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Previous months in the Wimmera region, Victoria
With Wendy Eden
2000
May
The trials and tribulations of a novice gardener in the desert.
Well, OK, the desert is actually 15Km southeast of us and I think we
are officially semiarid. We're surrounded by farmland inhabited by depressed
farmers continually moaning about the perpetual drought. We're coming
to the end of our first year here and have, through much hard work, had
a pretty successful garden so far.
This being the first time we'd grown anything beyond a few herbs and
tomatoes, I procured a few books on organic gardening, begged relatives
to buy me a few more, ordered a tonne of seeds from Eden Seeds and dived
in the deep end. Sandra Clayton's book told me that with raised beds and
a tonne of mulch, we'd not have to do any watering. That sort of worked
until October. Then you could really tell that we weren't gardening in
Gippsland. Scorching sun, temperatures well into the forties and hot northerlies
took moisture even through the tonne of mulch, and the leaves burnt and
shriveled. We installed a watering system.
Jackie French told us that we should be planting our main crop for winter
in January. I was sort of excited by her books when she said she had 46
degree days in summer and -5 in winter, but I was pretty dubious on this
planting seeds in January. However, intrepid gardener that I am, I tried.
And tried again. With the help of the shade of the large apple tree in
situ, and lots of love and attention, I managed to nurse 3 out of 24 lettuces,
2 of 12 broccoli, bugger all of lots of carrots, slighter better results
with onions and 6 or so cabbages into life. I decided that March and April
were going to be my winter planting months from now on.
Then there were the bugs. We seemed to be infested by the most indestructible
of bugs on the planet - the earwig and the harlequin bug. All of these
gardening books were telling me that ear wigs are good bugs, living on
other bugs and only eating plants when there weren't enough bugs. Bollocks!
Why didn't they eat all the harlequins? Or the cabbage butterfly caterpillars?
No, they developed a taste for our silverbeet and potatoes. And especially
any seedlings I put in the garden. They went instantaneously. Companion
planting didn't help. These bastards just ate them. The garlic. The basil.
The lavender. The chamomile. They just eat!! Traps of grass or scrunched
up newspaper in pots wasn't catching them. For three months, we went out
at night with headtorches and squashed them by hand. Then a revelation
occurred! Someone suggested thin tubes of paper. Dubiously, we tried.
But a thin tube, set vertically, caught lots of them hiding from the day.
And our night time forages became 7 am forages of these tubes. We were
catching 200-300 per night for a while. But we cut them back enough to
be able to raise our seedlings. I haven't got a solution to the harlequin
bug yet. The caterpillars get handpicked, or derris dusted is desperation.
I've heard that the popularity of canola crops here has increased the
number of these pests in the area, they're attracted to the yellow flowers,
breed like crazy, then migrate to the gardens when the crops are harvested.
Considering the number of cabbage butterflies in the canola and the jump
in bugs in our yard after harvest, I'm inclined to believe this. It doesn't
help dealing with them though.
April has been a month for catching up with winter crop plantings. The
second and third rounds of onions, carrots, cabbage, broccoli, brussel
sprouts, peas, beans and assorted herbs have gone in. The earwigs are
on the rise again for the first time in 6 months, so we're back on tube
traps. Our first frosts came recently (19th April), but they were pretty
mild and everything's survived. Dense plantings both protected plants
from the heat and the frost. We're still getting loads of late summer
vegies and bringing in vegetables left on the plants for seed saving before
they get frost damage. Soon we'll be seeking a hundred and one recipes
for green tomatoes! In preparation for winter, we had already taking some
cuttings of tomatoes and grown them in pots to take inside at night. We
collected old tyres, and will be filling them with mulch to grow potatoes
out of reach of frost throughout winter. We're planning the greenhouse,
but that's as far as we've got.
We've stocked up on new fruit trees, possibly a little early to transplant,
but I was too excited by them to wait! We've bought silvan berries, as
these are supposed to cope best with our climate of the berries. We'll
see next summer! Most of the basic deciduous fruit trees do well here,
although the early flowering ones may be affected by late frost. Soil
improvement is usually necessary, there's lots of lime and clay here.
Drainage can be a problem, and acid loving plants will probably object
to the lime. These also make iron uptake a problem. So, mulch, mulch,
mulch some more, and our oldest beds (nearly a year old) are now looking
fantastic. When we dug in our trees, there was lush soil for the half
a metre we dug down. In the short term, we put compost in before planting
and use garden teas, particularly from excess silver beet to provide iron.
We've gone out on a limb with some macadamias, and are nurturing avocados
that seeded in our compost. We shall see if they work out.
