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Who else likes gardening?

ecomama
Valued Contributor
Valued Contributor

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

977 Replies 977

Jstar49
Community Member

Hi all,

It's been raining a bit again today, but yesterday I finally planted out some shallot seedlings and protected my lettuces from the birds. Too late for most of them, but in time for the next batch of seedlings.

Today we bought some lovely indoor plants. That will be H's job looking after them, because they're in pots and if I look after them they are sure to die 😞

The chickens are loving a bit of sun- poor things, their yard is a mud patch.

I'm recovering from a big headache which knocked me flat for a few days, until my beautiful fiendishly wicked thai friend gave me a gentle (for her) massage- new woman.

Oh EM! I can see why you call him demon! Imagine using that creativity for evil! To block your gutters, and using such a useful material.... Speechless....:(

So glad you're getting this rain too Em. I love the sound of rain on the tin roof.

Blondguy I was reading the responses to your queries with interest. I too had worms in my tomatoes one year- figured it was fuit fly, as very similar. It's very sad. Another reason why we have chooks, as it's sposed to help, only it didn't- had to chuck out all the peaches as they were all infested. More measures needed....

Gardening definitely keeps you humble- just when you think you've got it sorted, there's some new challenge to overcome. Maybe this is part of the secret to gardeners long and happy lives lol!

J*

Matchy69
Blue Voices Member
Blue Voices Member
Hi Jstar I hope you are feeling better from your headache.I get bad ones to.
The only problems I have with seedlings is snails and mice.I was hoping to get some decent rain to get rid of the mice.
The fruit fly are a pain.I use to bag my fruit when they were young to stop fruit fly from stinging them.It is such a huge job doing it that way and I haven't got the energy to do it anymore.Any infected fruit should be destroyed.Easy way is to place it in a plastic infected fruit in plastic bag in the sun or feeding them to your chickens if you have some.
Their is a big storm brewing here at the moment with lots of thunder,don't know if we will get any rain out of it.Yes the sound of rain on the tin roof is one of my favourite sounds.
Happy gardening,
Mark.

Matchy69
Blue Voices Member
Blue Voices Member
Just and update on the storm here.It poured down for 40 minutes doing my garden wonders Totally different garden with all the rain we have had Nothing beats rainwater for the garden.
I was getting a bit nervous with power going on and off but it's on now and hopefully stays on.

ecomama
Valued Contributor
Valued Contributor

Hey J*

I'm glad you bought some indoor plants!
And I'm glad you're assigning H to look after them! hahaha

I heard about some research recently about having Sansevieria (or mother-in-law's tongue) being very good for our health when placed on our bedside table. Can't remember why but there it is lol!

I'll pot up some from my garden after we change rooms around and possibly put a pot of it on prodigal son's new bedroom's bedside table. He comes home every few weeks or so. Most of his stuff is at the other home down South.

I've had to move some indoor plants around due to the heat / sun and air con being on almost 24/7 atm. They were reacting in all different ways which proves that POSITION is pretty important.

Yeah demon... the potting mix in the gutters is a grain of sand of what he did on a beach of abuse and destruction.
Victim's Services put in CCTV and he ain't been back since lol!
Cunning and cowardly.

Glad you got some seedlings planted! yay!

EMxxxx

ecomama
Valued Contributor
Valued Contributor

Hay Mark

Glad to hear your elec is back on, hope it stays constant now!

And the RAIN... wow.... we're really getting it.
We've had misty, rainy weather for about 5 days now. It's quite magical from my POV lol.

Just one downpour I'm aware of but I'll take it lol.

I checked my drains and they're pretty good!
I did a thorough job of them a while back so I'm glad I did.

Take care!
EMxxxx

Matchy69
Blue Voices Member
Blue Voices Member
Hi Em I am glad you got some rain to.Your garden must be looking amazing.Have you got on top of the lantanna?
Mark.

ecomama
Valued Contributor
Valued Contributor

Hey Mark

My garden is loving the neglect!

My front garden is looking okay - Turkeys are making minced meat of anything their claws can grab hold of, cheeky things.
The trees out there are HUGE now, so need some hard work again sighhhh lol....
ZERO lantana out the front. YAY!

Back garden ANOTHER story 🤔🤨😅
We tackled the lantana pretty darned well but it's rearing it's conniving self again lol.
I've gotta be happy with our work.... 600 sqm of lantana removal was DIFFICULT to do this year, so I'm proud of that.

Other weeds are HUGE, some were killed off with the searing HEAT.
Need whipper snippering!

SO my plan next year is to hire my gardener on a more regular basis.
I get regular leave from work so I'll ask him to work on each of my leaves (lol leaves / gardens).
Assist him then.
Then one session during my work, say every 6 weeks or so. He needs to work alone.

My Gardener isn't licensed to cut higher than 3m, so he can only do pruning etc.

I'll have to get more tree work done but am not that financial atm....

I really need to employ Monty Don's Principles to do it all sensibly ie establish a good routine in the garden (but my focus besides the kids and my career is my house and designing my cabin too!)...

Monty Don's Principles sic:

"Pruning in Summer tends to RESTRICT growth.

Pruning in Winter tends to PROMOTE growth.

So in Summer you prune the strongest growth HARD.

In Winter you prune the weakest growth hard."

Tree work is very expensive and I've done most of it myself for years, but they need more hard core lopping, so it's something I need to budget for.

I need to change my schedule of the most expensive bills coming in Jan / Feb so I can get loppers out in Summer each year. (THEN deal all year with the dead branches!!!)

We're changing around THREE bedrooms this Summer!
omg I didn't realise how hard this would be. Mainly bec we have to rip up the last bit of carpet in one of the big rooms, so where does ALL my bedroom furniture go? LOL the nice neat loungeroom! Yuck! This'll be AFTER Christmas!

Since prodigal son had the LARGEST bedroom and he moved out... I'm taking it. Then youngest D will have my old room and he can have the smallest room upstairs now since he's not here much.

So we're clearing unwanted stuff OUT of our rooms before moving. 1st time in over 10y that we're changing bedrooms around, so it's a LOT lol!!

Plus we stored ALL out things from downstairs UPSTAIRS during the demon era...

Dentist now lol..

EMxxxx

Gambit87
Community Member

Well friends,

I did something bad...

I bought 4 rose plants on the weekend... costing $150.

Not exactly want I wanted... but thats what happened and im running with it haha

I've never had roses before, so its going to be a bit of a learning curve, especially since they're going to be put into pots - but im keen to learn.

Even with small portable garden beds - gardening can still be so relaxing?

Matchy69
Blue Voices Member
Blue Voices Member
Hi Gambit I am just curious what varieties of roses did you buy? You can grow them in big pots as I have in the past.Keep the water up to them and slow release feetilizer.Prune or dead flowers of them and give them a hard pruning at the end of winter which will promote new growth and flowers .

Hey Mark!

I bought Floribunda roses (Iceberg x 2, shady lady and simplicity)

The lady said they were quite hardy and easy to manage. I was kinda wanting something a little smaller - but eh, I'm happy with them.