Back with a vengeance ...

Hi everyone, these last couple of months have been hard but I am trying to get back on with things and keep occupied. First up, I was given some roofing iron from a workmate so what do you do with it I hear you ask?? You make more garden beds of course.. So two new beds have been made, not wicking ones , just standard raised beds to see how they go.One of them has some gourmet tomatoes , brown onions,leeks and I finally have got some carrots up, after the third attempt, everytime I planted them,it rained for days so I think they may of got waterlogged. In the othe rnew long bed I put it up along the wire in the hope that snap and snow peas would grow up on it, no sign of anything shooting yet so fingers crossed, In the same bed I have some dwarf beans again, I have 1 up at the moment.haha One of the original wicking beds wasn't doing what it is supposed to so I dug down to the outlet to check and see if it was blocked , put it back together and its still now wicking right so a bit disappointed but I have some cherry red and yellow tomatoes in there , with some supersized caulis, broccoli and cabbages, supersize leaves anyway, nothing to note yet of any head froming but it shouldnt be long. I've covered them with a mozzie net to keep the cabbage moths at bay instead of dusting everyday. In the other large wicking bed it also doesnt want to wick properly so I have planted some nasturtions to nourish the soil, and have some Kohl rabi , little lettuce, and some roma tomatoes just starting to bear. I love to look on Pinterest when I have nothing better to do and found this, a topsy turvy potting system, so I am giving it a go , all it is , a length of threded rod, and pots put together and the top ones tipped on their side, I put italian parsley and chives in the top pots and the bottom one has some mint and a couple of allysium to attract bees. I divided the rhubarb and got about 7 new plants, they have been attacked by a grasshopper so they dont look the best, but the one I planted in the barrel is doing ok.. Pawpaw tree is doing really well, it has lots of fruit forming . Blueberries are ok, one has flowers the other needs a bit of attention , it has rust on it and I am going to repot in it some azalea mix to boost it up. Spring onions and leeks are doing well, I have a capsicum on, garlic is growing , strawberries are needing to be planted out but we need to make a new garden bed first. I had a hanging strawberry pot from ages ago, so i have planted it out and to make sure it gets enough water right down to the bottom I put a piece of ag pipe in the middle covered with some weedfabric. so far i've only lost maybe 1.. And here is a long shot to see the setup , and we have taken the shade off until spring arrives. Chow for now, happy gardening :)

Sad times ahead :(

Nothing has been happening in my garden due to the rain and now mum's passing ...... This week has been the hardest I have ever had to deal with. My mum passed away on March 10 :( . She was 81 yrs old and she was a beautiful lady who didnt deserve how her final years were played out. She lived on the family farm since she married my dad and in 2005 they decided to move into town and bought a wonderful place not far from us. Christmas day that year they were broken into and a handbag belonging to mum was stolen and some money from dads wallet as well, all while they were in the other rooms at the front of the house. Rotten people !!!!! Mum never fully recovered from that incident as she was always on edge with little noises and on January 31 2006 she suffered a major stroke which made her lose her mobility and she was confined to a wheelchair. A few months later she received placement in a nursing home 5 mins from where they lived, she didnt want to go but dad couldnt look after her aqs his health wasnt the best either. So fast-track almost 7 years and last sunday she had breathing difficulties following a chest infection , and was given the nebulizer which fixed her up as she was able to breathe better and had colour back in her cheeks again, the nursing home rang dad and told him she was ok . After dinner that night it was happening again, so they tried the nebulizer again but it didnt work this time so they started to perform cpr on her and the ambos were called, by the time they got there she had gone... :( We had her funeral yesterday and it was a beautiful send off for her :) I'm sure she would of liked it.. RIP Mum... So i'm not sure when I'll get back to it.... Thanks for following and listening to me .

