Oh dear golden, I know your compassionate heart.

Thankyou for posting such a huge expression of understanding and empathy to me!

You're very kind doing that even though the depression is usurping so much for you atm.

Indeed we have SO MANY memories of our darling girl. From when the kids were toddlers till now most of them are grown adults.

Your stories of the little chick made me smile. Funny how they can bring so much joy and decide on a special person to play specific games with.

For all my pets and all my children I mean "food, hugs & nurse maid" lol.

I'm grateful knowing she's not struggling any more, yes.
The pain was transferred to me like a huge wave when she left.

I think I did well dealing with the grief.
Then BF crying so much, I had to help him deal. I could do that without crying, surprisingly, which I'm grateful for also. He has a lot of unresolved grief and depression, it's quite clear to me today.

I was deeply amazed at what happened with Yvette today and told her so.
She opened up so much to me, which I'm so grateful for also. Thank God for the helpline trauma psych's advice and my Counsellor. Yvette having O.D.D. has meant our relationship hasn't been what it could have.

Layer by layer it's melting away and I'm so incredibly grateful.

Maybe grief in any form can bond people, when they allow it to.

Thankyou golden,
Love EM

Dear EM,

I’m sorry for your loss of your darling chicken. Sounds like you shared a special bond and she would have been aware you were there with her in her last hours.

Sending you thoughts of love and support.

Lillylane

Hi Em I was just seeing how you are going and for you to to know I am thinking of you and here for you.
Take care,
Mark.

Hi all,

How is it going on the plants front Golden? Have you decided on one?

Too hot to garden- same old story! Lots of weeds growing so there'll be heaps of work to do when I get back in. Am impressed with my capsicum plant tho. It's in it's second year and is holding lots of fruit, which for once isn't getting attacked... Nice to have something which is coping well with neglect lol!

Still yet to plant my sweet potato plant which I bought a while ago. We've been given cuttings twice which were sposed to be golden but turned out to be white, so I've resorted to buying one to make sure I get the golden sort, which I prefer. I might let it take over a garden bed- that would save a lot of energy gardening wouldn't it! And be an easier harvest in the soft soil....

I think I need some easy wins in the garden to encourage me!

Cheers,

J*

Dear Lillylane and Mark

Thankyou.
Yes she was SO special. 15y is a LONG time to love a pet lol. Beautiful girl.

Well I saw the Title of this thread & thought for us today it's more like "Who likes SWIMMING?" lol it's been raining SO MUCH here.

So we're drenched.

My daughter just arrived back with her NEW car! So I better go and see lol.

Love EM

Hi,

Em you must have our rain! showers but nowhere near what it was a few weeks ago.

After posting about all the work needed in my garden it must have inspired me- got in and weeded a whole bed. I lost half a week last week with a bad headache so feeling like things are stacking up on me.

Em it does sound like the grief of chickies passing is doing things in your family. Bittersweet parting gift hey. Hope you're taking care of yourself too lovely.

Cheers all,

J*

Thanks J*

Yes, when we know that 5-7y is the life expectancy for the chickens of her breed and she was with us for double that, well it's like allowing my 215yo grand mother go.

She gave us more than her very best!

I had to move "her" pretty pink soft succulent on to my balcony because all the birds were eating it! So I see it all the time and think of her. My spider plant LOVES living on the balcony too, so that's cute.

Tbh her passing is probably what sparked p.son's much firmer decision to move home at the end of the year. With each text now he asks about all of our pets by name now too!
I guess she's given that blessing to us. I like to think so anyhow.

WOW you got so much gardening done! GO YOU! lol.
Hope the headaches abate J* I really do.

I've only been back to FT work a week and even my front garden's maintenance is PILING up! It's a mess! I'll have to scrub my arms off cleaning the porch and paths on the weekend errrrk lol. The birds have gone to town digging everything up! Grrrr!

But the Green Bin's FULL, so if I can keep that ONE thing up every fortnight (which takes lots of work being branches) then I'll be proud of myself.