June
This was a month which made me wonder if I really have a brown thumb
and our summer was a fluke. After realising that we hadn't planted enough
stuff in march/April, I again have been nurturing seedlings through less
than perfect conditions. They've been moved inside in seed boxes now,
as it's gotten very very very cold. Although the broad beans, carrots
and onions still germinate in their beds. Cabbages, broccoli, pack choy,
english spinach, snow peas and brussel sprouts are all inside. We've ditched
a pile of old mushrooms into a moist shady bed and are hoping they proceed
to grow there.
We've had quite a few frosts (nights are getting down to 1 or 2 degrees
now), killing most of the curcubits, although one pumpkin is still surviving,
and a climbing zucchini spread through the apple tree is spending it's
last days feeding a whopper for seed saving. The basil is sufficiently
sheltered under the tomatoes to be OK still, and the tomatoes themselves
in varying states depending on the amount of shelter they have. Our capsicums
and chillis are still healthy. I've planted broad beans through out the
potatoes and around the lemon and avocado trees in an attempt to protect
them from frost damage. It's working so far.
We've stocked up on more trees, this time with some more exotic trees,
like mulberry, loquat and pepino. Scored well at the nursery the other
day, with 2 trees that had lost their labeling going for $5. They look
like peaches to me. Have been putting more garden beds into the front
yard, and our neighbours seem to think that's a little bit strange, but
who needs a lawn full of couch?? And on 1/4 acre block, we need to use
all the space we have! We're also regarded as a bit strange for raiding
the paper piles out for recycling, and collecting the councils lawn clippings
from the side of the road. But the no dig garden bed (thick layers of
newspaper with tonnes of mulch on top) is not only killing the couch,
but saving my back.
And we have gained a new bug. I'm beginning to wonder about having gained
"What Garden Pest or Disease is That?". It's making me panic about every
new bug. But then again, I'd panic my seedlings were getting eaten by
bugs even if I couldn't identify what it it. This one is a green vegetable
bug and it looks suspiciously like a green patterned harlequin bug. They
haven't gone feral on us like the harlequins and the earwigs, so I just
squash a few every time I'm out there.
July
I recently put out some broccoli, rocket, lettuce and spinach seedlings
in miniature greenhouses made from old 2 litre plastic bottles with the
bottom cut out. These have been pretty effective and most of those are
now looking good. It is a very slow time of year to try growing anything
down here though. Our carrots are crawling along. Think they may have
put out a leaf each whilst I was away. The onions and leeks planted in
April are going well though, and the broccoli being harvested and left
to form side shoots. The first of our cabbages are also nearly ready.
It was very exciting when they started wrapping up and forming heads!
The mustard, rocket and some lettuces are all trying to seed, but I keep
ripping the stalks off. There's little enough to pick at the moment without
them going.
We are on the very last of our tomatoes, the bushes having been uprooted
and hung of the north facing verandah to ripen the dregs. The chillis
have all been harvested and hung to dry on string in the kitchen. Two
potatoes in raised tyre beds are surviving, although we decided to raise
their beds to three tyres as the frosts worsened. The first week of June
produced some very harsh frosts here - we were out watering the garden
at 7 am to save what we could. Netting over the citrus, avocado and macadamias
is keeping them protected from frost.
We've brought still more fruit trees. More plums, a quince, a late apricot.
Debating getting a plumcot and a peachcot at the moment. Raided the side
of the road for some self seeded olive trees and transplanted those into
our yard.
Jason's tidied up the garden a lot while I've been away. All those horrible
jobs which I hate have been done for me - pulling out couch from the side
of the house and edge of the garden beds, fetching sawdust for the paths
and sheep poo for the beds. It's all quite amazingly neat. The last of
the leaves have fallen off the trees. I'd been wondering when that was
going to happen. We may have a problem with too much shade in May if all
our trees hold their leaves this late!
August
This month we have gone berry mad. Transplanted the strawberry runners
(long overdue) bought still more, so we now have around 65 of them. Plus
raspberries, youngberries, loganberries, red currants, gooseberries and
we already had boysonberries, blackberries and silvanberries. I've been
told the silvanberries best suit our climate here. They are all in sheltered,
shady spots.
We've bought still more trees. A plumcot and a green gage plum. Jason
thinks we're starting to run out of tree space, but i say there's still
the nature strip to go!
We've gained two chickens. Rhode Island Reds, and we've named them Big
Red and Mulberry. At our last house, they got killed by foxes, but I think
we've fox proofed here. We get very attached to our chickens and couldn't
kill them. As all the poultry books I've read have said to kill and eat
your chickens after a few years as they're laying slows down, I can see
that we'll be buying more chickens every three years to get eggs, but
keeping the old ones until we have a sanctuary for geriatric chickens.
Any idea how long chickens live
for??? It was funny introducing the cat to them. I think he wanted
to play, but they didn't and he got scared when they started kicking up
a fuss and ran away. He doesn't seem keen to attack them, just curious.
