Hi EM,

Quite a storm here tonight. Lots of wind and lightning. Has kept me awake. Selfish storm ;)

But gee it sounds like a fair bit of rain too.

L.

Hey Lillypilly lol

Selfish rain lol!

Make the most of this ME TIME Lills!

I am.

It's raining here and I'm LOVING it and don't want to go to bed lol.
Plus my son and his gf came home for the weekend, so all the kids are still enjoying each other's company... one just left to get take away food lol... I swear they've all forgotten how to cook now they have PT jobs!!

Oh well, I tried lol. These kids can cook freaking ANYTHING but just choose NOT to now.

I'm just revelling in the sounds of my kids together. We miss son soooooooooo much, so this is a beautiful time.

As for the rain..... my soil is becoming so black and enriched with this intermittent and regular rain (and ofcourse the chooks pooing everywhere out there lol)... it's beautiful soil now!

The reprieve from the heat might give my oregano a chance to recover somewhat.
This morning it looked like someone had taken a flame thrower to it - sad face.

Doesn't take much to rebound. Oregano is pretty resilient if there's deep enough and rich enough soil. AND DRAINAGE. Almost forgot about drainage.

We're doing more on the plans for the cabin / bungalow way down in the back of my garden.
12 months to do the plans and get a year FT work behind me, then I'll see what the bank says lol!

Otherwise it's pay and build myself.

Now THAT garden is important for the future tenants too. I want to add some "green" features, we'll see how well those are utilised in the future I guess..

EMxxxx

Hi Paul I will try and put the recipes on later in another one of End great threads Easy Peasy recipes.All depends when the power comes back on here after the big storm last night that sounds like a few us had.The peer went out at 9:51pm and it says won't be on to 3pm.I better save my phone battery.Just thought I would have a quick check on here.
Happy gatdening,
Mark.

Oh goodness Mark!

Power outage there. Hope it comes back on for you all very soon!

Actually years ago I knew a psych who'd bought a fire powered phone charger from an Environmental store online.
It was like a tall, cylindrical canister thingy.... you put the twigs inside it and the flames could go out through the top.

Whilst you could heat water in the canister walls, there was a inlet / outlet IDK what you call it lol... to plug in a phone cord.

omg what a great idea if people have regular power outages!!
We were having lots at the time but things got sorted here.

We had a power outage once for about 10 days here and I actually LOVED it lol!
It was during a low grade cyclone, lost a few trees and a long fence, which wasn't too good at the time... food was defrosting at a fast rate in my freezers etc.

So I set the camp stoves up in the kitchen and fed heaps of people with the defrosting food!

I loved no technology or TV.

But I hope it gets back for you FAST Mark!

Talk soon!
EMxxxx

When I was younger I use to have my own lawnmowing and gardening business and one of my clients was a dear old friend of my mother's and she had a mango tree that never fruited and said I can fix that for you so I came over with my pruning saw and pruned it all way the back and think my mum's friend was a bit horrified but trusted me.The next summer she gave me the biggest box of mangoes from that tree as it was loaded with beautiful fruit.Dont be scared to prune your fruit trees.

Yes!

I think we ALL get afraid to prune our precious fruit trees but THEY LOVE A GOOD PRUNING!

I find that most of my trees do lol. Some I'd prefer NOT to grow so big but what can I do but take them out - which I can't bare to do lol.

My gardener went for it pruning ALL my fruit trees earlier this year and we had BUMPER crops which the birds and animals loved eating... I'm glad they feed some living things!

I think the storm you had moved down the coast to here last night.
We've had light, misty rain for days now and I'm loving it!
But with my tanks full and the torrential rain hitting, I could hear strange watery noises and just went back to sleep lol.

I'll investigate at some point. No good stressing over it.

I realised though that one job I need to do is to clear any drains I can.
The one most problematic is in front of our garage door, when it floods there, then all the kids room downstairs and the gym gets flooded ugh.

I'm SO GLAD I found all the potting mix crammed into my roof gutters earlier this year.
I still can't believe ex demon did that.
But it was there!
My brother came over when I asked him for a long ladder and he asked why?
I told him.
He came STRAIGHT over, mostly because he DIDN'T BELIEVE me lol!
I wouldn't believe myself either!!!

Brother got up on top of my 3 storey high roof at point and scooped all the potting mix out, shaking his head and swearing about demon the whole time.

