July 2013

Well to date July has been a good month for some preparation of my garden beds for spring planting. And a little side planting also.
A while ago I threw some horse manure directly onto one of the beds, oops. Forgot to read up on how to apply horse poo. I found out the hard way, best used in a compost bin to kill any seeds from the horse feed/manure, then use on your beds. Anyway I have a few little sprouts here & there but easy enough to control. I have been turning the bed every week to pull the lower dirt up and push the poo down. The worms get a little upset seeing daylight & all. Speaking of the worms they are fat fat fat. I am most amused by the fact that I never added worms to the garden beds, they just magically appeared. My guess is word got out that fresh new organic compost had appeared overnight and "life was good in that yard". Same with my compost bins. I'm still going to get a warm farm in the near future. Back to the horse manure.....

The rest I did place in my ready to use compost, I then left it another 2-3 weeks and it was good to go. I gave all my beds a good turning adding home made compost and my favourite mushroom compost and chook poo pellets.

Late June I planted out seedlings of silverbeet the coloured stem variety, this is also well known as chard. Red cabbage seedlings were also planted out. They are happy little seedlings, growing merrily.

I bought 2 strawberry plants last year, one a clumper (Nellie Kellie) and one that runs, I planted them all over the garden beds and throughout my yard in general. They have both grown quite well and were taking up a good quarter of one of the beds. It was time to split them up and repot. So a quick trip to my local Bunnings to get some pots to relocate the strawbs'. I did not go to the garden area, I went directly to the bucket isle and bought the 3 x 35 litre plastic tubs with handles, you know the one they come in many colours and are flexible..$3 each BARGIN. drilled some holes, add the compost and divide and conquer the strawberry plants . There were still so many plants left over I potted up 3 into terracotta pots I have strewn about the heard and reused old bought plant pots, so I also have 9 waiting to to in ground or off to a good home. They are even flowering just a week after being repotted. After replanting the little buggers I had to set up protection from the possums and critters that would pick me clean in a heartbeat if it was not all netted, caged & wired. So I took the opportunity to set up netting on my lemon tree and fig.

On a whim I planted some Sugar Snap Peas, I might be a bit early on that but let's wait & see. Tossed a few radish in also. But to e erythronium was happy planting in July. I finally pulled down my passion fruit plant. 2 years it had been growing, 2 years it was being eaten, yep those pesky possums. I even had this netted, but they got in. So no more passion fruit. At some point you must realise the local animals are just winning and let bygones be bygones.

June 2013

June was a particularly wet month in Sydney this year, but in amongst the wet days & nights there was a bit gardening accomplished.

I wanted to increase my fruit tree collection. I have a dwarf Kafir lime/lime tree, a Meyer lemon tree and a imperial mandarin tree. All of which the local nocturnal animals have had a go at ,be it eating the leaves or stripping the bark of the stem. I have not had to worry about birds eating my fruit as the possums stripped it all.

Back to what I just purchased, an apple tree, Pink Lady on dwarf stock and a yellow fig plant. Can't ait to watch them grow as they are nothing more than bare branches. I bought the apple as a bare root plant, put it in a 50 litre plastic tub with drainage holes drilled in the base. Staked on either side to stop any movement until a root ball forms. The yellow fig had the same treatment but in a smaller tub. Now I wait & watch.

Red cabbage and coloured chard as the label calls it, but we all know its really silverbeet, not spinach or chard, but silverbeet. That vegetable your mother would boil to death and serve with dinner that was almost grey by the time it was plonked on our plate. Thankfully I hold no ill will against my mum for overcooking veggies I ate as a kid. I will still plant & eat them.

The eggplant plants had a final harvest before getting the 'ol heave ho to make way for the winter/autumn crop. I got about 10kg of eggplant overall. I will grow again in summer I think.

Pak choi planted early in June are coming along nicely, though I do keep picking the smaller leaves for salads. White cabbage was planted at the same as the Pak choi, but Lordy knows that's month off