Friday 2 April 2010

long weekend

Easter is a long weekend in Australia so it's a good opportunity to get a lot of projects out of the way.  I've got a bit of pruning to do but the big project is to clear out the bed along the south side of the house.  As I mentioned in this post, the camellias in this bed have always struggled and a few die each year.  I haven't quite decided what to replace them with but I'm thinking of a simple hedge of Choisya ternata (Mexican orange blossom).  It seems to be a nice hardy hedge that will tolerate both the sun and shade of that bed, and twice a year they're coated with white blossoms that smell like orange blossoms. I once walked by a Choisya hedge in blossom and stopped dead in my tracks, the smell was so incredible. 

http://www.alexareynolds.com/garden10/camelliabuckets.JPGI already transplanted one of the camellias last week, I'm going to try transplanting two more to the bed out near the street with the birch trees.  They're currently soaking in a Seasol solution to help them with the shock.  The small one is one of the new ones I bought last winter and the big one is one of the originals.  They both got a trim too to make up for losing roots in the transfer.  I think I'll chop out the pine trees too, they suck so much water and nutrients from the soil.  After that the beds need a top-up of soil before replanting them.

http://www.alexareynolds.com/garden10/soybeansharvest.JPGIn the meantime, here's the final harvest I got from the soybeans.  I probably could have gotten more if I'd been happy to leave the ones that weren't quite ripe yet, but that was a bit tedious.  So I just picked off everything plump and put the rest in the compost.

It may not look like many soybeans but I eat them as a snack, fresh from the pods, and don't eat too many in one go.  So it's actually quite a lot for this purpose!  They're absolutely lovely though - not quite as big as ones you can buy imported from Japan but a lovely flavour, rich and sweet like a pea.

Update:  Here's a photo of the camellias in their new home, I hope they like it!
http://www.alexareynolds.com/garden10/camelliamoved.JPG


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