Do mean Pecan seedlings. What about on the nature strip if you are running out of room. Or some other wild place where you think the council won't notice. Or in a school playground - ask the principle and or the gardener. Some other public garden. A friend's garden. Anyway they are some options that i can think of.
These grow really tall and wide so the roadside garden would be out, I just planted some Olives there and was looking at planting some coppiceable trees to defray our firewood bill for winter. I could go ask the local schools if they want them, could just sneak across the road when nobody is looking and plant them along side the railway line too- think I would get away with that?
Well, my brother finally managed to come down for the weekend this week and I'm not sure what he thought of the garden. He did say it was a !@#$! forest though and that he missed the lawn. I think thats more because his back yard is mainly taken up with his 2 car garage, but we have in the past enjoyed pots of tea sitting on the lawn. When we first walked around the garden the look on his face was more of morbid fasination and as I explained why we were doing what we were doing he seemed to relax alittle. He has been working insanely long hours for years and is now in a position where he can start getting a life and his friends back. Dad now lives with him and has started up the little vegie garden that had sat neglected for years. His inspiration was our garden, actually I feel quite pleased with myself cos I have got quite afew people (back) into putting in a veg garden and/or getting chooks. Our Luffas have finally started to get moving on the flowering and fruiting aspect of life and so far have 3 fruit swelling up and more flowers opening than before. I had been watering them but maybe not enough and have increased that. I havent been watering everything all the time, just those plants that I think need that little extra even if its been raining. For example I havent watered the sweet corn at all since it started to tassle up and it doesnt seem to have noticed the lack at all. The cobs are so sweet they are almost too sweet. These are not heirloom seed, I couldnt find any for this but I think I might still keep some cobs to dry for next years seed. The Sunflowers in the roadside garden are not all growing straight up, one in particular grew straight out over the driveway and I have resorted to holding it up with a tree branch stake. These have never been watered either and are absolutely huge with really big flowers. The single flower in the garden is only now starting to open its flower up inspite of having better soil and more water than the others. We are starting to get tomatoes now to go with our zucchinis which have taken off again since I cut out all the marrows that had been hiding. I think in the future we will plant these outside the garden, maybe infront of the bank to act as a weed surpressant along this. I have let the 4O'clock marvel (Peru something or other)grow self sown along here and that not only looks and smells great but has kept the grass at bay. I have been thinking long and hard about how to get organic matter into the soil and whether or not to just put the compost on the top or dig the compost in. The last 2 beds we have dug in the compost and are going to sow it down with buckwheat. This normally gets dug in just before it flowers apparently but I want the grain from it-I tried a Russian recipe years ago of buckwheat which I really liked and am looking forward to having it again, so we will let it set seed and harvest that then cut the straw down as a mulch for the next lot of plants that get sown/planted there. What that will be will depend on how long it takes to get to harvest it, where the chook dome is by that stage and how long it will be before the dome will be back on that spot. It might just wind up being another cover crop or chook food crop. The overall game plan on the compost, this Autumn, is to get as much as possible made in our bins and spread a thick layer over the bed, dig that in, if the bed is particularly weedy then to spread a thick layer of the leaves we collected from the side of the road by the local school-large leaves, from Plane trees, I think. Then to top it off with some old black sawdust from the sawdust dump. I think this might work at discouraging the slug/snail brigade as well. Our neighbour at the back corner brought over a bucket full of Raspberry plants and is digging out 50 or so more, I of course said yes I would love to have them, thinking, bloody hell where are we going to put them, we're not ready for this. I do have friends who will love to have some of these. Where we were going to put them was along the fenceline on the north side of the yard out of the garden, but after thinking about it I didnt think it would be fair to that neighbour as they would grow through the fence and hang over them( this side is around a metre higher than them, most of their garden is less than knee high-in other words normal).I have upset them enough over the years with my scruffy ways and have been quite diligent in being normal along this fenceline. I did think of along the back fence but that still needs alot of work in getting rid of convovulus and wandering jew weed, plus the Avo's planted just in from the fence are supposed to become like a hedge and the Raspberries will interfere with that. Perhaps they should go where the fruit trellis will be whenever we get to that,decisions,decisions....