Holiday planning :)

Well we finally decided on what to do for our 30th wedding anniversary, we decided to go on a cruise in October this year, I worked out I cant fly after my last flight so we are doing a 7 day cruise to the pacific islands, doesn't it sound glorious, no cleaning or washing up for 7 whole days....only 232 days to go, I got my passport application done today and Hubsters next week, its all happening... I've had a few disappointments in the garden since the last check in, there was a cyclone that passed through eastern australia in January and we got a lot of strong winds so the shade house was taken down after a bit come undone and we put it back up stronger this time using wire to hold it together... The watermelon in the stocking sling has died, the vine wasn't supported enough and got almost cut off with the weight of the small melon, my fault for not thinking ahead, the vine is still growing so i might be lucky and still get something off the vine. The rock melons that were in the same barrel died as well. In one of the big beds I have a non run pumpkin, 2 lebanese zucchini and put the second lot of purple carrots in as the first lot didnt even surface. The other big bed I have roma tomatoes, with nasturtiums in between for putting nourishment back into the soil and also bug repellent so I have read. I planted some red onions last week and still waiting for them to poke through, the beetroot are just starting to get a move on and little lettuce are almost at the end. In the barrels , the rhubarb needs to be divided really soon, it has about 10 crowns after the main one died so I will have to repot and see if any of my local friends wants one. The strawberries have been divided up between a few beds now and I still have a few in the pvc pipe but the main lot is in one barrel and also in 2 repurposed wardrobe storage hangers, I came across the idea on pinterest and tried it out and they seem to be doing really well. Blueberries were going yellow on the new growth and have been putting sulphur on them to correct the ph and lower it so they'll be happy. The spring onions are going good as well as the leeks in the same barrel. A friend gave me some gourmet tomatoes so I have to find a spot for them really soon, I was thinking of putting them on the edge of the garden area and letting them grow up the fencing so I dont have to stake them, well it sounds like a good idea. I have some cabbages, tatsoi, kohlrabi ,cherry toms, leeks, and some more white strawberries in the hothouse, most are looking pretty good as they come through. Both the lemon and mandarine are getting new growth shoots on them and sprayed yesterday for leaf miner as there was a bit of leaf curl on the top of the lemon . Pawpaw has taken off too, looks like i have a couple of little ones forming...

Busy, busy, busy..

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all who are reading my blog, hope you find a little info or ideas that you can use . I received a lot of vouchers for christmas at my favourite store, Bunnings, so i'll be getting my shopping fix there in the next couple of weeks .But first of all, my son bought me a beautiful garden statue , set it up before he left to go back home the other day, it's lovely..

For Christmas I bought a small collapsible water tank so I would have water on hand in my garden, set it up today and put some water in it, I was thinking about running some guttering along the fence and angle it into the tank in the future , but for now i'll fill with water from the hose until then.I also bought myself a small hothouse , only a cheapie but it should work, I just needed somewhere to put my seedlings out of the way and together.

I bought an old wooden bbq stand without the barbie, and I got a sink from freebies on facebook, a couple of reno's and put them together and I have a very sturdy potting table..Yay..

I saw a post on pinterest about growing melons vertically on a trellis so I thought I would give it a go. I have 2 melons on, these are two I self pollinated as they kept falling off, not too many bees apparently around here, one of them is getting big so I made a sling from some stockings I had and it works pretty good , will have to see how it goes when the melon gets bigger, but i'm all for experimenting. In the same pot I have some rockmelon as well, maybe I overloaded the pot but we'll see.

Butternut pumpkin has 1 , yes 1 on. Bit disappointed but 1 is better then none..

The pawpaw tree had a run in with hubster and the whipper snipper despite my badgering of dont go too close to it, he ringbarked the base a little bit but it seems to be doing ok anyway.

The pepino has a lot of fruit on so waiting for it to ripen to see what it's like.

The blueberries are going ok but I need to add some sulphur as the ph is too high, I measured today and both pots are 6 and 5.5. So another trip to Bunnings.

