The Constant Gardener

With acreage in Australia often comes lantana.  And whilst we aren't plagued by it, there are several sections of the property that are giving it a red hot go.  Despite our two cocker spaniels, Cleo and Toby, having developed a taste for lantana shoots, its not going to go away without some serious elbow grease.  So my wonderful husband has been doing this back-breaking work for many days now, and though it doesn't feel like it to him, he's making real headway.  I don't think the previous owners had been at this gully for many years, as Shaun was finding some roots to be as thick as his arm. The upside though, as we've been discussing in our local growers group, is that the soil underneath lantana is very fertile, so once its all out, we'll have to try some productive ground cover in this spot, something that doesn't mind a bit of shade.

The Girls break new ground

Shaun has been working hard in my absence and has finished the fencing for the new veggie garden, so we'll now have four to rotate the chickens through.  We'll have three planted out at any one time and when one season's crop finishes in the fourth, we'll let the girls in to go over it, fertilising and turning in what's left of the organic matter to improve the soil before we plant again.

The garden that Shaun has just fenced in has been left unmown so lots of delicious treats have been growing for the girls to munch on. Since Shaun opened the gate, the girls have been going to bed later as they can't seem to tear themselves away from all the good stuff.

We have put weed mat under the wire fencing, which is dug into the ground.  This stops the wire from rotting but also acts as a temporary visual barrier to keep our two cocker spaniels from charging and scaring the girls.  We've started growing kiwi fruit, peas, lemon grass, passion fruit and cardamin up and against the fence so once a green barrier is created, we can bring the "not so attractive" weed matting down.

Here or there

In gardening, a few meters can matter.  Something might grow well in one spot and not another, so its always a matter of taking an informed guess and then seeing what happens.  Then if it fails, move and try again, looking for just the right microclimate.

We chose this spot for our Asian greens that get some sun, but has dappled shade from the mandarin tree as well.  Even in the winter, we thought this would be the best spot to try and sometimes, you get it right first time ......

A few weeks later

I haven't been around for a few weeks and its amazing how quickly things grow.  One of the great pleasures of gardening.  Amazingly, we haven't lost a single seedling with this planting, so it must be a cosy little climate for them.  In my absence, Shaun has been watering them with some worm juice alternated with seaweed, so they must love that too.  Now that this area is coming along, we are making plans for the next patch.  We can start with sweet corn soon, which we'll plant with a bit of chook food.  The girls will love it.

A new resident

Though this fellow has probably been around a lot longer than we have, we were very excited to meet him.

Veggie Garden goes in

We brought up some raised garden beds from our last home and it was time to get them in place and start planting.  We'd had the chickens scratching around and fertilising for about four months and so we fenced them out and got cracking.  We have 10 girls now and they were a little put out at being pushed out, and once they saw the delicious things that were going in, were keen to be part of it.

Swale update

After we planted the four swales, one for nuts, one for avocados, one for tropical fruit and the last for citrus, we sowed in a winter green manure crop of oats and wooly pod vetch.  Its had several months to grow and is now starting to look good.  We'll be chopping and dropping soon to put some additional nutrients into the soil in the orchard.  The swales have been doing thier job of collecting and slowing down water on the slope as well.

Wattles Down!

After many more 'How To' videos on cutting down large trees, I did what anyone on 'Who want's to be a millionaire' and other game shows would do - phoned a friend. :)

Thankfully he was free and could come around on Friday to give me a hand. Strictly speaking, one shouldn't be cutting down trees alone so I was glad to have the company.

One Tree Hill

After many hours of instructional videos and reading of 'How To' guides (since Sunday), I decided to start up the Woodboss. To say that I am nervous about attempting the big wattles is an understatement as everything I have read/watched leads me to believe that they are not 'beginner' trees to cut down. I had even tried to book a chainsaw course but they were either booked until June or just too far from away.

So I thought I would start with something a little more simple, something like this:

Something A Little More Serious

Up on the orchard slope (where the swales are), there are 2 really big/old black wattles and 1 soon to be large wild fig that are throwing too much shade and need to go. After receiving 2 quotes to remove the trees (which were a lot more than I thought, but then again I had no idea as to what the cost would be), my father (who was up on business) said that I should just buy a chainsaw and do it myself. I had planned to get a chainsaw, but just not yet as I was doing most branch/small tree removal with a hand saw. My father then offered to pay for the chainsaw and I had no reason not to get one!