Well the Raspberries got planted out where the fruit trellis will eventually go and had a good soak so they are looking good. I have been wondering about the lack of bees and if it was just my imagination or not but I'm sure we have NO honey bees in the garden this year. I havent even seen the little black ones. The bumblebees have still been busy and I have seen 2 hornets this week cruising the cauliflowers. The green shield bugs has me concerned cos they are absolutely everywhere. Back to the bees, this lack could be why our beans are not producing as well as they normally do. The Lima beans are smothered with flowers but those are not always transforming into actual beans. Even the calendulas which normally have full heads of seeds have alot of empty old flowers with no seed in them at all. Mum has a friend who does bees maybe I should see if she needs somewhere safe to 'store' some. We had our first watermelon today,beautiful and sweet. The Buckwheat seed arrived this morning, I wasnt expecting it for a few more days but thats okay,these got broadcast over the last 2 beds and raked in alittle then watered. We should see soon how well I did with the broadcasting. I am puzzled by our hens. They still have not gone into molt and still only 1 is laying. I even left the egg in there for afew days to see if it got eaten but no. I have tried feeding them more, tried not feeding them in the morning, all day(once), tried changing their water more often, more greens,less green, more bugs-they didnt eat them even when I squashed the snails, even meat that I was supposed to eat and still no change. They much prefer to dust bath. Honestly I wish I was hard hearted so I could enjoy chicken and chives raviolli with a tomato and basil sauce.
Hahaha....yeah. They are Isa Browns. They are supposed to be 2 and 1/2 years old, I think. I didnt actually ask but last time I got some from this farm they told me they 'rotated' them after 18 months. We've had them since sept(?) year before last. I see 2 eggs in their nest box today, but unfortunately I cant remember if I cleared it last night, I swear sometimes I feel like I'm going senile. I have to confess that I got a book out from the library on vegan cooking. It did occur to me that maybe I might not be able to eat meat if I couldnt kill it. Hubby has backed right off on his manly duties. My brother isnt all that happy with me since he and my nephew visited. Son asked if they could turn all their backyard into a garden like Aunties. When he arrived,before they even got out of the car, he actually asked his dad if they had come to the right place. They are going to stick to the little garden dad saved but are seriously looking at how and where to put 2-3 chooks and I am to take cuttings of all the herbs we have growing. Couldnt talk him into taking a Pecan seedling or fig treeling though.
I visited my boss on the way home to see how 'our' Rooster was getting on. Apparently he has been hanging out with the ducks while he was waiting for his girlfriends to arrive. Now he's hanging around the chook house where they have been penned in for 3days to get used to their new home. I do miss him but I'm sure one neighbour does not however. Still only 1 egg per day, disappointing. My brother said he would dispatch of them for me seeing as hubby wont. That wont be for afew weeks and by then we may have some fertile eggs to put under the remainder. With all this running around up and down the country not much is getting done anywhere except the basics. Strangely enough the veg garden doesnt look that bad, most of the beds are planted out in something even if that something is the Amaranth that mum gave me the seed for that was supposed to be the seed type and obviously isnt. I was eyeing that yesterday wondering if I should dig it in before the flowers open of if I had already left it too late. That might be a job for tommorrow. The Okra that is doing really well is the Clemson Burgundy. I did plant these later than last year but now think they could have been started alittle later or kept potted up and put out later. I am taking off the tiny rock melons so it concentrates on those that are already getting to be a decent size. Our nights have started getting quite cold again and I was afraid that we were going to have an early frost last night. (It was a full moon, dont know if that had anything to do with it or not). We ll I found out that I need practise in broadcasting seed, the bed I thought I did quite well at has hmm, bald spots all over it. That could be because the cats have been using that part as their toilet,so Im not sure if I should resow it or not,probably not. we are pushing it as it is in getting them to flower and set seed before the first frost. They are supposed to be harvestable after 6 weeks but I dont know what sort of climate that was in. I discovered a source in AK for Pigeon Peas, I hadnt been able to find them before so I bought a packet. Now the question is do I sow them now and baby them through winter or do I leave them til spring. I did a check on wikipedia which did not show up that they were frost tender, I only disciovered that important fact when I checked out something else on them. Bit of a dilema, I might have to give my seed to my brother in AK for the chooks he's going to get. The birds started to eat 2 of our sunflower seedheads, these had filled out really nicely and were big and fat so I cut them off and brought them into theporch to dry. We have been very popular where we visit cos we have been taking our sweet corn with us. Actually, my brother bought some sweet corn from the supermarket and tried to feed it to his son for dinner, butthat didnt work out too well because after the first mouthful, son said it didnt taste like aunties and he wouldnt eat any more. We have just about eaten the first lot right out and the second plot is starting to tassle up now, it just shot up this week. I was in a hurry and tried freezing the corn by just cutting it off the cob and bagging the kernals.We wont eat them straight away but will leave it til all the fresh stuff is all gone, but after a little peek they are looking quite good and very edible. T
Aren't sunflowers great for getting birds into your garden? Isa browns are laying machines - they lay themselves to near death for 18 months then die right off on production.