Probably becasue he's still young and they are definately bigger than
he is!
In the vegie stakes, I've thinnned and transplanted loads of onions and
garlic. The cabbages, broccoli, cauliflower and lettuces under bottles
are mostly too big for them now. In my haphazard gardening manner, I didn't
label any and now I'm not sure what's what! Our first asparagus spear
for the season has popped it's head up. A pumpkin has self seeded in a
sheltered corner. The potatoes in tyres are still going, I'm definately
doing that again next winter. I've put another couple in a tyre, but I
expect the weather will be substantially better by the time they pop out.
I'm attempting to sprout a sweet potato inside. It's half covered in water
and covered over with plastic in front of a north window. I'll let you
know how it goes!
More cabbages, broccoli, pakchoi, peas and spinach have been sown in
seedboxes under glass, they're just starting to pop up. Onions and radishes
have gone directly in the garden. Some of the lettuces, mustard and rocket
are going to seed, but I'm hacking back a few of them to keep them going.
We've still got plenty of silverbeet, the side shoots on broccoli, radishes,
beetroots and turnip as well. Our first patch of cabbages are nearly ready.
I've decided there is a lot to be said for the mid summer plantings despite
the effort, in terms of having vegies available June and July. I think
next years plan will be to nurse a few more things up through the heat
in January and February, plant most of the winter crop in March and April,
and nurse a few things up before it gets to cold in May. That should give
us a reasonably consistant crop through winter/spring.
I'm starting to get very excited about spring gardening, but trying to
hold off a few more weeks. We're expending our energy putting in more
garden beds and are even thinking about removing the washing line because
it's in the way of the garden plans!
September
August has been a pretty exciting month. Not because much is happening,
but because of all of the hints of things starting to happen. I've had
the flu of death for the past two weeks, and haven't done any work in
the garden of late. But the fruit trees are starting to blossom, flowers
are already out on the nectarine. The poor mulberry suffered for its early
start with some damage from frost. We had some very harsh frost early
this month. There's been a bit of rain, but not really enough for the
water consumption in the area. Local water stroages remain around 14%
full.
Some purple congo potatoes have come up by themselves from where last
years patch was. I've covered them with straw and a sheet of netting inn
an effort to save them from the last frosts. Seems to have worked so far.
The potatoes in tyres out the front died in the last frost - I got overconfident
and let them grow above the mulch, but the tyres weren't high enough to
save them.
We constructed our greenhouse at last. It seems to be bearing up to the
gales that we get here. Jason succumbed to the spring gardening bug and
planted lots of seeds in the greenhouse, 4 big boxes full and I've no
idea what's in what. I always swear I will label my seed boxes, and each
time I don't do it, so I can't complain. The seeds planted under glass
last month have flourished. More cabbages, kohl rabi, other miscellaneaous
brassicas, english spinach and peas are either transplanted to the garden
under cut off bottles or well on the way there. Hopefully the stuff in
the green house will do the same.
One of our new chickens has started laying, gorgeous pink ones with tiny
white spots. We've had a few adventures chasing them around the yard.
Which is the last thing you want to do when you have the flu. Jason constructed
a pen for them around the apple tree, with the idea that they could scratch
around there for a few days and eat all the hibernating codling moths.
Seemed like a good idea, but they wanted to roam and spent most of those
2 travelling to and fro with us, via the beetroot patch which they loved.
Hope they at least ate a few larvae for us! Beetroot, I'm sure that's
something Jason didn't plant because he was to impatient to soak the seeds
first, must do that today...
We joined the Seed Savers Network, and I've been recieving all these
exciting little packages of seeds in the mail. I love going down for the
mail at the moment! I'm having to watch the mizuna carefully as it is
trying to seed and will cross with the mustard that's already flowered.
I have great hope for the carob and tree lucerne seeds in terms of being
a frost/heat/drought resistant wind break and shelter.
We picked up a few late season bargains at the nursery. Yet another apricot.
It was an early season one, and I just couldn't resist, I love apricots
... A dwarf nectarine. Some cauliflower seedlings that were looking pretty
pitful, but I figured with my appalling luck at germinating cauliflower
seed, it would probably be easier to revive these. And it seems to be
working, 8 of them are still surviving, and it was only 50 cents ....
Did I mention that we went through a whole pack of cauliflower seeds and
have not had a single cauliflower? None even beyond the seedling stage.
Heat, earwigs and slugs I think were the main culprits. But I really like
cauliflower ...
Think that's about us for the month.
October
Again, I'm a little late because I've been away, this time in Nepal,
which is really one big farm and hence quite fascinating for a gardener
to wander through. Interesting to see the techniques in common with permaculture
- interplanting crops, maximising use of space and recycling all bits
of plant, animal and human waste. Although the way they recycle the human
waste can be pretty disgusting and unhygienic by our standards!
