Matchy69 said:Hi Em I ate some of the sweet potato last night and it was delicious.I have no secret to how they got so big.I just planted them in the usual way with some horse manure.I wasn't expecting them to get that big.

LOL well then Mark I hope to grow green thumbs on all my fingers just like you because your garden and the produce you grow SOUNDS AMAZING!

Love EM

Looks like my long run with eggplant is over after this morning her heavy frost.Now I can prepare that bed for spring planting.

Awwww Rest In Peace wonderful eggplant plant lol.

IT'S JULY Mark! Did someone forget to tell your eggplant plant?

How on earth did she last so long?

OK I KNOW you're holding out on some pretty awesome Garden Magic there lol.

Remember how I have mountains of cut branches all over my garden?

I have issues with being able to burn them. The green bin only takes a 'teaspoon' per fortnight. For the Council to take it away, it has to be in 1m lengths and tied up ugh. What a palaver.

Well today I remembered Hugelkutures. I'm a tad concerned about termites but IDK moving on..

I had totally forgotten about HKs.

I'm going to try a variation of HKs. We've had a lot of erosion with the dry weather then flooding - welcome to OZ! I'm thinking to start at the top of the garden in the backyard nearest the house. Firstly bank up long skinny branches against the paths and fit as many in as I can so it's dense. And then the chickens have less joy scratching it all out - I hope!
Then pack in all the excess soil from the front garden between all the cracks of the branches. I have no idea why I have so much soil to take away all the time from the front garden but I do. I also get stacks of soil full of huge worms from the long grated drain in front of the garage. So now I can put it all to great use.

Happy days!

Love EM

Work provided some everlasting daisy seeds to grow!

They have now sprouted! haha.

I've discovered that bunnings sell very cheap 'grow your own' plant kits (small pots/peat soil disc things and seeds) so im thinking about buying some for my apartment!

OH WOW Gambit87 that is SO freaking exciting.

omg seeing your sweet little seeds rise up! Like your own little babies lol!

Yeah my daughter said she got $1 and $2 smallish terracotta pots from Bunnings. And she painted them all different colours with her clients who are children.

Apartment gardening woohoo!!
Indira Naidoo an SBS presenter had an AMAZING apartment garden and grew all sorts of FOOD.
And ABC Gardening website has lots of lovely articles on there.

What else do you want to plant now your babies are growing? lol.

My Nanna had a 1 bedroom apartment in her later years and we couldn't get ONTO her balcony lol. And she did the gardening around the whole complex. She "hid" veg in there! Lololol. Oh she was great. She lived till her 100th year and that lady was the sweetest POWER bomb you could ever meet.

LOVE-LY news Gambit.
EM

Your nana sounded amazing!

I'm thinking about growing a few strawberry and chilli plants. I also want a small herb garden haha! so many ideas but so little space.

Hi Gambit herbs grow great in pots and my mother had them growing in pots on her balcony. Strawberries grow well in containers. just try what you like to grow.

Hi Em my Nectarine tree has still got most of it leaves and is in flower now.

Yeah i'll be giving it a go!

keen as a bean.

Gambit87 said:

Your nana sounded amazing!

I'm thinking about growing a few strawberry and chilli plants. I also want a small herb garden haha! so many ideas but so little space.

Lol she was :-)) thanks Gambit.

Wow strawberries yum! The wildlife eat all my strawbs here so eventually when I turn my yuck above ground pool into a greenhouse, I was going to make "strawberry towers". Have you seen those?
They look like super space savers as you have a vertical tower and the strawbs poke out up and down.

I tried the terracotta strawberry planters but no. Not a goer for me.

Chilies are SO EASY to grow. If you buy an organic chili ie a vege and if you LIKE it then you can save the seeds and plant them yourself. This works so well you'd better love chilies lol. Just dry the seeds on paper for a while and plant them, it's as easy as that.

Yes, herbs! Right now is a good time for coriander from seed. Parsley grows like a weed here, we mow it lol.
And lemon verbena.

What herbs do you like to eat?

And is your balcony sunny?

I'm excited for your plantings, it'll be so fun.

EM

Matchy69 said:Hi Em my Nectarine tree has still got most of it leaves and is in flower now.

Omg Matchy lol you have green thumbs, fingers AND toes!

Who's ever heard of an evergreen Nectarine?

Mine's budding now too. I can't wait for Spring. More hope for the garden.

Love EM

Hi all. Today my two Persimmon trees came I ordered and I planted one in the front and put the other one in a pot to I work out where I will put it as I am debating between two spots. Persimmon is one of my favourite fruits and my mum had one in the backyard and I had one in the first house I bought that use to get loads of fruit on it. The tree would have been over 70 years old.

