Archive for the ‘Gardening’ Category

A few Worm Truths

August 27th, 2010

It has been wet down here in Melbourne,  I have been surfing the net and I thought I would share a few interesting things I discovered about our little garden friend – the worm.  Some people say that when you cut a worm in half, you will have two worms.  Sadly, this is not true.  I thought I should share this information with you all, before you head out into the garden and make a terrible mistake with your shovel.  This myth comes about from the fact that the dear little earthworm has 3 to 5 hearts, but the little worm needs all its hearts, and unless the cut is made close to the tail, a severed worm will die.

isn't he cute?

All earthworms are true hermaphrodites, with both male and female parts.  Any two compost worms of breeding age can fertilise each other every which way and produce eggs, each of which can contain up to twenty compost worms.  They hatch in twenty-one days in good conditions, but if hard times come, and things are looking bad for the worm farm, the little eggs can remain dormant for months or even years until good times come again.

Under ideal conditions, worm populations can double every couple of months.

Compost worms usually won’t survive in the open garden, unless the soil is very well mulched and you do not have any ducks.  However, if they are placed under mulch, they can be ‘lured’ from one spot to another by building tunnels or paths of mulch – manure and newspaper for example.  Provided there is organic material on the surface, they will travel vast distances to go wherever the food source is richest.  They are quite adventurous in that way, brave little worms that they are!

If you invest in a worm farm the worms would like me to tell you that worms don’t like onion, garlic, citrus, and they don’t like fat or oil.  Also, to please remember they have very small mouths!  If your worms get pale and anaemic-looking they might be living in too acid conditions.  A little (very little, just a dash) of lime or wood ash dissolved in water and watered over the top of the farm can help peck them up.

Well, thats all I have to share today.  Happy gardening!

Tags:
Posted in Gardening | Comments (1)

Experimenting

August 17th, 2010

I have been having heaps of fun over the last few months experimenting with cuttings.  You don’t really need money to enjoy gardening.  My cuttings have provided me with plants for free.  Of course, visiting a nursery and buying plants there is fun too, but gardens do not have to be bought.  They can be collected, with love and happiness, just as our mothers and their mothers did,  way back in a chain that goes back thousands of years.  In fact, even today, friendships are made through garden clubs and chats over fences where cuttings are exchanged.  It is a great way to meet neighbours!

my cuttings growing well

Garden plants need not cost a lot or even anything at all if you grow it yourself.  Start with a cutting or a seed and you have got a plant for nothing!  I have a tiny nursery outside the back door.  It is the place where I stick cuttings and seeds into pots, it is not tidy and neat but it is a place where I experiment and have fun.  One of the best things about cuttings and seeds is that you can afford to experiment – if it drops dead it doesn’t really matter, you haven’t lost anything, but when it grows, it makes you feel really excited.  I am always amazed and excited when the seeds I plant begin to shoot up. 

If you use non hybrid seed then you can save the seed from the plants you grow to use again the next season.  This is real old fashioned gardening at its best. 

Happy gardening!

Tags: , ,
Posted in Gardening | Comments (0)

The Heap

August 12th, 2010

This morning I headed out to the compost bin and gave it a bit of a stir with my trusty fork, then gave up on the fork and got stuck into it with a stake.  It never fails to make me feel better, both I and the heap give off a good bit of steam.

When I was first learning about gardening, I put my hand on the top of a compost heap one chilly morning and I remember the shock I got to find it warm.  It was like a living thing.  It seemed to me to be a wonderful thing that a heap of rubbish and manure should become a living, steaming thing.  I still feel this today.

This winter I have built a very good compost heap.  More organised than other years with layers, sort of.  I have put in weeds, kitchen scraps, leaves, duck poo & the shredded remains of my old tax files.  I feel a sort of pride as I mush it about, it is very nearly ready!  Excitment +

There is a science in compost but there is also alchemy, a kind of magic.   The things I have learned about compost make up a corner of bigger lessons about life itself.  Everything that lives must die.  Everything decays.  Life springs from death.  These are matters at the heart of things, and at the heart of the compost heap.  A compost heap is all about life from death, but it is also about muck and muck is the stuff of life.  If  life is getting a bit on the mucky side I recommend going out to the heap and giving it a good old going over with the fork!

