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

[Learn to Fly]

Hi ecomama,

Thank you for your warmest welcome. It’s great to be among a bunch of such beautiful people.

Have a great day!

[ecomama]

Hi Leonay, a HUGE warm welcome to the forums and I'm so happy you found our little "green space" here lol.

I've had a lot of experience working in various School Gardens (and Community Gardens) and got stacks of donations to support our needs. I began doing mostly volunteer hours but then was offered paid work from various avenues.

Firstly I joined each of the Schools into LETS. More on that if you want to know more later...

If you have a Dept of Ed Environmental Centre then linking in with them is a great move.
Ours is really involved with School Gardens here.

Also ASK ASK ASK.
I asked the local Hardware stores lol for Gift Vouchers to fund our garden.

We also asked our local Council what THEY could offer US hahaha...well I was the brave one to put it to them.
We got LOTS of composting bins. Workshops etc.

Ofcourse lastly but firstly, linking in with your local Permaculture Group is AWESOME!
SO MUCH KNOWLEDGE to be grabbed from this group.
Our members LOVE to volunteer in schools too and they never come to the schools empty handed lol.
All the members have to do is have a WWCC for Volunteers which is free.
They can run Workshops (to give you a rest lol), support Working Bees with lots of ideas and muscle, plus get donations FOR YOUR school which is better than you doing all the work yourself.

Also a fabulous resource is FREECYCLE.
I picked up just about anything I wanted, for free.
People just GIVE stuff away, esp when you say it's for a school. Awww how sweet!
Freecycle is an online group aimed at reducing the amount of usable items going to landfill - worldwide.

REMEMBER the school has a P&C Committee.... if you can SHOW that there is an increased pupil engagement and education value (der) for the Garden, then the Committee should be right behind you. All you have to do is show up to a P&C Meeting with a flashy powerpoint and knock their socks off.
I did this and was offered a job to run their school garden full time, but had a better offer.

Ofcourse ppl will tell you to apply for Grants but I found this next to useless as a return for my woman hours. It was plain annoying tbh. They expect all this paperwork forever for a mere $1200 - not worth it at all IME.

Best green wishes
Love EM

[ecomama]

Hey topsy, WELCOME! Where have you been all this time?? hahaha...

I wanted to tell you that EVERY gardener has "failures"! I prefer to call these "Learning Opportunities" lol.
I've had some dismal learning opportunities.

It's quite an analogy for life.
Okay that didn't work, what can I do next time?

I reckon the better the gardener, the more they've experienced these moments.

SO what shall we do for you?
You can get your list ready of what things you like to EAT.
Usually it's the wrong time of the year to plant things like Basil etc.
But SPRING is coming!

Ask away and everyone will help you get some fun in your garden spaces.

Katy I'm sorry the snails persist.
Have you tried the bowl of beer yet?
The little darlings can drown in the happiest of ways lol.

Snails don't like sliming across dry cement, rock, bricks.
The challenge would be trying to keep these dry.

Bestest wishes!

I bought a leaf blower and used it JUST in time!
My driveway was absolutely covered in Autumn leaves.
My drains were overflowing with them too.

The leaf blower made pretty easy work of blowing them all away down into the side of my home, behind the side gate. It's fun slushing through these lol.

Well wouldn't you know it, it POURED with rain yesterday, last night and today.
The whole first floor of our home would've been flooded if I hadn't blown the leaves out of the drains.

Yay! A win for following my instincts there.

This morning in a break from the rain, I went up and raked and swept the road (yeah the road lol) and my curbside. The neighbour has an Oak Tree, I think, it's MASSIVE. Lots of leaves.
With a few branches I cut, the green bin's full, yeah alotta leaves.
My property runneth over with leaves lol.

Atm I'm using gardening as a distraction from doing what I SHOULD be doing ie my Tax Return blerghhh. The rain keeps pushing me back inside lol. Ok I get the message.

Blissful gardening everyone!

EMxxxx

[Katyonthehamsterwheel]

Hi everyone

Gosh, a leaf blower would be excellent fun! I bought a high pressure cleaner during first covid lockdown and had an amazing time blasting everything 🙂 How fortuitous you did it just in time to beat the rain, EM 🙂

Well I'm pretty excited today as I have my first little snow pea! The snails are still munching away (drats!) but they didn't spot him! I've lost one plant as I suspected would happen, but the others are still growing strong despite their munched on bits. Can't afford beer so I'll have to think on that one...

Happy gardening all!

[Paw Prints]

Hello Katy, Em & everyone,

As your peas are in pots could you hang them to stop the snails???

Paws

[Matchy69]

Katy another alternative to beer for a snail trap is vegiemite in water.Put a tablespoon of vegiemite in a jar and full with water.

[ecomama]

Omg Katy after my own heart lol, it is SO MUCH fun! Blasting the leaves along WOOHOO! hahaha.

I got a high pressure hose a while back and OMG it's the best fun!
Everything looks almost new again after having a whirl with one of those lol.

