spring spring spring

Spring is well and truly here!  We're getting more and more days that touch on 18 degrees and the last week has had a fair bit of sun.  The days are longer, the fruit trees are flowering and deciduous plants are starting to break dormancy.  Here's my little Japanese maple, bursting with life in its new home.  It has lost a bit more of its tip growth but I'm hoping this new spot will see it thrive from now on.  I love how vividly golden the first growth is, it's actually tinged slightly with red too.

This is that little Brunnera "Jack Frost" I mentioned.  Almost not worth the photo at the moment but isn't that foliage lovely?  By next spring it should fill out to around a half-metre clump with blue flowers that look exactly like forget-me-nots.

And I can't stop taking photos of the hellebore!  I can't quite believe just how many flowers they put out!  Last year only one clump had any flowers and it only had a few.  This year all three clumps are covered with blossoms that start out dark purple and fade to mauve.

Unfortunately, my cavallo nero has also felt the call of spring and decided to flower.  It's kind of cute actually, a little mini broccoli head.  Shows you how closely related the brassicas are (broccoli, kale and cabbage).

This is the purple-sprouting broccoli I started late in the winter.  I don't know if it'll grow fast enough to harvest a head before I want the pot for a summer vegetable.  But in the meantime the radishes I planted around it are coming in really well.  They should be ready to start eating within a week.  I'm thinking I'll make a salsa with tomato, onion, radish and parsley.

Finally, I had to take a picture of my compost.  In the autumn I ran out of room and had to leave a lot of the fig leaves under the tree.  They became absolutely full of worms, which all got dumped in the compost bin once there was room.  And now whenever I turn the compost, it's packed full of them.  The photo's pretty blurry but it gives you an idea - there are even more than this but they instantly shy away from the light.

Mmmmm that's good compost.  I've actually run out of space for compost in the beds where I usually put it.  I went to put some under the hellebores and realised there was already so much of the manure/soil mix that any compost would start to bury the plants!  I'm going to have to start putting it on plants I don't usually bother with, like the cumquat trees or the birch trees out the front.  Better to have too much of the stuff than not enough, I say.

winter plans

I've been thinking hard about two places in the garden that need work.  The first is the big square bed that used to be the fish pond, pictured here.  After filling it in last year I've spent the year growing vegetables in it whilst I decide what to do in the long-term.  Vegetables aren't a good long-term solution because only the bottom left corner gets enough sun, which is an awful waste of the other 3/4 of the bed.

So I've spent over a year considering what to plant instead.  I really wanted to plant a fruit tree of some kind but I just don't think it'll work.  Most are too big - citrus would want more sun - most smaller fruit trees need pollinators.  So then I moved to considering small ornamental trees like a crepe myrtle.  I want something that will grow a few metres and spread out in a pleasant umbrella shape.  I think this part of the garden would appreciate some proper "dappled shade".  It's a funny mix of boiling-hot sun and deep shade with not a lot in between, and the left-hand bed gets a lot more sun than the right-hand bed.  A spreading tree of summer shade will even this out, letting me plant shadier plants on both sides.  I have dreams of Japanese windflowers to replace the Statice some day (as it's a sun-lover), and probably some more hellebore since it seems to be doing pretty well in the other bed.  A small spreading tree would also be a nice compliment to the oakleaf hydrangea, which will read a decent size in time.  Wouldn't want anything too small or it would be dwarfed by the hydrangeas.

But to be honest I'm not crazy about crepe myrtles and again there's a slight concern it wouldn't get enough sun.  Then finally, a wonderful suggestion from the OzGrow forum, a small tree I've never heard of before called Vitex agnus-castus.  Like the crepe myrtle it's a small deciduous shrub or tree, but instead of white or pink flowers it makes long crazy spikes of purple.  Purple suits me much better, and all the other flowers in that corner are either purple or orange/yellow.  Vitex also tolerates shade better than crepe myrtle.  Hopefully it'll look like this.

The other tough spot is behind the house where the camellias used to be.  I've considered a number of option but I think I'll go with Murraya paniculata, also known as mock orange or orange jasmine.  It's a member of the citrus family, tough and not fussy, but I was sold on it when I walked past a hedge in flower.  It has the most heavenly scent of orange blossom you can imagine, it actually stopped me in my tracks.

