Self care by growing a garden

[Former-Member]

Hi @eudemonism and @Former-Member

Gardens are great places and can be as simple as a beautiful tree to sit under or a bed of flowers. I like to ensure our dogs have a spot too...

Square foot gardening or a square metre veg garden is a great way to start a veg patch - one can start small and add as success is achieved and confidence builds.

[Determined]

I am hoping that will bd the case with my rain water tank garden @Former-Member, it is about 1.5 or 2m in diameter and should get 2 or 3 gardens out of it. 

Looking forward to uploading some pics when they are done, currently negotiating a location with my darling where there is access to water. 

[Former-Member]

@Determined
Square foot gardening might be a good way to go with your boys, dividing the bed into squares and planting so many plants per square 1 tomato, 9 onions, etc

[eudemonism]

@Former-Member

Hi, thanks for the tag. In my little backyard. I've been through some major changes and stages. I need some stuff to make it all come together. And it may be a few years to a decade before it comes together and may only ever be complete and perfect in another eyes. My vision is great. And it will be a step bye step process of bringing it all together. Stuff like, some big pavers for a veggie and herb court yard. A garden bench. A bird bath. A shelter. Some cast iron baths, a couple concrete wash troughs or concrete pots. Materials for a chook yard. Years of growth. Pruning, fertilizing, and so on.

I've gone for the disordered step bye step approach. And have really valued a few natives. And the micro environment approach. For shade, warming, cooling, wind protection. And only want a few small veggie patches. A small herb garden. And a few medicine trees. Quality over quantity. My reply to someone who said. If you can't eat it. Don't grow it. Was. Yeah but half the food in Australia gets wasted because of cosmetic grading. So I valued the non edibles for their ornamental properties. Oxygen producing. Shading. Wind breaking. A home for the birds. A place to put the hammock and the garden bench under. Visual appeal.

Eude

[Smc]

Hi @eudemonism. Your plans sound great.

I'm big on growing edibles, for a few reasons. Outright flavour- had home grown plums for breakfast, and they were so nice. The supermarket ones are always high on sour and low on flavour in comparison. I can also grow things that don't turn up commercially. I've got a very small crop of Cornelian Cherries ripening at the moment. Little oval fruit that taste like a mixture of cherry and cranberry. As far as I know, no-one is growing them in a commercial orchard. As the tree gets bigger, I'll get better returns from it. I can pick supposed luxury foods in quantities that would be unaffordable at the supermarket. We get heaps of bulbing fennel every winter/spring, and had a lovely crop of redcurrants this year. Plenty of basil, sage and other herbs at the moment; the parsley's at the stage of going to seed, so there will be lots of that by autumn. And I just plain enjoy it.  There's nothing like a tree full of fruit for making me feel happy. 

Mind you, I do enjoy my flowers too. I've got a lot of drought tolerant but beautiful things scattered between the fruits and veggies. Roses, lavender, salvias, phlomis, buddleias, agastaches, yarrows, centaurea, senecio, Chinese Lantern, columbines, irises. Lots of bulbs like daffs, jonquils, tulips and grape hyacinths plus others; and self seeders like poppies, love-in-the-mist, calendulas and sweet peas. 

Put it all together, and we've usually got a tangled mess with the weeds jostling for a spot with the desirables, but I love it anyway. 

[eudemonism]

@Smc

Hi, thanks for noticing and replying. How many years have you been working on your current garden? Is it complete and full yet? Because it sounds very lovely as it is... Any future plans?

I just got a frost tolerant finger lady shoot off of a friend. And a dozen or so of an old strain of apricots. Which when I've eaten, I'll be putting the seeds of down the side. And hoping a few sprout and grown. Which I can nurture. And watch grow into full developed and high yielding wonders of nature.

I only have a small backyard. But I've got big plans for it. Small and effective. Less is more. Quality over quantity. I have no choice really. Foot bye foot. I have about 90% left of the yard to fill with bits and pieces. I've only been living here for eight years. And it took 4-5 of those years to realize the potential of my small backyard. I'm on the west coast of South Australia. So bye my guess. We are in totally different climate zones.