Our garden has been going feral. The remaining radishes and turnips going
to seed, the seeding mustard and rocket spreading everywhere. Finding
space for all the new seedlings was fun, but that was done today, so it's
not really the September info. We're harvesting lots of cabbage, spinach,
silverbeet, shallots, lettuces, radish, turnips, broadbeans, broccoli.
The winter's onions are starting to form bulbs. The strawberries are flowering
and the other berries just about to. The trees have finished blooming
and some seem to have set fruit, although we'll have to cut them off all
but the biggest trees, they're not up to it yet. The nectarine and peach
have some curly leaf - from what I've read it's a bit late to do much
about it except feed the tree mulch and liquid manures to help it along.
Any suggestions? Is it worth removing the affected leaves and burning
them?
Jason's put in 2 more garden beds while I've been away, talked the neighbours
into giving us their kitchen scraps instead of throwing them away, the
chickens are laying like mad and the cat's still growing bigger. And that's
about me for this month because I've been a long way away from all the
action!.
November
Lack of space is the major problem in our garden this month. Everything
that over wintered is going to seed - the carrots, celery, beetroot, silverbeet,
cabbages, spinach, radishes. Seeding mustard and rocket especially take
up a lot of space, and the seedlings in the green house desperately needed
to go somewhere. We've got beans, beetroot, tomato, lettuces, watermelon,
rockmelon, coriander, capsicum, eggplant, okra globe artichokes, cape
gooseberries, cucumber, basil, yarrow, and lots more things I can't remember
at the moment. Corn was the only thing I sowed direct, because for some
reason, it's the only thing that seems to survive the bug onslaught. We
had plenty come up. I've intermingled them with the potatoes that came
up in last years potato bed. There's a jerusalum artichoke surfacing from
last year there as well. Actually, lots of tomatoes are popping up from
last year as well. Maybe lots of things survive the bug onslaught, just
not anything I purposely plant anywhere. The carrots have to be direct
sown and they are always a battle to beat the bugs to the slow germinating
tops. Think I got 2 patches of 5 up last year.
The bug problem is dramatically less this year than last spring. We started
the earwig traps early, and regular barrages for slugs and snails, plus
the saw dust paths that are in place on about half the beds now, keep
them not too bad. Have decided that cabbages are slug traps. I seem to
gain about 20 each time I pick one. The chickens love them. The chickens
have escaped on gone on the rampage twice, and we were very displeased
that they dug up all but one of the first batch of rockmelons. Jason chased
them around with the hose for that!
Other space saving mechanisms for spring include pyramids for climbers
stuck abstractly in the middle of beds, things that sprawl planted on
the edge so they can run onto what little remains of our lawn, potatoes
thrown into tyres of compost randomly thrown around that rapidly diminishing
patch of lawn and planting stuff around the nearly finished winter crops.
It's been quite wet here the past week, apparently the main street was
flooded one day, but I was away with work and missed it. Late frosts earlier
this month damaged some new growth on the macadamias and lime, although
we saved the frost sensitive seedlings by covering them with buckets overnight.
It has been typically windy here. I've become a bit cynical about wind
breaks. Not that I don't think they work. Just that I don't think the
average windbreak pictured in a permaculture book can deal with the winds
we get around here!!. All efforts so far seem to have had minimal impact.
The most sheltered corner of our yard still get enough wind to have the
plants veering towards horizontal. Maybe 5 tree deep wind breaks ...
We bought more grapes, and now have 14 different types, and have to be
very inventive of where to put them. Bought a golden passionfruit. Apparently
they're more resilient than normal passionfruits, but as I only discovered
that after buying it, I can't claim great insight on that purchase. Planted
three chokos bought cheap at the supermarket as they were getting a bit
old and festy. Apparently they'll grow vigorously and provide far more
than we'll ever want to eat, so I've just put them by the back shed to
go feral over it. Discovered that germinating onions in the dark works
really well. Did the leeks, shallots and chives in the dark only two weeks
ago and two thirds of the box is packed already.
December
We finally threw off the late frosts this month. A local farmer tells
me that they were abnormally late this year with the first week of November
being quite harsh. But then it went straight to desperately hot days,
and both the garden and I found it quite a shock. It became quite humid
for a while, which is unusual around here, the heat is normally dry. This
left some powdery mildew on my peas, but they are still cropping so I'm
still ignoring it. A return to the dry heat probably slowed it down a
lot.
I have developed a few theories about lettuces this month. I've been
planting a mesclun mix, so I get all sort of things pop up from it, but
the ones that consistently do best are the oak leaf and cos types. They
seem more heat tolerant and insect resistant.