After a bit of deliberation I decided to save the last two pine bushes even though I really don't particularly like them.  Hedges aren't cheap and leaving them means I can buy two less Murraya than otherwise.

But before I undergo either project I need to top up those beds.  I've learned that soil tends to sink quite a bit after a while so it's important I fill up the beds as much as I can.  Which meant a call to Fulton's garden supplies for a big pile of dirt and another of barkdust.

I only ordered a cubit metre of soil and a half-metre of barkdust but I reckon I got a lot more than I paid for!  Just like last year I now have a big pile of dirt in the driveway.  It's a lovely soil called a "three-way" mix of two soils and horse manure.  It's quite light and friable and full of organic matter which is just the thing for my beds.  I have so much extra I'll probably spread the love into some of the beds with really inorganic "builder's rubble".

I've filled up a fair bit now as you can see, hopefully some of the dirt will settle and I can pile on some more.  I've certainly got plenty of time, winter's the best time to plant deciduous trees. 

Exciting times ahead for this winter!

roasty toasty and rescuing worms

Yesterday was our first 40+ day of the year: 43.6C (that's 110F).  Last night it dipped down to a low of 30.6, the equal hottest night in recorded history, tied with a night in 1902.  Today was still in the 30s until about 3pm.  Fun times in the age of global warming!

I managed it better than last year's heat, though last year we had three 40+ days in a row, another record.  I made sure everything was well-watered beforehand, including the geraniums and some of the younger shrubs and the Japanese maple.  The tomatoes have a shade cloth shield this year which helped enormously.  The multi-graft citrus took a bit of sunburn because unfortunately, it's in the middle of a flush of new growth.

The close scare was the worm farm.  The day before the heat I soaked some newspaper and put it in the freezer, then put it into the worm farm in the morning.  This morning I went to check on them and got a real surprise when I opened the lid.  It was like and exodus of worms desperately trying to crawl out the lid, but too scared of the light outside.  They were obviously not happy.  I got all the ice in the house, wrapped it in newspaper and put it in the worm farm.  I also hosed it down with some cold water and hoped for the best.

This afternoon I checked on them again and the ice obviously helped, they were no longer trying to climb out the top.  Next time there's a hot day coming I'm going to freeze a few plastic bags full of water and use those.

I watered the box down again and as I listened to the water trickle into the lower box I thought I should check on the worm wee box.  I'm glad I did, because it turns out they were trying to escape through the bottom too!  So I filled half a bucket with my first harvest of coffee-black worm wee ... straining it through shade cloth of course and rescuing a golfball-sized clump of worms in the meantime.  I didn't take any photos of the worms, partially because I was too busy trying to rescue them and partially because they're not pretty to look at.  But I did take this photo of my first worm wee harvest, the January 2009 vintage Petit Chateau.

Watered down, it's meant to be a great liquid fertilizer.  I'm looking forward to trying it out and seeing how my plants like it.

growing, harvests, planting and worms

A lot to but together for this post.  First I wanted to share how much my tomatoes are thriving this year now that they're in a huge planter.  They're another 20cm taller since I took this photo, with heaps of little green fruit.  I've had to brace them against the wind though, it can get very strong.

I finally pulled up my Granex sweet onions to make room for the pumpkin and melons.  I put my foot in the photo for perspective - three good-sized onions and three that were too small.  They all could have done with another month of growth but I just couldn't put off the melons any longer, they'd been in little punnets for too long.  And unfortunately the onions were nothing special.  They were indeed very mild but they weren't very sweet.  Not something I'll repeat in this small garden.

But at least I was finally able to plant out two melons and a pumpkin.  I topped up the garden bed with mushroom compost, manure and my home-made compost.

I had heaps of compost this time around, rich and black.  It's going to make those melons grow like crazy!  Look at that beautiful black gold!

And finally, I decided this weekend to set up a worm farm.  The farm was free, made from two foam broccoli boxes.  Wet shredded newspaper goes in the top for worm food.  I poked holes in the bottom so the worm "juice" can drip through to the bottom box.  This "worm wee" makes excellent liquid fertiliser.