Umm I dont know they are in the front yard trying to make it look pretty. But yes they do seem to be attracting attention from the birds as well. It seems like the flowers that sort of curl around rather than stay flat that are being robbed at the moment. I was hoping for a treat for both us and the girls. I didnt realise that about them chooks, I have had this type before and didnt have this problem with them. The last lot died of old age(the last one most likely died of loneliness but I found her under her perch so I figured she had died in her sleep) Im sure I had them for at least 4 years and they only stopped laying in winter. Oh well. Good excuse to buy those expensive Buff Orphington eggs off trademe then. Still, they are doing a good job of turning over the soil still and weeding so they are serving a useful purpose. Sad isnt it that we assume that other lifeforms should be there to serve us and then they gotta go. Makes me feel alittle selfish.
We dont so much have a garden at the moment as an army of triffids. Bro thought it was a forest when he saw it, but afew weeks later and its taken off even more. The zucchinnis have gone mad and swamping thier bed as well as the path and the sweet corn bed next door. Just as well that lot of sweet corn has been all eaten. Luckily mums boss like zucchinnis and a friend actually likes marrows, so between them they are taking all our surplus. I had good intentions again this year of staking all the tomatoes up, pruning the laterals all off (which we had been doing) and having them all nice and easy to get to. Of course when you arent here that often nature does things her own way. The tomatoes are growing fantastically as larged sprawled bushes absolutely loaded and so green and healthy looking. Hubby doesnt like tomatoes unless they are in Ketchup....mad, utterly mad,... I've been eating vine ripened tomatoes and cant decide which tastes the best. I am supposed to be bottling them but that hasnt happened yet. Mum has started so maybe I can talk her into doing some for us as well, otherwise this year they will be popped straight into the freezer to sort out later. The Principe Borghese are a small cherry type that I thought was determinate but not this year it seems,they have a little point on the end of each fruit which I nip off as my first bite. Then there is the Amish paste which to me has a softer flavour. The delicious look like a beefsteak and are so juicy. Cant find the Oxhearts this year they must have been in the lot that got munched early in the piece. The green sausage were sown alittle later than the others and are still to ripen up. Then again, I should really go and have a good look, being green when they are ripened they might not be so obvious as the others. One of the Amish paste toms is growing behind the Lima beans and next to the grapefruit tree.This has taken off in all directions and loves growing thru the grapefruit. I dont think the grapefruit is suffering because of this, to be honest its pretty hard to spot inamongst the pineapple sage, beans and tomatoes, but there are some lovely big fruit coming along. I think all the competion is making it reach for the skys perhaps faster than it would normally have done, which is good as it means I may not have to prune it away from where the chook dome will go. Tall is definitely good. Once again we are having differculty in being able to move the dome this time because the butternuts finally decided to start growing like mad and producing by the ton These were sown around the same time as the potatoes alothough I did resow a couple afew months later. It seems that because they have not been watered religiously this year, that they have taken alot longer to grow. We stopped watering around Xmas time and did a stint where only the larger more streessed looking plants/ the ones we knew had a higher water requirement like melons, got watered. So for ages now its been the rain thats provided liquid refreshments. The buckwheat looks really good. I realised that perhaps I had been a little handy with the raking and may have buried some of the seed too deep but most of the two beds are well covered. This is over a foot high now and is starting to flower, so I am getting excited= might get some buckwheat before the frost comes along. I didnt know that sunflowers bent their heads down when they started to ripen, to be honest it just doesnt look right and I find myself wanting to go out and stake them all up right again. They all have lovely fat heads that so far appear full of seeds. The redroot amaranth has taken over more and more of the garden. It feels quite strange to feel so resigned to the fact that somethings just arent going well. Last year I would feel quite stressed, mainly because I felt we had to prove ourselves and our strange style of garden. One comment that came up the other day was that we had a guerilla garden without even trying and if you didnt know what plants looked like you probably would think there was vegetables there at all. In another bed the beetroot self sowed which we decided to leave to its own devises. The seedlings were really thick and I did wonder if we would get a spindly crop, but so far they seem to be weeding themselves in that the faster larger ones seem to be blocking out the smaller ones. I've had enough of gherkins, mum and I have so many jars we just dont want anymore, I was goingto pull it out and actually started to but stopped myself when I realised that it was already dying back on its own, so it must have had enough too. There have been a couple of disappointments, the main one