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

[Guest9337]

A wise gardener knows that a seed must be planted to an optimal depth.

Thus a seed planted too deep will not sprout, instead dissolve into the dirt itself, becoming just more dirt.

Whilst a seed planted too shallow, perhaps on the surface, might blow away or get eaten by a bird or otherwise become non viable due to the elements.

Thus gardening reveals the concept of "optimal depth" to those keen enough to notice. And take that concept into their outside world, using language of optimal depth, using work of optimal capacity, driving a car optimally.

Optimality is our best paradigm for gardeners. Would you agree ecomama?

[ecomama]

hey DnG whatever works and keeps one gardening happily along I guess!

Today I used my garden to ground me after a call with my Aunty.
And to ground me with feelings of being trapped due to being quarantined.

I thought we only had 3 clumps of trimmed lantana left but NO. We removed around 8 the other day and there are so many more grrr.
I took another 5 out this morning. Still more left.
I worked really hard on removing the trails of root systems from the soil until sweat was dripping off my forehead by 8am and kept going till noon.

having a break then doing more.

I used the whipper snipper to trim grass on slopes.
Moved buckets of soil UP the garden to fill holes and dibbits in the uneven grass. Raking it over was fun. Stamping on it was even more fun lol.

I need to select 3 different places to plant the awesome corms of Arrowroot I bought thru Green Harvest.
It's a compost activator but the chickens also love to eat the leaves.

We've discovered so many old tyres in our garden.
Planning some rammed earth structures to create round seating near the intended fire pit area, where we removed the old circular pool from. Based on an Earth Ship style, the tyres can be used well there. After watching more YouTube clips on various green building techniques, we can use waste half bricks as fillers in the tyres, using less soil.

Then probably COB over the whole seating area, when restrictions lift more.

So happy my old chook shed is cleared out. Ready to put my non electrical garden tools all in there. Just need to patch the roof for leaks at some point.

Better get on.

Happy gardening everyone!

EMxxxx

[Clues_Of_Blue]

Hi all,

EM, I haven't been invoked before, that's new, haha. Sending more cuddles for your dear chickens. Also glad gardening is helping to ground you with everything at the moment. It's been a help for me too, recently.

LM and I did a big shop at Bunnings today, got a whole lot of stuff to do the irrigation for the veggie garden. That will go in after I've tilled the soil and pulled up all the soursobs (of which there are many, but at least they come up easy). Once that's set up we'll be ready to plant. We also got a whole lot of native plants (stuff like grevilleas and boronia). Some will go in the area that's got bark chips. Some will be replacing grass. Eventually there will be little to no grass, and stepping stones as paths through the yard. Birds and bees and butterflies in the yard, an no more bloody mowing.

EM, I was looking up plants with LM and he liked the look of one quite a lot... It was lantana! I suggested maybe we don't plant any of those.

Not sure if we'll get the natives planted before I'm back at work, not long left for that. We'll see.

Happy gardening, one and all.

Blue.

[Guest9337]

I took a bunch of pictures in the day for my website. I've got bee butts in a flowering pear tree. Rays of light passing through shiny steel clothes pegs (and a hidden bee amongst them!). I've got blurry images of some amazingly fast blackbirds, who are the vandels of our garden. I got 5 minutes video of two ducks waddling around me, only a few metres away.

So it's been quite fun living in this garden wife and I have made. I feel a sense of peace in at home, and comfortable business too, the buzz of springs productivity ahead us all.

Oh that reminds me, just what is on my planting list? sigh.

[Guest9337]

Well the "vandels" of the garden, the blackbirds and I had a chat yesterday and whilst they like me, they note that I have accused them of being vandels, and they do not like that phrase for they tell me the rainbow lorikeets are even more destructive and should thus be labelled that way preferentially. Whereas the blackbirds move fast and thus seem energetically destructive, but actually take less and leave more and do it quieter too. Thus I have apologised for my mislabeling and will now cast my eye at more colourful perpetrators.

Wife n I have put tomato seeds on the shopping list.