My Chiro said to me tonight that I have to slow down with the physical work for a while to heal.
I could feel that message from my body for the last 2 weeks or so darn it.

He DID say though, that my leaf blower was a great idea compared to the hours of raking I was doing per day. I said I love my leaf blower so much, I could marry it lol!
He said it was a safer bet hahaha (I agree).

YOUR FIRST SNOW PEA!! YUM! YAY!

Congratulations. That's awesome news.

I love Mark's idea of vegemite in some water hmmmm. Do you have yeast in packets? Like the yeast to make bread with?

You can activate some of that with honey and put it in a wide bowl (when it's not raining I think would be best).

We are NOT going to let these darned snails get the better of us here.
We look after our own, I hope the snails realise they're up against it.

LOVE the idea of hanging them high too, thanks Paws!

Eat as many as you can is my best advice lol.

Hey Mark, I read your mandies went well this year. Alexa's are too fibrous to enjoy just by eating but juicing them with some of my oranges and lemons is quite a treat.

I've given away about 25kg of raw macadamias, heavens.

And my extremely pampered chickens don't realise it's Winter and they're laying eggs like crazy.
Last week after work they were all perched in my LOUNGEROOM! They'd made their presence known in every single room of the house ugh.
Thanks for leaving the laundry door open kids!

Better go. Off to cook up a storm for the hoardes tonight.

Love EM

[Jstar49]

Heya everyone,

Quick post tonite- lovely to hear everyones news tho and welcome to newbies- lovely to hear your gardening stories!

Leonay I just wanted to share Em's wonderful tip with me, as I've been using it all season and it works a treat. If you string your white plastic butterflies on a bunting style string, then they wave in the breeze and work REALLY well. We've watched from the house- the moths have hovered over the nearby lime tree, then COMPLETELY avoided the cabbages! Absolutely brilliant!

The first caterpilars I got on them were only when they were ready to harvest- but I think that it conicided with me hanging some old CDS out there to keep birds away from cabbages- cheeky things!- and it disrupted the moth control somehow.

Happy Gardening everyone!

PS Mark, I had read that you were sick, and am happy to hear that you're on the mend. Not sure if I've posted that before but been thinking of you!

Cheers all,

J*

[ecomama]

That's GREAT NEWS J*! Well done you. I must give credit where it's due lol. I got that tip from Taronga Zoo! In their organic food growing section! hahaha.

Well BB green thumbs lol, I am SO PROUD of my efforts in removing lantana... ALMOST THERE peeps! This week I wobbled and twisted out 4 large lantana trunks as high as my chest. I thought they were dead with no green foliage on them. Anyway as I twisted again and again back and forth... the darned ROOTS were still alive grrr. Not all, just a couple per tree. SO I CUT them off.

Still more to do and I will be lost without all the lantana work hahaha!

The OTHER 2 things that worked a treat was getting huge lengths of sheet metal, carpet and thick huge plastic bags (I kept from unpackaging new mattresses). Cutting the lantana down to a foot above earth then laying these on top REALLY work!

WORMS everywhere when I remove these coverings and dig the dead (ish) plants out.

My pitchfork BENT on the lantana roots but I will not them win.

Simultaneously I'm dealing with the blackberry runners.

Papa Brush Turkey is a great gardener! Hahaha.
He cleared ALL the way so I could get to the dead lantanas more easily - Thankyoop!
He also exposed the b/berry runners so I could more easily see those too.

Neighbour's house goes to Auction on Sunday.
I think they'll demand a new fence asap, whomever they are.
I decided to cut down as much of the dreaded Jasmine off the fence today.
There was wire netting, old pool fencing, star pickets and timber stakes all against the fence - what a MESS!
(Conveniently I've been filling all 3 bins from my neighbour's house up for sale for the past few weeks, what a blessing!)

My 4 toddler pools are now full of Jasmine cuttings till they die down for disposal.

Papa BT came along and scratched ALL the Jasmine cuttings down to his nest lol!
No raking required yay.
He seriously thinks I'M his mama bec he comes right near me, chases the chickens away from me and brushes past my legs as he works hahaha, I can pat him too and he doesn't seem to mind.

I moved about 30 bricks uphill (UGH!) to make a half pyramid shaped wall around my chook pen. Useful storage for the bricks for now.

We can use lots to build pentagon shaped seating with timber planks, we already have, for around our planned Fire Pit way down the back.

I can't believe I can WALK almost the entire space of my garden now YAY!

Lovely garden dreaming to all
EMxxxx

[Matchy69]

That's great news em you are getting on top of the Lantana.You will be so glad to get rid of it all.

I have given my roses all a good pruning.New growth coming on them and hopefully a great lot of flowers in spring.

I been picking some nice cabbages,cauliflowers and broccoli and some good size sweet potatoes.Srilll picking heaps of tangellos and bush lemons.My mandarins are about finished fruiting after having some nice crops.I have an egg plant that came up from seed growing near the fence and it has been producing fruit and must be protected there as the frost hasn't effected it.

Happy gardening,

Mark.