Happy gardening everyone,

Mark.

Matchy69 said:

Hi all. Today my two Persimmon trees came I ordered and I planted one in the front and put the other one in a pot to I work out where I will put it as I am debating between two spots. Persimmon is one of my favourite fruits and my mum had one in the backyard and I had one in the first house I bought that use to get loads of fruit on it. The tree would have been over 70 years old.

Happy gardening everyone,

Mark.

WOW Mark how wonderful! You must be so excited!

Persimmons - lovely fruit and lovely memories.

How did you get them?

I was frustrated that NOWHERE had stock for the longest time.

I'm hanging out to buy my 3 or 4 blueberry bushes.... I'd say the soil is just about ready in the strip I've been adding to. But I can't find any to buy.

Congratulations Mark, you truly have an enviable garden!

Love EM

HI everyone

I'm pretty excited about SOIL lol. My eldest daughter said she doesn't need any soil atm so I CAN KEEP my beautiful rich, black soil that the chickens made.

One grandson is spending more and more time with me in the garden, he's only young. He really wants to help me more in the garden and my heart SINGS with JOY at this. Today he used a big shovel to put soil into a bucket for me lol.

I'm going to buy him his own sized garden tools. He needs a shovel and little wheelbarrow to start with (and a chiro for afterwards lol). I need a new wheelbarrow too, but the design and width is important due to the slope.

My teenagers don't help very often. One climbed a tree this year and cut some branches which was great.
They're too busy with school, work and friends and should be I guess lol.

Love EM

Today it was nice ish weather (not raining which I like anyway)... so I made some Hugelkultures, sorry spelt it wrong way back.

I found & sawed straightish sticks, some with a little bend in them to kind of weave into each other. I wove them into the ground against the paths, all dug out by the chickens. I only have 4 left now, so less damage.
Then took buckets of earth to the sticks and covered them all. I watered it in to help settle the soil.
I hope this helps even things out in those spots.

I only did about 1 tenth of the paths and borders!

It's all still quite a mess.

The bare soil is now mostly covered in weeds now, which are green so it's good. The weeds can hold the soil from eroding down the slope and put nutrients into the soil for grass to grow later. In a year I think, depending on our Summer I guess.

I had a GREAT FIND this week. 2 nice Grecian style pots, a HUGE terracotta pot and others, on the side of the road for Council pickup. Or me lol. Plus a beautiful Asian style pot stand. ALL in perfect condition, I couldn't believe it lol. I gave the Asian stand to my eldest D and she LOVED it.

I don't think I need ALL the pots (including the 20+ someone else gave me last year). I might put plants in them for Christmas presents IDK. I'm only working 3d soon and my pay has been halved for months due to taking leave of that type. I need to "think outside the square" for presents.

I also plumped up my intended Blueberry patch. The fallen Camellia flowers were everywhere so they went in. Plus more leaves lol and some soil. There's cardboard and newspapers and pizza boxes under there lol! Plus lots of ash from the Pizza Oven. It will keep rotting down so I have to add LOTS of soil now above the borders for it to settle.

I also got large forked logs from the pile and put the fork either side of some plants having soil eroded from their bases. I want to keep this up to use the timber and help the plants.

The green bin is bulging every fortnight but it's just not getting rid of the timber fast enough for me.

I think it's time I just got into the huge piles and dragged them apart. Use the logs to surround trees and I would LOVE to burn the rest...

That first strip is looking better. It's about 1 sixth of the garden.. hmmm. lol.

Time to "put it out there" that I need more plants to suit the Balinese style garden I'm visualising.

Love EM

I can't believe it's almost August. It's been a dry July with little rain down here in Vic. I'm patiently deadheading the flowers from my 2 year old Tahitian lime as it's the thing your supposed to do. Looking forward to planting my last citrus in its wine barrel. . . It's on castors. Thank god for you tube.

Ecomama, love your descriptive posts. Sounds like you are on a bit of land and have your hands well and truly full. I've been busily harvesting worm castings all in readiness for the warmer months.

I made the mistake of ordering the wrong size too large pebbles around 1/2 of our paths a few years back and planned to order more of the smaller to remedy. So on the spur of the moment , 3 days of toing and throwing swapping the stones around the most used paths have the finer stuff... Pooped, it's taken me days to recover and my bromeliads bit me big time. Another job for Spring dividing pups. I have some beautiful broms. My mother was a passionate gardener and instilled it in me . I love a Balinese garden- fond memories and place to travel and revisit when life returns to ' normal'

cheers

Dear Airies

Sounds like you've got it all happening there! Moving stones ughhh lol. I could never have a stone path... SO many leaves dropping everywhere, it'd drive me crazy lol but they look so beautiful.