Hiring a gardener for the back yard (lantana) will have to happen.

Love EM

Hi all I am just seeing if anyone's been out in the garden and done any gardening or anything interesting flowering and fruiting.I haven't done much of late been a bit down and a bit busy with kids and stuff.I have been harvesting my leeks and my black muskot grapes.I have had heaps of bunhes of grapes.The fruit has been a bit small but really tasty.The vine has only been in 2 years but has grown really well.I expect seasons to come to get better size fruit.

Happt gardening,

Mark.

Hi Mark and all,

Those grapes sound delicious! And I like the shape and colour of the leaves of grape vines as well.

I haven’t been in the garden much lately and I miss it. The mangoes on our tree now have a slight blush of pink colour on them so I picked one to see if it’s yellow inside. Still a bit white looking but it’s got more of a yellow tinge to it than the one I picked a few weeks back.

I’m sorry you’ve been feeling down, Mark. It can be difficult to have time and energy to look after yourself and spend time in the garden when busy with kids etc. Are they both at school this year?

Hi Lillylane yes those mangoes probably not quiet ready to pick.I bought some from a roadside store 3 for $2 and I was on my motorbike and had 6 stuffed in my jacket.They were really nice to eat.

I have 3 grape vines here and really have grown well here.I am really happy how they have grown.

Bith kids are back at school my son is in year 4 and my daughter is in her final year.I will see if I can get my daughter to help me in the garden this weekend.I really should be doing a lot but struggling with motivation at the moment.

Warm again here and not much rain around.We missed the latest lot here so I have been doing a bit of watering.

Taka care,

Mark.

Hi Mark,

How have you have been doing over the weekend?

It’s ok and understandable to struggle with motivation - it will return. But I know it’s frustrating and I hear you.

I don’t like the heat much and it puts me off doing much in the garden for the moment. I did spot a tiny feijoa fruit on one tree so it will be interesting to see how it develops.

Are leeks easy to grow? How do you like to cook with them?

I see you have a thread so I will add more there.

I’m having to do some watering too. It was nice for a while not having to worry about it (with the rain).

lillylane

Thanks for all the updates in your gardening ventures.

I've barely been doing anything in the garden.

JUST maintenance lol ho hum.
Tonight I had to replant a plant I was gifted as the chickens or Brush Turkeys dug it out!
ALL OVER MY FRONT PORCH.

Booked my gardener in for a SATURDAY he offered to work here, YAY!
Lantana and weed control probably, still. I'll get him to help me move a huge sheet of metal down to cover the lantana. The heat will "help" kill it.
NONE of the places I stacked up the lantana stalks and covered in similar ways has seen it grow back!
Success. Now to repeat it everywhere lol.

Concentrating on my front garden and a small strip along the back near my house the most if I'm out there.

I'm having an After Party here in October and if those 2 areas look good, I'll be very happy!

I had to HACK up to 6ft tall weeds down in the back strip and covered them with carpet from our Summer renovations.
THIS worked a treat!
There's now grass poking out!

If I can encourage the grass to move across and cover it, happy days!
I can keep reusing the carpet all over the garden according to need.

I FOUND another surprise passionfruit vine growing lol. It's where the "proposed" hot tub site is when my BF moves here, many year's time, not a wise choice for darling passionfruit lol. While it's happy it can stay.

My main focus is working full time, looking after the kids and household and jumping to attention when my Uncle can visit to keep on renovating.
Still I touch the earth in my garden every day, even if it's to pull out a weed.

Love EM

Hi Lillylane Leeks are in the onion family and are pretty easy to grow just like a big Spring onion.Smaller ones I have been having on sandwichiches raw while the bigger ones I have been slicing up and putting in my spaghetti Bolognese or put them in stir fried or I just boil them up with the potatoes.I am getting a bit lazy these days cooking and not doing much at all.
I moved a heap of firewood Saturday with my daughter and now in some pain from it.I am going to put up a shed on that site but don't think I will be able to do the slab myself now.
Take care,
Mark.