Happy gardening.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Gardening | Comments (2)

August Jobs

August 8th, 2010

Aquilegia (the sweet little Columbine)

There is much to do in August.  For a beginning I need to get out and buy some Aquilegia seedlings.  I just love these flowers and now is the time to plant them.  They are very rewarding too as they seem to self seed in the garden, but, I need more in different colours!  You can also plant out snapdragons, foxglove and larkspur if the mood takes you.  Yes, folks, time to get ready for spring!

broad beans in my vege patch

I also need to get busy in my humble vege plot.  Looking a little worse for wear at the moment.  I intend to follow up the dolomite lime I put on last month with some cow or sheep manure.  Of course, first to find a cow or sheep!  So, a trip out to the country must be planed, where you just might happen to  drive past the signs that say  Cow Manure $5 a bag.  My children won’t come on these trips with me any more, even though I keep it a secret as to the real purpose of the trip, they complain about the smell in the car on the way home.  So it will be a lonely trip for me.  Should I still take the picnic lunch?  The up side is that there will be no one to complain should I take in a couple of nurserys on the way. 

Schlumbergera

Did you know that you can buy Dynamic Lifter in tablets?  While wandering around in Bunnings I discovered this.  The packet assured me that they are totally organic slow release fertiliser.  But I did not purchase any because, well, truth to tell, it just didn’t feel right to just put one tablet under my tree.  I enjoy forking around under the lemon to loosen the soil and then spreading the bag of whatever on top.  To tell the truth I even enjoy the smell.  A tablet just won’t do the same thing for me, never mind the tree!

Tags: , ,
Posted in Gardening | Comments (1)

Some little pots I prepared earlier…

August 5th, 2010

Dpmt you just love tiny daffodils?

Remember that layer bulb pot I did way back in March?  Well, the little gems have all popped up and are doing their very best to brighten up dull winter days with their cheerful little yellow flowers!  Don’t you just love it when things work out?  Bulbs can be like that.  Plant and forget, then enjoy the surprise when they do their thing.  Spring really is on its way!

Someting for nothing!

The hydrangea cuttings I popped into a pot when I was cutting back my hydrangeas have all got leaves on them too.  So, plants for nothing!!!  Very pleased with that, if I do say so myself!  And I do!

Another surprise waited down in the back corner of the garden, the old potato pot.  The story here is that while cleaning out my pantry I came across an old potato beginning to sprout.  It was trying so  very hard I thought I would give it a hand and so put it into a big black pot and covered it with some old compost.  I have done this little trick before and it is always worth giving it a go. 

This potato plant will give me a pot of potatoes later

As the plant grows you just cover the poor little thing with soil or compost or hay until you get to the top of the pot.  The potato plant gets into the game by pushing up leaves and putting out roots into the new soil all the way to the top of the pot.  Then you have a potato plant to enjoy, and really they are pretty just like that.  But there is more.  Not at this stage but soon….The potato flowers in spring, spreading roots all the while then dies, and you are left with a pot of potatoes!  As well as the potatoes you get some super improved soil to use in the vege plot.  Talking of which, my broad beans have started getting flowers.  Very exciting!

Happy gardening.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Gardening | Comments (2)

The August Garden

August 2nd, 2010

Primulas cheer you on a dull day

August means the primulas are flowering – and primulas grown by the front door mean good luck to all inside.  Naughty, malicious fairies won’t go past a bed of primulas – they stay and play amongst them instead.  That is the fairy lore, and whether you believe it or not you cannot argue that the blaze of colour that the primulas add to a garden on a dreary winter’s day will cheer anyone up.

rosemary in full flower

My Rosemary bush is flowering right now as well, and Rosemary is the herb of friendship and remembrance.  The scent of rosemary really does stimulate most peoples’ memory, in folklore it is an emblem of remembrance.  A bush of rosemary by the back door means you have always got a very handy herb for seasoning your lamb.  I like to put a bunch of rosemary under the chicken when I pop it into the oven.  The subtle scent is wonderful and flavours the bird right through.

Protea

Another plant that is flowering in my garden now are the Proteas.  These perennial shrubs are suitable for most areas, but it is best to choose one suited to your very own.  They are one of the glories of autumn and winter, with great massive blooms that you would pay several dollars each for at the florist – but nothing at all if you grow your own. 

The jonquils are out now and the camellias are still covered in flowers.  The small violets are still smiling in amongst their leaves and the hellebores are looking very happy.  It is a busy time in the garden with much to see and enjoy

Happy gardening.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Gardening | Comments (3)

Charlie & his friends

July 30th, 2010

Charlie

I had some visitors today while I ate my lunch on the deck.  Some Sulfur-crested Cockatoos dropped in.  Charlie and his friends.  They drop by from time to time, I think they find my antics in the garden quite amusing!  They love to sit up in the Chestnut tree at this time of the year as they eat the new buds growing on the tree.  I think they also like the vista they have from the tree while it has no leaves. 

one of Charlie's friends

Charlie & his friends are noisy neighbours and like nothing more than waking me up very early in the morning.  But you can’t help but like them.  They love to sweep across the sky and seem to love to have fun and play with each other.  They can get up to all sorts of trouble though and think nothing of chewing at the woodwork around my windows.  Naughty boys!

