| Posted on Friday, March 24, 2006 - 05:48 am: |   |
Time to start a journal, methinks. At least it will give me some reminders about when I did what - most days are similar here.
Starting with yesterday's big bit, cos it was special. I divided the ginormous bromeliad Dad gave me. DH brought down one of the huge gum tree sections from a tree that fell on the fence near his shed. It is about 14" high, 30" x 18" in oval crosssection, and has a hollow about a foot in diameter. Blocked the bottom with a strong sheet of rubber mat, and planted bromeliad in it. Brom is about 2 foot tall, so it all looks quite impressive by the front door. and DH's back will heal with time. Put the littlest dragon statue onto the seat bit, where he looks quite at home. Pikkies later. Noticed today that Brom has a flower coming, so thats even betterer.
Today's potting list: repotted the palms, which were looking very very sad. Potted up cuttings of Country cream oregano, roman wormwood, a rose scented pelargonium, 2 common thymes, a carnation 'Bicocca', 4 peppermints, and transferred 8 alpine strawberry seedlings into a trough. I should really sell them once they are growing well, but I'm a bit bonded after raising them from seed, and we only have a couple of strawberry plants in the garden, so they will probably stay.
Oversowed the thyme and oregano seed pots, not enough seed coming up for my liking. Started 2 more pots of cilantro seed and 3 of chives, seeing that the spring and regular onion seeds are doing so well.
Hot day today, main garden isn't looking very thrilling. Waiting for my sweet pea seeds to come up along the fence. Veggie patch over the septic overflow is pretty happy, the biggest watermelon is getting exciting, and harvested the first tomatoes today!! only seventeen billion little green ones to go! Need to hire some native bearers and a machete to pick them. Planted some mignonette lettuce yesterday, but they are none too happy about the heat, hopefully they will make it till the change on the weekend.
DH has nearly finished building the triple compost bin, and very rustic it looks in genuine aged corrugated iron. When it cools down on Sunday I will get out the mulcher, fire up the generator and mulch all the existing compost piles. They will compost much better chopped up. DH is happy to inform me that removing the sheets of iron has opened up the old chook shed so that I can get the manure out more easily. so thoughtful.
Spent the afternoon typing up useful info from a pile of herb magazines I got from herb society last month. Hopefully I will get enthused enough to finish off my book in time to sell some copies at the medieval easter festival. At least I will get closer.
Thats enough for one day. See what tomorrow brings. |
| Posted on Saturday, March 25, 2006 - 03:08 am: | |
Woohoo, day 2 and I havent missed a day yet!
Todays potting up list - basil mint, eau de cologne mint, variegated apple mint.
But too hot for much in the shade house, so crushed up some dried sage leaves and savory for cooking, and got stuck into seed collecting. Mustard greens seeds, lamb's ear and the mullein. Not knowing how much mullein seed I was likely to get, I started out with my trusty strainer, and a metre long piece of mullein flower stalk. A few minutes later I tried stripping the seed out over a sheet of newspaper. Then I gave that up as messy and just cut the stem into foot long pieces and stuck it in a shopping bag and shook. I got enough for 17 packets of seed, and that is without leaving it to dry out properly. And there is lots more left on the plant. Planted some out as a germination test, but from my reading, I suspect I got enough seed to cover a goodly amount of our 85 acres!. Labelling the packets and slowly separating the lamb's ear (Stachys byzantina)seeds from the dead flowers took a few hours.
The watermelons are growing at an alarming rate in this warm weather. Took some pikkies of veggie patch for later. The lettuces have succumbed, but to bugs I think, not just the heat, there's no traces of dry dead leaves. A couple might make it yet.