Then I just had to add worms!  You can buy the special composting worms from most garden shops.  You can't see them in the photo because they run away from the light, but I gave them a bit of watermelon rind to start with.  Mostly I got them to use up our newspaper which otherwise goes into the recycling,  but I'll sometimes add some food scraps.

As well as the "wee" they also make solid castings, rich pellets of clay-textured goodness.  So now I've got the compost bin to add texture to the soil, worm wee for liquid goodness and worm castings for fertiliser pellets.  As my husband put it, there isn't a corner left in the garden that hasn't been put to some purpose!

the summer's begun

We've had a run of record hot weather - days in a row over 30 and several over 34 is not normal for early November.  I'm already having to keep an eye on the garden and figure out what isn't handling the heat.  The young oakleaf hydrangeas are doing OK - the one in the hot sun is a bit singed but it'll be fine.  However the geraniums on the sunny side of the house are already suffering.

Granted it's a very hot spot - afternoon sun and the hot house brick reflecting the heat.  But mostly I blame the rubbish soil.  It's practically dust, that lifeless fill dirt they put around foundations.  It dries out incredibly easily and once dry, water just pools on top leaving huge pockets of dust below.  I added some compost last summer but you wouldn't know it.  What I should have been doing was adding more and more all winter long and letting the worms and bugs slowly turn it into decent soil. 

So now I'm trying to make up for lost time.  You can see in this photo how shriveled the leaves are from the heat.  I started by brushing back the mulch and scattering some "Saturaid" (some kind of commercial soil additive that's meant to retain moisture; just looks like coir powder to me).  On top of that went a few handfuls of clay kitty litter, that white stuff.  From what I understand it's one of the quickest ways to get more clay into your soil to retain moisture.  You just have to be careful not to let it cake up into a glob when it first gets wet.

So the moisture-retaining agents were important, but more important is to get some more organic matter into the soil.  For this I went to the compost heap.  My heap has four sides but the back is pretty close to the fence so this was the first time I'd tried to squeeze my hands back there to shovel some compost from the back.  And what compost!  Because it'd been sitting there for almost a full year, it was black, crumbly, and full of goodness.  Just look at all those worms!  Unfortunately it was also full of earwigs who like to nibble young growth, so there was much squashing.

After that each plant got a good dose of water with some seaweed solution to help them get over the heat shock.  No fertilizer though, the last thing they need right now is to put out more tender new growth to get burned in the sun.  Hopefully the compost will help the soil hold more moisture, and I'll be sure to keep topping it up every month or so until I'm happy with the soil in that bed.

magic fungus?

When I first dug up one of my raised garden beds I noticed a strange white fungus-looking thing growing through the dirt.  I took some to a garden centre and they thought it was mycchoriza.  What's that you ask?  It's a type of fungus that lives in the dirt and forms a symbiotic relationship with lots of different kinds of plants.  They tend to make the plants healthier and help them absorb more nutrients.  The white stuff in this photo is mycchoriza.  Here's a close-up.

I didn't think much of it at the time, I was more happy that it wasn't a "bad" fungus.  I planted my rhododendrons in the two raised beds and forgot all about the fungus.

A little while ago someone brought mycchoriza to my attention again with an article about how they can help tomatoes.  I had another look at my rhododendrons which are starting to put out new growth after getting horribly sun-burned.  This is what they look like in the bed that has the fungus in it; most of the fungus is on the left-hand side.  Look at all of that new growth!

Now look at the raised bed on the right.  It doesn't have any mycchoriza in it, from what I can find.  There is new growth coming in on them but they're still just tiny buds at this stage.

Now I don't know for sure if it's the fungus that's making the difference.  Food and water has been the same across the two beds but sunlight has not.  The bed on the right gets a lot more shade, especially on the biggest rhodie (which was bigger when I first planted it).  Which means those two rhodies should have gotten less sunburned, but maybe they're growing back more slowly because they're more shaded.  But on the other hand, with rhodies I would almost think the ones in the shade would be "happier" as rhodies don't like full sun.

In any case, the fungus certainly isn't doing any harm and may be doing a lot of good.  So today in between rain showers I dug up a bucket full of dirt with fungus in it and spread the love.  Most went to the other rhodie bed in hopes that it will take root and help those two out.  But I put some under my poor little Japanese maple too, and some more in the veggie bed with the pumpkin.  I hope it catches on!

