All Blog Posts (913)

January 2018 Harvest:

13 Passionfruit

3kg sweet potato

4 Strawberries

2 Cherry tomatoes

1 red bell chilli

2 small cabbages

OMG the garden is suffering. Infested with fruit fly and crickets! Given up planting anything new for the moment - the zukes and toms went in too late and shouldn't have bothered. …

Whoever 'Huey' may be ...

The local Butcherbirds prefer to wait out the rain under shelter on the back patio:

The back tank full to overflowing:…

Hi guys,

With Autumn nearly upon us, I am trying to seriously get my garden beds going.  I had hoped to get a lot more done this weekend but with the torrential downpours interspersed with sunshine and extreme humidity, it has been more of a labour than a labour of love.  Everything I have planted previously is just taking off though, so that is good.

My cucumber seedling (continental by Floriana) has got about 4 fruit this size and is absolutely loaded with…

I'm in the process of renovating two gardens at present: my own and the school garden.

As I pointed out --…

Hi Everyone,

How's the gardening going in this heat?  I got a little motivated a couple of weeks ago and then this heat hit and I went "Nope".  Luckily for me, everything has survived so far of the new plantings.  I put that down to using a seasol combined with a wetting agent in a hose on pack "seasol super soil wetter and conditioner" -> I did the whole yard and all the wicking beds as nothing was doing well and the soil looked awful.  In the heat, it is very easy for the…

UPDATE (February 18):

For those who watched the video, things have moved on from the previous post below.  I am now slaughtering spare males and old females who no longer lay.  Yes, I'm quite comfortable with the decision.  No, there is no cruelty what-so-ever.  In a complete random act of insanity, I am testing whether Big Bertha (the barred plymouth rock) will sit on quail eggs.  Oh, the quails are laying and it's too hot for the chickens to want to perform. …

Vetiver and I have finally decided to get engaged so that we are retrofitting our family home together. Over the past two years we have grown closer to one another so that a day seldom goes by when we aren't interacting with one another... in an horticultural sense of course.

I've come to know Vetiver's ways and have learnt to appreciate the plant even more. In that embrace I can imagine the grass' potential.

At present I have three projects in mind:

• Redesigning my…

The great joy of annuals and the like is that nothing lasts as it was. Gardening with non perennial plants  is full of options,quickly realised.

Since taking up with Vetiver grass (we are indeed married)-- we've not only had many offspring together but I've experimented with uses.

The big deal is that I'm embarking on a garden retrofit structured by Vetiver hedges.

I guess the main impetus for this is that after installing a spear pump my irrigation protocols have…

No gardening getting done at my place at the moment.  As things die/expire, there is no new planting.  6 out of my 8 wicking beds are completely empty.  IT IS DIRE!! Lucky for me my mother is staying with me at the moment as I went back to work last week and she has been watering everything for me.  My tank is dry as a bone - we are on town water again. 

There are still things coming in from the garden which continues to surprise me.  Those trombonccino's, Dianne's perennial…

We went away to see my folks. Whilst we did have a house sitter, we did not have a garden sitter. So, how bad did it get? Well, I did not have much hope to find anything alive by the time I come back, so I had set up the bed with some hardy plants and had fully intended to plant green manure. How did I go, I hear you saying. 

Well, the front garden looked something like this. it wasn't long before hubby grabbed the lawnmower and filled the 3 compost bins.…

Total harvest in 2017:

December 2017 harvest:

-10 large couve torchuda leaves + rest gone to butterflies

-650g red eggplant + and extra kilo gone to Qld Fruit Flies :( 

- 9 passionfruit (+ some for possums)

- spring onions

- Herbs (mint, rosemary, mother of herb, thyme)

- 5kg sweet potato (of which 1.7kg in peels)

Loving the summer rain but garden is massacred by Fruit fly and Cabbage White butterflies. I didn't listen. I thought I could get away with it.…

Great moments in agriculture award:

• Balinese corn  -- finally found one that I can grow.
• Perennial Capsicum -- producing AGAIN as we speak.
• Dragon Fruit -- keenly fruits.

Festering Passions:

• Squashes --…

This month's harvest:

-20 passionfruit + 20 for the possums (have proof!) and half dozen for passersby

-5 broadbeans

-3 chokos

-6 red eggplant

-2 large couve trochuda leaves

The garden is in bloom, there is rain, life is good.…

Where to start....an update.

A year ago I was put in the position of having to sell my home, well established food garden and bee hives. Painful to say the least, especially as the agreed trigger to sell was the passing of my last two dogs. 

As I owned only half of the house there was never going to be enough left over to buy another house....even if I could get another loan at my age I simply didn't want a mortgage hanging over my head.

Rent? (Expensive and would…

So I've just come back from Melbourne - more specifically Phillip Island where my Aunt lives.  Popped down to drop my eldest daughter off to gain work experience as my Aunt runs her own coffee and lolly shop as well as a weekend market and took all of us on for summer jobs when we were younger and is still continuing the tradition with her great nephews and nieces.   Great for me as I have one child gainfully employed over summer!! I love my Aunt but what makes this even better is that she…

It is the time of abundance.  I am getting WAY too many trombonccinos, eggplants, cucumbers, beans and eggs at the moment so every Friday lately, I am taking in a basket load of goodies for people in my school to grab.  It means I am keeping on top of the harvests and not letting things go to waste which I absolutely hate. 

I've started harvesting peaches but my poor tree is almost laying on the ground it is that overladen with fruit. …

Just a few pics to show some of my garden.  We are planning to move some of the citrus so they can be together in same location. They need watching, and spraying with oil wash for bugs. Easier to do in one area. The persimmons are holding on to a few fruit but this rain is upsetting them now.  The red Shahtoot are giving me lovely long fingers of fruit.  The white Shahtoot has been potted up.   The Lamb Hass avocado should keep good company with the Dwarf Wurtz.  My order of little bananas…

Some years back we bought a small electric mulcher. Of oriental persuasion, the mulcher has whirred on ... and on ...

Through a change of blades - thoughtfully provided with double-sided blades, a strong arm and some know-how allows the blade life to be extended without the hassle of sharpening the blade.

The machine comes with a pusher. Another two indispensible tools are a device to poke choked-up material from the discharge chute and a whisk to clean out the cutting…

There's a way to extend the cutting season for Asparagus. Prune the plants after they flower, top up the nutrients to encourage them to re-grow and cut again for the pot.

This system can deliver fresh shoots three times in the course of the summer.

This year I have left some young stems which so far are not showing signs of flowering. Usually I clear fell, but observation suggests not all stems are going to flower.…