Hello garden folk,
Have not been on here, as I am not supposed to think about gardening when I have uni assignments pending - urgh. I use gardening as rewards for myself to motivate me - ie. when I have finished X assignment, I can buy Y plant for my garden, or am I allowed to spend Z amount of time pruning hedge!
Em, Yes, conditions are so different in different parts of the garden due to fences shade, exposure to the wind etc, so I do try moving things around if at first they are doing poorly. Peter Cundall was great, I miss him!
I too have noticed Mark seems to have amazing super powers that he does not acknowledge, he has quite a fan base on here though!
Re: Not to many snails, too few predators. This is how I like to think as well. What I need is blue tongued lizards actually, they would naturally be around here, but neighbour has yappy dog, that I think keeps them away. There are lots in my mother's yard and she never sees snails. My son made an electric snail deterrent device when one of my young trees kept getting eaten, and had not one leaf left. The device gave snails mild electric shock that would make them turn back. It worked well and tree is flourishing now!
Ducks are awesome company and great for snail control. When we had ducks (Khaki Campbells) we would collect containers of snails from other people's yards to give them for a treat. One day I will have enough land to have ducks and chickens again (sigh). They are messy though and you need to be ok with washing down poop and cleaning ponds or water troughs each day.
Re: Terraces.....amazing!! You are so energetic EM, it is inspiring. I used to be like that too, energy sucked out of me lately, but hopefully temporary. Terraces look beautiful and very practical, a lot of work moving earth though. I remember trekking in Nepal through areas with terraces for growing rice (in areas lower in mountains). Another thing I loved there was that they used canes of poinsettia trained into a kind criss-cross as fences - really beautiful in flower.
Re: suckers - hot glue and duct tape certainly is a novel approach, you are very creative! I am very interested to see if it is successful
Mmm pumpkin. My favourite thing to do with pumpkin is to salt and roast thin slices and serve with local goats curd on caraway rye toast, delicious!!