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]

Hey Paws, that's really disappointing it took so long to deliver your plants.
I hope Mark and J*s advice helps ALOT!

Roses don't go well in my garden ooops.

GOOD LUCK! Let us know how you go please. xxxx

Update: I explored my back garden today and really enjoyed it. I didn't get into EVERY corner... I hope to in the next few days while I'm still on leave.

I DID notice the lantana has not come back in most places.
YAY! There's still some to remove, plus other less troublesome weeds but we're "getting there". The worst ones, besides the lantana, are the tobacco tree seedlings. Also some Mickey Mouse trees which are difficult to remove. Ferns growing where I've never seen them before will need mowing lol.

I'm leaving the dandelions and other weeds that promote grass growth over time.

Seems I have MORE Native Violets than grass lol. Happy Days!

I have tons of "accidental" food plants growing in different places that I never planted them in.
Pretty cool actually.
Lots of tomatoes!
A few passionfruit vines (babies from my old one).
Lots of Cape Gooseberries.
My oranges are ripening.
I picked lots of Tahitian Limes.
PLENTY of lemons! yay.
The macadamia nuts look ready to pick.
I even found a remote strawberry patch - go figure!

I've decided to ask my brother for my lawn mower back.
I'd rather mow the weeds over and over and get that nitrogen back into the soil.

The weeds I cut back and piled up, then covered in sheets of metal or old carpet have composted down SO WELL. I can use this soil to level some places that eroded from all this rain. I'll use some thick branches to "hold" the soil.

The front garden looks pretty great atm, I'm always out there feeding the chickens lol.

Happy gardening everyone!

Love EM

[Matchy69]

Hi Em it's amazing how much life rain brings to your garden and how new plants suddenly appear.Mother nature is amazing.
One of my mandarins trees I am picking from and I noticed a bush lemon was yellow the other day.I will be busy in the kitchen in the next few weeks making lemon butter,lemonade and marmalade.
My grapes will need a good pruning it has grown everywhere now even over my gate and I think it would be in my bedroom if I didn't have fly screen.
Take care,
Mark

[Guest_1055]

Hi all,

I have this massive Kent pumpkin vine growing out back. Sprouted from the compost

Never grown one before. It has 15 or so pumpkins on it. Baby ones and bigger ones.

I am not doing anything to it just allowing it to spread where ever. Should I be doing anything to it? And how will I know when the pumpkins are ripe to pick?

[ecomama]

Lolol Mark I LOVE how you describe your grape vine! They want to be with daddy too!! hahaha...

I pruned my grape vine WAY back the other day. They go mental don't they?

Awww Wish I was in your kitchen helping you make ALL those wonderful lemony things, sounds DELICIOUS!
My bush lemon I let sprout from the Kaffir Lime graft is going GREAT!

I'm so grateful for my gardener... he knows I'm dealing with having to repair my roof and ceilings at a huge cost, so he OFFERED to come work for free.
I actually cried when I read his texts.
So many family live nearby and all of them now NC.

I'm looking at "family" differently now. Certainly the "need" for them! No point in needing them if they ain't doing nuttin'! (I KNOW they'll call when THEY want something tho grrr).

Anyhow I'm replacing "family" with "tribe" now. There's just no point in HOPING with family anymore. My tribe = the nice ppl who make a difference to my life just by BEING themselves; kind, compassionate, helpful!

So Uncle Mark, how's it going?? lol!

My gardener is coming tomorrow morning and I plan to be working with him. YAY!!! I'm so excited I can hardly wait.

Hey Shelll!!
WOW accidental PUMPKINS! Excellent.

Mark may have some great advice to add or even negate mine lol - I'd go with Mark's advice ANY day of the week lol.

YES! absolutely let it spread.

When I had Pumpkin vines crowding out my back yard... I noticed some of the leaves were going mildewy, so I cut them off. Rain can do this. Watering from ABOVE the vine does this too.
Let any hose watering run UNDERNEATH the vines. Don't water much!

