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]

MARK PLEASE COME BACK!

We MISS our Grandfather Willow, your ever friendly and patient manner and your AMAZING advice!!!

Please come back.

I was so stunned by the talk of Mark not being here any more that I actually triggered and went into avoidance over it all.

Sorry guys. It wasn't that I didn't care, it was that it caused me deep sadness 😞
I explained more on my thread.

Please come back Mark, you're truly irreplaceable. Hugs.

Love EMxxxx

[ecomama]

Hey everyone! I didn't know who to reply to first lol, I've missed lots of questions and follow ups! So I hope to answer better now.

I'm all warm and fuzzy reading everyone's enthusiasm for gardening here!

Paws: you are now an Honorary GREEN THUMB lol! The more you hang out with old hat gardeners, the more you realise that we all have dismal failures BUT these are not failures nay nay... these are learning opportunities.
The most magical thing about being a gardener is our RESILIENCE. Resilience is a great Mental HEALTH element to grow inside of us.
Each of us live in different climates, have spectacularly differing micro-climates in all our growing spaces.
So what works for someone may not work for everyone.
Steiner (father of Biodynamics) said we don't need charts etc, we need to connect with our earth and our plants and INTUIT. This intuition strengthens over time.

Katy: Sanseveria LOVE sunlight! In a pot they love it less as the sun will dry the potting mix out quickly. But they are a succulent (hot dry climes) so need SOME water - Alexa doesn't water hers unless the soil is bone dry lol.
If they're yellowing, could need new potting mix? I'll talk more about the 'Nitrogen topic' later lol!!!
Have you read the 'Celestine Prophecies'?
AMAZING read! I think Gardening paired with your chosen career field, this would be awesome info.
An experiment in this book had ppl PRAY or 'focus on with pure intent' one plant with no more elements than the others and it GREW the healthiest!
When I had 7y of Legals + Courts, I Prayed to my garden to stay alive, yep. Zero watering, nothing from me, yah - harsh. Lantana grew over the top up to 5m high. After it was all done, I "got the house", I thought NOTHING would've survived that long. As I cut the lantana back I was in tears seeing my babies were THERE!
The monsterios were monsters lol! All my fruit trees were under there! Now they see their mama every day 🙂

LillyPilly: Oyster mushroom growing takes a week for first harvest! Needs cool temps so almost counts us out.
Please watch Fantastic Fungi if you can, it will BLOW YOUR MIND!

Blues: still warmed by your story awww.

J*: do you know what shut my critics up about "beauty"?
Putting in fancy TRELLISES. How trivial!
I made one from wood pickets. Others are pretty decorative metal and fancy.
Now ppl see these first and say "Oh I LOVE that garden!" lol. Yep trivial.
It works hahaha. 'Sleight of hand' magic.

Love EMxxxx

[ecomama]

"A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit.”

A nice reminder about our care for the earth as well.

Fungus: if we have healthy fungus populations in our gardens, we'll have healthier gardens systems.
There's SO MUCH happening beneath the surface of the soil. So much microbial activity that root systems, including those of fungus, support healthy soils.
To find out that trees COMMUNICATE via fungus populations below ground is AMAZING to me!
So much of Fantastic Fungi was enlightening.

Nitrogen: lol, fear not dear Katy. As J*, said directing the nitrogen onto the soil around the tree is not going to harm anyone. In fact CITRUS needs lots of nitrogen for sweet, juicy fruit (amongst other things if we choose).
We've only used that form of Nitrogen, nothing else at all, on our citrus for over 20y and the fruits are beautiful.
I wouldn't use THIS form of nitrogen on potted Citrus, nup not me. Too confined, can't trust it.

Composting: I've had the most incredible gardeners work with me in my garden, mostly "hired" through our LETS system. One from the Botanical Gardens! 2 others from the CSIRO. Others from ground breaking initiatives contracted by the Govt to clean up poisoned rivers - using only natural solutions. I'm quite blessed lol.

All these ppl shared and confirmed a thought about COMPOSTING. (Contrary to my beloved Peter Cundall's practices but he put HEAVY work into growing food).
They all said never put manures, including mushroom compost, DIRECTLY on to our vege beds, to only put these in our composting systems.

You can do whatever you choose!

Their reasoning: if our aim is to IMPROVE the health of our soils over time (not deplete or destroy it), then we need a steady, slow INCREASE of nutrients.
Having a vast array of materials put IN TO our composts attracts a broader variety of life into it too.
Then it works to break down everything.

Putting nutrient laden anything directly on to soil, sharply INCREASES this element, but then we can observe a DEPLETION. The plants may LOOK good for a while, then may suffer, droop, even die. Soils can dry out quickly.
I liken this to us humans needing more energy, then drinking caffeine for a PICK up> sharp increase then a lag.
Better to eat nutritious food all the time and NOT need this pick up> the energy we put in is dispersed evenly over our days and nights.

Hopefully this makes sense?

Love EMxxxx

[pl515p1]

I put your bamboo in a glass jar filled with marbles and water, I think it is fading though, I'm sorry dad.

The neighbour has a nice garden, you would like it, looks likes your one from Central Coast.
I thought about giving her your Eco gift, I don't know.

[Jstar49]

Hi all,

Great idea about the trellises Em, I have lots of blank fences that I could do this with!

It's only my H who needs to see my garden tidy- he loves to mow, and have straight lines lol- SO different to me!

It's an interesting point about the compost Em- I've heard that also. At times when I don't have any compost ready I will put manure on, but I usually leave it for ages to break down into the soil.

