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]

Matchy69 said:Hi Em my Nectarine tree has still got most of it leaves and is in flower now.

Omg Matchy lol you have green thumbs, fingers AND toes!

Who's ever heard of an evergreen Nectarine?

Mine's budding now too. I can't wait for Spring. More hope for the garden.

Love EM

[Matchy69]

Hi all. Today my two Persimmon trees came I ordered and I planted one in the front and put the other one in a pot to I work out where I will put it as I am debating between two spots. Persimmon is one of my favourite fruits and my mum had one in the backyard and I had one in the first house I bought that use to get loads of fruit on it. The tree would have been over 70 years old.

Happy gardening everyone,

Mark.

[ecomama]

Matchy69 said:

Hi all. Today my two Persimmon trees came I ordered and I planted one in the front and put the other one in a pot to I work out where I will put it as I am debating between two spots. Persimmon is one of my favourite fruits and my mum had one in the backyard and I had one in the first house I bought that use to get loads of fruit on it. The tree would have been over 70 years old.

Happy gardening everyone,

Mark.

WOW Mark how wonderful! You must be so excited!

Persimmons - lovely fruit and lovely memories.

How did you get them?

I was frustrated that NOWHERE had stock for the longest time.

I'm hanging out to buy my 3 or 4 blueberry bushes.... I'd say the soil is just about ready in the strip I've been adding to. But I can't find any to buy.

Congratulations Mark, you truly have an enviable garden!

Love EM

[ecomama]

HI everyone

I'm pretty excited about SOIL lol. My eldest daughter said she doesn't need any soil atm so I CAN KEEP my beautiful rich, black soil that the chickens made.

One grandson is spending more and more time with me in the garden, he's only young. He really wants to help me more in the garden and my heart SINGS with JOY at this. Today he used a big shovel to put soil into a bucket for me lol.

I'm going to buy him his own sized garden tools. He needs a shovel and little wheelbarrow to start with (and a chiro for afterwards lol). I need a new wheelbarrow too, but the design and width is important due to the slope.

My teenagers don't help very often. One climbed a tree this year and cut some branches which was great.
They're too busy with school, work and friends and should be I guess lol.

Love EM

[ecomama]

Today it was nice ish weather (not raining which I like anyway)... so I made some Hugelkultures, sorry spelt it wrong way back.

I found & sawed straightish sticks, some with a little bend in them to kind of weave into each other. I wove them into the ground against the paths, all dug out by the chickens. I only have 4 left now, so less damage.
Then took buckets of earth to the sticks and covered them all. I watered it in to help settle the soil.
I hope this helps even things out in those spots.

I only did about 1 tenth of the paths and borders!

It's all still quite a mess.

The bare soil is now mostly covered in weeds now, which are green so it's good. The weeds can hold the soil from eroding down the slope and put nutrients into the soil for grass to grow later. In a year I think, depending on our Summer I guess.

I had a GREAT FIND this week. 2 nice Grecian style pots, a HUGE terracotta pot and others, on the side of the road for Council pickup. Or me lol. Plus a beautiful Asian style pot stand. ALL in perfect condition, I couldn't believe it lol. I gave the Asian stand to my eldest D and she LOVED it.

I don't think I need ALL the pots (including the 20+ someone else gave me last year). I might put plants in them for Christmas presents IDK. I'm only working 3d soon and my pay has been halved for months due to taking leave of that type. I need to "think outside the square" for presents.

I also plumped up my intended Blueberry patch. The fallen Camellia flowers were everywhere so they went in. Plus more leaves lol and some soil. There's cardboard and newspapers and pizza boxes under there lol! Plus lots of ash from the Pizza Oven. It will keep rotting down so I have to add LOTS of soil now above the borders for it to settle.

I also got large forked logs from the pile and put the fork either side of some plants having soil eroded from their bases. I want to keep this up to use the timber and help the plants.

The green bin is bulging every fortnight but it's just not getting rid of the timber fast enough for me.

I think it's time I just got into the huge piles and dragged them apart. Use the logs to surround trees and I would LOVE to burn the rest...

That first strip is looking better. It's about 1 sixth of the garden.. hmmm. lol.

Time to "put it out there" that I need more plants to suit the Balinese style garden I'm visualising.

