Hi ecomama,

Thank you for your warmest welcome. It’s great to be among a bunch of such beautiful people.

Have a great day!

Hi Leonay, a HUGE warm welcome to the forums and I'm so happy you found our little "green space" here lol.

I've had a lot of experience working in various School Gardens (and Community Gardens) and got stacks of donations to support our needs. I began doing mostly volunteer hours but then was offered paid work from various avenues.

Firstly I joined each of the Schools into LETS. More on that if you want to know more later...

If you have a Dept of Ed Environmental Centre then linking in with them is a great move.
Ours is really involved with School Gardens here.

Also ASK ASK ASK.
I asked the local Hardware stores lol for Gift Vouchers to fund our garden.

We also asked our local Council what THEY could offer US hahaha...well I was the brave one to put it to them.
We got LOTS of composting bins. Workshops etc.

Ofcourse lastly but firstly, linking in with your local Permaculture Group is AWESOME!
SO MUCH KNOWLEDGE to be grabbed from this group.
Our members LOVE to volunteer in schools too and they never come to the schools empty handed lol.
All the members have to do is have a WWCC for Volunteers which is free.
They can run Workshops (to give you a rest lol), support Working Bees with lots of ideas and muscle, plus get donations FOR YOUR school which is better than you doing all the work yourself.

Also a fabulous resource is FREECYCLE.
I picked up just about anything I wanted, for free.
People just GIVE stuff away, esp when you say it's for a school. Awww how sweet!
Freecycle is an online group aimed at reducing the amount of usable items going to landfill - worldwide.

REMEMBER the school has a P&C Committee.... if you can SHOW that there is an increased pupil engagement and education value (der) for the Garden, then the Committee should be right behind you. All you have to do is show up to a P&C Meeting with a flashy powerpoint and knock their socks off.
I did this and was offered a job to run their school garden full time, but had a better offer.

Ofcourse ppl will tell you to apply for Grants but I found this next to useless as a return for my woman hours. It was plain annoying tbh. They expect all this paperwork forever for a mere $1200 - not worth it at all IME.

Best green wishes
Love EM

Hey topsy, WELCOME! Where have you been all this time?? hahaha...

I wanted to tell you that EVERY gardener has "failures"! I prefer to call these "Learning Opportunities" lol.
I've had some dismal learning opportunities.

It's quite an analogy for life.
Okay that didn't work, what can I do next time?

I reckon the better the gardener, the more they've experienced these moments.

SO what shall we do for you?
You can get your list ready of what things you like to EAT.
Usually it's the wrong time of the year to plant things like Basil etc.
But SPRING is coming!

Ask away and everyone will help you get some fun in your garden spaces.

Katy I'm sorry the snails persist.
Have you tried the bowl of beer yet?
The little darlings can drown in the happiest of ways lol.

Snails don't like sliming across dry cement, rock, bricks.
The challenge would be trying to keep these dry.

Bestest wishes!

I bought a leaf blower and used it JUST in time!
My driveway was absolutely covered in Autumn leaves.
My drains were overflowing with them too.

The leaf blower made pretty easy work of blowing them all away down into the side of my home, behind the side gate. It's fun slushing through these lol.

Well wouldn't you know it, it POURED with rain yesterday, last night and today.
The whole first floor of our home would've been flooded if I hadn't blown the leaves out of the drains.

Yay! A win for following my instincts there.

This morning in a break from the rain, I went up and raked and swept the road (yeah the road lol) and my curbside. The neighbour has an Oak Tree, I think, it's MASSIVE. Lots of leaves.
With a few branches I cut, the green bin's full, yeah alotta leaves.
My property runneth over with leaves lol.

Atm I'm using gardening as a distraction from doing what I SHOULD be doing ie my Tax Return blerghhh. The rain keeps pushing me back inside lol. Ok I get the message.

Blissful gardening everyone!

EMxxxx

Hi everyone

Gosh, a leaf blower would be excellent fun! I bought a high pressure cleaner during first covid lockdown and had an amazing time blasting everything :) How fortuitous you did it just in time to beat the rain, EM :)

Well I'm pretty excited today as I have my first little snow pea! The snails are still munching away (drats!) but they didn't spot him! I've lost one plant as I suspected would happen, but the others are still growing strong despite their munched on bits. Can't afford beer so I'll have to think on that one...

