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]

I hope if you get out in the garden today you enjoy it.Looks like it might be a nice day.Its freezing outside at the moment as the sun decides to rise.I can here crows in the distance calling out my name.That what it sounds like mark mark mark and my son is busy chatting away to himself in bed.I have to take my son into town this morning and then maby come home and do some work on my garden.

Happy weekend gardening everyone,

Mark.

[Tommys]

Gardening is my health tonic. I love getting out in the sun and getting my hands in the soil and watching it thrive. As I lost my job to COVID it is my go too for relaxing and de stressing

[Matchy69]

Does anyone else still have deciduous trees still in full leaf like my Nectarine tree and others have lost all their leaves?

[ecomama]

Hi Mark, dawn is a beautifully still time in the garden with the birds waking up.

My faraway tree has lost 99.9% of it's leaves.
Crepe myrtles are all at different stages but the younger ones have about 50% left to fall.

Funny how you mention your nectarine tree...… mine is just like yours. It looks like zero leaf drop.

I wonder what's going on there? Maybe trees that keep their leaves are still needing the nutrients that leaves help get from the sun IDK.

I only get sporadic times in the garden atm. My kids are avoiding public transport as much as possible due to covid, so I'm getting L hours up at the same time with them.
I have lots of appts during the days.
After hours and weekends... sporadic time.... driving lots of kids to and from part time jobs.

So much for my grand plans for my leave time lol.

It's okay, I was in the garden until almost 8pm but only maintenance... ho hum... lol.

Tomorrow morning I'm biting the bullet and getting to Bunnings straight after dropping 1 child to work at 7:30am (yeah SUNDAY lol). I'm buying more work socks for the kids, 8 star pickets, a Stanley knife and maybe a few other things.
I'm going to construct 2 leaf moulds, there are so many leaves. 1 in the top garden for my adult children's gardens when it's finished, that takes care of the driveway leaves.
The second in the back garden WHERE I want the garden soil and earth life built up. That takes care of some of the backyard leaves lol.

Keep me posted when your nectarine start dropping leaves Mark and I'll let you know about mine. :-))

EM

[ecomama]

What a morning already! I popped on to BB to try to calm myself. What appeared to be a 'normal' morning, up early, taking child to work - the boss was running late... so went to get a takeaway breakfast with child, waited for boss to turn up.... first 2 things out of the ordinary.

I drove straight to Bunnings as I promised myself, I didn't want to. I was thinking of all sorts of excuses. I remembered a friend I was supposed to text as soon as I woke up, so I sat in the carpark and texted her. I felt anxious. She said to call in 30 mins so I thought THAT will be my reward for getting Bunnings stuff.

Then 5 mins into Bunnings I SAW her! lol she had also texted me from the carpark. But NOT good news. I know she has bad news to tell me. She said she was all right but to come over to her house tomorrow. She had open heart surgery less than 2y ago...

So then I worried and worried. I tried to keep it in check by I think at the moment PTSD kicked in. I forgot to look at my list.

Got the things I got lol and knew I had to be home for my brother to visit - all these people have had little contact for the past 5y.

5mins after being home another child was called into work to start at midday. An unscheduled shift.

So I'll have 2 working (so far) 3 more at home and just wanting to disappear into the garden LOL.

SO I FINALLY HAVE the items - decided not to look for them on the property to save triggering - for my 2 leaf moulds. I even bought another lump hammer to save time and possibly discovering that that was also stolen, which leads to triggering etc...

Just now I've found an awful letter from the school re: one of my children threatened with an N award. He's at work. Can't talk with him about it yet. Hopefully he can get it all done on the long weekend Monday off school tomorrow. 😞

Time to listen to my favourite music and get these leaf moulds organized lol.

Life hey? Gotta press on.

EM

[Airies]

Hi folks,

gaizing at my dwarf Lemmon packed with lemons 40+.Rewarded for my patience. Lookng forward to planting my mandarine in Spring. I was briefly thinking of planting a dwarf apple in a half barrel but no no wont fit in, brings back memories of my yard full of silver birches front and back and the leaves and seeds blowing everywhere. Glad I won't entertain that thought. It's cold here, time for a walk and admire the native flora along the trail, happy gardening ,

cheers

[Matchy69]

Sorry Em you had not so good morning.Hopefully you can get out in the garden and that helps.I did a little a bit of pruning this morning.

[ecomama]

Thankyou Mark, it was one of those days that I'm now calling 'dumpers' - you know when you get dumped at the beach by dumpers? I think I can identify the cause, well I hope that's it lol.

I persisted with my plans to build a leaf mould today. The holes in my pants are testimony to me wrangling with tightly wound chicken wire with spikes of wire sticking out lol - I have NEVER bought brand new chicken wire before, I had no idea that it was OILY! Ugh.

A psych friend phoned during one of the dumpers and came over and helped me finish constructing leaf mould No.1. Then we swept, raked and bucketed up around 5 x 11L buckets of leaves from the front garden. I secateured and sawed dead branches in the front garden into the green bin. Now leaf mould No. 1 is around 1/4 full.

I cheated lol and added some mushroom waste and potato peelings wrapped in newspaper instead of taking it down the back to the tyre composts. I'll add whatever I want to the leaf mould when it's low. This one will be interesting because it's under a big tree and may not get much rainwater.

Hammering this one in was a discovery. We live very close to the water and beaches. Many decades ago - probably over 100y ago, I know that sugar cane was grown here, where our home and surrounding homes are. My ancestors wrote of it. It was SO SANDY so the star pickets needed to be hammered in very deeply, otherwise they were falling in with the tension from the chicken wire.

I love my new lump hammer lol, It has a white head so it was easy to find amongst all the brush at twilight.

Thanks Matchy. EM

[Guest_1055]

Wow your thread is moving quick like Em. It may take a bit to read back.

Hey Mark, I did read about how you hear the crows calling out your name. They do make that sound don't they.

I do also remember reading about someone else wanting to grow herbs. Sorry I can not remember your name. Anyway if you are reading.... Well I found oregano easy to grow. It lasted a few years before it sort of died. I used it a fair bit in cooking. So it got trimmed now and then. I also have a large terracotta pot with a rosemary growing in it. I love the scent of that. That herb plant is still alive.

Thanks for telling me Mark about the eggplant. You wrote that a while back though.

I am still working through this gardening course. And looking into how to make raised vegetable gardens or a no dig one. I need to buy things slowly as funds permit. I don't have enough of my own compost as yet, so I may need to get some delivered.

Actually in this compost there are a couple of tomato plants growing from it. They are not very tall. And there is something else with a large furry leaf. Think it may be a pumpkin. Can't be sure though. I also added tiny bits of the natural looking cardboard from inside of a few toilet rolls into the compost.

I found 2 metal picket stakes in the garage. Which I may use to help border this leaf heap. I do not have any chicken wire as yet.

[Matchy69]

Hi Shelll my daughter just made raised garden beds at school for their vegies.I think it was for ag science.I was originally going to that for my vegie garden but just decided to dig over the ground.The vegies thst come up in the vegie garden can give yoy the best crop though its a bit late for tomatoes and pumpkins here.My egg plants are still bearing and this has been the longest i have had them croping.The frost usually has killed them by now but we havent had and frost yet.Its bern down to about 2 degrees here.

I love the smell of Rosemary and have one growing near the gate so i can rub my hands on it when i go out and i smell of Rosemary.I just pruned mine and took some cuttings.They grow easy from cuttings.

Happy gardening,

Mark.