You may need some DRY STRAW, I've also used pantyhose as a "pumpkin sling". My farmer friend uses bricks ugh... to lift UP each pumpkin OFF the ground so they don't rot.

When you go to seek and find pumpkins, tread very carefully!
I've stepped on and squashed SO MANY ugh. (I harvested 45 that year so no biggie losing a few lol). SO armed with secateurs, lift up a leaf, check the ground to step on, then step. Repeat.

We can wait until the entire vine dies back exposing the pumpkins.
Or when they get to about as big as their parent, you can harvest one at a time to eat.
We're supposed to cut off as much of the vine as physically possible WITH the pumpkin.

STORING pumpkins we grow is an art form lol. Please come back when your pumpkins are at this stage.

Aren't you CLEVER Shelll! Just happened by magic.

Love EMxxxx

[Matchy69]

Shellll their the best pumpkins that come up unexpectedly.I wouldn't do to much just leave it be and be careful with over watering it probably won't need any.Just pick them when they colour up and the stem starts to dry out.You can pick them younger.Just remember coming onto the colder months the frost will finish them off.
Happy gardening,
Mark.
p.s you can make pumpkin jam out of them and it's delicious

[Guest_1055]

Ah thanks heaps Em and Mark. Appreciate your help

[ecomama]

You're very welcome Shelll. Let us know how you get on please!

Hey everyone

Had a huge day in the garden yesterday.

My gardener had offered to garden for free for a few hours and I said yes!
Tbh I actually cried at his kind offer... then texted yes please. He knows I've got to pay out big for roof & ceiling repairs.

I feel like getting out there again for a while but need to take the kids Winter clothes shopping today, so I'll hold back.

My back garden is huge for an urban block here. Big enough for a cabin and it's land and STILL lots of room left.
It's too big for me tbh with working FT and kids.

Anyhoo we got STUCK IN!
I dug out lots of dead lantana stumps, weeded stacks (still some lantana, the dreaded tobacco trees and other weeds), made new compost heaps. I put the tobacco plants in a garbage bag, we CANNOT compost those in any way, not even weed tea.

I decided to move all unsightly things like that over to be hidden from the view from my balcony.
Gardener took out lantana, blackberry and other weeds, from around the pool.

We decided to leave all the new ferns and Cape Gooseberries bec they're easy to take out later and crowd out the other weeds from growing.

I made us lunch and we ate together, it was nice! He said I WIN FIRST PRIZE in growing the Best Weeds lol.. I'll take that!

We took ALL the structures away from the fence and hid them, dead worm farms in baths and he emptied the frog pond before I told him NO! But oh well, hope they found the row boat.
That fence line needs to be cleared for the future cabin's walkway (I'm still dreaming!).

When he left I kept working; removed all twisting vines from fruit trees. Detangled jasmine, it seems contained now. NO I didn't plant Jasmine! But if I take it ALL out, our fence will fall down lol. Those neighbours are almost 100yo and I'm NOT making them pay for a new fence, that would be cruel.

I also took apart my LAST Mandala garden from the beautiful 7 circle Mandala garden we used to have.
Wow that was powerfully emotive, all the memories came back with each brick. I took the whole fence down. It's completely cleared now. It's gone.

Around 200 bricks are in a pile. Not sure where to store them yet.

Looks REALLY neat there now.

I collected macadamia nuts, lemons, a few cherry tomatoes. It was fun.

I prob need to make a deal with myself to visit the back garden for 20 mins a day, just to tidy up stuff. IDK.

Happy gardening everyone!

Love EM

[Guest_1584]

getting really sick of these tasteless tomatoes.

Oh well , they're all going off anyway so my saga will be over soon haha

rx

[Guest_1055]

Shall do EM

Shell xx

[ecomama]

Darned shame about the tasteless tomatoes rx, pretty sad!

You could make a zucchini and tomato soup?
Think I put the recipe on the BB Cafe last week or thereabouts.
Maybe it's too fussy atm.

If you know anyone with caged hens, they'd probably gobble them up in no time lol.

Better luck next time hey?

Hey Shelll

Can't wait to hear about your pumpkin adventures!

Love EM