Jenny, my trusty market helper, sold a few of my plants so I have to take her some more plants down tomorrow. Perennial basil is proving popular as I knew it would, but I will make more selling this at herb day in the first week of April, so I will only take her one replacement for now. (long story here, for anyone reading, Jenny sells bricabrac, but not enough to cover her stall fee often, so I'm gently leading her into the world of herb selling, which is much more reliably profitable. I can't go and sell at the market myself, the baby is crawling and just too active for that kind of thing, so it works for both of us. I just need to educate her on each herb as I hand it over, so she can explain it to the customers.)Her total budget is about $10 a week at the moment, but once the rainy days start, I can set her up with $200 of plants a week, hopefully. Naturally this will ensure that my job applications will come good, and life will change completely! |
| Posted on Sunday, March 26, 2006 - 07:29 am: | |
Definitely too hot to work much in the garden - todays bits were : planting heartsease seeds, planting gerberas out in the garden, 3 new plants for Jenny at the market. The Rockery Mix seeds are doing well, not bad as they are 8 years out of date, I only planted them cos it seemed criminal to throw them out. Dwarf stocks are up too, I love having stocks in the garden.Harvested more tomatoes from the septic garden, and the watermelons are just getting more impressive. Brom the bromeliad is flowering away, took a pikkie of him for later.
In the evening it has started raining, a good steady rain, so I hope the garden will be feeling better tomorrow.
DH finished the compost bin, but it was a bit hot for composting today, the change came late. |
| Posted on Monday, March 27, 2006 - 05:45 pm: | |
Well, from one extreme to the other, 27 mm (just over an inch) of rain since I posted, and we had the combustion heater on last night, it was COLD. Lots of flooding west of here, particularly on the Yorke Peninsula. Makes a difference from the devastating fires they had last year...
Didn't get much computer time yesterday, we had to run the generator to charge the batteries, so using power was a no-no for a while (Didn't bother DH when he wanted to check his forums tho.) The time I did get was spent constructing yet another job application, sigh. One of the earlier applications came back as no, sorry, but another one has resulted in an interview - yay! This is a particularly good one, involved with training and standards in the nursery industry, so lots of lovely excuses to visit all the nurseries in the state! Dunno what I will do about child-care, but there are some good facilities in the area, so hopefully I will find somewhere to take her. DH can practise his Mr Mom skills, if he's not working. (And if he worked more often, I wouldn't need a job)
Sweet peas are up, but the rain has brought out every snail for miles, so massive amounts of snail bait are on the menu, unfortunately. Centaurea seeds have also germinated. The rain has brought out the monster moths too - these feed on gum tree roots for several years, and emerge when the first rains soften the ground after summer. They are big - the females are close to 4" long, the males about half that size. They usually get caught in the rain, and few survive more that 24 hours after emerging. The owls and bats have a feast day. There may be more out tonight, I will keep a lookout for them.
Garden looking much much happier with a bit of moisture. Dunno if our driveway is passable tho - it turns into a bog since DH graded it. (We have an alternate route to the house, tho come to think of it DH just graded that too...)
Greth |
| Posted on Thursday, March 30, 2006 - 07:28 pm: | |
Sigh, first heat, then rain, and then WEEDS. The garden has sprouted a three day growth of green fuzz - time to start the daily rounds of weeding I think.
Job interview yesterday - would be nice if I get it, but I have no idea how well I went. Imagine getting paid to visit every plant nursery in the state! My idea of heaven...
Today's planting stuff - pricked out the lamb's tongue seeds(Stachys byzantina) I have about 20 plants, so I reckon I'm safe in saying my home collected seed is viable. The white flowered comfrey root cuttings I took have all sprouted madly, so I separated those out into pots. Planted broccoli Romanesco, rocket and spring onion seedlings out into the veggie patch, and got vicious with the snailbait. Lots and lots of sweetpea seedlings now, but these are only my own seed from last year - I like to toss in a new variety every year to keep the genepool lively. Planted pennyroyal out onto one of the paths last Sunday - I don't really want lawn paths, we just can't afford the water, and if I wait for DH to get up to paving them I'll die of old age first. Tonight is my herbalist friend's open night - small dinner gathering for whoever wants to come. Sorted out 2 trays of plants to take - she likes having a travelling herb saleslady come and visit, and most of her friends are pretty keen on the idea too. It's a bit tricky finding things she doesn't already have tho, keeps me on my toes.