[ecomama]

Dear BB gardeners

It's lovely to read of everyone's escapades in their garden spaces.

PLEASE NO LANTANA Blues lol, you'll rue the day if you do. As much as I also love the flowers of Bougainvillea, my Nana kept hers well trimmed, I won't plant those either. Or Jasmine lol.
A passionfruit vine might look nice? But do as you please of course.

Yes I have been using my gardening as therapy space more than ever lately, altho I got really overwhelmed this morning, not knowing where to start.
I just got into more weeding against and UNDER the neighbour's fence. Worked up a sweat very fast and realised that was NOT the place for my mini garden beds.

So I chose a spot to move them to, below the Fungus Wood heap. Filled them with pizza boxes at the base and put some chook manure in. I'll "compost" in there for as x long.

Also have lots of pallets to build a better larger composting system. Not sure where to stake those in yet, maybe in a disused garden bed, IDK.

Looks like the new fence is not too far away! Need to bring everything I can away from the fence line. Cut some bananas down before it gets too hot and clear space for the fence builders there too. The cut bananas can go into my Fungus Wood Heap lol.

I became so overwhelmed with all the rubbish. Omg the stuff demon brought here sighhh.
I decided to use some flat lengths of Merbau cut offs as flooring for Mama's Cubby, so sorted those and need to bring them up for my jigsaw puzzle flooring lol,.

Also big chunks of very weathered timber might work to fill the long gap along and under a fence. I lined some up there. Need to plant the Papaya tree down there, moving it in it's pot will be a major challenge! A few "accidental" Mulberry tree seedlings have grown down there which will be awesome shade over time.

Need to remove a massive amount of soil that's washed in behind our bottom retaining wall and the neighbour's fence ugh! Such a narrow space and SO MUCH SOIL. I need it to level up more spots but I'd better get on before the weather really heats up.

What ALWAYS cheers me up is taking a walk with my leaf blower lol!
I'll don my straw hat and go for a walk with it now. I keep 2 batteries charged up because I can use all 3 batteries to leaf blow the whole property.
Might do some whipper snippering first 🙂

Happy gardening everyone!

Love EMxxxx

[Lillylane]

Hi All!

I’ve been thinking about bees and in particular native bees, and wondered if anyone here has had a go at keeping native bees in their garden?

Will see if I can read a book about it or something on the weekend.

Hoping to get weeding and mulching done before the hot weather kicks in. I can only do a small section at a time. But it’s progress 🙂

happy gardening,

LL

[ecomama]

Hey Lilly!

I can't believe you're still awake after such an early start today lol. Go you! hahaha.

I don't "keep" Native bees but they sure do LIVE in my garden. Don't know where their hives are. They LOVE my Mystery tree that no one can tell me what it is. Not even a tree IDing App.

Good on you for looking at how to create great habitats for our Native Bees. I reckon they'll save the world sooner or later.

I worked hard in my garden after work today until dark. Got the Green bin filled again lol. Burnt alot of dead branches etc off too. Moved buckets of soil UP the garden and it's looking SO NICE in the proposed Fire Pit area.
I decided to use thick lengths of hard wood from around the place in a gap under my higher neighbour's fence.
SO CLASSY! Looks like I got the wood on purpose lol! Might have to use short fat stakes to keep the planks from falling over but wow it looks good.

I was able to roll the old pool plastic up even MORE by taking out so much dead lantana.
I even found a baby snake lol and LOTS of leeches under there.

One son came down to see me after he finished work and said WOW so many times that even I was impressed lol.

The curve where the pool was lends itself SO nicely to envisaging a curved seating arrangement. Just hope there's somewhere I can get CLAY for free when we're ready to COB our seating. The back of the seating will look like it's emerged from the hillside lol and I just LOVE that look. All Hobbitsville like 🙂
I have the tyres ready to place for the seat bases. Then to bring TONNES of soil up to fill them - like an Earth Ship process. I'll use stacks of broken bricks inside them too. May as well embody some waste in there.

After feeling overwhelmed this week, just persisting and keeping the work going has made a huge difference.
Like they say, we often give up JUST before a breakthrough.

