Garden work and Exotics Update

These are photos taken on Sunday 13th March 2011. My Mother-in-Law on the back deck sorting seeds while we work in the garden below and watch how the new chicks interact with the Isa brown Penny.

They certainly had some sort of social interaction for the day anyway.

I wanted to put the half wine barrels on coaster wheels so I could move them a little more easily rather than just being stuck with where I filled them. So most of the morning was spent re-potting the apricot, lime, lemon and nectarine and finding new spots for the frogs to live.

The photo below was taken today of my treasured tamarillo tree. It is heavily infested with aphids due to the hungry ants in the backyard but the fruit is holding and I've been keeping it steady with watering from the greywater. It is the best tamarillo tree I have grown and I'm thinking it is because I saved it from the pound (plant nursery) where it wasn't looking very happy. It's liked the attention and has grown over ten feet tall in twelve months and is producing a good lot of fruit.


I am also very pleased to see that one of the babaco trees is flowering and although it has lost some as it has done each time, it is holding onto about three flower buds and they have grown and exceeded the size of the others that eventually the tree shed. So although I was going to re-pot and put them into a bigger pot I simply left it, top-dressed and mulched the pot a little more and gave them a good drink. They obviously like the spot they are in so I have left them there too in the little hot corner by the bedroom Hopefully I will have some photos of babaco fruit soon!

And the pepino is going strong too. I accidentally cut two fruit from it over the working weekend while taking cuttings - they seem to be ripening still though so it will be interesting to see if they ripe ok. Meanwhile, I am striking other cuttings as they seem to root very, very easily at the moment. Literally overnight in some water and they are producing roots up to a centimetre long. These extra cuttings I plan to plant in other areas of the garden to really lush the place up and see where they will grow. I am planning to try along by the chook yard as I suspect that the chickens won't touch the leaves. They have ignored the sweet potato vine that has snaked its way up the wire fence and is now looking at attaching itself to the Tamarillo tree.

Other exotic news. The banana is doing really well too. Just before Christmas it looked as they it had sent roots far enough to draw water from the kitchen sink drain. Having done so it has added a new leave probably each fortnight and has grown considerably in height.

I also have to report that the choko vines have gone crazy with flowers. Flowers everywhere on them! The one on the side of the deck just has flowers dripping off it in the last week and a half. Tiny fruit are forming and I have added an upturned water cooler bottle by its base to drip feed it some water while its fruit swell. If the majority of these fruit do well we will be in good supply of chokoes for winter. The other surprise though is the other two chokoes that I planted at the base of two of the mallee trees. These have gone, well . . . feral, I guess. They have sent out vines throughout the trees, even into the highest branches. I was sitting in the house one afternoon not long ago and watching the tops of the trees sway and there sticking out from them looking for something further and longer to grow on was the grasping end of the choko vine.

These vines also are laden with flowers at the moment. One is even making a dash for the tamarillo before the sweet potato gets there.

After sorting out the pond and emptying some water out I discovered a couple of things. The smaller goldfish are doing well and some are starting to gold up underneath. One is already completely orange/yellow and has been for some weeks already. Greatly in advance of the others. When I moved a pot plant containing reeds I found two small yabby. Just over around 12mm. This is a good sign. I took it to mean that the yabbies are happy, surviving and that I will hopefully have some extra ones to put into the aquaponics set-up.

Also, with the extra movement of water through the various pots the water chestnut have really thrived also. I moved several back into the pond now that the level was higher and it looks as though we will at least have some good stock for planting out for a crop next autumn. As also the madagascar beans that I bought at the organic shop. Just a couple in the bag and only one or two grew but they are doing well and still flowering. We will have some good seeds to sow for a crop in spring.

The kitchen sink drain is doing really well and absolutely chock full of earthworms. More so it seems after I placed a broken down cardboard box into it and put a hessian bag across it. They love it.

A few more things to report. This morning around 5am we had about 30 secs of very heavy rain. Then it stopped and the rest of the day was very hot and humid. The washing does not take long to dry in this weather. A couple of mornings I have also heard a boo-book owl calling down in the valley somewhere. Such a nice, distant call to hear in the early hours of the morning.

I am also hoping to we will soon hear the call of the Lee's Frogs in the garden - if they haven't been disturbed too much over the last eight or so months. I do hope they return this year. They garden is so much more frog friendly now.

So, the fruit trees have been re-potted, the strawberries removed from them and put into their own pots. The passionfruit trellis is finished finally and the vine is already filling out and looking at wandering further afield.

The space under the deck is coming along and the side is looking much neater and ready for the aquaponics system. Yeah!

Everything seems to be doing rather well. Bush beans and peas have been planted. Sweet peas planted. Garlic and shallots planted out. Spinach planted. Some potatoes planted. I am saving the rest to add to a vertical potato garden during winter. For yummy spuds and awesome compost. We do have some very happy mice under the house but I suspect once I find the trap they will move on. The passionfruit is having another flowering bout. Brussel sprout seeds planted.

I think that is a decent catch up on things at the moment.