The spring onions and leeks are struggling, maybe I should replant with some new shoots or try the seed's I saved from my last lot. In the photo the pot at the top has a couple of surviving strawberries that are doing pretty good.

Rhubarb, well, it seems to have divided into 3 parts, I have no idea if it's supposed to do this or if I should divide them up but while it is going like this I'm going to leave it. The leaves are gigantic.

Strawberries in the pvc are going ok, they are starting to send out some runners and I get a couple of ripe ones nearly every day.

the tomatoes in the big bed are still struggling, they are bearing and I will get rid of them on the weekend, not much point having them there and not doing anything.The marigolds finally came up , no flowers yet, I put them in to ward off bugs on the tomatoes, I'll have to see how they go next time..lol.. Beans are bearing , looking healthy too. Lettuce has done it's dash, and carrots are ready to come out too.

In the other big bed I have some zucchini on their last legs and some baby broccoli thats not doing well, so this will be also coming out soon.

My cycad is very pregnant , with heaps of fertile seeds it looks like, not sure what i'm going to do with them when she finally expels them.

And I have had a bad case of powdery mildew on the vine crops so I sprayed with a milk spray, pretty funny though, our dog was following me around and drinking the drips off the leaves.. Well thats it for this round up, Hope everyone has a Happy New Year.

I've built a shade cover ...

So in the garden I have been making a shade cover so the summer heat doesn't destroy my hard work. I have modelled it off another blogger as they seem to work very well for him :) My veg garden had the ground work done as I used the existing posts as tie downs for the 1 1/2 inch poly pipe , they made the hoop that was needed to place the 50% shade cloth over, I also got some 2.4 metre wall piers they were called, as supports up the middle, this is where I had an accident with a hammer and a screw, trying to mark a spot and I didnt have the right tools so yes, I have a pretty tender thumb and have no desire to use a grinder again either,but thats another story.. Time for a pic, this is my thumb just after it happened , and would you believe I could only find one bandaid in the whole house !!!!

I think i'll start with the rhubarb, and it sure is loving it's new pot. The leaves are enormous but the edible stems are so so, hopefully it wont be long before they catch up to each other. It's been just on 8 weeks since I redid the pots so it has had terrific growth in that time.

And the same with the pepino, I planted it as a stick in september i think it was, and now it has fruit, I have no idea what they taste like but it is a pretty plant so all good..

The strawberries in the hanging pvc are doing well, more than I can say about the ones I transplanted from the pot, only 2 seemed to have taken so a bit disappointed with that.I do have some runners I transplanted at the same time but I have promised them to family .

The second photo above is of the 2 surviving strawberries and also some leeks I also transplanted and spring onions. I bought 2 blueberry bushes at our local markets, a Britewell and a misty blue, they are doing really well, I read about putting pine needles around them to make the soil more acidic so they have some and will see how they go.

I have been following Pinterest for a while now and saw a photo of someone growing a watermelon on a trellis , so I have a watermelon vine growing and will be slinging them up in old t-shirts to support the weight if they grow.

I also have a butternut pumpkin taking off in the same tyres I had the sweet spuds in, and I must of missed a couple when I picked them as I saw a couple of spuds growing so all good.

Corn is doing ok, should be able to pick some soon..

Beans have come up pretty uneven , but I still have a few there, they are in the same bed with some more carrots,some roma tomatoes that seem to be struggling since the hail storm, and I also have some more lettuce as well in there,I did plant marigolds and some did come up, thats how good I am at growing flowers..lol..In the other big bed there are some zucchini and I've already picked a few so thats more than last yr..haha..There is also some baby broccoli, I put it in behind the zucchinis and it seems to be doing ok.

And here is my shade cover, still a little tweaking to do , I think it needs another couple of metal supports in there so it's almost done, but looks good...

And as you can see , I only have a small garden but it's amazing what you can fit in with a little bit of planning.. Happy gardening :)