I've had my breakthrough to REALLY see progress (finally) after years of work. I've been hard at it for over 3 years, it'll still be longer before it's "done" - if a garden is EVER "done" lol.

It's beginning to look cultured, cultivated and cared for.

Back to work tomorrow after work! And ALL weekend, can't wait!

Love EMxxxx

[ecomama]

Hello Happy BB Gardeners!

I'm so grateful for my garden 🙂

I've been getting down there before and after work and some times during my "lunch break" for 30 mins here and there.

Doing all on a very tight budget, since alarmingly I have more than $10k of bills come in and felt extremely stressed over it all. I got about $300 of Bunnings vouchers for my birthday and I'm thinking of what to buy VERY carefully.

I've found SO much buried in the hill around where our pool used to be lol. Yesterday I decided to leave the rest in there and work on embodying the waste, mainly only broken bricks inside my Earth Ship tyre formation.
After bringing up many buckets of soil to relieve the pressure on the back fence (UGH!) I envisaged a few more alterations.

My poor Monsteras were suffering from sun exposure, so I removed them yesterday and put them in water soaked chook waste over night. I'll plant them in a very shady spot high in the fire pit area which I'm sure they'll love. Any heat from the fire will not get near them.

I arranged the tyres where I think I want them in prep for the Cob seating. But I need to level the ground out better before I do more there.

After worrying that I couldn't find more thick weathered hard wood planks to go under the ugly fence line, I found FIVE late yesterday arvo, omg. Very happy there.

One son said he'd help me today for a couple of hours, we'll see if he does lol!

I WILL use the stubby stakes to hold these heavy planks up against the fence line. With the rain we get here at times, they could easily fall down the slope if I don't.

I got to eat some MULBERRIES yum, still have lots of oranges on our tree too.

Need to write a list for son and I so we keep on track 🙂

Off to begin.

Have a wonderful day everyone!

Love EMxxxx

[ecomama]

Good morning Happy Gardeners!

Had a great day in the garden yesterday, so happy. P.son came to help for a couple of hours in the afternoon.

We set up the shaded Monstera area with lots of long logs and branches. We ended up having around 6 plants, some small and a few much bigger. I put lots of chook poo straw that had been soaked in water, buckets of soil and some bark mulch. Hope the nitrogen draw down doesn't harm them. Then watered them in with tank water.

I became a Brickie's Labourer for a while lol. Moved almost ALL the bricks from around the Old Chook Shed now Mama's Cubby and put them near P.son to build with. Sweaty work!
P.son bricked up the proposed bath worm farm in the position I chose, bringing it up high enough to put a big metal bucket under it to collect the vermicast and allowing room to lift the screen door protector as the lid.
Then did same for my Frog pond near it. The "pond" is on the low side of my Cubby. It's empty and dry atm, so I need to find a plug for it!
Putting a long log in there is important for the frogs to be able to climb out when they've grown.

Both these structures are in a hidden part of the garden but right near the water tank to get water easily.

We also carried long hard wood planks to seal up against the neighbour's fence line and used the stubby stakes to keep them up. We had enough planks to do other sections too so that was great! Just need more stakes to pin them in. We've used 6 long planks so far.

I dug up lots more stuff! lol, bricks and slabs of sandstone, small and large. I was happy to get this all out, then had to bring up buckets of soil to fill in the holes, which will sink and it'll need repeat action.
The sandstone will be used for steps higher on the property, just on end as the edging. Pavers in the centre.

We moved pallets and am toying with an idea for an experimental composting system with them.

I took a yucky paved step apart, not realising it had about 40 pavers ugh! Had to haul some UP the hill to stack, changed my mind about how to store timbers for pick up by family. Need to hide it all more, looks yuck atm and is on a path which annoys me lol.

I put a metre long hard wood sleeper in their place and it looks MUCH better.

Had my traditional fires burning sticks and dried banana leaf clippings - oh yeah began trimming bananas.
Need to saw some down for my Fungus Wood Heap soon.

Having TONS of lock down fun in my garden lol.

Love EMxxxx