I'm still failing abysmally with carrots, and my first attempt at parsnips
was also pitiful. If I manage to keep them moist for long enough to germinate,
they are so small for so long they get gnawed to the ground, presumably
by slugs and earwigs. Any suggestions
would be most welcome.
I was very excited by my leeks producing little leeks for me this month.
Quite a few have send up seed stalks, but I didn't expect them to multiply
from the base as well. Lots for the price of one!
The broad beans are coming to the end of their life. We had quite a few
in, and they were very prolific, so I've saved lots for seed and lots
for dry beans later. I can see my lemon trees for the first time in months!
The asparagus is towering over my head most impressively. We only took
a few shoots from it this year, as it is only two years old, and it's
a forest.
Am finally collecting the mustard seed. The space in the garden is most
welcome. I found our first little tomato on one of our romas this morning.
The zucchinis are going feral already, one plant suffered a lot with frost,
then ravaged by bugs, but the remaining two are still giving us excess.
The summer squashes are only days away from being abundant as well. These
were all started in the greenhouse and saved from late frost by desperate
late night and early morning dashes around the yard, but it seems to have
worked well.
What we thought was a self seeded pumpkin still remains a mystery. Imagine
pumpkin leaves an a tall, upright plant that hasn't flowered but has odd
little lantern cases on it. It must be quite old now, like 3-4 months.
I thought it might be a hollycock for a while, but no. Or one of the tomato
relatives that grow fruit in cases, but the leaves are pumpkiny. And I've
got no idea how it got there!
The garden has devoured three trailer loads of mulch this month. The
english spinach, onion and leeks seeds are nearly ready. The silverbeet
has been viciously hacked back on a regular basis to delay seeding, but
the fight is getting desperate. I was hoping it would get over it. Got
still more things in seed boxes waiting for some space and a less hot
day to transplant them in - fennel, beetroot, asparagus, okra, tomato,
eggplant, basil, cape gooseberry, melons.
We're getting lots of strawberries, although we have to share a few
with the slugs. There's some funny black beetles I've found in them as
well. And the slaters seems to have a go. Along with the harlequin bugs.
It really is bug frenzy time of year. I have to keep reminding myself
it is so much better than last year - we'd barely got any seedlings to
survive last spring before the earwig invasion got them. Some of the other
berries are starting to redden and I'm keeping an excited watch on them.
Pulled immense amounts of garlic up, leaving quite a few in the garden
to shoot again there. Jackie French tells me that if you leave them there
and just eat the green tops, they are virtually perennial. I still like
my bulbs. You can't really roast the green tips, can you? Lots of onions
as well. And leeks. Autumn may have been too late to plant them as they
are seeding whilst much skinnier than last springs planting. But they're
still yummy. Then there's broccoli and cabbages still, with new generations
of both well on their way.
Bought some new trees as a local nursery was closing down. Tahitian lime,
persimmon, dwarf nectarine, nashi pear. Not really the time to transplant
things, and then it hit late thirties on us. The nashi didn't really cope
and will probably die. Think we got gipped actually, it's root system
was appalling when we moved it. The nectarine is loaded with fruit. I
figure they can live in pots, so it's staying there. We got a few little
peaches and apricots, but most of the trees are far too young. The orange
was really keen, smelt beautiful whilst it was flowering, then set 21
little oranges. They really had to go as the tree is shorter than me.
One of our chickens was taken by a fox last week. And she was my favourite!
We had become a bit complacent and left the door to their yard open. The
bastard thing squeezed under the fence then exited via the tree and over
the fence somehow. Bought a new chicken so the remaining one wouldn't
get lonely, but she still doesn't seem to appreciate the company and bemoans
the situation very loudly on occasion. The new chicken is older than she
is and her rule has been superseded!
2001
January
This time we've been escaping the heat and doing Xmas and New Years at
Mt Buffalo. Had our neighbours watering the garden, but they couldn't
work out our watering system (it has about 5 different bits as we haven't
got the waterpressure to do the whole thing in one) and did it all by
hand!! Seems a pretty dedicated effort to me. Unfortunately, although
we said help yourselves to the vegies, didn't think to mention that the
stuff that was seeding was meant to be there, and they grabbed a few onions
I really wanted seeds from! Oh well, suppose we'll buy more onion seeds
this year ...
In addition to my November post, I found out that we had the hottest
November on record down here. December didn't change that theme much.
Threw still more mulch on the garden, but it's hard to do much about the
wind! We lost a branch off our apricot tree whilst we were away. It's
not big enough to be losing branches yet! Found a kangaroo taking advantage
of our watering system this evening, casually drinking from a dripper
in the front yard!