being that I finally noticed that my fennl hadnt actually grown and all we had was dill, which I also like but .... I discovered that I like fennel seed in my cooking and dont have enough. Perhaps I should just go and sprinkle some around the garden in spots that wont get frosted to see if we can sneak them in before winter. The other one was the lack of spring onions, last year I just scattered the seed and got patches all over the place but this year all I have is the four I transplanted for seed. These set seed which I cut off, dried and resprinkled to no result, but the origianl plants are still growing. I think they are such unusual looking plants that I have left them alone. I am hoping that they set seed again but this time I think we'll just let them self sow. Lettuces seem to be the main plant that does not like growing with out weeding and watering. All but two disappeared underneath everything else, the last two recently gave up and have bolted. The beans dont seem as good this year. The ones growing thru the arch have the excuse of not very good soil, but the lima beas are luscious looking with lots of flowers on and give the appearenace of having lots of little beans starting, but I cnat find bvery many big pods on the vine. These porbably were planted way to cllose together, next year I will try to give them alittle more room and somehow something alittle taller too which might help. I do wonder if the lack of bees has made a difference here too. We are seeing less and less of the bumble bees as well and have not had that many honey bees at all right throughout the summer. We have carrots,after last years none I thought if we are going to have only arfew come up then they had better be big ones so I got the giant sort and so far they seem to be growing very well. Unlike Eco's my luffas have only grown 3 fruit so far but there is another little one on the way. I'm thrilled just to have any, this is the first time in 3 years of trying. Same cant be said for the bitter melons, this is the first time I've grown these, the plant looks good but I just dont see any female flowers on the vine at all. Another thing we have been busy with is getting the insulation done in the roof space before winter, with the last little bit in the hallway done this week. Actually been home this week but have had to spend the time on the house this time. I dont think the garden is missing our attentions at the moment it seesm to be doing well with out us. We do want to get a cover crop of barley down to start a winter barley/ summer wheat rotation going...just where.... might have to be the roadside garden out with the sunflowers.
We finally got to harvest the first lot of butternuts and moved the dome over. From 5 vines we got 33 butternuts which I think is quite good. They arent as big as last years but then they werent really watered this year either. There is still one more lot growing and they do seem to be bigger, probably cos they've had more rainfall compared to the others. I couldnt stand the sunflowers anylonger and have cut them down with the loppers. Afew of the head have been eaten right out by the birds but most, have most, if not all of their seeds intact. One did look like it had seeds but they seem to be shrunken and when I crack a couple open they were empty. I gave the bird pecked heads to the chooks to play with and have the rest drying in the porch. I must say I am impressed with one of them which is alittle over 40 cm across and has fat fat seeds which I have been pinching. The tomatoes are still going strong but the okra obviously does not like the cold nights and has died after producing only 3 fruit, none of which I saved for seed cos I saw heaps of flower buds and didnt think we needed to worry about that yet. We got our very first lot of neighbours nuts last week. They are not Pecans but a different type of walnut than the ones we used to have. These were noticed when we moved the dome over. They must have been falling for alittle longer as we found alot of shells that had one end nibbled out and the nut on that side well chewed. I'd say its probably a mouse, I think a rat would have done a better job of getting to the nuts. The shells are not that hard, compared to our old walnuts. The feijoa tree looks like it has recovered from its extreme makeover and has quite afew fruit swelling. These have been well mulched over the last couple of years and I think it makes a difference to the size of their fruit, if not mulched they seem to produce alot of little skinny fruit rather than the fat juicy ones we like. They should be falling soon, funny, it seems that they never ripen fast enough. The orange tree is looking okay, I wouldnt say its looks 100o/o yet but not too bad. We have honey bees in the garden in huge numbers now, they absolutely love the buckwheat flowers. This is now waist high(3'?) and you can hardly see the old bare spots any more. There are afew gaps around the edges where all the hens got out after digging a large hole under the bottom of their dome. I think it looks really pretty,a lovely soft green with clusters of mainly white flowers, the odd pink ones. The stems look quite fragile actually. I was tempted to sow another lot but I think that probably wouldnt be a good idea, I'll have to check again as to what their growing req's are.If the are frost tender then we'll start the first lot of winter barley. The zuchinnis that had been let run to marrows have finally succumbed to powdery mildew which usually happens at the end of summer. I cant remember off hand how many we collected, not as many as last year