Hi all,

today I did a bit of weeding, while 2 chooks scratched on top of my little fork. Funny things! No fear!

I was digging out nut grass- so difficult to get rid of. My brother reckons the best thing is to crowd it out- it goes mad with an empty garden. Which has been my situation exactly.

Dry here, despite 14mls of rain on weekend.

J*

Hi Jstar nutgrass is the worst to get rid of.I had it come up on my vegie garden at another place I lived.I could never get rid of it.Tried digging it out and pulling pulling the nuts out.good luck with it.
Some mango seeds I propergated have all shot up and have a few different varieties.They are pretty easy to propergated when you know the trick to them.When I am feeling better I will get my vegie garden prepared for its next crop.I should have had something in it by now.zi feel so slack.
Happy gardening,
Mark.

I bought 2 more patio roses hahaha.

$11 at bunnings, I couldnt resist.

Had a bit of wind and rain here over the weekend - damaged some of my seedlings! oh well.

Kings park is having a plant sale soon! kinda want to check it out and see what that have.

Hi Gambit you can never have enough roses.Full that patio up.
I have been out I the heat all day working.I am now totally exhausted and won't do anything for the next few days.
Happy gardening ,
Mark

Hey Lilly, yes I've found leeks and spring onions extremely easy to grow. Depends on the micro climate of where you plant them really.
Leeks are lovely in soups and stews in place of onions IMO.

Wow Mark, HUGE day! Well done you. Nice that you're planting mango seeds, are they "Certified" ones?
I'm concerned about the GM seeds of avocadoes and all else from our supermarket fruits and veg producing sterile plants.

Hey J*, yeah I'm sure our chooks think "THANKS MAMA!" when we're digging in the garden lol, it's like it's ALL for them! Sweet things lol.
I agree with your brother about bare soil. I wrote about it a while back.

Mother Earth hurries up to cover the soil! Whatever grows the fastest wins the spot lol. Weeds aren't ALL bad, they DO do lots to improve the soil. I'd crowd them out too.
A funny thing happened to all the weeds below my WEED TEA bucket left open for the rain. It overflowed DOWN the garden and whatever weeds were in the path were killed.
BUT my Lemon Balm tripled in size.
I've found common weeds don't usually like LOTS of nitrogen.
A real Permaculture strategy in action, without me doing much at all.

Hey Gambit, wow loving your enthusiasm for your roses! They're so beautiful, no wonder you've fallen in love with them. That's wonderful.
$11 is a bargain compared to psych bills! LOL!
I reckon our passion for growing in our gardens and patios reduces psych bills, does for me!

My gardening news... a party in a few weekend's time is JUST what my garden needed to get some volunteered help from my kids! YAY!
They're SO keen to get things looking better and I'm SO HAPPY they'll be helping!
Ofcourse they can't wait to get the high pressure hose out to do the long driveway, paths and brick retaining walls lol. That's a muddy adventure they can have fun with without me this time.

I needed this boost of help.
Gardener's help in 11 day's time! I'm doing a count down lol.

Love EM

Hi Em I have been propergating mangoes for 45 years now I started with my grandfather on the farm and the trees are still there that I planted with my grandfather and fruiting.The seeds I propergated are from old established backyard trees.I cut the casing around the seed and wrap the inner seed in moist paper toweling and change it every few days until it starts to shoot in about 3 weeks and I plant it out dividing it if more then one shoot.

Hey Mark and EM and everyone

Can anyone help me out...The Google machine keeps telling me that Yates 'Tomato Dust' is toxic...Its been around for decades but the Im stuck on this one

Is it safe to use? Any advice would be appreciated :-)

Hi Paul good to see you on here with a great question.Most of the pesticide products you buy of the shelf can have harmful chemicals at a small amount.Yates Tomato dust contains Sulpfur,copper and spinetoram.Whst I believe with this product is it can cause skin irritation .Products to watch out for are ones containing Carbaryl as this product has been found to cause cancer forming genes.Derris dust is another product to avoid as this may cause Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.Most of the products my grandparents used on the farm years ago are now banned.Out of 10 children 8 got cancer.
Take care,
Mark.