Happy gardening all!

Hello Katy, Em & everyone,

As your peas are in pots could you hang them to stop the snails???

Paws

Omg Katy after my own heart lol, it is SO MUCH fun! Blasting the leaves along WOOHOO! hahaha.

I got a high pressure hose a while back and OMG it's the best fun!
Everything looks almost new again after having a whirl with one of those lol.

My Chiro said to me tonight that I have to slow down with the physical work for a while to heal.
I could feel that message from my body for the last 2 weeks or so darn it.

He DID say though, that my leaf blower was a great idea compared to the hours of raking I was doing per day. I said I love my leaf blower so much, I could marry it lol!
He said it was a safer bet hahaha (I agree).

YOUR FIRST SNOW PEA!! YUM! YAY!

Congratulations. That's awesome news.

I love Mark's idea of vegemite in some water hmmmm. Do you have yeast in packets? Like the yeast to make bread with?

You can activate some of that with honey and put it in a wide bowl (when it's not raining I think would be best).

We are NOT going to let these darned snails get the better of us here.
We look after our own, I hope the snails realise they're up against it.

LOVE the idea of hanging them high too, thanks Paws!

Eat as many as you can is my best advice lol.

Hey Mark, I read your mandies went well this year. Alexa's are too fibrous to enjoy just by eating but juicing them with some of my oranges and lemons is quite a treat.

I've given away about 25kg of raw macadamias, heavens.

And my extremely pampered chickens don't realise it's Winter and they're laying eggs like crazy.
Last week after work they were all perched in my LOUNGEROOM! They'd made their presence known in every single room of the house ugh.
Thanks for leaving the laundry door open kids!

Better go. Off to cook up a storm for the hoardes tonight.

Love EM

Heya everyone,

Quick post tonite- lovely to hear everyones news tho and welcome to newbies- lovely to hear your gardening stories!

Leonay I just wanted to share Em's wonderful tip with me, as I've been using it all season and it works a treat. If you string your white plastic butterflies on a bunting style string, then they wave in the breeze and work REALLY well. We've watched from the house- the moths have hovered over the nearby lime tree, then COMPLETELY avoided the cabbages! Absolutely brilliant!

The first caterpilars I got on them were only when they were ready to harvest- but I think that it conicided with me hanging some old CDS out there to keep birds away from cabbages- cheeky things!- and it disrupted the moth control somehow.

Happy Gardening everyone!

PS Mark, I had read that you were sick, and am happy to hear that you're on the mend. Not sure if I've posted that before but been thinking of you!

Cheers all,

J*

That's GREAT NEWS J*! Well done you. I must give credit where it's due lol. I got that tip from Taronga Zoo! In their organic food growing section! hahaha.

Well BB green thumbs lol, I am SO PROUD of my efforts in removing lantana... ALMOST THERE peeps! This week I wobbled and twisted out 4 large lantana trunks as high as my chest. I thought they were dead with no green foliage on them. Anyway as I twisted again and again back and forth... the darned ROOTS were still alive grrr. Not all, just a couple per tree. SO I CUT them off.

Still more to do and I will be lost without all the lantana work hahaha!

The OTHER 2 things that worked a treat was getting huge lengths of sheet metal, carpet and thick huge plastic bags (I kept from unpackaging new mattresses). Cutting the lantana down to a foot above earth then laying these on top REALLY work!

WORMS everywhere when I remove these coverings and dig the dead (ish) plants out.

My pitchfork BENT on the lantana roots but I will not them win.

Simultaneously I'm dealing with the blackberry runners.

Papa Brush Turkey is a great gardener! Hahaha.
He cleared ALL the way so I could get to the dead lantanas more easily - Thankyoop!
He also exposed the b/berry runners so I could more easily see those too.

Neighbour's house goes to Auction on Sunday.
I think they'll demand a new fence asap, whomever they are.
I decided to cut down as much of the dreaded Jasmine off the fence today.
There was wire netting, old pool fencing, star pickets and timber stakes all against the fence - what a MESS!
(Conveniently I've been filling all 3 bins from my neighbour's house up for sale for the past few weeks, what a blessing!)