thank god but still hubby looked at them and said that he thought he was going to get awfully sick of eatingall of these. My reply to that was to say well thats why we grow herbs and spices to help spark them up abit. The three baby bear pumpkins that we were growing for mum turned into 2 different types of squash, a yellow oval one and a dark green rounder typeleaving only 1 baby bear pumpkin. This didnt do too well probably because it was not watered , but also it was put in a spot where the chook dome didnt quite fit on so maybe not enough feed for it as well. We found that rock melon and watermelon do not like to grow as a ground cover under tomatoes. This might have been different if we had kept the tomatoes' laterals pinched out and them tied up nicely to their stakes. The watermelon with the exception of one just disappeared and the only fruit from the rock melons came from mums 'gherkin' that was grown over a mesh trellis. They definitely need alot more feeding and mulching than they got and probably more watering as well. At least until the level of organic matter is vastly improved. I have been too busy to sow seed for winter veg and am going to cheat and buy plants from the local nursery. Most of the winter garden is going to be put down in green manure or winter barley this year. We have just been too busy and not getting to look after it the way it needs to be to grow really good vegies. Not to say that what we have grown hasnt been edible.....
Great attitude Mischief - inventive recipies do help at zuchinni and pumpkin and kumra and cabbage times of year. That is living from the garden - I love it.
Mischief when can I expect my feijoa to bear fruit? It is almost 2 years old and growing well, but no flowers or fruit yet. I do like them....
Sorry Eco, I dont know how long it takes for them to start producing. We were lucky in that our trees were mature when we bought the place. I think they do need company tho, I have always seen them growing in at least pairs.
Sorry Eco, I dont know how long it takes for them to start producing. We were lucky in that our trees were mature when we bought the place. I think they do need company tho, I have always seen them growing in at least pairs. Ah Purplepear, I do wish that 'attitude' would stay with me all the time but recently I have felt really snowed under and lost it. I think its coming back slowly but it has definitely taken its toll on our garden. I'm the main gardener so it shows when I fall on my arse, like now. Bro asked me what our neighbours think of our garden and I had to honestly say that they are probably quite horrified cos it got away on me quite severely. Okay, plus side. The last lot of buttenuts are still ripening up and this last lot are bigger again probably due to the extra rain they got. The grapefruit tree is looking stunning and the fruit on it are enormous. I love grapefruit halves sprinkled with brown sugar and grilled til brown,after the wedges have been precut so all you have to do to eat each piece is stab it with a fork and enjoy. We definitely are not going to let the tomatoes sprawl all over the place again, there has been so much wasted tomatoes its embarrassing, especially now that the vines are starting to die back and anyone can see the waste that was previously hidden by all the leaves. We are still chomping thru the last sowing of sweet corn.It isnt as sweet as the first lot but the cobs are all full. All the corn was grown at a foot each way which meant that nothing underneath them liked it at all, except for the black nightshade which for some reason just grew into small trees. I was hoping that this would attract the bugs like it did for Purplepear but that was not to be. The corn didnt seem to mind them tho. I recently saw a photo of someone elses corn and they had clumps of corn with big gaps inbetween and pumpkins growing underneath them We might try this next year and see how different the harvest is compared to my normal way. The luffas have decided to behave like triffids and shot off in all directions with lots of babies coming along.Nothing like ecos' but yeah we have something behaving like its supposed to! There have been some lovely surprises, like the bitter melon. This has been flowering all summer and yet no fruit, I gave up on it and stopped hunting thru its leaves for those strange looking ...things, until today when I was picking some beans off the pole bean that shares the trellis with it and there they were. Lots of strange warty things that arent supposed to be very tasty but for some reason I just had to have in our garden. I dont know if its been the extra rain we've had or what but that one vine has started to sprout them all over the place. The sunflowers we harvested have dried out and I scratch my head wondering what on earth we are supposed to do with them now. I hadnt really thought about it. The seeds are very nice and we have cracked open alot and had the seeds as a snack but that not quite what I had in mind when we decided to grow them. Any hints on how to process them in a reasonably logical manner whould be appreciated. My solution to getting the garden back under control is to smother the ground with lawn clippings after the chooks have been on for maybe a week to a week and a half. They are in the back mandala right now and I think I might put them round again so I can re- work all the edges and get them planted out with the permanent planting of winter savory. Mum has our lavendar which is going to go around the edge of the orange trees bed, but I want to make sure of the outer beds before I plant them out.