I have a young Brown turkey fig tree. A young peacharine. And another 6' tall stone fruit plant which I'm nurturing and will let grow. A couple fruit salad plants. And some lemon grass. Some garlic chives. Some woodworm. A daisy. Rosemary. Lavender. Goose berrie canes. Nasturtium. Aloevera. (going to get 6-12 of these going) they are young at the moment) a lemon tree which needs attention and is small and stunted. And a few pumpkins and rock melons that popped up in the compost. And a few medicine trees. Oregano also. Lemon balm. Elder berry. All need lots of attention. Love and care. Plus I have the big shade trees. Wind break stuff. A few ornamental plants. A cactus a selection of succulents. A few natives. And there will be more.

My garden is work in progress. And I got off to a late start. Made lots of mistakes. Let's things die. Concentrated too much on veggies and herbs which are high maintenance. But now it's looking great. And thee has so much more work to do. Plus a jasmine vine. A sick grape vine. A flowering ash tree. Etcetera.

[Smc]

@eudemonism, I'm in a cool part of inland vic- but try telling that to the thermometer today! We've been living here for 17 years, but the garden has had numerous setbacks in that time. I had some major surgery  about 12 years ago that put me on "go slow" for about 9 months of recovery time, and we were one of the areas caught up in the 2011 floods. Handy hint- gardens love floodwater; carpets don't. Both got about a foot deep give or take a bit for 6-7 hours... And I can put my hand up for fairly severe carer stress. Our daughter (then mid teens) was already having MI problems prior to the flooding, but it probably exacerbated her situation. 

Gardening was a big help towards my recovery after the surgery (gentle physical exercise) and the flooding, but ongoing emotional stress from caring has knocked me off balance with it. I'm trying to get out there more to help myself along.

Lots of future plans. I want to build an outdoor shed/studio. I'm going to be getting my parents' greenhouse at some point, which will be really useful given we can get frosts in November here. Plans for a cubbyhouse for our youngest are probably now a bit late, given she's hit teenagerhood, but maybe she'd still enjoy an outdoor hangout of some sort. There's a lot of simple "getting into order" jobs, and soil improvement tasks. And better chookpen and bunny pens are definitely on the list too.

We've got about 1/3 of an acre, minus house carport etc. I've got lots of trees but am still trying to squeeze in more. Trees are great; they give us fruit even if we give them no attention. I've got a Brown Turkey fig that hasn't borne anything yet, and also another variety (Silvan Beauty I think, but not sure) still in a pot. Our peaches are mostly seedlings, and give us lovely white peaches. There's also a clingstone peach that  I brought here in a pot and planted, and a China Flat peach. I've got two apricot trees, and have grown some more from seed. Got the first fruit this year. The flavour was disappointing, but I may have picked it too early. Will see next year. Big bird-planted elderberry tree, big apple tree that may be 50-100 years old, but is sick with a fungal disease. I've got some new apple trees in as backstops if it dies.

Lemongrass does grow in this area, but is tricky to keep alive with the frosts. I've got Lemon Verbena instead, which has a similar favour but is thoroughly cold tolerant. All my citrus are in pots and not looking healthy. I may need to start again with new ones, and risk planting them in the ground. I've got a medlar and a quince tree, a persimmon, male and female pistachios, and an almond tree that the cockies beat me to every year. One of my future plans is cages over trees... Two cherries, one in ground, the other in a pot waiting for me to get its spot ready. Oooh, and my big triumph is a macadamia that's survived 8 or so winters, and which I'm hoping may actually set nuts one of these years???

[Former-Member]

Hi @eudemonism @Smc

Lovely to catch up on your news and plans - is the finger lady a lime Eude? I love bird baths and I am sure the birds love your natives too,

Our fruit trees have not done so well (mainly due to neglect) and I am not sure quite what to do, but at present will just see how things go. 

[eudemonism]

@Former-Member it's a banana palm and yea fruit trees are sensitive. I'd prefer natives that boom. Less stress also. I'm hoping I get lucky though. Maybe some super will help yours. Eude.

[Former-Member]

How are you off for water @eudemonism ? As we are on rain water most of the plants we have need to survive without extra watering.

I am thinking of ordering a manna ash, a friend has one and when flowering the bees love it.

I am having some success with liliums, dahlias and gladioli.