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

[Matchy69]

Hi Gambit yes a lot plants are susceptible to root rot like azaleas,junipers,roses rhododendrons,herbs but most things can get it.It is a soil fungus.My Osteospermum got it and I will have to pull the plant out and see if I can cut the roots off effected and dip it in fungicide and replant and hope for the best.Remove the soil it was in and replace it.

Happy gardening ,

Mark.

[ecomama]

Hey Boudica

Parents hoarding is definitely a thang to deal with!

Actually my mum's hoarding grew worse over time.
The only thing we had too much of (really) when we were young was PLANTS! hahaha, I most certainly carried THAT family trait on!
She was a social butterfly to the max. Always having family and social gatherings, revolving door!
Strangely enough she also left me at home with strict rules for days on end by myself when I was a child.

Yes I'm an extremely strong personality lol. Just the way I am now. A no bs policy with me! hahaha.

I fight my own hoarding tendencies.
I've been a "Collector" of lots of things over my life, not so much now except for some needlework stuff.

Blue's Clues has a Minimalism Thread we can talk on more about this.

It really is a problem that becomes a family issue.
There always seem to be root causes. I know what they are for my mother.

I know why I have hoarding tendencies.

Understanding these may help US but I'm not sure how to help others with it unless they want to help themselves.

Love EM

[Jstar49]

Hi all,

It's so interesting getting glimpses of other people's childhoods.

Boudica my mum wasn't real keen on visitors either. We lived out of town, and it always seemed like such a hassle if I wanted to ask a friend over. She's not really a hoarder tho, altho she still had every kids toy we ever owned, when grandkids came along. I have trouble throwing out anything useful!

We certainly do pick up traits from our family.

Thank goodness we pick up some positive stuff as well! My dad was always outside, in the tomato patch, or with the cows. And mum would make heaps of bottled stuff. Everything you can make with tomatoes, like jam, relish and sauce.

My garden is coming along. It looked so pretty today. The cornflowers are beginning to bloom, tiny purple and white allysum scattered in clumps down one side, and a mauve cosmos has sprung up with one last hurrah.

The sugarloaf cabbage are thriving magnificently! Em I'm sure the bunting of white 'butterflies' has kept the moths away! I'm keeping the bottle of garlic spray handy too- tho I don't want my cabbage to taste like garlic....

Cheers all,

J*

[Matchy69]

Jstar I think I will be picking cabbages in another month with all the rain we have had they have really taken off.

Citrus trees are loaded and been picking mandarins and they taste really nice.

Happy gardening,

Mark.

[ecomama]

Hey J* and Mark and everyone

Great news about the cabbage patches lol. Pretty exciting!

Your garden sounds so pretty J*, I had lovely visions of all those flowers. Nice.

I got a bit excited too and cut down some Lilly Pilly branches that were leaning too close over my orange tree.

Our HUGE "Faraway Tree" is dropping it's leaves so I'm raking them before and after work whilst I guard the new chickens feeding. These leaves compost down so quickly, I'm putting them all into areas I need to raise the soil.
I can also pinch out some weed seedlings around that area too.

Such a shame the heavy rains have saturated all the cuttings I was enjoying burning in our chiminea, darn it.
That was FUN!

I LOVE multi tasking lol.

This afternoon I locked the chickens feeding in their coop, which frees me up to go further away and do other work.
I took the empty green bin way down the bottom of the garden and put stacks of waste in. Only room enough to poke a few sticks in here and there now.

I need to find sheltered areas to store some sticks to dry out, just to burn off when it's wet.

It was an advantage the soil was so wet as I could more easily pull out lantana seedlings down there.

We have less oranges this year but those we have are massive, growing almost the size of grapefruit. I need to move more weed tea buckets to above this tree, for some reason I think this will help sweeten the oranges.
The few oranges I've eaten so far (only JUST ripe) have not been as sweet as usual.
I'll test my theory and let you know lol.

Tomorrow morning my garden jobs include collecting as many lemons as I possibly can.
Composting the rotting ones and covering them up to prevent fruit fly infestations.
I'll use lemon juice over our fruit salad tomorrow and make lemonade, YUM.

I also have to collect as many macadamia nuts as I can.

There's LOTS of cleaning up to do after the rains and my darling new chickens leaving "evidence" wherever they've been lol.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

Love EMxxxx

[Lillylane]

Hi all,

I haven’t been in the garden much lately so nothing much to report. But I miss being here with you all and enjoy reading about what you’re up to in your green space.

Had some rain and storms here in the last week so that’s kept things green without any effort on my part.

Hope to take a stroll through a nursery this weekend. I found one that has a big water fountain and that sound of water instantly makes me feel relaxed. Maybe because it blocks out the sound of people... ha! Very anti-social of me 🙂

Wishing you all some relaxing time this weekend.

[Matchy69]

Hi all I to haven't done much in the garden and another heap of rain during the week.I just been picking mandarins and my Tangelos are starting to ripen up.Frost here this morning so I have a look to see what has frost damage.

Happy gardening

Mark.

[Boudica]

Hello folks,

It has been a little rainy here this week in dry old Adelaide too, which is great, my sandy soil doesn't hold moisture for long.

I have not been able to do much in the garden but I have been watching the dainty swallowtail caterpillar on my lemon tree gradually change to it's camouflaged chrysalis over the last few days. I am excited as it is the first time I have had these in my garden here. I want to grow more things for butterflies. I get lots of grapevine butterflies and some tiny orange and brown ones that I don't know the name of.

Mark, I don't think I have ever had a tangelo. Do they taste very different from a mandarin?

Lillylane, I love to wander through garden centres too, I find it very relaxing. I have not done this for a while, I think I will give myself a break today and do this too! I have a lovely nursery near me that has lots of relaxing water features around, but the biggest attraction is the animals. They have two talking parrots, a small flock of silkies, and a cute brown alpaca named Audrey. The birds are all free to move about. I love it there, thanks for the idea!

All the best xx

[Matchy69]

Hi Boudica the Tangelo is a citrus hybrid with very juicy fruit.They have an unique flavour different to mandarin with a bit of acidic flavour.Good for juicing and makes great marmalade.

[PamelaR]

Thanks for starting this post. I'm new to gardening, have always composted and did a little veggie gardening years ago, but took it up more rigorously when I retired 3 years ago. Almost spat the dummy last year when everything died after going away on a holiday. But I got stuck into the garden about 6 weeks ago, cleared all the beds, refreshed them all with new potting mix, manure, blood and bone, compost etc. I'm now eating loads of lettuce, kale, pak choy, loads of herbs, can't wait for the radish, beetroot, leek, carrots to grow even more. This year was the first since I've taken it up seriously that tomatoes haven't sprung up in the compost. Had to buy a couple of punnets of seedlings. These will take awhile to grow. Most years I give away loads of tomatoes to the neighbours. Dug up this enormous sweet potato yesterday (could almost win a veggie growing prize).

During my childhood I learnt to put all garden veggie scraps back into the yard. That was a task I had most evenings. So composting for me came naturally. Because I worked for 50 odd years - serious gardening took a back step. But now I'm enjoying it tremendously, though I hate having to wear masks for the nose and eyes. Makes it very uncomfortable - however, it does help in not ending up with irritated eyes and nose.

My childhood overall, was very unpleasant (due to a dysfunctional family life). However, since catching up with friends from high school - I'm starting to realise there was some normality there for me.

PamelaR