Gratitude Garden

I have been reflecting often lately about current world events and through wanting to remain open and energised despite the appearance of things I have found myself finding much strength in being grateful for my garden. For what it represents, its potential and its stand for the things I believe in.

If a change has not already come to the world through the natural disasters of the past few months and now the man-made hell of un-checked radiation in Japanese nuclear reactors then I only anticipate a great change is around the corner.

I have been very tired lately, but I have kept making what progress I can towards the vision I have for the garden. Gradually I am also making way for a seed collecting and drying area under the house.

Also, in my curiosity for some saneness in this mixed up world at the moment I did have to check exactly where in Japan Masanobu Fukuoka's farm is and I was very grateful to discover it is one of the southern islands and I would think it still remains. I had this initial thought that it would be an even greater disaster for the world and Japan to find that his farm had been taken in the tsunami. But then, these things all happen for a reason.

New Chooks

I noticed the Jerusalem Artichokes have opened up today. It has taken them some time to flower and I suspect it might be due to receiving very, very little water. I have barely watered them at all over summer. Still, they are doing well in the area I planted them - as planned. It is a very isolated part of the garden. Perfect for plants that do just fine on their own!

Here are the two new chooks we received yesterday. We still have not chosen names for them. They have such character and the brown one can run very, very, very fast. I have never seen a chicken move so fleetingly. Amazing.

7th March 2011

Feeding time! The g-pigs are doing much better since they have been left to roam the garden. They rarely even pass a 4 metre line, choosing instead to hang around their boxes and shelter. The chooks have developed a real appetite for the tomatoes, but not quite to the extreme as the g-pigs, particularly Jazz.


This is my current experiment with the pond water and running through a half barrel like an aquaponics set-up. So far seems to be working, but not really filtering the water that much - which I guess will take some time for the bacteria to establish themselves. In the meantime the water spinach and watercress are enjoying it.


Despite the 'removal' of the lawn last year it has still managed to creep back and has done well for itself. The g-pigs relish the grass but not enough to keep it well back.


Here is another frog much bigger than the other two in previous pictures. Quite content to sit and watch the world go by. After removing the tomato bushes this little frog made his home on the strawberry and chilli plant in the lime barrel pot. Several nights later we had a light drizzle during the night and several of the frogs were calling. A really nice little chorus of calls. Nothing too loud and obtrusive, just pleasant little remarks about the cool of night and the current weather conditions.

February Update

It has been a busy couple of months. Mainly since November. For the most part of it the garden has had to make do with the watering it got and the feeble moments of attention administered to it between excursions to the shed and back.

Much of the time spent in the garden lately has either been to pile up mounds and mounds of grass clippings from the monstrous pile left at the side of the house from a lawn-mowing friend or picking the ever-ripening cherry tomatoes and cooking tomatoes. The g-pigs have had free reign since early Jan and the chickens much the same - free to come and go from their coop into the straw-yard without us opening and closing the door to the coop of an evening. This has worked well up until a few nights ago when it became apparent just on dark that two had got into the garden and one was missing. She was out scratching around the grass piles the next morning.


It was during the frequent visits to the tomato bushes that I realised that one of the little green frogs had really made one of the bushes home. Initially it was seen sitting on the spinach plant but as the weather got warmer and the spinach wilted it moved into the sturdier tomato plant above it. Then a few weeks later it had a friend.


There was the odd night that we heard calls but these didn't last long and I'm not sure if it was this species of frog. Very, very happy to have them in the garden though.

The chooks are doing fine though we do have a clucky one that refuses to budge from her eggless nest. I will see to moving her to a smaller cage in the next few days. Otherwise the chooks are doing fine and with the addition of wheel barrow loads of grass clippings into the straw-yard the place is much nicer and there isn't any of the chook smell that we were starting to get even after just a few weeks in the pen. The grass clippings make the place much neater and nicer and the tamarillo is no doubt very happy to have a good thick mulch under it.

So, after a suitable crop of tomatoes with the odd beetroot, zucchini, cucumbers and sunflowers popping up surprise harvests - I am now awaiting the tamarillo and pepino crops. We have just started to harvest the passionfruit that have been hanging on the vine patiently. Some are dropping off themselves now. The pepino is holding fruit well. After the hot weather of early January I ripped out the greywater set-up, dug up the garden placing two large basins either side of the tamarillo, lined them with newspaper and cardboard and filled the lot with grass clippings. I now just tip a bucket or two or water in that general area every few days with the idea that some water pools in the ditch and seeps out very slowly into the garden further down the slope. This appears to be working well with even zucchini and cucumber seedlings that were battling in the heat now flourishing. They have also had an added hand with the overcast weather we have had since late January due to the cyclone activity around the country. This has brought some light showers but largely overcast skies and more easterlies. The easterlies really knocked back the choko but the added light showers and reduced harsh sunlight have allowed it to come back with strong new growth that is now rapidly creeping its way around the decking. The top garden of tomatoes has been harvested and is now sitting awaiting a raised garden set-up.