My 4 toddler pools are now full of Jasmine cuttings till they die down for disposal.

Papa BT came along and scratched ALL the Jasmine cuttings down to his nest lol!
No raking required yay.
He seriously thinks I'M his mama bec he comes right near me, chases the chickens away from me and brushes past my legs as he works hahaha, I can pat him too and he doesn't seem to mind.

I moved about 30 bricks uphill (UGH!) to make a half pyramid shaped wall around my chook pen. Useful storage for the bricks for now.

We can use lots to build pentagon shaped seating with timber planks, we already have, for around our planned Fire Pit way down the back.

I can't believe I can WALK almost the entire space of my garden now YAY!

Lovely garden dreaming to all
EMxxxx

That's great news em you are getting on top of the Lantana.You will be so glad to get rid of it all.

I have given my roses all a good pruning.New growth coming on them and hopefully a great lot of flowers in spring.

I been picking some nice cabbages,cauliflowers and broccoli and some good size sweet potatoes.Srilll picking heaps of tangellos and bush lemons.My mandarins are about finished fruiting after having some nice crops.I have an egg plant that came up from seed growing near the fence and it has been producing fruit and must be protected there as the frost hasn't effected it.

Happy gardening,

Mark.

We had a great season for tomatoes recently, plentiful and tasty.

Tonight we added some home made worm juice to some pots to prepare the soil.

Heya happy gardeners!

I quite like winter becos there’s just not as much work to do.... although it’s taking Forever! For my tomatoes to ripen! And it must be a bit cold for my beans- they’re a bit stunted. It could be cos the birds keep eating the bean leaves.....

Hey Em you were wondering about growing freesias- I don’t think I’m the expert at all but when I tried to transplant my freesias- which we inherited with the house- they died. So I think they like to be undisturbed! I’m guessing they like good drainage. I always remember them being on sunny slopes....

cheers,

J*

Hey Mark, YUM all those foods you're growing sound so delicious! GO YOU!

I LOVE Mystery plants that pop up, nice having an eggplant grow for you (a bit early but as long as it's happy!).

Hey D&G, Welcome here too! hahaha, so nice to see you here. WORM JUICE, YUM! I use the word Vermicast so as not to scare the children, thinking I might be juicing worms!

I have some "Worm Towers" stuck into the ground in certain spots around the garden where no one can see them. One is near where I sit and drink tea in the front garden. When I have visitors they shriek at me putting the tea bags behind the plants, but they're going in to a Worm Tower! Hey presto, nothing else to do - my style of gardening, but you wouldn't think so.

Hey J*! Yes, FREESIAS. Just to fill others in... on my trip down South to help prodigal son move in to a Uni Share house (even tho he's in his last year of HS)... the "Landlord" gifted me a BIG pot of freesias and omg I was in a state of flux between overly excited and dread lol. I've done nothing but kill freesias in the past and it's such a shame because I LOVE those plants. The flower's fragrance is exquisite.

SO thankyou J*, I also remember them growing well on sloping ground in moderately sunny spaces.
If anyone has advice, I need to take heed.
Apparently the Landlord "B" said I killed them with kindness bec he neglects them. But his climate is notably cooler usually than ours - not THIS Winter tho.... I thought it balmy compared to here when we went down there.

I will leave them in their pot for now... probably forever lol.
Help! I'm scared! hahaha.

Today we lost another beautiful rescue chicken. She'd been with us maybe 10 years so I know she had a wonderful retirement but we'll miss her. She was so FAT and gorgeous in her hey day. Shiny feathers once she regained them all. Her other elderly companion is still rather spritely although rather lost.

I need to bury her tomorrow.

I ventured down the way back with my tea this morning with the thought "I'm just going to have a LOOK, not do anything". I'm the biggest liar to myself hahaha. I ended up doing an hour's weeding.
But mostly enjoyed looking around.

Papa Brush Turkey and I must have E.S.P! He's now scratched ALL the leaves I'd blown in to a pile just behind the side gate, down to his nest. It's massive, he must be so proud!