Now that we're back, there's lots of tidying up to do and hacking back
the jungle a bit, seeds to collect. Jason picked our first tomato today,
not quite ripe yet, but he was desperate for a tomato. We've got lots
of zucchinis, lettuce, okra, New Zealand spinach, rocket, assorted herbs,
kohl rabi (most of which is getting enormous, about to go to seed and
become inedible), onions, broccoli, a few cauliflowers (discovered three
quarters of the way through a large plate of cauliflower cheese that I
also had steamed tiny green caterpillars! Did you know they go white when
you cook them?), berries, beets, purple beans (they are really very pretty
and cover a quarter of our very ugly water tank). A chilacayote covers
another quarter of the tank. Just one plant. It's gone feral, but not
even a flower on it yet. Other beans cover another bit and a bit over
a quarter is still blank. The south east bit. Our first pumpkin is turning
orange, our first water melon is looking sleek and beautiful at about
elongated rockmelon size. Little eggplants are appearing.
Our second batch of corn is ready to eat, but a bit sporadic in its
ears. The ear wigs like to eat the tassles and if they get to them before
the pollen does ... we hand pollinated in a haphazard manner last year.
Rub a hand over the top, then over the tassles. Preferably from different
plants if you want to save seed. If the tassels are already eaten, you
can pull the sheath back a bit and find them neatly eaten off to the same
length and easy to pollinate. They pollinated whilst we were away this
time though. Have done the first batch of corn by hand today. The first
patch I planted directed back in early October, then we had all those
late frosts, which despite being covered obviously weren't appreciated
as this lot have been very slow growing and are substantially shorter
that patch 2, which I started in the greenhouse in late October and are
lovely, tall healthy plants, pity about the earwigs ...
Also on the bug stakes - gnats. Not because they're bothering the garden,
but because they're bothering me!! We get them by the trillion at this
time of year, and they seem to get into the house through the flyscreens
and if we have to go out, they'll pile in. The first time I heard them
hitting the windows in they effort to reach the light last year, I though
it was raining. Last night I didn't think about it and opened the door
to go out and was smothered in them, really quite disgusting! We've been
trying sitting in darkness with the porch light on the encourage them
out. Which only really reduces them to bearable proportions. Any
suggestions?
Well, it's really too hot to think here, so that will have to do us for
today. I really deacclimatised going to an alpine area for 2 weeks ...
Actually, I've just remembered. The chickens don't seem to be coping with
the heat. Our neighbours tell us they only got 2 eggs out of them whilst
we were away. I have heard that they can stop laying in the heat - has
anyone else found this?
February
We've just had the 2nd hottest January on record, 15 days of 35, 3 over
40. We've got phenomenal amounts of mulch on the beds in order to protect
them, but the plants still wilt badly during the day. I remembering why
we planted so many trees now, we really need the shade! Most of them aren't
big enough to do much yet, but I am really impressed with the size of
the cherry, it's about three metres tall and only been in since last winter.
We were very excited at the arrival of our first apricots and nectarines.
Only 2 apricots and 8 nectarines, but first fruit is always exciting.
Mostly we've been just picking, mulching and as little weeding as we can
get away with. We're picking everything we need to eat at the moment,
and giving away lots! We did a big clean up of the lawn and sawdusted
some more paths in further efforts to prevent couch and kikuya entering
the beds. We get sawdust and scrap wood from to cabinet makers in Horsham,
for cost of our time and effort in fetching it only. We've been raiding
the local nursing home for mulch, they give us all their garden waste,
and have just arranged with the local council workers to have their waste
dumped on our nature strip. We're closer than the tip is, so they're quite
happy about it. We don't mind not having to fetch it either!
Trying to raise a few seedlings through the heat. Some more zucchini,
beans, tomato and corn for a late crop plus our first winter veg, broccoli,
cabbage and brussel sprouts. The summer veg germinated happily in no time,
and were snuck into the garden on the only day below 30 degrees this month.
The winter veg are still tiny, miserable looking seedlings in boxes on
the east of the house, were they don't get hot afternoon sun. Still don't
know about this plant for winter in January thing. Put some of the tomatoes,
capsicum and basil in pots, thinking that we could keep them going in
winter if we move them around with the weather.
Bought two more chickens, tiny black ones at 10 weeks. We're hoping
they'll be really friendly by getting them so young. We've noticed a big
difference in the chicken we got at 18 weeks, to the 24 weeks and 12 months
ones. They are so cute (in that way ugly little baby monkeys are cute)!!
They look like oversized, bedraggled crows. This morning, they ran up
to me for the first time when I took some leafy stuff and bread in to
the pen. They don't like being picked up much, but then they'll perch
happily on your arm and eat out of your hand. I think they'll be very
friendly eventually. Chickens aren't laying much with the heat. One slightly
cooler week produced 7 eggs, but they layed behind a board leaning against
the fence and it wasn't discovered for a while. Still, less than 10 eggs
this month.
That's us for now, I need to retreat to the river again ....
