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

[Gambit87]

Good morning everyone!

been busy busy with life stuff.

My roses are blooming!!! they looked a little rough during winter but with some TLC theyre back!

I really must take some time out and go to the local botanical gardens.

[ecomama]

Hey everyone, how's your garden going?

Hey Gambit, WOW how beautiful! How satisfying to see them come back to bloom for you, yay! Pretty scary to see our beloved plants look like they're dying eeeek. Hate that lol.

Now you have sweet blossoms to love you back.
Do any of them have a fragrance?

Love roses, who couldn't?

I need to move my Irises and IDK where to move them to! I need to Google best places in the garden for them, esp for flowering.
That'll be a massive job as they've been in situ for over 20y.

They're in the way of the proposed internal fence / gate to form a path for the cabin.

I cleared a HUGE pile of mixed stuff I thought was all garbage. I found lots of timber to burn so did that etc. Looking forward to our Council pick up on Tues night, lol I'm SO excited! That just shows what lock down can do to a person lol.

2 of my kids promised to help me move more than 5 steel beams in place this afternoon.
These will line up down my property as the proposed internal fence boundary. Then I can see the space on either side and know what I need to do! Yep more work.

I BLITZED the lower side path again. Will have more to do there after the steel beams are moved.
I have SO MUCH scrap metal, it's annoying me but my car is full of Return and Earn bottles atm, so I can't fill it up again yet. Plus lots will have to be attached to the roof racks and I'll make no more than $10 lol BUT at least it's being recycled and not going to land fill.

I made ONE terrace yay! I used 2 long lengths of Coppus logs and it looks sweet there. Will have to bring buckets of soil up to back fill there.

I yearn to plant plants and seeds but with all the proposed building works and tradies tramping over everything as they do, I'd rather protect most of my plants in pots for now.

Clearly I'll need to MOVE my Fungus wood heap AND composts and that's the easy work.
Cutting down tall dead pine trees and digging out stumps is the heavy work, and building the cabin over time too ofcourse.

have a great day everyone!

Love EMxxxx

[Guest_1055]

Hi beautiful and awesome people

I now have this beautiful old 1/2 wine barrel. Not sure if this is right... but I guess I will learn if it isn't. I filled it with mushroom compost, organic potting mix with a mulch of sugar cane mulch. In it I planted a pink federation daisy, purple lavender and another plant that has wider leaves with clusters of pink flowers. This wider leaf one gets blue looking berries on them at done time. Looks like a blueberry but isn't. It also likes butterflies and bees.

I love this cottage look in the 1/2 wine barrel. Its so pretty.

I did have a pumpkin vine growing over the grass in my backyard. Its long gone now, and when I pulled all the dried up leaves etc, I found a couple of itty bitty pumpkins.

I have growing in my raised garden. Kale ( of which has large holes and nibbles taken out of the leaves) think it might be snails. Growing in there was 3 or 4 marigold seedlings. All of them got gobbled up by something. There is also a flourishing oregano plant. Which I have now learnt by expermenting... if you cut it right back it will shoot out fresh new stems and leaves. I planted 1 stem of supermarke shallots, which had roots attached. It too is growing. As well as some corriander... a newish and yummy plant I like in salads.

[ecomama]

Hey Shelll!

You sounded so peaceful and happy as you described all those cute, wonderful and even nibbly things going on in your garden.

Don't the half wine barrels look so gorgeous?
It sounds like you have a real 'eye for colour' as I imagined the sweet plants and their flowers growing from your half wine barrel, nice!!

I have one pretty much falling apart lol. I think I've had it about 15y so it's done well!
If I move it then I have to be very careful but you've inspired me to plant some flowering plants (I usually only planted food in them, rocquette seemed to grow so well in it and I always have surprise tomato vines pop out for some unknown reasons lol. Probably just because I "recycle" all my soil!

I got into my garden today again, mainly just to move heavy things.

I look forward to a time when I can be planting more, that's the most fun for me.

Thankyou for your update Shelll, it was great to hear about the beauty you're creating in your spaces.
Well done you!

Love always
EMxxxx

[Guest_1055]

Oh yeah the 1/2 wine barrels do look gorgeous. I sometimes gaze at it and the flowers through my living room window.

You have had yours for 15 years.. I have no idea if that is a long time or not. But I hope mine lasts that long. If you get the opportunity and are still keen to plant any flowering plants, do you have some in mind at all?

I have also had tomato plants growing out of homemade compost.

You must be super physically fit with all the heavy moving of things and digging out stumps.

What is this cabin you are building, like a granny flat or something? You may have already talked about it before. But it is too much for me to read back.

I too collect bottles for the earn thingy. There is a place over in the next suburb, behind the service station to take them.

[ecomama]

Hey Shelll,

After seeing your post, we went down to the garden to TRY to move some heavy steel beams but 2 of us couldn't do it, because we found a BIG Blue Tongued lizard under the first one and had to get the dog away from seeing it. My son thought it was a snake, thank goodness not. There's likely LOTS more living there so we want to be careful now.

So we ventured into other parts, did more work and will wait until we get more muscle to help us.

Yes I'm surprisingly physically fit esp for my age and the extent of my injuries, by the grace of God I'm still able to walk - by all medical reports I should be in a wheelchair apparently! lol.

How sweet you can see your half wine barrel with those gorgeous flowers growing from your window. Love that. Seeing such a sweet sight can really help bring happiness at least for those moments as we look at them, do you think?