Anyway, enough for now. |
| Posted on Saturday, April 01, 2006 - 08:35 am: | |
Didnt get the nursery inspector job, Oh well, life goes on, it was a nice dream while it lasted, and I got a good outfit for the next interview *sigh*
I threw myself into producing herb chapters for sale at the upcoming medieval festival, and got fired up enough to finish a draft of my herb book. I emailed ahead to say I can produce it, and got an order (at $35 Aus) within two hours! Woohooo!! Ive been working on this for the last 15 years, and it's actually getting to the point where it can be sold for real money. That feels good. It is sortof academic and historical, very indepth, but not a lot of pikkies to relax the eyes. I have a friend who used to be a professional photographer who is trying to get good pikkies of herbs at their best. Once I have them I can take the lot to a publisher and get something more professional organised. For the moment, I can print it out myself, get it nicely bound, and sell it in a few places. I can promote it here, if Ej gets his shop up and running (HINT)
Sold about $11 worth of plants and seeds last night, most of the herby people didn't come along, or didn't have money when they did! My market lady has been selling irises for me, must visit her tomorrow and replace her stock. A friend is coming to pick up the chapters, plants, seeds and some leather goods for the medieval Festival, we have lots of stuff to send now. Unfortunately I can't go myself, so have to ask people to sell things for me.
Still getting light rain, after the West Australian cyclone we will get a downpour later this week. The rain systems are vicious over west, but then they drift south east and become our welcome summer rain. When my hubby lived over there, we discovered that the cyclonic rain systems arrive in Adelaide sooner than the (supposedly one day) express post!
In the garden, tomatoes are ripening happily, the watermelons are getting really really big, and we are getting lots of chillis. The big rain started all the grass and weeds in the paddocks, everything is faintly green now. We are trying to get rid of our goats, but we need to be able to herd them up, so I have been tossing green stuff into our sheep pens to get them there, and to tame them a bit.
They are canny beasts, and they wait until they have seen me go into the house before they approach my offerings. It will take a bit of time before I can get them eating out of my hand, but I'm not letting goats outsmart me!
I bought a big lot of seeds and stuff, mostly flower seeds to plant now for late winter/early spring. The thyme and oregano seeds have all come up, dunno why they didn't a few weeks earlier, but I will have tons now. The gerberas were hit hard by snails, but are surviving, Brom the bromeliad has been happily flowering, the snails fortunately don't seem to like the sweet peas. The strawberry planter is starting to look really healthy, no flowers yet. DH finished the compost bin, now I have to find time when the baby is occupied so I can fire up the mulcher and fill it. That will take a bit of organisation from the whole family. She must be occupied, but will not sleep while the noisy mulcher is working, and I wanna be the mulcher driver...
Enough for now |
| Posted on Sunday, April 02, 2006 - 06:12 am: | |
Potting up day today (one of seven in each week, as you may have noticed)
Cuttings potted up: oregano, dogsbane, chocolate leaf pelargonium, red geranium, sage hyssop, true wormwood, chocolate mint, golden oregano.
Pricking out: Dwarf stocks.
Seeds planted: poppy and statice, and anenomes started in pots.
Cuttings taken: golden oregano, pineapple pelargonium, carnations - Dusty Kortina and Ali Baba, Tuscan blue rosemary (cos we had roast lamb for dinner and I can't pick rosemary leaves without taking cuttings!)
Also moved some of the more difficult seeds into a glass covered seed box, it is starting to get coldish at night now, coming up to frost season. Hopefully they will stay toasty warm in there.
Cleared some of the weeds off the path behind the shadehouse - another feedies for the goats. I want to get them up to handfeeding if I can.
Everything looking pretty happy in the garden, the carnations look much better after their cleanup/cuttings session.
Didnt sell anything at the market, but I can take lots down to herb society meeting tomorrow, and should do well there.
enuff for now |
| Posted on Tuesday, April 04, 2006 - 07:07 am: | |
Busy few days.
Up to 5 orders now.
Todays Seed list - peppermint, hollyhock, and nasturtium.
Chives, centaury, cilantro and mignonette are up.
Cuttings taken of costmary and feverfew.
Planted out Arrowroot, chamomile, and cardamom.
Potted up from garden borage, woolly thyme, lamb's tongue, and shasta daisies.
Solar power is getting short, so Im off........> |
| Posted on Thursday, April 06, 2006 - 07:28 pm: | |
Yesterday's list:
Potting up more dwarf stocks, golden thyme and arrowroot.
Cuttings of elder. Planted out a gazania in son's bit of garden. Started filling the compost bins, layers of chook manure and some of the pile from the front garden. Started paving the path bit between the chookhouse and the compost bins, so it is a bit less boggy in winter.