2 week's more Lock Down and only 50% on site at work so I might squeeze some quality gardening in!
Yay!

Have fun in the garden!
Love EMxxxx

I love to garden! Incredibly rewarding and helps with mental health. We are currently re-doing our backyard and plan to have a whole garden of plants/flowers/fruits/veggies that thrive in pots alone.

If anyone has a suggestion as to their favourite plant for pots and tips to help it grow please do let me know :-)

Lol Hello D&G you're so funny! Anchors away!
We actually have a row boat in our back yard that's doubling as a Frog Pond atm... you can borrow it if you like hahaha.

If your post was a prod to find out what grows in SWAMPS then reeds are great!
As well as Water Chestnuts, water lillies and Gingko Biloba I understand. Apparently SEAWEED is very nutritious lol!

Have fun!

Hey dizzy! A huge warm Welcome to the forums and an extra green welcome to our happy, hard working Gardening Thread lol.
Splendiforous (spelling lol) to have you here.

The best place to begin, Dizzy, is what YOU love to eat and see growing in your garden.
It depends on the climate in your area and more specifically, the MICRO CLIMATE of where you have your garden beds planned.

My hit suggestion to anyone starting out is observing what grows successfully in the gardens and green spaces in your area. Pick your faves and go for it.
Consider growing a food tree if you need Summer shade over the patches too.
Choice and placement is important. Mark is our brain's trust there!

What PERFECT weather we had here today!
I went for an hour's long walk with my LEAF BLOWER oh yeah. Saved me 2 day's work of raking and sweeping, love that thing.

Happily I saw some Bromeliads on the side of the road when dropping Yvette to work early this morning. I picked them up and potted them asap on getting home - Happy days!

Then on picking her up, our neighbour placed 4 mini vege garden structures out for pick up. YAY! We took them home. These match one big one I was gifted and had no idea where to put it. I'll put them in a pattern for the intended Cabin's back yard, PERFECT!
That garden is almost devoid of lantana now, lots of cleaning up to do there yet and changing the slope of the ground also.
My accidental Papaya will go in this garden, plus there are accidental Mulberry Trees (5 last count) already there. Some tree stumps to remove ugh, but it's BEAUTIFUL soil down there - thankyou lantana hahaha.

The Cabin's back yard gets too much sun atm, I'll change that over time.
It's front yard has the Macadamia Tree and some native trees also - lots of shade.

If Lock Down goes for a while, I'll teach myself how to roast the Macadamia nuts. Atm I gift them to a family who eats them and sells them for themselves which I'm happy for.

Have a great week!
Love EMxxxx

Hi dizzy great to see you on the gardening thread.I see you want to grow your plants in pots.Just curious for the reason for growing all in pots.I have seen some amazing gardens all just grown in pots and you can change things around very easily and if something isn't doing so well in a spot you can shift it to get more sun or less sun.

Fruit trees that can be good to grow in pots are dwarf varieties especially citrus.

Em is right the best way of working at what grows in your are is to have a walk around the streets and see what looks good and what you like and take notice of what position it is growing in.Take a photo of the plants if you don't know the name of them and someone at a nursery can identify them for you.

Happy gardening,

Mark.

Hi All,

This reminds me... the only way I can get motivated to go for walks is to tell myself I’ll check out gardens along the way.

Visited a local native plant nursery last weekend. Could have stayed there for hours. Bought a little plant with amazing purple flowers I’ve never seen before, tetratheca thymifolia.

happy gardening,

L.

Thanks for your advice Mark, it's really helpful as always!!

How's your garden doing?

Hey Lilly Pilly! Nice to see you here.

I'm glad you're getting out for walks. It's lovely seeing other people's gardens.

My little pinky purple succulent is NOT doing well on the balcony any more.
Left out the front, the chooks ate it lol.
Might need to bring it inside, but it's colder in there atm now our heater's broken, hmmm.

I can see from my last post here that I had GRAND plans of learning about roasting macadamias during the lock down / working mostly from home phase.
Tell 'er she's dreamin'.
Work has gone crazy, I felt my blood pressure rising this afternoon! Very demanding.
Took a nap "after work".