Then the tank's sieves on top of the tanks were ALSO crammed with potting mix.
I had to dig all that out too. Plus he crammed bricks in there.

I know why he did it but it DIDN'T work!

So as the rain came pouring down, those noises were partly water rushing along CLEAR guttering lol!!
YAY!

And we used all the potting mix in the garden lol.

More rain today!
Wow.

EMxxxx

Hi Em that was terrible way your ex did putting potting mix in your gutters.Some people just have to be nasty.It reminds me of when I worked at the dump in recycling and we had a recycling shop on site where people would drop things to good to throw out but some people would drive Pat you down to the tip and you would see them smash everything so you couldn't sell it including antiques.It was very sad.I actually renovated a house from the stuff I got from the dump.

Em my son this morning was out in the vegie garden eyeing off my watermelons asking me if any are ready unfortunately it will be a couple weeks yet I think.I have one deformed one on that wouldn't have got pollinated properly.Yhey usually die off but this one is still growing .

I forgot to mention that I harvested my potatoes yesterday even though it was still muddy I got 4 kgs of Nadine potatoes .Some were starting to go rotten so I needed to get them out especially with more rain around.I always plant certified seed potatoes as I live in a farming district and want to protect them from any diseases one from a shop could potential have.I know how hard farmers do it

Nice ones Mark!

Yeah watermelons can go a bit funky if not pollinated properly. I had one once that was all WHITE inside and I thought that was the reason why... IDK.

It was lots of fun growing watermelon and pumpkins lol... the same ex demon blatantly refused to mow the huge lawn. I'd been mowing it until he was extremely rude about my efforts at a family party I put on for him!
So I said I if you can do a better job, then it's your job now. LOLOL... he didn't do it for years.
Neither did I.

Then I thought a "Food Jungle" would be awesome so I just put all the right season's seeds in a huge stainless steel bowl with lots of vermicast, rolled them into small balls and threw them in the garden. (I did an "Anastacia Trick" first).

omg the JUNGLE OF FOOD!
I harvested 45 pumpkins that year, LOL, so many that we all started to literally turn orange from eating them in different ways!
Lots of watermelons. Lot of tomatoes, zucchinis, lots of everything lol.

I had to research ways of being able to store pumpkins for a long time.
I was also a member of LETS so I traded on some of the food.

I understand your good reasons for always buying Certified Potato seed. GOOD ON YOU!

Happy to hear you could harvest your potatoes before they all got mushy in the ground.

Unnecessary waste is shameful, those people were horrible who smashed beautiful things.
Some ppl are on the evil side. demon is.

Thankfully gardens are very forgiving!

EMxxxx

Hi all,

It's been raining a bit again today, but yesterday I finally planted out some shallot seedlings and protected my lettuces from the birds. Too late for most of them, but in time for the next batch of seedlings.

Today we bought some lovely indoor plants. That will be H's job looking after them, because they're in pots and if I look after them they are sure to die :(

The chickens are loving a bit of sun- poor things, their yard is a mud patch.

I'm recovering from a big headache which knocked me flat for a few days, until my beautiful fiendishly wicked thai friend gave me a gentle (for her) massage- new woman.

Oh EM! I can see why you call him demon! Imagine using that creativity for evil! To block your gutters, and using such a useful material.... Speechless....:(

So glad you're getting this rain too Em. I love the sound of rain on the tin roof.

Blondguy I was reading the responses to your queries with interest. I too had worms in my tomatoes one year- figured it was fuit fly, as very similar. It's very sad. Another reason why we have chooks, as it's sposed to help, only it didn't- had to chuck out all the peaches as they were all infested. More measures needed....

Gardening definitely keeps you humble- just when you think you've got it sorted, there's some new challenge to overcome. Maybe this is part of the secret to gardeners long and happy lives lol!

J*

Hi Jstar I hope you are feeling better from your headache.I get bad ones to.
The only problems I have with seedlings is snails and mice.I was hoping to get some decent rain to get rid of the mice.
The fruit fly are a pain.I use to bag my fruit when they were young to stop fruit fly from stinging them.It is such a huge job doing it that way and I haven't got the energy to do it anymore.Any infected fruit should be destroyed.Easy way is to place it in a plastic infected fruit in plastic bag in the sun or feeding them to your chickens if you have some.
Their is a big storm brewing here at the moment with lots of thunder,don't know if we will get any rain out of it.Yes the sound of rain on the tin roof is one of my favourite sounds.
Happy gardening,
Mark.