Sent off a tray of plants, many seeds, and copies of my book, as well as chapter booklets, to the medieval Festival. Hopefully will get some money and orders back. The plants are to go in the garden they are establishing there. They keep telling me that things won't grow in a paddock without water, and I keep telling them I do it all the time, and in half their rainfall!
Herb Society meeting on Monday night was member's night, and we had a propagation workshop. People brought along piles of cutting material for everyone to play with. The rule was that you could take what you wanted, and then take extra cuttings for Herb Day in November. Was a lot of fun for everyone getting their hands into dirt, and the beginners especially learnt a lot and scored some new plants. I grabbed some white lavender, cardamom, costmary and pineapple sage. I bought arrowroot and chamomile from the trading table, and sold $26 of plants, so I was very pleased. I have lots to do on the herb book now, and it is raining, so not a lot of solar power today. DH has put up his wind generator to see how it works - wouldn't you know it, no wind for once. He will need to arrange cabling down to the house before it does me any good, though. |
| Posted on Sunday, April 09, 2006 - 05:23 am: | |
Seeds planted - oversowed centaurea, radish in the garden, onions, spinach, oversowed sweet pea, yellow viola.
Potted up - aquilegia, cilantro, dill, and some sweet peas.
Planted out in garden - salad burnet, onions, brahmi, silverbeet, and Son started a patch with strawberries, spring onions, and a nasturtium 'Alaska' that came up accidentally in a pot. I did tell him not to put the nasturtium in the middle of his bed, cos it would take over, but...
Sold $38 worth of plants at the market, getting better now that the weather is cooler. We also had a Scout Sausage Sizzle which went a bit better than expected - we hoped for $200 and made more like $1000. This goes toward fees for next years Jamboree, so it helps a lot. Bought some cauliflower and lettuce seeds - I will plant them for the market, and then keep the pots which don't turn out very well. I get lots of stuff for me this way, and still make a profit on the seeds and pots.
The first of the broccoli I planted out are growing like mad, I put some more out a day or two ago (lost track somewhere) so they should do well.
Getting regular tomatoes and just starting to get beans from the veggie patch. |
| Posted on Monday, April 10, 2006 - 06:49 pm: | |
Yesterday's list - I lost the actual one, so had to run around and think a lot this morning.
Seeds: Cauliflower, Mignonette lettuce in pots, broad beans in the veggie patch (which I discovered is easiest to dig with a mattock)
Potted up from garden : golden oregano, white comfrey root cuttings and tansy.
Potted up: Genge's gold rosemary, Italian Parsley, Candy Dancer pelargonium, more primulas.
Planted into garden - English box (the next round of cuttings for the hedge) White Yarrow, Candy Stripe Verbena.
Spent the afternoon typing up stuff and editing the book, yet again. Made up three batches of wormwood infusion - this is supposed to kill of soil fungus problems, so I trialled it in my pots. Made extra for later treatments or to sell at the market (if it seems to work)
So far this morning, harvested mustard greens seeds, stripped and packaged them. It is now 8:30 am...
DH spent the day constructing a cold frame, which will have low voltage heating. This will let me get started with frost tender stuff like basil next season. He likes this project, cos it lets him play with his electronics! He is back up in the shed finishing off the basic box, the electronic bits may come later. |
| Posted on Tuesday, April 11, 2006 - 07:14 pm: | |
Yesterday's list
Pricked out little sweet peas, oregano, and tried to make sense of those rockery mix seedlings. No idea what any of them are yet - they are supposed to be a mix of annuals and perennials, so the pack isn't hot on clues.
Also oversowed some curly parsley. I'm still trying to get parsleys looking good. My best is of course in the garden, not in a pot.
Sold $17.50 of seeds last night, and sorted out a cheaper and better place to get my book bound, so that will be useful.
Finished reformatting the book, now I need to go back and move pictures to repaginate the thing sensibly. Then I can sort out a better contents page and ready for another print run. |
| Posted on Wednesday, April 12, 2006 - 09:35 pm: | |
Yesterday and today's list ;
Planted seeds of Italian PArsley and cilantro, oversowed the Lemon Balm.
Took cuttings of wallflower, and yet more sacred basil.