Whilst I was at it I also went through the laborious task of taking care of the rhodies.  The soil in those beds is very sandy and I planted some of them too high in the dirt.  Oh, and I made the mulch way too thick.  So I scraped the mulch out of one half of each bed and dug in a custom mix:

Coir: shreded cocoanut husks, good for retaining water and nice and acidic which rhodies love.
Clay soil: from my dirt pile.  I still have a lot of dirt left over, and as I mentioned it was a mix including clay soil.  I found the part of the pile with the thicker dirt in it to help the rhodies retain water.  I even bought sulpher to mix in to lower the pH.
Clay kitty litter: yes, apparently one of the best ways to improve sandy soil is to mix in kitty litter (not used, please).  Think of it as custom-made pellets of clay soil.
Oscmocote: for some long-term nutrients.

After digging all that in I spread the mulch back over, peeled it off the other half, and had to do it all over again.  Oy my back hurts.  And I almost finished before another rain shower sent me packing back inside.  Tomorrow they'll get a drink of powerfeed and seasol to round out the pampering and get that new growth powering along.  I really do pamper those rhodies too much.

steaming pile of sh*t

I have a big, steaming pile of sh*t in my driveway.

I ordered it to fill in the garden bed out the back.  The company I ordered it from had a special "5-way mix" of sandy soil, clay soil, horse poo, cow poo and mushroom compost.  And when the guy dumped it in the driveway this morning the poo was still steaming.  And smelled like poo.

So now begins the long process of taking it round the back by the bucketful as I don't have a wheelbarrow.  And there's an added complication.  It's really lovely soil, rich and free-draining ... but it's incredibly alkaline.  A neutral soil has a pH of 7; acidic soils go down to around 4; this soil is 9.  I'm not certain but I'm pretty sure that's a bit too high.

I'm not sure how I'm going to neutralize it, it's a lot easier to make soil more alkaline (add garden lime) and a lot harder to make it acidic.  I've added a few buckets of my home-made compost which is very acidic, but four buckets out of 1/2 cubic metre ain't much.  I think I'll try to pillage some free coffee grounds this afternoon, they're also extremely acidic.

Ug.  I suppose I should get back to shoveling now.

mmmmmm coffee

I finally got a hold of two big bags of used coffee grounds. My local cafe doesn't give them out because the people who work there take them home for their own gardens! But I was in the city and Starbucks had a sign inviting people to ask for them, so I did. Though I must say that on a hot day, carrying 2 bags of wet coffee grinds, about 6 or 7 kilos each, to the car ... was not fun.

It's such beautiful mulch. You can put it straight into the compost but I want to use it directly as much as I can. I put some on almost all of my pot plants, under the straw mulch, then put a bunch on my Japanese maple, pumpkin and carrots. And that was only half of the grounds! I just hope that it doesn't make the carrots taste like coffee...

I checked and the pH is 5, very acidic (makes sense, doesn't coffee hurt your teeth from the acid?). That will be absolutely perfect for the Japanese maple and my rhododendrons. The only problem is it's so fine it'll wash away if push back the bark mulch to water it. Good thing I got those water spikes. As soon as I have enough plastic bottles to set up water spikes on the rhodies, I'll put coffee grinds on top of the roots with the spike to the side.

compost ain't a pretty thing

It's not terribly glamorous but I thought I'd show you my compost bin. We have a little round tin on the kitchen bench where we put all of our veggie scraps and paper towels. I also add leaves from the garden and sometimes strips of newspaper. The thing that really gets it going though is lawn clippings - a bit of cut grass really starts it "cooking".

There's a bit of a recipe to "cooking" compost. You need a balanced mix of soft, green things (like kitchen scraps or fresh grass) and drier, brown things (like dead leaves or newspaper). It also needs to stay slightly damp, and it helps if it's warm outside. And the main bit of work is you do have to mix it up a bit at least once a week. But personally I find it rewarding, I've already gotten a bucket's worth of compost to put on the rhododendrons.

Oh and if you thought it wasn't much to look at from the outside, the inside's no better. This is a mix of grass clippings (already pretty far composted) and grape leaves.