My Tahitian lime is still fruiting... what do you mean by dead heading it?
My orange tree is loving life now we cut back the huge lilly pilly weighing down on it - poor thing lol.

The dead Camellia flowers are still dropping but making great fill for the bloobs patch I envisage. Ash from the pizza oven and chiminea is coming in handy for a bit of diversity in the soil. We have LOTS of chook poo from our chickens so with all the leaves / dead flowers, the ash is a welcome addition. I moved some of the upside down pots I had there to deter the chickens and Brush Turkeys and the worm were SCARY lol.

Our Nectarine has THE most beautiful blossoms on it atm. So pretty.

I live on an urban block about 800 sq metres. The house is right at the top of the slope so most of the land is at the back. When people come and look over our balcony out to the water they always seem to say "Don't you wish your neighbours down there would cut some branches down for better water views?" ughhh they're my trees lol!
BIG BLOCK they say but the slope makes it quite deceiving.

We've had SO MUCH rain in the last week that both my tanks filled to overflowing. Flooding & evacuations nearby. We'll send some down there lol...

We have town water but I only use tank water for my garden.

Good on you for worm farming - vermicast is the best & such a great waste disposal system. I started 2 huge bath worm farms at work and that's it for me atm.
I used to have 3 bath worm farms but Jasmine is covering my only last bath worm farm left, in the shade against a fence. When I rediscover it lol, I'll have to empty it to move it & restart it. I'm planning to build a cabin down the back later on so any prep for that is wise. Atm the worm farm is where the path access will be. So are bananas and more... and I reckon I could build a 10 bedroom cabin from the timber I'm cutting down all the time... not many people have fireplaces any more. Shame.

Eldest daughter and I plan to film all this for our Vlog, the permie stuff.... like a garden from scratch kinda story. It's been raining so much that we have to keep postponing. All in good time and nice weather lol!

EM

Hi Em,

poor explanation on my part. Apparently the experts recommend that for the first 3 years after planting you remove all flowers so the tree pits all its energy into growth and not fruit and by the 3rd year the branches will be able to support the fruit. So I've had a good crop of fruit from my dwarf lemon. My Tahitian Lime is full of flowers , not a dwarf, they didn't have any and being inpatient and told they will grow in a half barrel, I'm pinching flowers of and leaving 1 flower per bunch and seeing what happens.

Im a great fan of worm castings. I give it to most of my plants. Like me you the bigger the farm the better.Mine live on horse poo and shredded cardboard.Its the best fertiliser

My garden is s very user friendly. Just enough to keep me busy. It's lovelly and sunny but cold here in Vic so will make the most and potter around

cheers

My citrus here are about 3 years old and are 2metres tall and loaded with fruit. I did not take the fruit off them in the first couple of years but thought about it but mine seemed to grow allright.It is a great idea to take the flowers off them so they can put all their energy in growing and establishing a healthy plant first before you let them fruit.

Hi guys

As well as being a Champ, I am (tentative, very amateur) plant mamma!

I have 1 succulent named Arrow, and they sit on my bedside table. I care for it greatly- and it's thriving! I hope that counts. Maybe I'll get Arrow some new family members soon, hmmm....

Take care and keep up your green thumbs!

Tay100

Hi, I like gardening, my roses are looking wonderful, I have so many blooms, also too my front garden is looking do pretty, I can go out & think how wonderful it is. The rain and the fertilizer & mulch can do wonders.

Hi Tay I love succulents and their is such a huge variety if them.Growing up my aunty is use to have heaps of different ones that use to fascinate me. I use to love visiting her and seeing what new ones she had.

Hi Em my Nectarine is now in full bloom and looks magnificent. It has lost about half it's leaves now.

Hi Airies!

Thanks for explaining that to me / us.... I've never heard of that but it makes perfect sense! Probably why my Tahitian lime seems quite stunted in it's growth. I planted it about 10y ago with my son and it has special family significance for us having Tahitian heritage... It was also extremely neglected and IDK how long it was completely covered in lantana (😣) but when I cut the lantana back and saw it had survived I was in AWE of the darling thing.
Tbh with the brutal Summer we had last time, the lantana probably SAVED it.