Hi EM and all

My mum used to make a delicious savoury bread with cheese and leeks.

I’m looking forward to Gardening Australia being back on soon.

I did get outside to potter a little in the garden yesterday evening (I think it’s the best thing for my mental health). A few canna lillies were knocked over in the wind so cut back and tidied them up a bit.

Hey blondguy Paul! Nice to see you :-))

I'd stay away from Tomato Dust and all types of stuff like that, that's me lol. Mark's spot on there, there are still lots of dangerous stuff out there for sale. Some stuff banned overseas is still being sold to us in food!

What type of problem are you having with your tomatoes?

2 things I've found usually wipe all issues with tomatoes out completely (but for the birds lol!)..
1. CROP ROTATION ie Moving towards good "garden hygiene".
Matchy eludes to this all the time with his planting regime.
You can't plant tomatoes in the same spot for more than one season.
You need to "cleanse" the earth with legumes like beans or peas straight after, this trick works a treat! And is similar to companion planting but one crop following another.
Tomatoes TAKE from the soil what legumes put back.
This helps exclude nematodes which is our greatest tomato issue - I think.

2. COMPANION PLANTING
In the true sense, this means planting things, WITH the focus plant being tomatoes, flowers or herbs that deter some things and ATTRACT predators that eat what eats our tomatoes.
I always plant BASIL and MARIGOLDS with tomatoes.
Does the trick!

NB: Another thing to consider, which is the bane of gardener's lives lol, is buying IN already infected seedlings from Nurseries. HUGE problem with tomato seedlings!
Growing tomatoes from seed in situ if you can (not needing to handle the fragile seedlings) is great. Paying attention to points 1 & 2 also.

Lastly IF there's only ONE spot in your garden you can plant tomatoes and you can't live without them for a minute lol....
you can put huge pots on top of the area and grow legumes in season around them in the soil.
I'd still companion plant basil & marigolds in the pots with them.

Not much work hey? LOL!
Alot to consider anyhow.

Bestest wishes!
Love EM

Hey Lilly

I found and still find gardening one of the best things for my MH too. Good one!

OMG you GROW Canna Lillies??? lololol. I rip those blighters out with all my might, they took over so many spaces it's been a huge issue.

The seeds rolled down from my neighbour's garden, took hold and yeah, still digging them out years later.

Getting those bulbous corms out of the ground is hard work. Catching every round black seed from rolling away is HARD! I carefully go round with a bucket under the flowers and cut them off into the bucket. Then rip them all out.

BUT they are a BEAUTIFUL flower and I like the plant generally. I like any plants "generally" lol.
Just not in my garden!

I think the dark leafed ones are pretty spectacular. Which ones do you have growing?

Hey Mark, LOVE your propagating Mangoes story!!!

Just needed a warning UP for people who might try doing this with a store bought mango.
It's probably GMd so not gonna work.

All we need to do is have YOU mail us some! LOL!

Oh dear but my garden has so many trees, and I'm so happy for the shade BUT there's no way I can be growing the other stuff I used to grow years ago. Too much shade now.

Some poor old trees are diseased and on their way out, sadly.
Fortunately these ones are in the path I need to construct for the cabin's access.
Still sad though. :-((

Love EM

Hi EM

Haha re the Canna Lillies!! I can see how quickly they could take over a garden.

Ours have dark leaves, almost a purple colour. With orangey red flowers. They’re growing in a very narrow confined space beside the driveway. There were only a few small ones when we moved in, but with the rain this season they’ve grown taller with more flowers. They die off in our winters but come back in Spring.