Just and update on the storm here.It poured down for 40 minutes doing my garden wonders Totally different garden with all the rain we have had Nothing beats rainwater for the garden.
I was getting a bit nervous with power going on and off but it's on now and hopefully stays on.

Hey J*

I'm glad you bought some indoor plants!
And I'm glad you're assigning H to look after them! hahaha

I heard about some research recently about having Sansevieria (or mother-in-law's tongue) being very good for our health when placed on our bedside table. Can't remember why but there it is lol!

I'll pot up some from my garden after we change rooms around and possibly put a pot of it on prodigal son's new bedroom's bedside table. He comes home every few weeks or so. Most of his stuff is at the other home down South.

I've had to move some indoor plants around due to the heat / sun and air con being on almost 24/7 atm. They were reacting in all different ways which proves that POSITION is pretty important.

Yeah demon... the potting mix in the gutters is a grain of sand of what he did on a beach of abuse and destruction.
Victim's Services put in CCTV and he ain't been back since lol!
Cunning and cowardly.

Glad you got some seedlings planted! yay!

EMxxxx

Hay Mark

Glad to hear your elec is back on, hope it stays constant now!

And the RAIN... wow.... we're really getting it.
We've had misty, rainy weather for about 5 days now. It's quite magical from my POV lol.

Just one downpour I'm aware of but I'll take it lol.

I checked my drains and they're pretty good!
I did a thorough job of them a while back so I'm glad I did.

Take care!
EMxxxx

Hi Em I am glad you got some rain to.Your garden must be looking amazing.Have you got on top of the lantanna?
Mark.

Hey Mark

My garden is loving the neglect!

My front garden is looking okay - Turkeys are making minced meat of anything their claws can grab hold of, cheeky things.
The trees out there are HUGE now, so need some hard work again sighhhh lol....
ZERO lantana out the front. YAY!

Back garden ANOTHER story 🤔🤨😅
We tackled the lantana pretty darned well but it's rearing it's conniving self again lol.
I've gotta be happy with our work.... 600 sqm of lantana removal was DIFFICULT to do this year, so I'm proud of that.

Other weeds are HUGE, some were killed off with the searing HEAT.
Need whipper snippering!

SO my plan next year is to hire my gardener on a more regular basis.
I get regular leave from work so I'll ask him to work on each of my leaves (lol leaves / gardens).
Assist him then.
Then one session during my work, say every 6 weeks or so. He needs to work alone.

My Gardener isn't licensed to cut higher than 3m, so he can only do pruning etc.

I'll have to get more tree work done but am not that financial atm....

I really need to employ Monty Don's Principles to do it all sensibly ie establish a good routine in the garden (but my focus besides the kids and my career is my house and designing my cabin too!)...

Monty Don's Principles sic:

"Pruning in Summer tends to RESTRICT growth.

Pruning in Winter tends to PROMOTE growth.

So in Summer you prune the strongest growth HARD.

In Winter you prune the weakest growth hard."

Tree work is very expensive and I've done most of it myself for years, but they need more hard core lopping, so it's something I need to budget for.

I need to change my schedule of the most expensive bills coming in Jan / Feb so I can get loppers out in Summer each year. (THEN deal all year with the dead branches!!!)

We're changing around THREE bedrooms this Summer!
omg I didn't realise how hard this would be. Mainly bec we have to rip up the last bit of carpet in one of the big rooms, so where does ALL my bedroom furniture go? LOL the nice neat loungeroom! Yuck! This'll be AFTER Christmas!

Since prodigal son had the LARGEST bedroom and he moved out... I'm taking it. Then youngest D will have my old room and he can have the smallest room upstairs now since he's not here much.

So we're clearing unwanted stuff OUT of our rooms before moving. 1st time in over 10y that we're changing bedrooms around, so it's a LOT lol!!

Plus we stored ALL out things from downstairs UPSTAIRS during the demon era...

Dentist now lol..

EMxxxx

Well friends,

I did something bad...

I bought 4 rose plants on the weekend... costing $150.

Not exactly want I wanted... but thats what happened and im running with it haha

I've never had roses before, so its going to be a bit of a learning curve, especially since they're going to be put into pots - but im keen to learn.

