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

[Jstar49]

Hey garden gnomes!

Mark I didn't know that about rosellas! How interesting! I shall have to research more, and perhaps try some jam when I see it. I grew up loving my nans plum jam, but not much luck finding plum trees for this climate....Someone advertised a graft variety specifically designed for this climate- they could have sold their 15 young trees about 20 times over! And I missed out...I was a bit sad!

Boudica your gardening efforts sound awesome! I too love the sound of taking over the verge and the council land. I'm so glad you love natives too! It's such a delight when we see a new bird begin to visit our garden, or a different bee. I just love it! I have no room in my garden for anything thats not food, habitat or insect attracting flower. It's not for everyone, but I decided to be ruthless so I can grow everything I want to.

I have problems with slugs- close relatives of the snails. I toy with the idea of ducks sometimes- apparently they can eat slugs without damage.

I enjoy sharing the tasks with my H- It's so much nicer than him watching me work and telling me what I should do lol! He's very tidy too, so I have to keep an eye on things or else he tidies away my messy plants just before they flower- or fruit! He's so funny- I think his fave time is when I've weeded the beds clear and just about to plant. It's great to get him planting the foods he likes to eat tho. His radishes are coming up-we're not sure if any will get to full size before he eats them all! Now if only I can get my daughter into the garden....she's started a garden club at school, but doesn't do much at home....hmmm.....

Em, I've got to love your determination! It does sound like sooo much work! But if you keep the vision in your mind, you will succeed!!! Maybe a small bobcat could work wonders, in the future...?

Anyway, happy gardening everyone. May your plants prosper! (Except the lantana Em, may that shrivel and die!)

Cheers,

J*

[ecomama]

Lololol hey J* Yes, may the lantana wither and die lol.

A funny thing a Permie once said to me in relation to too many snails was.... "You don't have an over population of snails, you have an UNDER population of birds"...

I literally bring snails HOME to my garden lol!! I haven't had snails since forever... and leeches don't last long either, which is awesome.

Ducks are beautiful creatures to have, so gorgeous... they need to bathe in fresh water to be really happy and their poo makes a REAL mess, but you can bake with their eggs ... sweet things.

I DEFINITELY want a baby digger! NOW. lol. I need to get 5 or 6 dead pine trees out... mad ole tree loppers killed them last year grrr. Now the dead trees just standing there with no branches.
A few stumps too.... need to get another sharpening stone for my axe, just another job!

Hey Mark, those Rosellas to make jam from sound great! I didn't realise they were annuals either. Thankyou for sharing that info.

Re: our happy baby hens... I bought the CUTEST chook patterned plastic to cover the roosting box they don't use yet lol.
I spend hours with them each day before and after work, it's so peaceful being with them.

I get to see some tiny weeds & pluck them out, move timber to help level the land in prep for the terrace formation.

I bought 100 glue cartridges for my hot glue gun last night and LOTS of duct tape.... no successful ideas forthcoming on YouTube or anywhere about dealing with suckers.... the plant form lol.
SO I envisaged my own process and will video my work, the process and hopefully the success!

Just storing up the soil, mulch and hard landscape materials to cover them once I cut the suckers off, hot glue them and duct tape them lol... sounds so funny. Hope it works!

I need Prayers lol... loving being in my garden.

EMxxxx

[Guest_1584]

Just one small report , we have pumpkins.

Checked yesterday , got about a dozen of the long pumpkins , and same again of the round ones with spots. Damn shame gf isn't here l hardly eat the stuff. She has it for breakfast , makes smoothies , eats it raw , by the bucket load.

They're 100% organic too so l hope they taste better than our crap water tomatoes. They look great , hopefully that counts right.

rx

[Matchy69]

Hi randomx they might be Jap pumpkins you have if they are the same type round and long.Pumpmkins make a great jam and easy to make.You can also make pumpkin soup out of them.Great to see you have a crop.

Take care,

Mark.

[Matchy69]

Their are over 70 different pumpkin varieties grown world wide with about 6 grown in Australia .

[Boudica]

Hello garden folk,

Have not been on here, as I am not supposed to think about gardening when I have uni assignments pending - urgh. I use gardening as rewards for myself to motivate me - ie. when I have finished X assignment, I can buy Y plant for my garden, or am I allowed to spend Z amount of time pruning hedge!

Em, Yes, conditions are so different in different parts of the garden due to fences shade, exposure to the wind etc, so I do try moving things around if at first they are doing poorly. Peter Cundall was great, I miss him!

I too have noticed Mark seems to have amazing super powers that he does not acknowledge, he has quite a fan base on here though!