Potted up : French lavender, common thyme, Dwarf stocks, aquilegia. Added extra parsley and thyme to a trough and hanging basket for sale.
Planted up a new hanging basket of common mint, and took some cuttings for the mint trough along the way. Started a new mini herb garden trough.
Planted banksia finally, now that DH has removed the posts of the old compost bin. Moved celery down into son's veggie patch, it wasn't doing too well in the front garden.
DH is finishing off the 'heated cold frame'. Then off to the scrap yard to get some steel for a new tower for the wind generator. The cheap wood version did not work, and is now firewood! |
| Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 05:56 pm: | |
Sunday's list: potted up Tree wormwood, a little seedling rose (Cooper's Rose) and common sage. Planted out 3 seedling roses, marjoram, some parsley and chives. Sown: more sweet peas (bought seed this time)
Sold about 20 plants at the market. DH is off for job interview, so if he gets work I will go to the wholesaler and stock up, and have a big stall at the market next weekend. |
| Posted on Tuesday, April 25, 2006 - 08:18 pm: | |
Had a busy week, so no posts. Have sold a few more copies of my book, yippee! Went down to the market over the weekend, but very disappointing sales, sigh.
Planted seeds of white clary, garlic chives and marvel of Peru. potted up mustard greens, lavender heterophylla, tricolour and golden sage, tuscan blue rosemary, curry bush, allard's lavender and barossa thyme. Planted out silver posy thyme, silver lemon thyme, variegated creeping thyme, bergatten sage, lavender heterophylla, and a native myrtle for the birds.Lime scented verbena and a bay tree into the septic garden.
Here are some of the garden pics from April 15
 |
| Posted on Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - 07:14 am: | |
hat a lovely pictures
on your first there are some status
Could you show us some pictures of them
thanks
Maarten |
| Posted on Tuesday, June 20, 2006 - 09:28 pm: | |
Sorry to take so long, silithil, I do have some good pictures of the statues, but have trouble posting them. The dragon is best seen on a photo I posted called Spectacular Sunsets, or something like that, I do have a good pic of the gargoyle, but can't find it for now. I am soon going to post my pics for June 15, I took them, but have to get them developed, which costs money...
And I have been very slack in keeping up my journal. As the days shorten, we get less daylight, and the computer is running on solar power, so less puter time..
Once the weeds started I began a massive campaign to weed out and mulch everything, all my existing garden beds, and more plain paddock which will be my new beds. Many buckets of weeds, lots of rocks dug out, digging until the frosty fingers or the hungry tribe stopped me. I'm really pleased with the results - I have lots of new garden space prepared, and the older beds are getting cleaned out and refreshed. Winter things are happening - the jonquils will be flowering in a week or so, and the daisies have revived and starting to put on a show. I have removed all the tomato corpses left over from summer, one tomato is still growing in the shadehouse, and now measures about 4 metres end to end. The local market closed its doors last weekend, so now I have lost a place to sell herbs. I have a few other ideas, so I keep propagating things, but they grow slowly in winter, so I can relax for a bit and let them get bigger.
DH made me a cold frame, to get some seeds growing and accelerate some plants, and I am very pleased with it. He also decided to fence in a new bit of paddock, so that I can extend my garden eventually. This is where I hope to have a polytunnel for my plants, one day, but I don't expect he will get much further for months. He just got a fulltime permanent job, thanks be to the gods, so he hasn't much time for fenceposts. |
| Posted on Monday, June 26, 2006 - 08:17 pm: | |
I had jonquils flower just after the solstice - about june 22nd. This is good, in my warped view winter starts on the 1st of June, and ends when the first jonquil flowers. At my old house they often flowered in the last week of May, or the first week of June, so very short winters. Here they take a few weeks longer, sigh. After winter 'officially' ends, I declare it to be early spring, and the cold wet foggy weather is just a temporary situation (which will happen for the next 5 months).
Still weeding away, 4 beds completely finished, and another one close. The vegetable bed will be an ongoing task, it has never been weeded before, is full of small rocks, and being watered by the septic overflow the weeds are enormous.