Love EM

[Airies]

I can't believe it's almost August. It's been a dry July with little rain down here in Vic. I'm patiently deadheading the flowers from my 2 year old Tahitian lime as it's the thing your supposed to do. Looking forward to planting my last citrus in its wine barrel. . . It's on castors. Thank god for you tube.

Ecomama, love your descriptive posts. Sounds like you are on a bit of land and have your hands well and truly full. I've been busily harvesting worm castings all in readiness for the warmer months.

I made the mistake of ordering the wrong size too large pebbles around 1/2 of our paths a few years back and planned to order more of the smaller to remedy. So on the spur of the moment , 3 days of toing and throwing swapping the stones around the most used paths have the finer stuff... Pooped, it's taken me days to recover and my bromeliads bit me big time. Another job for Spring dividing pups. I have some beautiful broms. My mother was a passionate gardener and instilled it in me . I love a Balinese garden- fond memories and place to travel and revisit when life returns to ' normal'

cheers

[ecomama]

Dear Airies

Sounds like you've got it all happening there! Moving stones ughhh lol. I could never have a stone path... SO many leaves dropping everywhere, it'd drive me crazy lol but they look so beautiful.

My Tahitian lime is still fruiting... what do you mean by dead heading it?
My orange tree is loving life now we cut back the huge lilly pilly weighing down on it - poor thing lol.

The dead Camellia flowers are still dropping but making great fill for the bloobs patch I envisage. Ash from the pizza oven and chiminea is coming in handy for a bit of diversity in the soil. We have LOTS of chook poo from our chickens so with all the leaves / dead flowers, the ash is a welcome addition. I moved some of the upside down pots I had there to deter the chickens and Brush Turkeys and the worm were SCARY lol.

Our Nectarine has THE most beautiful blossoms on it atm. So pretty.

I live on an urban block about 800 sq metres. The house is right at the top of the slope so most of the land is at the back. When people come and look over our balcony out to the water they always seem to say "Don't you wish your neighbours down there would cut some branches down for better water views?" ughhh they're my trees lol!
BIG BLOCK they say but the slope makes it quite deceiving.

We've had SO MUCH rain in the last week that both my tanks filled to overflowing. Flooding & evacuations nearby. We'll send some down there lol...

We have town water but I only use tank water for my garden.

Good on you for worm farming - vermicast is the best & such a great waste disposal system. I started 2 huge bath worm farms at work and that's it for me atm.
I used to have 3 bath worm farms but Jasmine is covering my only last bath worm farm left, in the shade against a fence. When I rediscover it lol, I'll have to empty it to move it & restart it. I'm planning to build a cabin down the back later on so any prep for that is wise. Atm the worm farm is where the path access will be. So are bananas and more... and I reckon I could build a 10 bedroom cabin from the timber I'm cutting down all the time... not many people have fireplaces any more. Shame.

Eldest daughter and I plan to film all this for our Vlog, the permie stuff.... like a garden from scratch kinda story. It's been raining so much that we have to keep postponing. All in good time and nice weather lol!

EM

[Airies]

Hi Em,

poor explanation on my part. Apparently the experts recommend that for the first 3 years after planting you remove all flowers so the tree pits all its energy into growth and not fruit and by the 3rd year the branches will be able to support the fruit. So I've had a good crop of fruit from my dwarf lemon. My Tahitian Lime is full of flowers , not a dwarf, they didn't have any and being inpatient and told they will grow in a half barrel, I'm pinching flowers of and leaving 1 flower per bunch and seeing what happens.

Im a great fan of worm castings. I give it to most of my plants. Like me you the bigger the farm the better.Mine live on horse poo and shredded cardboard.Its the best fertiliser

My garden is s very user friendly. Just enough to keep me busy. It's lovelly and sunny but cold here in Vic so will make the most and potter around

cheers

[Matchy69]

My citrus here are about 3 years old and are 2metres tall and loaded with fruit. I did not take the fruit off them in the first couple of years but thought about it but mine seemed to grow allright.It is a great idea to take the flowers off them so they can put all their energy in growing and establishing a healthy plant first before you let them fruit.

[Tay100]

Hi guys

As well as being a Champ, I am (tentative, very amateur) plant mamma!

I have 1 succulent named Arrow, and they sit on my bedside table. I care for it greatly- and it's thriving! I hope that counts. Maybe I'll get Arrow some new family members soon, hmmm....

Take care and keep up your green thumbs!

Tay100