Wendy
March
February was terribly hot, continuing the theme of the summer. We're
inundated in most summer vegies, it's really great not to have to buy
vegies. Actually, we still buy mushrooms, and some fruit, and I did buy
a lettuce today, it's been far to hot to raise lettuces recently, and
the last batch have all gone to seed. Very excited by our watermelons,
we didn't get any last year, I think because they take quite a while to
grow and we didn't have the in early enough in the season. Also, they
aren't always that good at producing female flowers, nor at pollinating
them. We hand pollinated those that appeared and were told recently that
cutting the growing tips back will encourage females. Bit late to try
that now, but we'll see have it goes. Most things have looked a bit down
with the heat, but some things, like the watermelon and warrigal greens
are thriving in it.
Have taken advantage of the slight cooling down this week to transplant
winter seedlings out. Our first peas went direct in the ground and are
just popping up. Finally getting to collect seeds from the leeks from
last spring, and with the okra having an unfortunate tendency not to produce
enough for a meal at the one time, loads have gone to seed and we're inundated
in okra seed too.
Bought two ducks this month. We really are getting excited by having
a menagerie. I keep daydreaming of quitting my job and running an organic
farm. The idea behind the ducks is that the won't scratch the plants up
as the chickens do, but will still eat the bugs. They do eat a few green
things, but so far they are so nervous in the yard, that they barely leave
the quiet corners! The local kids adore the poultry as well, but that's
not always to the benefit of the poor animals! They get a bit stressed
by the bombardment on occasion.
Well, I should actually be out transplanting the many many seedlings
in this weather, but I'll just quickly plug one of the things that have
been taking my time away from the garden of late ...Anyone passing through
Horsham on the 24 of March, the opening performance of the Art Is Festival
will be amazing!
May
It frosted really early this year - in the last week of March! Despite
this, our eggplants are thriving, and I'm quite amazed at how tolerant
they are, not being in a sheltered position at all. Our chilacayote is
finally fruiting - it should produce lots considering it's size and the
number of flowers now appearing. Sheltered late plantings of squash are
just starting to fruit and will hopefully keep it up for a month more.
Sheltered cherry tomatos are still looking very healthy, although their
production rate isn't very high. Loads of winter veg in, we are going
to have so much silverbeet. The only reason we aren't already innudated
in it is the chickens and ducks like it alot as well. Our peach tree is
a very late peach. We got 6
delicious peaches in late April. They were amazing!! Quite comparable
with mangos ... I'm going to become a fruitarian when our trees are really
producing!!
March was bug month this year. After patting ourselves on the back for
having such little trouble with pest this summer, and thinking our predator
population must be great, we smothered in cabbage butterfly and aphids.
Eventually, we put Dipel on all the brassicas because the predators and
handpicking weren't keeping up. That and a good cut back, and we were
getting plenty of brocoli shoots again. The chickens don't seem to like
green catapillars. Thrown them in their yard and they ignore them. Pity.
The aphids seemed to survive the soapy water and eventually got a dose
of pyrethrum.
We're moving house!! Not for a while yet, but we're eyeing off some land
and building our own place. If we do it now, at least we will be able
to tranfer most of the garden over winter. Next winter, the trees will
be too big!
June
Things have been hooning along without me the past couple of months,
since
it finally started raining a bit. Which is a good thing considering I
haven't had time to do anything with it. Or the desire to go out in the
cold. We had a long frost free period after some early ones in March and
April, but the past week has brought the cold out again. 0-10 being a
common temperature range this week.
Despite this, we are still getting eggplants, kind of small fruit on
very bedraggled looking plants, but given they are in a completely onprotected
spot, I'm impressed. The roma tomatos put in in spring have keenly produced
another major crop which is just turning red. One of the cherry tomatoes
and a Tommy Toe planted late especially for autumn fruit are still fruiting,
both of these are rather protected though. Some squash and zuchini planted
late are looking miserable, covered in mildew but still fruiting. We definately
didn't plant enough silverbeet for us, the ducks and chickens (only about
14 plants!) but one of them is a remnant of 1999 still going. It's seeded
twice, been cut back viciously and still produces a lot, just small leaves.
Winter brassicas and lettuces are thriving, snow peas are ready, standard
peas a bit behind them, except the ones which came up from peastraw, which
i get a pleasant suprise of fruit off occasionly.
I think I have mentioned this before, but our chilacoyote is feral. It's
got a lot of enormous fruit on it, but because we've still got zuchini,
we haven't needed to pick them young. I have a huge one in the kitchen
I am wondeirng what to make with. Jam? Pie? The most work I have done
in the garden recently has been hack the vine back so the other things
sharing the garden bed aren't smothered. I suppose this is what permaculture
is about - getting more than enough food from a garden that looks after
itself. Still haven't brought any veg except onions.