Also love the whole pray /put good energy into plants, in the same way as the experiment with water crystals and music- Emoto was his name, I just googled it. Stunning confirmation of the need to speak kind thoughts and words to ourselves, as we are over 60% water.....

I got impatient this spring, bought manure in a bag (which I don't do usually) and spread all my other goodies- blood and bone, rock dust, IDK what else! The seeds are in and we'll see how they grow. I don't really have the space to grow food the way I want, by deep resting, and full crop rotation. My newest theory is to limit my plant varieties- but I rarely ever do that! I want to grow a little bit of everything!

P15- are you thinking about your dad with fathers day coming up? My dad was the gardener in our family. We don't talk about it much tho. He used to use lots of 'stuff' to get his tomatoes growing well, disease free, so we differ in our approaches. I'm not looking fwd to FD. Too fraught with landmines.

Hope everyone's keeping well, and enjoying their plants. Play them some nice music! Apparently they like classical.... 🙂

Cheers,

J*

[Katyonthehamsterwheel]

Went out and pulled lots of big fat snails off my pea plants last night! Surprised they’re still alive with how munched they are - poor things! I ate my first two snow peas which were quite underwhelming lol Not sure why they seemed so bland rather than zingy n fresh. Oh well

I read the Celestine Prophecy years ago. I may need another copy to refresh my mind EM. But pray I am! Those plants cost me a mint lol! I want them to live!

No classical music here I’m afraid though, J. Do plants like The Prodigy? Maybe sanseveria hate it! Lol

[ecomama]

Lolol, my plants LOVE rock music! And Hymns! hahaha maybe they just grow because they're rather confused.

As long as our energy is HAPPY, I'm sure they'll do better!

Has anyone read the Anastacia series?
THAT was incredible.
She would put the seeds in her mouth and swirl them around.
Then plant them.
Apparently research has shown that the seeds RESPOND to the nutrient deficiencies they detected in our saliva, like WOW.

Just love all those studies. Yes I read about the Japanese study about water. Also I think the same culture studying benefits of Sanseveria on our night stands for more peaceful sleep!

I think it all just says to me SLEEP IN YOUR GARDEN lol! My kids know that's coming next lol.

Papa Brush Turkey dragged lots of dead lantana branches to the edge of the pool fence, gosh he's well trained! hahaha, bit of Anastacia happening here.

So I was easily able to fill my green bin today. I estimate another 8 bins left just from the pulled down pool area.
I'll count and let you know lol.

Probably 20 garbage bags (well we use empty Chook Seed bags) of pool line to collect.
That's a darned nuisance but hey, getting there.

I am LOVING Exploring Alternatives on YouTube and a link from there to Rob Greenfield wow... amazing endeavours. Love it all.

We just need some constant soaking rain now... it's so dry here.

OMG almost forgot to tell you what I came in here to post.
So we've had a terrible issue with flies in our dining / kitchen area. AWFUL.

I watched them (whilst swatting them 1000x lol)... they were landing mostly on my HOYA plant, hanging above my toaster yuck.

I took it outside and hung it under our front eave.

It seems to have attracted flies, like why??

It may not be the ONLY attractant but since removing it, the flies seemed to be less interested in being there now..

Weird.

Love EMxxxx

[Gambit87]

Hello everyone!

Spring is in the air!!!

love checking out the wildflower pics on facebook! keen to take a trip to kings park in the next few weeks to check out the flowers!

[ecomama]

Hey Gambit, Yes it is!

You can SMELL it can't you? lol.

So warm today and 18C at 7pm at night - nice.

Today was my first official day on Leave of 5 days leave.
I LAPPED IT UP in the garden, since it's pretty obvious I won't have much of chance for a long time.

I got 3 huge tubs of dried straw infused with chook poo, yum! LOL!
Spread throughout the place.

Found a very tired looking Geranium a "friend" gave me years ago during the Courts era, thinking gardening would distract me. I didn't have time for gardening or anything else but accepted the gift and didn't say that lol.

The Geranium was for an empty retro pot. Planted it in there but boy the soil was depleted, yet growing LOTS of grass sprigs. I collected all the crappy soil and grass. Cut the Geranium well back. Planted some cuttings around the pot too.
Watered well.
Hope it takes there. It's been sitting NEXT to this pot in position for about a year so I could see if it coped with the harsh dry spot. Seemed to.

I sprinkled the depleted soil and some chook manure dustings into a strip between bricks I've had to use to stop the chooks and turkeys scratching there.
Then carefully planted the tiny grass sprigs lol. Watered with a fine spray.
This spot is HIGH on my slope and erosion is an issue. Hopefully the thin strips of branches buried there will help hold the soil.

TODAY our Chook Palace arrived in not 3 boxes lol but 7.
So heavy.
One soon took it to the porch downstairs, unpacked it all and went back to his studies.

I have to text my Handyman tonight and give him the headsup it's all here.
Perhaps he can come throughout the week... if not I hope he works weekends!
He won't be able to construct this without help and maybe a LOT of help IDK.

After I take eldest daughter to hospital, leaving home at 6am in the morning, supervise another son's HSC Trials and organise the kids when I get home, I need to clear the area for the Chook Palace - again.
One or both Papa BTs have dragged all sorts through the area, long sticks etc.

I hope they weren't from my FUNGUS HEAP 😞 guess I'll find out tomorrow lol.

EMxxxx

[Lillylane]

Hi All,

I’m recovering from some illness, so feeling a bit sorry for myself - especially not being able to get out and weed and mulch.

I learnt that trees can communicate with each other from watching the kids show, The Magic School Bus 🙂

Kids shows are so different now to what I remember as a kid.

Definitely feels like Spring is just about here.

LL x