Vege Patchs

It is going to happen!

Today I bought straw to mulch the back vege bed.  Tomorrow I will give it a good water, after cleaning out the dog poop and then lay the mulch.

I have pumpkin seeds sprouting in the kitchen and it looks like the melon seeds are starting to sprout also.  I'm not sure what is going on with the capsicum seeds - they are from a batch purchased a few years ago so they not be viable any more.

I think I will also make up some paper pots for zucchini seeds.

I also got some bamboo stakes to support a bag around the seedlings - hopefully that will keep the dogs away until I get the fence up.

I would really like to use pine trellis for the fence as it a bit sturdier than wire but it is a lot more costly at $19 per 1.8m length as opposed to $27 per 5m length of wire mesh fencing.

The pros for the pine: It looks better, more stable, easier to make a gate out of.
The cons for the pine: It needs to be cut into smaller sections to fit the curve of the vege beds border, cost.

The pros for the wire mesh fencing: Cheaper, can be formed to fit the curve of the bed easily.
The cons for the wire mesh: Not as stable as the pine so will need more uprights to attach it to, harder to make a gate out of, the dogs may not see it when doing laps of the yard and run into it and injure themselves.

I have yet to measure how much fencing I need, but I am guessing it will be more than 5m.
I also bought 3 strawberry plants for $4 each from a local building/garden superstore.  Thought that was a good price.  They can join the last remaining strawberry plant in my tower pot.

I need to dump out the pots in the front yard that had strawberries in them that died.  The everlasting spinach is huge and going to seed.  I also need to fill up the 6 front beds with manure and compost and straw.  Though I may redo them using the no dig method - Sara Lee style - layer upon layer and then plant into the top layer of mulch by making holes in the mulch and adding in potting mix and then the seedling.

The raspberries have fruit setting!!!   Now to keep the birds away as they ripen.  Hubby reckons we need to net them.

The orange tree has some flowers too - hopefully we get an orange to two.  Not too sure whether to leave them on the tree and see what we get or to knock them off so the plant has a change to grow and get stronger.

The Nashi Pear had flowers and then something came along and ate them - methinks it was the resident possum.  I sometimes have broken stems on my roses and we hear the possum going across the roof of a night.

The apple is still not much more than a stick.  I imagine it will take a few years to do much.  I have been tempted to order some more apple trees.

So much I want to do and so little time to do it.  I probably need to take a leaf out of my Dad's book - 1 hour a day and eventually it all gets done.

12 months on

Wow - it has been nearly 12 months since I lasted posted anything (really must not let that happen).

Guess what - the garden is calling again!!

I planted out all those seedlings that I had gotten going last year and only 1 actually survived.  It was a melon and it had 1 fist sized fruit that the bugs got too before I found it.  So I didn't bother with trying to do any vege growing over autumn or winter.  The everlasting spinach is still going strong and the potatoes that I put in last year (and did not harvest) kept on going.

I did manage to mulch a bed in the back yard with some straw - but did not get anything planted in it. The dogs thought the straw was terrific to nose around in.  Since hubby is useless at mowing the grass out the back the dogs ended up pooping in the mulched bed and on the path to the clothes line.  I have decided to take matters into my own hands and provide the puppies with their own toilet area.  How I am going to do this I am not sure yet - I think it will involve spraying an area up along the back fence with weed kill to get rid off the grass and then adding some sort of edging and then filling with mulch.  I have an idea of where I would like to put it - I just need to do it.

I also want to put up a barrier around the bed in the back yard to try to keep the dogs out.  That will need fencing material, stakes to keep it said material upright and ties to attach the two together.  I will need to create a 'gate' of some sort so I can access it to plant things and probably some stepping stones down the middle.

It's a shame hubby has this idea that the backyard can't be all mulch.  He hates mowing the grass and seriously only does it 4 or 5 times a year - usually when the grass has grown taller than the little dog who is the size of a cat.

Of the raspberries that I planted last year that survived they are all sprouting again.  There are even some bits that look like under ground runners that have taken off too.  We didn't get any flowers last year so I am hoping that we do this year.  They should be a variety that has fruit on first year canes - so grow cane/branch, flower and have fruit - as opposed to those that need last years canes to produce flowers on.  I did not do any pruning of them so I will see what happens over the coming months.

The other berries have also survived the winter and are growing madly again.  These are marion berry and logan berry and are both long caned varieties that really need to be trained over a trellis.  My attempt to use tomato cages did not really work as they out grew them. Both of these have the nastiest thorns but I really need to train them on a trellis of some sort.

They are growing in containers next to an olive tree - maybe I can prune back the olive a bit and get them to use the olive for support?

I have been following a blog of another gardener here in Melbourne.  She has converted her WHOLE FRONT AND BACK YARDS into her own market garden.  She has a large variety of apples and stone fruit trees, an almond tree as well as citrus trees.  She numerous beds for vegetables - seems as though are mostly wicking beds too.  Maybe I need to follow her lead and turn my beds into wicking beds?  Maybe I just need to get out there every second day and water and pull weeds and plant things?

sometimes it is all just too much.