Bareroot trees came out this week in local nurseries. As usual, we had
to go shopping, and have put 7 new trees on our new block. It looks a
bit pathetic, 7 leafless trees on 2 blank acres ... I also discovered
a great nursery in Mildura whist I was up there for work. Sunraysia Nursery
grow and graft their own citrus and avocado , so they are all well adapted
to a desert climate, plus nearly half the price I would expect to pay
in Horsham. They are also involved in research for domesticating the quandong,
and sell the latest results of their efforts (again, really cheap ...)
.. I came home with 20 trees ... Really need to spend some time preparing
soil on the new block for them ...
Wendy
July
 It's
been another month of doing very little in the garden, except eat it.
Put some silver beet in to try and keep up with the ducks and chickens,
it's
germinated and growing slowly, which I'm quite happy with given the time
of
year. Had a few nights of -1, that shook some of the light frost only
things up, now the chilacayotes, chokoes and pepino are looking rather
miserable. Planted trees on our new block and tackled the major job of
transplanting the largest tree on the block, the cherry. It's safely in
it's new home, we'll let you know how it took being transplanted in spring.
Got a photo of our garden scanned, attatched is Bernard, Rubber and Sebastian
under the forementioned cherry in the summer.
Wendy
August
July has again been an effort free vegetable picking month. We've had
a bit of drizzle, enough to keep things going without watering, but nothing
to improve the water storages around here. We're had nearly 100ml less
than the average for the first 6 months of the year and are looking at
our 5th year in a row of below average rainfall. Average rainfall is also
on 422ml a year here.
Jason has uprooted almost all of the deciduous trees onto our new block
and set up a frame for an huge green house (about 5 by 3 m). We've got
2 beds waiting for perenial veg to move in (must move asparagus SOON)
and I've keenly planted out some tomatoes and squash in seed boxes covered
with glass. It's been a phenomenally mild winter, despite the early frosts.
The weather's not gotten into misable cold stuff really. Mostly 3-5 to
13-17, with the occasional night at 1 and frosty. The result of this is
that everything is seeding and budding early. The remaining spring onions
have put up seed stalks when I wasn't looking, and I'm not very impressed,
cause there were quite a few there I expected to be eating for another
month or 2 yet!! The mulberry, almonds, apricots and nectarines are varying
from bud burst to first flowers and leaves out. And I haven't done anything
about curly leaf, which the nectarine had quite a bit of last year.
I've got a smelly dog in the garden too. This one belongs to a neighbour,
likes to knock over the compost bins and rummage through the contents
for delicacies. Penelope the duck has developed a noticable curly tail
feather, giving away his real sex. If we hadn't noticed that, mounting
the smaller ducks would probably have given us a clue ... He hasn't seemed
to have worked the sex thing out yet though, with Donald's tail (we have
some gender bending ducks) protruding between Penelope's legs, I figure
he was pounding away fruitlessly at her back!
That's about it for the month,
Wendy
October
September has been another pleasant month of picking loads of vegies.
I was thinking this is the best time of year in the garden, loads of food,
loads of flowers, lots of planting happening, no need to baby sit the
garden from the heat, but then I thought about all those tomatoes and
stuff you can only really get here in summer and couldn't make my mind
up...
All the ridiculously early plantings of tomatoes and squash are doing
fabulously, havig well outgrown their mini greenhouses. I bought some
capsicum and eggplant seedlings to get an early crop of them as well.
We've had a few mild frosts, some of which i was expecting and covered
things up, others i wasn't, but didn't seem to damage anyting anyway.
I never seem to have enough seed boxes for the things I want to plant,
and then never seem to have the space in the garden for the seedlings
later...
We're getting 6-8 eggs a day at the moment, with a couple of chickens
and ducks still to start laying. Don't know what we're going to do with
all those eggs ... Got excited about breeding unusual breeds of chickens
and bought a pair of Plymouth Rocks and Belgium de watermaels, and a Faverolle
rooster who we haen't got a hen for yet. Unfortuneately, the pens are
very close to the house and the roosters don't have a very considerate
timetable. One of them has been called "4.30 in the bloody morning",
but he sometimes challenges his name to be "2.30" or even "1.15".
It's particularly rude when the rooster starts crowing before you've even
gone to bed.
We seem to have lost one tree in the mass transplant to the new block.
It started to blossom then stopped, and had a lot of aphids. So I squashed
aphids, pruned it back a bit, gave it lots of chicken poo water and mulch,
but it doesn't seemed to have worked. Oh well, 1 out of 40 odd probably
isn't a bad ratio.
Snail and slug fest is on us again. The earwigs are starting to breed
and there's even the occasional harliquin bug. And those aphids. Working
on the early management plan, beer traps and paper tubes for the earwigs
are already out.
That's about us for now,
Wendy
Last updated
25 May, 2002
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