Very pleased with the lavender/rosemary bed, which is the current task. Just seems to be one of those spots which are attractive to visit, every garden has them. The Princess de Monaco rose is absolutely covered in beautiful buds, but the flowers don't open nicely in such cold weather. The elder tree is also here, and still flowering, somehow it forgets that spring is over. Put in a statice I grew from seed, and also some tree dahlia cuttings, I don't know how they will cope without water in summer, but we will see. Some things just grow slower and smaller in dry conditions, they don't actually die. I put in a white flowered rosemary for my collection, too small to take any cuttings from yet, but soon... |
| Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 - 06:56 pm: | |
Yuk, Yesterday's rainfall was 27.5 mm (just over an inch in the old money) and the place is soggy. DH rang up from work to say he had trouble getting down the driveway as it was slippery, so the lad and I spent the day moving rocks and gravel and doing an impromptu paving job. The result ain't pretty, but at least you can get a car up and down the driveway without skating into the fence along the way.
Started selling plants at a different market the weekend before last, as Nairne is now closed. Didn't make a heap of money, but what I mostly sold was planter troughs with flowers or herbs. Reinvested the money to create a few new planters with my cinerarias, some primulas and primroses on the point of flowering, and some more herb troughs. These are so much fun to make up, and something people can't buy in a nursery. Customers love the idea that they have a little herb garden they can put by the kitchen door and start using straight away, and they also enjoy having a flowering planter, like a bouquet for the outdoors. I charge about $10 for these - cheaper than anything you would get at a florist, and lasting..
Before the rain hit I was doing a lot of weeding. The vegetable garden is starting to look civilised now, and I'm expanding the lavender/rosemary bed in the hopes of more planting later. The lad's garden bed is getting sorted too - I have some plants for the native birds in here. I have to move the conifer tho - it is just too close to the house water pipe, and I'm hoping we can still move it successfully this year.
The galahs and sulphur-crested cockatoos are out in force today - they are hunting the bulbs of Guildford grass(Romulea rosea), which is a little pink flowered weed. The leaves look like grass from a distance, but are extremely tough and fibrous and not very appealing for stock. The only way to remove this stuff short of nuclear warfare is to dig up every bulb. I'm slowly trying to eradicate it from the garden beds, but the bulbs are deep and hard to get at. They seem to flourish where the ground is rockiest, too.. The parrots wait till the ground is soft after rain, and then pull them up to eat the bulbs. I just wish they were more efficient! |
| Posted on Sunday, July 23, 2006 - 10:06 pm: | |
Currently flowering - rosemary, French lavender, the Princess de Monaco rose (which never seems to flower well, the buds are gorgeous, then it rains and they turn into soggy blobs. I pull off the soggy blobs and just admire the buds!), one of the standard roses(no idea what this is called, came from my mum's garden after she died). My jonquils are all flowering - soleil d'or, paperwhite, erlicheer and silver chimes all started within days of each other. One Bicocca carnation. The sweet peas are getting close, but as I mulch with field pea straw there is a bit of confusion, and the field peas are flowering where the sweet peas are growing. I will cheat and leave them in until the sweet peas start, then out they go, I want to collect and sell the seed from the sweet peas, so no field pea genes allowed. The daisies are now blooming, I have white, pink single and pink double, and yellow. These will turn into posies to sell at the market. The geraniums and scented pelargoniums just keep flowering, as they do. The Thryptomene is flowering too, and a wattle the previous owners left. The calendulas, true to name, are making the veggie patch and son's garden look a bit braver.
In the shadehouse I have cinerarias, one pansy, some dianthus, 2 cyclamen, and the troughs of primroses and primulas are looking good. Brom the bromeliad has had a few more flowers too, and the alyssum is blooming. I feel sorry for all you who have snow and can't spend winter watching new things flower. The common elder had a trauma of some sort, I suspect a soccer ball, but my son cries 'innocent'. The top branches were broken off, but whatever did it made no sign of eating the leaves, so not a roo or a goat. Possibly a large bird landed on it, but this is harder to believe than my son's possible guilt! I will never know, but I took the bits and got a dozen cuttings, so I will make the best of it. The elder is still flowering, it has been doing this since last spring and hasn't registered that it is supposed to be deciduous. There is a large one in a nearby town which does stick to a normal cycle, but the town is much wetter and colder than here. Local wisdom has it that the rainfall per day drops by 1mm for each km you drive out our way, and we are 10 km out of town. They actually do get snow on rare occasion too. |