I cam home late tonight and the 3 big pots on my front porch have been completely emptied out by Brush Turkeys.... grrr. I have to get out there VERY early tomorrow and clean it all up before delivery men come at 8am to with new furniture.

I was GOING to plant some coriander seeds and alyssum seeds in those pots. I even have big wire trellises up in each of them but if the turkeys WANT something then, with their huge claws, they get in.

I think they were angry with mama today lol, I usually throw alot of scraps out there for them and my chickens. Just not today. I do love them... we've even named a couple who choose to sleep with our chickens. Our neighbourhood has encroached on their available bushland so I can't really get too angry with them. Lol.

Still with ALL these pets & children lol and the possums demanding food each night esp during Autumn and Winter AND the Brush Turkeys and lorikeets and King Parrots - it's quite the jungle at our house lol!

I've concluded the only way to protect foods I really want is to construct cages from steel reinforcement grid sheets... tied together with cable ties, with a "gate" of sorts. It's a palaver lol.

Love your citrus growing in pots vision. Well done you!
EM

Hi Mark!

Nice to hear from you as always.

Your nectarine is kind of on par with mine I think. Weird year for them though, strange leaf falling timing and even stranger blossom timing for us here. IDK what's going on with our climate...

I hope you get a great crop. I'll go down and pick bucket loads BEFORE they are ripe... then leave the rest up on the top half for the fruit bats that swoop in overnight and take the lot. And peaches and whatever else they can find.

I love succulents too...
EM

Hi Tay!

Great to have you on board the most significant GREEN ship lol.

Awww congratulations, Arrow sounds so sweet! Yes he may love some company.... succulents are such quiet and gentle plants. They don't fuss lol.

Have you seen the INCREDIBLE succulent masterpieces on Pinterest?
OMG wide flattish pots with a variety of succulents in them. Better than an oil painting lol.

When I was given SO MANY pots last year I had no idea what to do with them all. I gave some away ofcourse.
I kept some wide flat pots. At some stage I aim to block the drainage holes with silicone and plant a variety of succulents in them for my very hot balcony.

I can't bear to buy them lol! They are SO easy to propagate by snapping off a 'branch' and plopping it in soil.
I have 3 people who've offered them to me but they're quite snowed under with overwhelming life changes atm.
I'll leave it for now and just work on propagating the ones I already have.

Have fun with your green babies!
EM

Hi JacintaMarie!

Welcome to the gardening thread!

I AM SO envious of rose gardens! The ONLY thing I successfully do with roses besides smelling and admiring them is effectively killing them.

Maybe if I ever retire lol then I MIGHT try again...

Well done you for being so successful with roses!

Absolutely our gardens can bring us so much joy! They can also bring us hope for the future of what's to come... they can be so delightfully surprising.

I love the vision of your front garden!
EM

Hi Matchy69- it's always great seeing what other people have growing and marvelling at their creations- especially if it's someone older and we admire them, hmmm?

Hiya JacintaMarie, glad to hear your roses give you so much joy and that admiring them gives you a little space to reflect, that's so wholesome!

Hey ecomama, I love the phrase "green babies," that's too cute. I know they are easy to multiply yourself but I think I'm not sure if I should wait until things settle down for me. But this means I will joyfully dive into the Pininterest hole you suggested too hahaa

My aunty is still with us and is 75y.o and still has an amazing garden.It has constantly changed over the last 50 years.Her and my mum both had amazing gardens and I spent a lot of time in nurseries with both of them as a kid.

Hi Tay, it's so lovely to read your posts, so joyful.

OFCOURSE they're our green babies lol! My boyfriend has his own green babies in "our" apartment in Seattle and omg you would not believe the set up he's designing for them.... I cannot believe it. He's an engineer and has to travel alot so it's elaborate and creative (and a bit crazy lol). Whatever makes him happy.

Do you know if there's a Community Garden near you?
We have quite a few near us and they are open 24/7 for people to take whatever they want, any time they want to too. I grow plants in our gardens at work that has FINALLY caught the bug with other people I work with and it's pretty exciting to see.
The community gardens may be growing succulents... you might be okay having a jaunt through one or two just to see. Take your secateurs lol.
It brings SO MUCH JOY and happiness for the people who laboured to set them up, to see people ALSO catching the green baby bug lol.

Yah Pinterest will make you go crazy with ideas lol.... it's weird how it happens but it's like once you see an idea and get super passionate about it... you see resources everywhere. The things I picked up on the side of the road a couple of weeks ago are magnificent. HUGE pots and Grecian style pots and Asian styled pot stands... they have nice new homes now lol!

Let us know how you get on Tay
EM