Posted in Gardening | Comments (0)

Winter Plants

July 25th, 2010

watching the shadows dance on the bark

In the deep depth of winter the garden can be an interesting place to be.  Some bulbs and tubers flower at this time of year and many shrubs have interesting leaves, flowers or catkins, don’t you just love catkins?  There is nothing quite so lovely as running your fingers along the pussy willow and feeling its little paws.   When all the leaves have fluttered to the ground leaving the large trees bare there is a certain beauty with coloured or twisted stems showing and attractive bark.  The patterns the shadows  spreads across the bare branches and along the trunk are magic!

“]

Helleborus niger [Christmas rose

At this time of year you can enjoy the pretty garden pansy and the Iris.  The cyclamen are in the shops right now and who can resist?  My Mahonia is flowering sending out its delicious scent and attracting the little birds.  The first of the snowdrops are out!  No winter garden should be complete without helleborus, those hardy uncomplaining perennials, which flower away and need very little looking after.

Of course we cannot forget the

sweet little violets

little violet!  The hyacinth I planted in a bowl are pushing up and will flower very shortly and the camellia is covered in delicious red flowers which brighten up any dull day!  Out in the nurseries and even to be found in supermarkets are the little primroses, very pretty indeed and available in so many different colours.  I haven’t any as yet but I am very tempted each time I see them.

There is much happening in the winter garden and much enjoyment to be had from the winter plants.

Happy gardening!

Tags:
Posted in Gardening | Comments (1)

Winter Portrait

July 21st, 2010

My lemon tree is heavy with fruit

Today I will paint a word portrait of my little winter garden.  The Daphne is covered in buds.  Soon the buds will open up into flowers and I can take a few inside to enjoy their scent.  The  pineapple sage is still flowering much to the pleasure of the little honey eaters that love to feed on its flowers.  If you brush up against the bush as you walk on by, or the native mint bush that grows near it you can enjoy their scent as it is only released when the leaves are crushed.  There is nothing so lovely than to pick a leaf, hold it up close and drink in the scent,  exquisite, against the cold, morning air!  One of the delights of an early morning wander about. 

Mahonia - a wrens' delight!

The sky this morning is blue again after days of grey.  Drifts of cloud streaking overhead.  My bowl of hyyacinth are almost flowering!  It is very still.

My lemon tree is heavy with lemons.  The little finches and honey eaters are very busy and so quick flitting about in the pineapple sage.  The ground is very wet, much to the ducks delight!  My red camelia is covered in flowers and a delight to see.  Over in the corner, close to the lemon tree is the Mahonia, also covered in the beautiful long yellow flowers.  These are scented and the birds love to visit this tree also.

my little winter retreat

My garden is not neat and tidy but it is a very busy place full of bird song and growing things.  You can hear the busy little finches and the tiny honeyeater and if you look carefully you can see the bush move, but you have to be patient and wait to catch a quick glimpse of the tiny bird visitors.

This is my winter garden.

PS.  The first of the jonquils are flowering…Spring is on its way!

Tags: , ,
Posted in Gardening | Comments (0)

Magical Flowers

July 18th, 2010

Flowers cheer us

I love flowers!  They are truely magic!  Flowers are irresistible to birds, bees, butterflies and me!  Flowers make us think of love, passion, peace, beauty and harmony.  They are perhaps the most powerful of all human symbols.  We set off to visit friends in hospital with a bunch of flowers to cheer them.  Flowers are present at births and funerals.  No bride is complete without a garland of flowers in her hair or a bouquet and  nothing quite cheers a room like a few flowers placed lovingly into a vase.

Flowers smile at us as we pass

Flowers make the world a much more beautiful place to be.  They smell good and good smells make you feel happier.  You can tell the seasons from which flowers are in your garden or simply from the florist you pass on the way to work.  Daffodils in spring and roses in summer, chrysanthemums for Mother’s Day. 

If you want birds in your garden plant masses of flowers, especially the many grevilleas and sages.  They will attract the butterflies too. 

Memories are made of flowers!  The violets that grew in your mothers garden, the flowers you were given at your child’s birth, the rose bush you grew from a cutting given to you by a very dear friend.  Flowers make you smile!

Well, I am off out to bring in a bunch of flowers for my desk.

Happy gardening!

Tags:
Posted in Gardening | Comments (6)

« Older Entries