Re: Not to many snails, too few predators. This is how I like to think as well. What I need is blue tongued lizards actually, they would naturally be around here, but neighbour has yappy dog, that I think keeps them away. There are lots in my mother's yard and she never sees snails. My son made an electric snail deterrent device when one of my young trees kept getting eaten, and had not one leaf left. The device gave snails mild electric shock that would make them turn back. It worked well and tree is flourishing now!

Ducks are awesome company and great for snail control. When we had ducks (Khaki Campbells) we would collect containers of snails from other people's yards to give them for a treat. One day I will have enough land to have ducks and chickens again (sigh). They are messy though and you need to be ok with washing down poop and cleaning ponds or water troughs each day.

Re: Terraces.....amazing!! You are so energetic EM, it is inspiring. I used to be like that too, energy sucked out of me lately, but hopefully temporary. Terraces look beautiful and very practical, a lot of work moving earth though. I remember trekking in Nepal through areas with terraces for growing rice (in areas lower in mountains). Another thing I loved there was that they used canes of poinsettia trained into a kind criss-cross as fences - really beautiful in flower.

Re: suckers - hot glue and duct tape certainly is a novel approach, you are very creative! I am very interested to see if it is successful

Mmm pumpkin. My favourite thing to do with pumpkin is to salt and roast thin slices and serve with local goats curd on caraway rye toast, delicious!!

[Matchy69]

Hi Boudica talking about Peter Cundall

[Matchy69]

Oops false start their hit the wron g button.Talking about Peter Cundall my mother and I met him many years ago at a garden convention and he was the same as he is on tv in real life a very nice man and we could have spoken to him for hours.Such great knowledge and such enthusiasm.I have a photo of him with mum and I.

Blue tongues are great and I have a family living in my front garden which is good as my vegie garden is in the front.We need to be encouraging wildlife into our gardens that in return can control pest in the garden.

Take care,

Marks.

[Boudica]

Hello BB gardeners,

Mark, so nice to meet Peter Cundall, he seems like a great guy. That is such a great memory and memento to have with your mum. My mum and I share an interest in gardening too.

Just wondering if any of you gardeners have tips to help keep gardening accessible for disabled folk??? My mum loves gardening, but she is sick (untreatable) and I want her to be able to keep going with it as long as she can. Her main illness is neurological, so she has issues with balance and sensation. This means that using her hands and feed is becoming more challenging. Fiddly actions with fingers are out now, but I got her some secateurs that are meant to be easier for impaired folk and she is managing at the moment. She is struggling with taps and cannot use hose fittings at all, so I need to set up automatic irrigation of some sort. She has ataxia (a staggering gait) and balance problems at the moment and will eventually be unable to walk, so I have started trying to build up some of the garden beds to make them higher and widen paths for when she will have a wheelchair. Any suggestions on improvements for accessibility or gardening products available would be most welcome.

My mother already falls a lot in the garden, but she is very stubborn and unlikely to follow advice, so I am just trying to find ways to make it better. She has a very big wild yard and I am not really enjoying the prospect of tackling it, as she is a hoarder and fights any changes I suggest. She does not allow the removal of any green waste from the property, and will explode if I put a stick in the bin! When I clear paths, she fills them up with garden clutter! Although easiest for me to leave it alone, it is not safe, and a serious fall could be devastating for her at this point as she has osteoporosis and immunodeficiencies.

Thanks for reading 🙂

[ecomama]

Busy thread!

Hey rx, I put the simplest and most DELICIOUS Pumpkin soup recipe on the recipe thread, PLEASE try it once you get some awesome pumpkins.
It's a super easy recipe - seriously. 4 ingredients, pumpkin, oil, salt, water.
We may all need Counselling to move past that tomato experience of yours!

Hey Boudica lol thankyou for joining in, it's lovely.
Don't you just see EVERYTHING else when assignments need to get done?
It's a THANG lol!!
Yes indeed I also think terraces are beautiful. I was born in Asia and have visited a number of Asian countries, seeing rice growing in the paddy fields is pure beauty.
I'm AGES away from getting to the point of building them... but that's my VISION and I'm sticking to it lol!!
Atm I'm basically working on getting some "ORDER" to my garden omg, so much rubbish I'm pulling out of the ground, I had no idea what demon was doing. I have 2 old kiddies pools full of rubbish just from 3 day's collection grrr.

This afternoon I was able to burn off some dead sticks, cut off lots of dead banana leaves and burn those too. Our huge "Faraway Tree" is dropping leaves which I'm composting in a "Leaf Mould" once more.
The charcoal and ash will add different beneficial nutrients to my soil too.

Mark, Peter Cundall was magnificent. I spent many nights nursing my babies on a Saturday night watching Gardening Australia and he boosted my passion for gardening forever.
That's beautiful you got to meet him with your mum. Happy memories!

Love EM