Even with small portable garden beds - gardening can still be so relaxing?

Hi Gambit I am just curious what varieties of roses did you buy? You can grow them in big pots as I have in the past.Keep the water up to them and slow release feetilizer.Prune or dead flowers of them and give them a hard pruning at the end of winter which will promote new growth and flowers .

Hey Mark!

I bought Floribunda roses (Iceberg x 2, shady lady and simplicity)

The lady said they were quite hardy and easy to manage. I was kinda wanting something a little smaller - but eh, I'm happy with them.

Hey Gambit!

I don't know what's bad about that!!

I think it's AWESOME you bought some roses!

Thanks Mark for coming in to give Gambit a leg up with growing his new beauties!!

Is there a special type of potting mix to use for roses in pots guys?

About the only thing I know about helping roses is using all types of hair in the soil, I used to bring home our hair from the Barbers to put around our roses at our last home.
Oh and rabbit or guinea pig droppings I also heard lol... ugh that reminds me of the friend that told me that... I must call her!

Thankyou also Mark for inspiring courage to PRUNE things lol!

Us novices are so shy about pruning.

EMxxxx

Hi Em and Gambit the potting mix is a rich mixture with compost and manure mixed in and good drainage.You can buy a specialised mixture for roses these days which are good.
Roses are such a pretty flower to grow and so many different varieties and colours Their are some beautiful miniature roses you can get today with magnificent colours.
Happy gardening,
Mark.

Hey EM

Glad to hear you’ve had the lovely sound of your kids together and the rain :) Pretty special I imagine!

Oregano is on my list to grow. I’m wondering if it would do ok in the winter if planted in a sunny, but protected spot.

My username is based on my love for Lilly Pilly trees. Our trees are so full of flowers and bees at the moment. My phone keeps wanting to auto correct it to say ‘Lilly pillow’. That would have been a good name :p

I’m picturing all that lovely chicken poo in the rain. Wonderful stuff! I’d love to have chickens one day.

Your cabin sounds like a great project! Will you be building it completely from scratch?

Just an update and IDEA for a present!!

My daughter was blown away by a bunch of gifts she was given last night by a very wealthy friend of hers omg... and she phoned me in shock and wondered what to give HIM!

He had revelled in her array of plants and found out the health benefits of having Sansevieria - commonly known as mother-in-law's tongue - in the bedroom.
So she's going to buy a fancy pot lol and I'll dig some up from my garden for him.

She's also buying him a "drive around a race- track" thing lol.

Just an idea for next year now when it comes to giving a present, why not think of your garden!!

EMxxxx

Hey Mark

PHEW that there are potting mixes esp suited to roses.
That takes all the guess work out!

lol.

Thanks for the info MARK!!

EMxxxx

Hey Lilly Pilly lol!!

I turn every Lily's name into Lilly Pilly lol! Happy that was the basis of your username! LOL!

I've got lots of Lilly Pillies in my garden.
I pot up seedlings in groups and take them to work and either plant them there in the HUGE acreage we have lol... no one even notices OR give them away.
Or drop them off to the Community Garden near my work with a little note of what they are.

Native Bees, animals and birds LOVE them!

I also LOVE the shade they provide, their foliage is so dense, it's PERFECT! lol.

OH I LOVE MY KIDS ALL BEING HOME TOGETHER!! It's such a precious time and I'm soaking up every nano second of it! Going through all those Courts for years was devastating, robbing my time for the kids GRRRRR. 95% of the reason for all the Courts WAS the kids. I would have walked away and MOVED away if it wasn't for them. (We were offered new identities, so it's hard. Hence Victim's Services putting in CCTV for us).
Now I'm virtually 100% focussed on them and even my MH to be a better parent FOR them.

ALL GOOD! lol. Happy days!

Having chooks is AWESOME for the garden, they are SO WORTH the fuss lol!

Aha a cabin lol why not! There's so much land, I'd prefer to use it to house people.
Our population here has exploded this year, like really crazy. There was a housing shortage BEFORE the 2020 pop'n explosion.

BUT it will be a 5y project I'm thinking. I want to get as right as possible and respect the land as much as possible too. Plus take things slowly so I can afford to build it myself without a loan (still pondering that one).

My own passive solar design, designed to reduce issues with mould & hopefully well enough to withstand any flooding. We'll see lol!

