Hi everyone, I live on an 800 square metre block in the northeast suburbs of Adelaide. My day job is an atmospheric scientist so I only get weekends to enjoy my garden. I have reactive soil only a block from the "river". Mediterranean wet winters, dry summers. My place gets about 300mm of rain a year. One or two light frosts most winters. I started planting a food forest one year ago. I hope to supply fruit for my family all year round. My overstory is established gums, lemon myrtle, an unknown deciduous tree, a pittosporum and a pepper tree. They provide enough shade that my fruit trees don't shrivel in the 40 degree heat with a hole in the ozone layer. In the semi-dwarf fruit tree layer I planted apples, plums, nectarine, fig, pomegranate, strawberry guava, persimmon, orange, lemon, lime, ruby grapefruit, acacia, banana, loquat and mulberry so far. All the fruit trees are small and were doing well in winter and spring but are now struggling a bit in the heat. Shrubs I have so far are currants, youngberries, and blueberries. Herbaceous layer has sour sobs, chamomile, borage, nasturtiums, mustard, basil, cosmos, comfrey, dogbane, parsley, tansy, broad beans, arrowroot, allyssum, chives, sorrel, citronella, asparagus, vetch, oats, buckwheat, feverfew, thistles... have tried lots of other things but many die because I can't provide enough water with twice weekly drip irrigation. I'm waiting until my fruit trees grow a bit before I plant vines. Fauna includes blue-tongue lizards, red wattlebirds, new holland honeyeaters, doves, magpies, a big rat and next-door's cat. I have plenty of worms, garden spiders, bees, aphids, hover flies, wasps, hornets, mosquitoes, caterpillars and butterflies, earwigs and cockroaches. I even have a balanced population of spider mites and their predator mites. My chook shed is currently empty. I look forward to interacting with you all. Lisa
Nice work Lisa! Adelaide is a nice place to live and work. It'd be handy to have an atmospheric scientist around here. You can help solve the 'discussions' about the difference between weather and climate...
Where is the chooks? When you get the chooks feed them some of those worms you have and they will lay larger eggs. I lived at Elizabeth Downs and North when I was a kid. Joined the Army and came to Qld and stayed
So Brian left and you replaced him! You are right about it being a very different climate. Each of us tends to wish that we can grow what the other can.
Hi Lisa, I live in Naracoorte so basically same climate but we get some savage frosts here on our place. The only way we keep our fruit trees going at the moment is very thick, heavy mulch. My brother in law at Spalding has his fruit trees mulched to TWO FEET deep and quite a wide diameter, with pea straw/hay whatever he can get hold of. He swears they would die otherwise whilst getting established. Unless your herbaceous layer is very thick right under the fruit trees, I would up the mulch for summer. It is not just the air temperature but those awful strong north winds that knock them around. If you can shelter them in any way from those winds all the better. I understand how difficult it is to keep that understory layer alive in our climate too! Love to hear how your berries go. So far I have had no luck with any. Planted a loganberry in sheltered, part shade straw bale no-dig type bed. So far it is still alive, but not really growing - sigh! Anyway welcome to the forum from another newbie!
Thanks mouseinthehouse. My mulch is only 2 inches thick. I will get some more. The local council has kindly left freshly trimmed branches all over the footpath. Time to pull out the old rover shredder. I had youngberry fruit this year, but the rat ate them before I had a chance. I'm going to look for things that come out of dormancy quickly at the end of winter so there's some growing time before it gets too dry. Lisa
Hi Lisa, you have acquired quite a mixed variety of edible plants/trees. I'd be very keen to see some photos, as we're building in Enfield and have a similar sized block and so interested in what will/won't survive. Would love to hear from you, if I could figure out how to PM...
Friends here i am newbie I am shawn here and i am very happy to be the part, of this grateful place. I hope, that i will have nice time to learn and having a lot of information.I am really very lucky person to take part in forum. I hope i will enjoy my good time here and other member will help me.
Welcome Shawn. I'm sure you will have a nice time. There is a bit of everything here - something for everybody you could say.