front water tank, so mama is NOT impressed lol!

I cleaned off the chook's shed roof and water tank of leaves and branches but cut my hand pretty badly. I'm using the chook's shed as a gardening shed now.

Still loving the logs as borders and have about 95% of the garden to border lol.

Slowly we're making a dent.

EM

I need a reticulating saw.

[Airies]

Went to the nursery. Had to wait for ages to get a park. Cars cued up, people cued up , I've never seen it so so busy. Seems like every man and his dog decided to go today. Anyway Fter navigating the crowd I managed to get 6 inch pots for my Bromiliads but I has to order a dwarf imperial mandarin for my wine barrel. Heaps of normal ones but after a dwarf. Farted around trying to set up a drip system for my veggie patch. Busy times ahead in the garden , cheers

[ecomama]

Oh well done you!

Yay a dwarf mandarin! Sounds awesome and the flowers smell SO beautiful before the fruit comes.

Remember my "mistake" about not hard pruning my Tahitian lime ages ago?
Well all the awful damage ex did to the garden DID to a hard pruning after all LOL!!!

There are over 50 flowers on the cute little thing. I'm rapt.

I love bromeliads, what are the pots made out of that you bought?

Yah I'm going to have to order Blueberry plants, but I'm hoping to get them from Green Harvest.
I'm still building up the blueberry patch but I have to construct the wire frame to go around them to stop the chickens and Brush Turkeys disseminating them all to bits.

And I don't think it's a reticulating saw I need to buy lol! It's a reciprocating saw.

I'm deciding what size mulcher to buy also.... and it needs to be electric because I can't stand petrol powered things - too smelly.

EM

[blondguy]

Hey EM

just been researching Gracilis Bamboo (non invasive) for a 10 meter wide screen from the neighbors as I have a steep block of land and my backyard is higher than their roof line

Its roughly around $60-00 per 200mm pot and 1m high....ugh! Any ideas?

Hugs always..Paul

[ecomama]

UGH all right!

Bamboo (non invasive lol) would look brilliant but what a cost!!!
It's not even gold lined bamboo.

I'm not sure about your climate so please don't let me lead you up the garden path so to speak lol... but I LOVE Photinia as screening plants. They certainly keep my neighbours from peeeeering lol.

You can Google them. Photinia, not my neighbours.

I like them because:
* they are REALLY fast growing
* you can make a hedge as tall as you want
* they are so pretty
* they LOVE to be pruned and just keep looking great
* you can propagate them SO EASILY it's a joke
* I bought mine from a roadside stall (2 for $5) and they're still going great
* they cop our hot dry climate (and neglect) SO WELL
* they're evergreen so always screening.

You could buy one healthy plant and propagate it 20 times, then you have the lot covered.

ANYONE ELSE got suggestions for blondguy Paul???

Hugs back!
EM

[blondguy]

Hey EM

great to have another green thumb on the forums!

I looked up Photinia and yes...an excellent idea....and have used it before in my other place...and it grows really w i d e! ....Yet its a lot cheaper than Gracilis Bamboo...

You mentioned lol after I mentioned 'non invasive' bamboo and thats cool 🙂

This is the info I have at the moment...from a horticulturist on the internet machine thingy

'GRACILIS is a Clumping non invasive Bamboo. This means that it grows in a tight clump and will not spread like the 'running bamboo' varieties which have given Bamboo a bad reputation'

It can be planted in a 450mm narrow border and isnt wide. Time allowing can you do a google search on Gracilis bamboo screening and have a look at the images?

I still may go with the Photinia yet the maintenance is 'up there'

muchas muchas gracias EM

Hugs..Paul