My fiancee (in the U.S.) is drawing up the plans in his fancy computer program. We may LIVE in it 1 day so it has to suit both of us. Then rent out the big house.

Doing more research and measuring over my leave so we know everything lol including WHERE to begin building the low, but long retaining wall. (More on the Building thread where I ask questions from time to time of our resident Builder Geoff).

YES!
Oregano will delight in Winter sun! (Not sure how high up in Oz you are?)
I have mine in a huge pot so I can move it if it's not coping with the sun OR not getting enough sun. It's growing all along the ground now lol overflowing from the pot. So I guess it's chosen where to live itself!

EMxxxx

My new profile picture is of my beautiful orange rose I have growing here and it is to inspire Gambit in his rose growing.

That is a stunning rose, Mark.

What a colour!

Oh I love roses!

Hi all. It's so nice catching up on the gardening thread! Like a refreshing shower of rain! We've had enough rain for now tho lol. It's beginning to get very soggy here, and we live on a hillside.

Gambit I hope that your roses produce such beautiful roses that you never regret buying them. My rose has delighted me with it's perfume, and been surprisingly resilient ( It's position is dry, full sun and gets scratched by the chooks, so it's doing well.) My pa used to put heaps of manure (Cow? I think) around his every year, probably before spring. I prune mine hard-ish- except I've found that if I let it grow tall, it gets less attention from the grasshoppers. Which is a good thing!

The indoor plants are delightful. We have them grouped together for company and H is already lovingly wiping leaves and turning them twds the sun. :) I agree Em, it's best that he take care of them. Plus it will be good for him!

I bought my d ( the one who's not currently speaking to me) a lovely little plant in a glass bowl for Christmas. My youngest, T, got to see her today, and give her the pressies. T was so delighted when she got home, little darlin.

My oregano has almost succumbed to the damage done by our chookies ( lovely destructive things they can be) They love that bed cos it's so dry- perfect for dust baths! Its in a pot in it's next life. Poor chookies- they've gotten so wet these days! I designed their chookhouse with a shelter underneath it, for our high rainfall, but it turns out it's a river of water (read MUD) from the run off from further uphill. Sigh! Ah well, I've about given up on my garden, except for the lettuce ( and they're not for long with this heat unless I shade them) so I might just let the chooks in. They'll love that.

And then I can get on with sewing my perfect handbag! I've begun designing it- I need to look semi- professional in my future job next year- and I love a good handbag! I take my inspo from Mary Poppins and Hermione Granger- both excellent bag ladies lol!

So long happy gardeners. Remember to take time to smell the roses! ( but not after fertilising....)

J*

Hey J*

I absolutely LOVE that you take your inspo from Mary Poppins and Hermione Granger!!!
Our family were (and probably still are lol) Crazy Harry Potter fans!

Just letting you know that I started the BB Arts and Craft Circle thread yesterday LOL!

I must've read your mind lol... LOVE THAT BAG!

So are you starting work again or have been promoted or something?

don't really want to mention demon again but he destroyed my beautiful sewing machine and overlocker :-( I don't have any of that any more and I'm not happy to go buy new ones either... yuck memories now.

BUT I want to be inspired! And you do inspire me, so thankyou!

Thankyou also for all that awesome feedback about growing roses. (Maybe I'll get there too one day lol!).

Yah keeping chooks is a palaver, but we do what we can for the little darlings.
For quite some time I had quite tall plastic mesh around my pot of oregano, pegged in with tent pegs! I do that all around my pots :-)
After more than a year of the chooks trying to get IN to my oregano they gave up... interesting.
Now I have no mesh THERE but it's still around all other pots.

Oh dear my oregano took a beating from the sun!
Then the rain.
It's looking dwindly and rough BUT it's amazingly resilient, so it'll bounce back.
I nearly put a big umbrella over it and still might do that with the beating sun if it cops it again.

Oregano LOVES chook poo infused straw.

I did a stack of weeding yesterday whilst the ground was still wet. It's so much easier to pull weeds after the rain! My green bin's half full now.

Then scrubbed the billeo out of my porch and paths, cleaned up the bird, lizard, snake baths etc.

Then I went for a short nap and slept for FIVE hours! LOL!

How nice that T got to spend time with her big sister. How are you feeling about all that?
Does there seem to be any progress in your relationship with her?

I hope she likes her pressie.

Love EM