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Re: Self care by growing a garden

Yes there's been some carnage here too @Former-Member

My garden service people came on Tuesday, for the first time in over 4 months. They did a lot of whipper-snippering.

They also removed a big dead bottlebrush branch, which had fallen over the fence (from the neighbour's yard), & was lying on my clothesline. It was too heavy & big for me to remove.

Plus pruned spiny branches off the canary island date palm.

Pot plants not faring well, as I'm home too late too tired & don't water them.

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Former-Member
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Re: Self care by growing a garden

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Re: Self care by growing a garden

lol @Former-Member that about sums up our back yard.
1 dog (the boy) tries to go to the far corner.
The girl seems intent on covering the entire yard with her mess.

Re: Self care by growing a garden

Ours is a mixture of overgrown-weedy and overgrown-vegs and flowers. My long term aim is to have no grass except for the front naturestrip, but as we're on a 1/3 acre town block, there's still a long way to go. And the process keeps on being interrupted by other things... ah well. 

Our neighbours, meanwhile, have two small dogs, one of which is blind, and they keep their yard very neatly mown to discourage snakes... they haven't complained about ours, but in deference to thier needs, I think I probably need to at least neaten up a good strip next to the fenceline so that any slithery reptiles living at our place can't migrate too easily to theirs. Big hassle there though is woodpiles. Against the side fence is the easiest and most accessible place to stack up winter firewood, but woodpiles are classic snake habitat. Dunno...maybe I can find another spot. But I'll make it a spot for the "next stack". No way am I double handling the existing one to move it.

This is one book we had for our kids- very much reflects our garden, including the bees, dragonflies and froggies. Smiley Very Happy

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Re: Self care by growing a garden

Will have to revisit for the image @Smc .... it’s not uploaded yet,

Morning 💕

Former-Member
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Re: Self care by growing a garden

@Smc
Made some redcurrant jelly today from home grown fruit.
Surprised today by a hen showing up with 9 chicks in tow, hoping not too many roosters in there. We've lost a few girls so a boost in numbers would be nice.

Re: Self care by growing a garden

🙂 @Former-Member

We've got one solitary chook at the moment. Need to get some friends for her, but want to improve the pen first. So your broody was hiding somewhere?

Our redcurrant bush is well filled at the moment. I'm not picking often enough so the birds are happy with me. I have picked enough to do a bit of preserving. Thinking a mandarin-redcurrant jelly or sauce, using the peels off my brekky mandarins.

And for the first time I've got blackcurrants... I think the little bush produced about 6?? And a few jostaberries are still ripening. Again not many, but maybe next year. My feijoa is flowering for the first time too.

 

Former-Member
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Re: Self care by growing a garden

Yes, chook was hiding @Smc
There are a few more redcurrants I could have picked but I was getting too sneezy, noticed a few on the blackcurrant too. I don't think where I live is warm enough for fejoias to ripen, plenty of flowers on our two plants.

Re: Self care by growing a garden

@Former-Member, we regularly get down into minuses during winter, usually -4 is as low as it gets, but last winter we had a -7. Feijoas ripen later here than they do in warmer areas- about May-June. Neighbours across the road from us have a very well estabished feijoa hedge which produces masses every year. Really, my bush is superfluous, because said neighbours let anyone who wants them collect from the hedge, but my plant is a seedling of my parents' NE Vic feijoa "trees" (they'd be maybe 5-6m tall...) so I'm kind of keen to keep the "bloodline" going as a connection to my childhood. Theirs were planted sometime in the 1970s, but will probably be bulldozed out whenever their house gets sold. The land the house is on is worth more without the house than with it. 

 

 

Former-Member
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Re: Self care by growing a garden

I think the fejoia issue is more the shorter and not so hot summers where I am @Smc rather than the cold. We visited a permaculture garden near Daylesford and they had a fejoia hedge there, the hostess had made a sauce with the fruit which she put on a baked cheesecake, was lovely.