I fell asleep to an ABC iView "Dream Gardens" episode and it gave me ideas for my front "Potager Garden" which is just a round bricked courtyard now that the trees are shading 90% of it.
I got some baby Liriopes at a HUGE discount earlier in the year. They're happy in their pots still.
I need to put them in bigger pots, in a swathe under a tree to see how they go there. If I can plant them there, they'll form a long line and look beautiful over time. If I can keep the chooks and brush turkeys away.
My clivias in pots there have to move... not sure where to just now. Must be shady though. Their flowers are so pretty so I want to be able to see them.

I took a romantic walk with my leaf blower this morning lol.
That thing is perfect for me.

Papa Brush Turkey's nesting mound is getting bigger! He went INTO my chook's shed and dragged all my empty seed sacks out for his nest. Take it easy brother! I had to go down and take them back lol.
The mound is doing a good job of taking over the banana patch, which I'm good with.
Many have to be removed over time anyway for a new fence AND a path to the intended Cabin.
I can thank him for that!

It's not the end of our Turkey adventures.

I need to get more activity in tomorrow if I can, a 3 HOUR Zoom meeting the next day will be challenging for me to sit through. Plenty of Loo Breaks I think!

Darn, I forgot to put the bins out!

happy gardening,
Love EMxxxx

Hey everyone!

pruned the roses the other day - sad because there was some good growth on there, but gotta think long term.

I bought a Felicia Pinwheel Periwinkle plant on the weekend! cant wait until it flowers! should look good.

hope youre all well

So jealous of the leaf blower, EM! I only have a teeny yard. I reckon if I had one, I’d be doing the whole street!

Gambit, what a lovely name for a plant - sounds gorgeous already!

Well I’m a bit sad that my Kings Park Royale kangaroo paw died. I read they’re very susceptible to fungus. It was such an unusual pretty colour.

In better news - I ate my first peas today!!! 4 little peas in the pod and boy were they yummy! How exciting lol

Happy gardening all 🍃

Awww commiserations Gambit, it's hard to prune stuff. Hugs.

YAY Katy!! You GO GIRL!

That's VERY exciting news and I'm so very proud of you persisting with growing them.

RIP Kangaroo Paw, so sad.

I can't grow Kangaroo Paws to save my life lol.
But I;m FANTASTIC at growing lantana hahahaha.

I was SHOCKED to see it for sale online the other night - MAJOR GRRR.

Anyhoo I can move on.

Oh yeah I WOULD BE JEALOUS of my leaf blower too!
I actually HAVE leaf blown the street out the front! The street gutters, pipes and anything I can lol.

I even used it to blow out our hallway the other day LOL!
The kids had NO IDEA what I was doing, but aha... they worked it out.

My list of garden projects is getting longer.
I'd LIKE to re-pot those Liriopes on the weekend but may have to work instead.
I'll try to take "time in lieu" if I do - and get to some of these wonderful garden jobs.

Another thing I need to do is to MOVE those mini garden beds and a bigger one my friend gave me, to way down the back out of sight for now.
If I'm super lucky I can pull out more weeds down there in prep.
But have to level out the soil somewhat first.

I am LOVING seeing my Nectarine tree blossom it's sweet mauve and pink coloured flowers right now.
Such a pretty sight to see from my balcony where I work from.
I have an "Outdoor Office" lol.

If I'm inside for too long I get NDD - Nature Deficit Disorder lol.

Love EM!

Wife says she can't grow Kangaroo Paw either. sadface.

Our yards remain a running water kinda of swampy thing.

Ha! NDD indeed! I’m supposed to be starting prac soon, and I’m happy to report that the supervisor already told me she loves to take breaks and go hug a tree lol. I’m very on board with that :)

My two other roo paws seem ok dng - fingers crossed hey?!

Well at last count I had 100 pot plants but there’s been some in and some out, so time for a recount, I think. Rent inspection coming up so a bit of a reshuffle and some tlc is probably a good thing :)

Happy weekend all 🌧

Good evening happy gardeners!

Katy 100 POT PLANTS wow! You GO GIRL lol! I LOVE the idea of that. Huge smiles.

I can see not everyone's happy with things in their gardens atm but as all long living gardeners know, resilience is a key element we need to bounce back and try again!