I looked my half wine barrel, lol it's pretty rickety at it's old age. The others I bought at the same time rotted away. If I could decide on a spot to put it, I'd be half way there!
So many slopes on my land so it's tricky.
Plus I need to keep it out of the way of all our building work that'll be happening over time. IDK maybe in the fire pit area? IDK lol.

YES! As of my conversation yesterday with my Fiance (I call BF) he offered to transfer $25k to give us a kick start to build a Granny Flat / Cabin way down the back of our garden. He's SO KIND to offer this, he's also smart lol, he can see it'll be a very good investment 🙂 It'll cost way more than that but we really appreciate the boost!
I have STACKS of research to do first and no doubt lots of paperwork too. Plus an Owner Builder's Course to complete etc etc.
AND tons of clearing the land / cutting down dead trees ugh. I think there's about 2 tonnes of timber logs to move too. Lots of hard work ahead.
It's going to take me prob 2y to complete, not sure of course.

My intention is to rent the Cabin out to Tenants. There's a housing crisis here and lots of people are building cabins to rent on their land, so that's going to help, somewhat. The rental return is excellent atm too. This'll help me cope better financially into my old age! Or further into my old age lol!

happy days lol!

Love always
EMxxxx

[Guest9337]

2 tonnes of hills special mix soil. 1 tonne dolomite for the drive (all in and set wife loves it). 1 cubic yard of jeffereies forest mulch.

about 8 large pots ready for wifes seed choices.

about 8 small pots also. (empty strawberry punnets=small pot)

5 metre by 2 metre new vegie patch dug and de-grassed, half ready for the hillspecial in short time.

contacted daley's fruits, they do great youtubes and online sales of aussie bush tucker plants! i am not involved with them, just customer.

and best of all. some young bucks to do the hardest heaviest bulk labour! I pay $15 ph.

[Paw Prints]

Hello Em, Shell, DnG, wave to everyone,

DnG that sounds like you have a big change happening in your garden... that is a very big vege patch you are putting in.

Em lass I get tired just reading everything you get done each day... I honestly think you would put most young & healthy folk to shame with how fit you are... I love your enthusiasm for your garden & your leaf blower...

One of the plants I recently bought was a raspberry... I want to grow it in a pot... so I have been busy googling & pondering as I have never tried to grow them before (let alone in a pot)... it seems that I will need to get a pot at least 2ft (60cm) deep to grow them... all your talk about wine barrels has me now pondering how nice one would look for the raspberries as they will need to go in the front yard to get the right sun... hmmm... I will probably have to go with upcycling something much cheaper... like using a garbage bin & spray painting it a nice colour...

I've already decided to use branches from the pussy willow the previous owner planted to make a climbing bower for the raspberry... long term I will probably need to work out how I can net it to keep the net away from the bush... but for now I will be happy to share with the local wildlife.

Shell it is nice having something to watch out the window... your cottage garden in the barrel sounds lovely especially with all the butterflies, bees & birds it will attract...

Hugs

Paws

[ecomama]

Hey Happy BB Gardeners!

Great work DNG sounds like you'll be eating fresh, healthy produce from your garden in no time!
Bargain at $15 per hour lol.

Thanks Paws, yeah I know lol, I wear everyone out here, then keep on working. It's just so exciting seeing massive progress and that it keeps spurring me on, I can't get enough of working! (I'm not comfortable with relaxation tbh).

I grew raspberries in my berry patch years ago. I think there's a PH consideration in the soil if I remember correctly? I got the cuttings from our Permaculture group. Basically I only have free plants in my garden, unless I grow them from seed and then even some of those were free.

Lantana out competed the raspberries and alot of other stuff. Now there's a surprise passionfruit vine growing there, so hopefully it fruits!

Last night I had my sons' help for about 2 hours. We moved old stuff up for a Council pick up, being around 8ft high and 12ft long, so much stuff and I'm relieved they took it ALL. Yay.

After work today I got into my garden lol!
Shelll's half wine barrel story inspired me. I pondered where to put it. THEN I GOT IT - right near the outdoor pizza oven! I moved an ailing geranium in a pot, brought 3 buckets of soil up and levelled the land there. I emptied the old soil out of the barrel. Then tentatively carried it to the spot.
YEAH it looks GREAT there! Thanks for the inspo Shelll!

Now to fill it with soil. I'm thinking of putting some stuff in the bottom to help retain moisture in the barrel. I put some old timbers in there to block the holes.
Can't wait to grow some Rosemary in the centre and rocquette all around it. I doubt they're companions lol.
We found rosemary growing in the local school's vege patch, so I can get some cuttings from there and see how they go. It's the wrong time of the year to strike cuttings but there you go! lol.
Rocquette should take well if the barrel doesn't leak too much soil and water.

I decided to move my huge terracotta pots from the ledge against the house. One awesome Dragon's Blood Tree is growing in one and it was HEAVY! They'll all look better around the fire pit area, like a Mexican theme.

I'll put the pretty huge blue glazed huge pots on the ledge against the house. Better water retention and will look nicer against the work I'll do on the house later.

I decided to put all my vintage/retro white pots in the front courtyard. White glows at dusk and I like that!

Happy gardening peeps!

Love EMxxxx

[Guest9337]

Morning fellow gardners.

Wife says "mow back lawn" = i book my labouring lads to come round whilst wife at volunteering work. lol.

I got some very nice photos of nature recently.

The vegie patch = love patch. Corn I said, plant corn we will, i like corny stuff.