Tee hee! I did warn you about the triffid! Do you have chooks to feed the sunflower to? Its the sort of thing that requires more calories to get to the food that you get FROM the food.
Yeeah, but do they deserve such a tasty treat seeing as they arent doing all their jobs (no eggs! still) Hey We got bitter melons finally, they must like more water than what they had been getting earlier on in the summer,Im sure the cooler weather isnt what has got them spurred on. My lovely daughter let me put it in her salsa if I chopped it really finely. Wasnt too bad, I had a taste of it by itself and while it was bitter it wasnt too bitter.
I'm starting to feel alittle better about the state of the garden. After a long deep and meaningful evaluation I realised that perhaps I should have used the lawn clippings to mulch the paths which would have killed off the weeds growing there and then when it had cooled off and dried out abit, scrapped it off and used that to mulch the beds. This would have solved the problem of weeds getting ahead of me before it became a problem. last year I thought we had too much nitrogen- lots of leafy growth and decided to use compost bins to deal with this. Our recovery plan is to start with the back mandala and get this under control which seems to be going okay so far. The chooks go on for alittle over a week, then I hoe it reasonably level and smother everything with lawn clippings and lightly step it down with the rake( dont want it to go like felt on the beds), then we have be putting a green manure crop in for autumn of buckwheat and in the last bed some white mustard. I know I did a good sowing of mustard but something didnt quite work out because less than half of it came up- I think I had another bird attack. Thats been redone with alittle more mustard as well as some of the seed from the earlier buckwheat that has already set seed. The chooks have been on the first bed of buckwheat for a couple of days now and have gone nuts over it. They are only getting fed at night every other day at the moment usually with leftovers. They still look fat and healthy and are not screaming at us thru their bars any more so perhaps we have been over feeding them. I have managed to get the last bed smothered with clippings. Next on the hit list is to make sure the beds are where they are supposed to be and plant out the winter savory along the internal path edges. I dont think hubby agrees with them being there cos they arent food but I feel a need for boundaries. I am also digging out the old weedmat from the garden shed to lay around the compost bin and down the straight path that separates the two mandalas. Not perhaps the most permie thing to do but thats two areas that I am constantly having to hoe clear that I wont have to worry about for the time being. Tonight I discovered an amazing amount of moths flying around the Pineapple sage and realised they were actually visiting the flowers, this was just on dusk. I dont really know that much about moths but it seems that they are pollinators too. I have decided not to grow that many vegies over winter, just enough silverbeet, caulis and cabbages and concentrate on getting the structure of the garden right. We still need to put in the fruit trees and berry trellis around the edges of the garden and cant really do that properly with out running into problems if the beds arent worked out properly. Everything fits beautifully on paper but when it comes to the actual garden it for some reason doesnt seem to fit quite as well and I'm not too sure why that is just yet.
Folds in the space time continuum mischief.... It's quite common after all the seismic shifting you've had over there! (Now where did I leave my foil hat again?)
Yeah, Earth Rocks!, haha I had a dream once not too long ago that we had an earthquake which stretched the land and we wound up with heaps more than we started with inside our fence line and the council were trying to get me to pay more rates. I'd like to think that I won but I woke up instead.