From too much rain to too little rain = Australia!

I keep thinking Papa BT couldn't make his mound ANY bigger, then it gets bigger lol. He's done an amazing job of clearing SO MUCH stuff in my garden everywhere lol. I'm grateful for him!

I have LOTS of plans but too little time during lock down. My work hours are beyond ridiculous. Hoping my bosses DO change things for me (my Union will say they HAVE TO) so I can have some breathing space, esp on my WEEKENDS.

I DID move my gleaned garden beds way down the back.
Planning a HUGE cast iron fire pit right in the centre, so need to leave a lot of space lol... way over there>>> to put these beds.

I'm saving pizza boxes and other similar cardboard to lay in the bottom of the beds.
Put soiled straw from my chicken's roosts into them too. It can all compost IN them. No other food compost just the chicken's straw. Then the finished composts on top.

If I start soon, it'll compost down well and I'll be able to plant some SEEDS for the first time in forever.
Take my gorgeous trellises OUT of the chook shed and free up space there.
Protecting these beds from wildlife will be a task and a half.

Hope I can FILL my green bin tomorrow "after work", if my work finishes on time that is, otherwise it would be the first time in 3 years my green bin wasn't full ready for collection. That would make me GRRR lol.

I decided to begin pulling apart my huge round logged tree surrounds, as long as I can replace these with the old bricks at the same time.

I'm giving the timbers to families that need it for warmth. There's plenty there for them to take already. That makes me happy.

What are you doing in YOUR garden lately?

EMxxxx

Hi all,

Can pick up tips for the garden whilst reading in here.

I have now pulled up the remaining almost dead pumpkin vine from our backyard. I came across a few itty bitty pumpkins. I have few stored in our laundry now. I left a small amount of the stem on each. I also gave many pumpkins away.

I have planted some kale and marigold seedlings. Might be the wrong season, I don't know. But I found them in bunnings. I am wanting to eat more kale. I will see how it goes. Also found a plastic bag that had sugar cane mulch in it. It was under some stuff. Properly been there for a few years. Half of it was decomposed and it had lots of "soil loving worms in it" So I used this to plant the kale in.

Hoping to start making some raised garden beds soon. Just want to have a go at growing yummy vegetables. Plus I want to plant a lemon and a mandarine tree. Read that Mark suggested dwarf citrus. My sister has dwarf mandarines. It is such a nice looking tree and sort of looks formal. It had very sweet mandarines on it.

Hey Shelll!

What a gorgeous FIND, your half decomposed sugar cane mulch! Like a 50 / 50 of great garden food lol.
Well done YOU unearthing that hidden treasure lol.

Growing citrus sounds great! I don't have experience of Dwarf plants but MARK does!
They are very sweet and the scent of the blossoms is wonderful.

Love the idea of Kale and Marigolds. I'm sure they'll enjoy living at your place lol.

Sounds like you have PLANS.

I have NO veg growing that I know of... it's been years since I've planted any.... yes I have surprise cherry tom vines. And Cape Gooseberries that taste like tomatoes.

What veges do you like to eat?

Love EM

Hello Em, wave to everyone,

I ordered some plants online yesterday...they are for indoors as I want some greenery inside... I do already have an African Violet in my kitchen... it seems to do well for a while... then it struggles... then it comes good again... I've not had much luck with indoor plants in the past... keeping fingers cross these ones last... two of them are air plants... I've not tried them before.

Paws

Yeah it was a good find hey Em...

I like lots of vegetables. Tomatoes, corn, green beans, zucchini, beetroot, peas lettuce, cauliflower, capsicum. Too many to list. Fresh corn on the cob is properly my favourite. Yummy.

Never tried Cape gooseberries. Cute name though.

Hey Paws. I have 1 indoor plant that seems to grow well. It likes dabbled light inside. It's a peace lily. It has glossy biggish leaves and occasionally gets white flowers on it. Not sure if it's safe for dogs, might be. I don't know. I too want to grow some more indoor plants. Mainly ones that help remove toxins and pollution from the air inside the house.

Air plant. Does it have soil? Never have grown a voilet. But mum has. So many ones with beautiful colours.