Garden - general

We are starting to pick feijoas again - good crop this year although the 2 trees have developed a lean after all the wet weather.

Collected this produce yesterday morning:

 The feijoas even though they are green are still ripe to eat -  when ripe they fall off the tree.  This variety of  Tamarillo don't seem to develop a deep red colour when ripe but they are still nice eating.  We are still picking cherry gauvas although they are nearly finished. The Babaco fruit fell off after a storm the other night - probably won't ripen enough to eat. Also 1 duck egg and 1  chook egg from the 2 new chickens -  quite small so far as they have only just started laying.

Weeds being eaten regularly at present as potherbs : Purslane , Sowthistle, Cobbler's pegs,  Amaranth, Galinsoga , Warrigal greens.  Usually  I go around and  pick a bit of this and that and then it is boiled for a short period.

Here's a nice photo of some Eastern Grey Kangaroos that were feeding
outside the  B&B we stayed in at Stanthorpe recently

Garden - old dam site

More progress on the water shute - planted 3 pots of water plants yesterday - shield pennywort,  dwarf umbrella grass and dwarf papyrus - all supposedly frog friendly. I have a workable pump  system -  the solar idea of pump and panels but no battery was not really practical with a head height of 2.1m  and so I have settled on a 3,000lph pond pump on a timer.  I can run power from the shed nearby using 3 trees as poles to string up the power lead.

I have put down 7m2  of road base to make the paths -  it needs to be wide enough for mower/trailer  access to the old shipping container that we use for storage.

Also a photo of one of our Inukshuk replicas -  we were fascinated by these stacks of rocks when we visited Alaska a few years ago  and when we returned  from that trip,  I made two from rocks we had lying around. I cheated a bit and used mortar to help keep them upright though.

Photo of some dahlias in flower:

And finally an eggplant from one of the aquaponics growbeds -it actually was  quite buggy on the other side!

Back yard dunny

One of our first garden  structures when we moved here is this :

There was no door, floor or let alone witch on top originally. It was sited in the middle of an otherwise empty paddock  that was about to be subdivided. I knocked on the door of the nearest house and enquired about it and was given permission to remove it.  Fortunately,  I knew someone with a crane truck who was able to pick it up intact and relocate it to our yard. Total cost was a carton of beer.  It has been the dog house for a number of years.  The witch came from Montville (behind the Sunshine Coast) but I think is made in Africa somewhere.  The door Anne found at the local Sunday market and seems to have come from an old house at Ipswich.  It fitted almost perfectly - but doesn't really give any  privacy!  On the southern side of this I planted a Richmond Birdwing vine some years ago.

Here's also photo of a cabbage we picked yesterday

      

     

Pararistolochia praevenosa

Yesterday  morning we went to Indigiscapes to purchase some more native plants (mainly shrubs) for the front  eastern area of the property. Once a month Indigiscapes  (at Capalaba) has a small nursery open which sells a good range of local native plants  (tube stock) for the very reasonable price of $2.10 each.

http://indigiscapes.redland.qld.gov.au/GardensNursery/Nursery/Pages/default.aspx

One of the plants we collected is called:


Pararistolochia praevenosa
 or Richmond Birdwing vine.

I have already planted two specimens of this plants, one on the old backyard dunny, and another on a fence.  Both are a bit slow growing but the idea is that if enough people plant this vine, it will encourage this spectacular butterfly to return in the numbers it used to be in the Brisbane area. There are reports of "clouds" of this butterfly in earlier times. There is a Richmond Birdwing Butterfly recovery organisation which has an informative website:

http://www.richmondbirdwing.org.au/

Here is a google image of this butterfly :

One day I hope I get to see one or more of them hanging around our property.


Further to my efforts against Asparagus aethiopicus (asparagus fern)
I  found on the Queensland DPI site that diesel is effective against this plant when applied to the crown to the point of runoff ( ie  a good soaking). Diesel is quickly broken down in the soil and is relatively non toxic to animals so I have tried some diesel on a few clumps of this weed as well.  The  clumps are labelled and dated so I can check back later on outcome.


The hippeastrums are flowering profusely -  here is a white one

More rain yesterday -6mm in rain gauge yesterday morning and more rain since then as well.

Garden - general

Still busy preparing for a medical conference presentation, but at least I had my usual days off this week.

Committee meeting for our Garden Club this morning, but managed some time in the yard this afternoon. Mainly watering the vegetables and doing my weekly folar type fertilising that has seemed to make a big difference this year. Anne was also planting and watering flower seedlings in preparation for a visit by a different garden club next month.

Citrus trees don't do well here, I'm not sure exactly why, but I persist as we like to eat grapefruit, oranges etc.

Today I applied some epsom salts and potash to 2 citrus trees with leaf signs of deficiency . Time will tell if I got the right diagnosis! Even though the leaf signs are different I applied the same mixture to both.



























Also picture of our mulberry tree developing fruit - it is the standard variety but quite sweet (black when ripe). We have the white shatoot variety as well but it is still small and probably won't have much fruit on it this year.


I still have some more edible weeds to work up but there is other priorities at present.


Tom

garden - general

As I am working fulltime for the next few weeks I have less time to prepare my blog items as per usual - I have a few almost ready that need further workup.

Here's a few photos from around our yard, some of which I plan on explaining later especially the lessons learnt constructing them.

The first is a general backyard view - the south of our house with my workshop and 2 of the aquaponics systems with vegetable garden beside.

Another photo is of the root cellar made to look like an old mine site.
Beside that is a container that has had a facade painted by our daughter (who is really talented with art things) to make it look like an old Maori Whare (house)

The other photo is of the backyard dunny -story about this later. 12 mm of rain overnight here and more today - most welcome.

Garden - update

Current projects - mulching and general tidying up especially near the root cellar and preparing two beds for sweet potatoes. Between these two beds I am going to erect a frame for growing Madagascar beans.

Collected 2 round bales of mulching hay today after Garden Club Committee meeting - the cost was certainly right at only $10/bale. I have already spread 40 normal bales of sugar cane mulch past week that I collected from Jacobs Well area - this cost $4.50/bale.

Pictures of current produce - our brassicas are doing really well with minimal caterpillar problems. We have lots of chicory, radicchio lettuce, carrots, kale,snow peas and beetroot almost ready as well. The cabbage in the picture is a sugarloaf.




Also photo of Madagascar bean seeds - we have grown them for the first time this year on a fence near the vegetable patch but they really need something more "dedicated". We didn't get around to eating any of these beans so I hope the effort will be worthwhile.




Tom

garden -general

8* this morning here - aquaponics tanks at over 15* though with pumps turned off overnight. So far so good this winter without any heating needed.

We're away this weekend - Garden club excursion to Byron Bay area visiting Seed Savers, Forbidden Fruits Nursery and other related places.

The plan is to buy some more subtropical type fruit trees to plant in an area I am currently redoing.

Fish dinner the other night - Jade Perch , Dock ,Warrigal Greens , Chickweed were the edible weeds, and a few other bought vegies. When I look around my yard there is so much available to eat at the moment. Our climate is strange for someone from a temperate zone - all the action happens in winter, especially for working outside and growing vegetables.

It's getting a bit dry again - not much rain for awhile but with lower temps things are still quite green.