They help to soften an otherwise unappealing brown colorbond fence. Further down next to them I’ve planted 3 feijoa trees under-planted with limonium, sea lavender (one of my favourite plants now).

Have seen some beautiful different coloured canna lillies at the nursery.

I love how shady your garden sounds :)

Gardening has been good for my mental health until recently as I use to grow flowers for a friend but no longer have her in my life and it makes me sad that I don't have her to share my flowers with anymore.

Hey Lilly!

Yeah those are my favourites but I still can't risk planting them. They take over so fast and are just as hard to get rid of as lantana for me! I just try to find them when they're 10cm tall lol and no bigger.

I take on board what you're saying though.
It's really difficult to find REALLY hardy plants that cope with some difficult places.

And these would pretty up anything with not much work at all.

We cleared a wall of lantana as high as a house and just as big in one section way down the back and then yah... I left it clear... now it's back.

This will be the cabin's back yard and it's right against a HOT HOT metal fence which is horribly hot almost all year round lol. It was a dilemma for me about WHAT to plant that would look cute, be low maintenance and thirdly, if possible, grow some food. Ofcourse my PERFECT plants would be free!

I Pray alot and Prayed on this too lol, I expect the Universe to give me the answers.
(OH JUST GOT GOOD NEWS!!! My son got a Managerial position at his part time fast food workplace! YIPPEE! He's still at school lol)

ANYway... Prayers were answered just this week. I've found all these Papaya plants coming up. Must be birds eating seeds somewhere else and "depositing" them in my garden already fertilised! LOL!

I had no idea what they were at first, but so pretty that I potted one up about 8 months ago.
My gardener spotted it and said "Nice Papaya tree there"... oh WOW! I was so happy.

So I can dig the other "accidental Papayas" up now, pot them for the time being and PLANT THEM near this fence!
Maybe 2 to start with.
I'll keep my potted one for now.

I best wait till the worst of Summer heat is passed but I'm SO HAPPY I got everything I asked for in these plants.

Yay!
Love EM

Oh Mark, I’m sorry to hear you don’t get to share your flowers with your friend anymore.

I hope you know that you and the other BB gardeners here bring so much light and inspiration to others and I really appreciate all that you share here.

Take care,

Lillylane

Hi Lillylane thanks I use to change my profile photo to different flowers I am growing but I have trouble changing it these days.

Hi all,

Wow everyone's so busy in their gardens!

EM, Love the way the party has been a boon for you in the garden- that is synchonicity at it's best! Tbh I was a bit concerned for you cos I know how much work parties are! But if it's resulting in you getting help with stuff that needs doing, awesome!

Mark, love your mango stories. I too am sorry that growing flowers is a sad memory now. I hope that you are able to enjoy growing flowers again one day soon.

Yeah, nut grass has been the bane of this garden for our whole time here. That bed anyhow. The nitrogen from the manure I dumped seems to have spurred it's growth, not killed it unfortunately Em!

I'm thinking I might completely rest my garden for a bit, so may cover it with thick layers of newspaper and see how that goes. Just a thought..... I do miss the vegies tho.

I have three beds so shall have to start getting in the habit of resting a bed regularly.

Tomatoes! Depending on the climate, it can be difficult to grow them without products. They don't like humidity and develop fungal diseases easily.. I'm thinking of trying to go them outside of the hottest times- if i get them in late summer then they might grow most of winter. My dad grew tomatoes but he used lots of 'stuff'. He just laughs at me when I talk about my problems becos he doesn't believe it can be done without dust/anti- fungals/pesticides etc. He grew beautiful tomatoes, very tasty, but we would never eat one without washing it. And I know that stuff goes into the fruit, no matter what they say.

I've had greatest success with growing toms in pots set in the garden bed, so I mite try your tip Em, and surround with legumes. Have to watch the water tho- toms don't like drying out, or heavy wet soil. They're a bit fussy! And also best results with my self-seeded toms! Only little ones tho- great for salad.

Cheers,

J*