Posts Tagged ‘garden’

Light On The Gardening

Gardening | Posted by Dean
Mar 10 2011

Unfortunately I am not spending the time in the garden these days that I would like to. There are a number of factors at play here.

The long commute and workload demands have seen the time available constrict severely. Being up at 3:30am to get to work and then not getting home until 8:00pm at the earliest leaves little time throughout the week to tend to the garden. Even the 2 days I work from home I find that the hours are longer and I am not leaving my desk until 6:00pm or 7:00pm.

Weekends are also a lost cause at the moment. This is due to our enforced move thanks to our money hungry landlord. Weekends are thus spent packing the house and looking for new digs. Draining and tiring work. The sooner we can find a new place the better as then we get our weekends back.

Once we can reclaim our weekend we can then look to design a new low maintenance but productive container garden. Unfortunately, it is unlikely to help the commute and workload. We need the natural work cycle of ebbs and flows to stop flowing there.

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An Update At Last

Gardening, General | Posted by Dean
Oct 28 2008

Well it has been an eternity since i felt like blogging or indeed that interested in the Web in general. Yes, my bi-annual dose of internet apathy has struck. This morning I find myself, again, unable to sleep and surfing the web looking at nothing in particular. So I decided I should write this post. Not much has changed in the months since the last update.

The biggest thing is that I have once again taken up ten pin bowling. In fact I am close to life best form. I am still using my trusty old Track Black-Gold Stomp and it is doing the business currently. In fact, often it is over reacting. The ancient Ebonite Grey Wolf is not doing enough and I think it is screaming out for final retirement, as such I do not often bring it out of the bag. Unfortunately with the Australian dollar plummeting at the moment it is not a good time to get a replacement. Hopefully, that will rectify soon and I can update my kit.

The garden is going stronger than ever. In terms of the harvestable plants there are strawberries being harvested at the very least weekly. I have several tomato bushes going strong, all have developing fruit. I am very keen to see what the yellow variety brings. The cherry tomato is starting now to bear ripe fruit. There is quite a healthy bunch of carrots, pumpkin, broad beans and beetroot developing. My capsicum and chilli bushes are beginning to flower so with luck there should be a nice crop coming. Finally on the harvestable crops I also have some lebanese cucumber seedlings in the crates.

In terms of the non-fruit bearing plants the White Bird of Paradise (Nicolai) is still yet to produce a flower. Nicolai though is in a well protected (gets windy here) corner of the outdoor area and so with luck will start to produce one of the most anticipated flowers in our garden. The established standard Birds of Paradise (those already in the garden) are producing prolific flowers with a number of double bangers. Makes the working day go quickly when you can look out at the flowers and bird bath. There is always something to see, unless theres one of the neighbourhood moggies on the loose. Yes, even in the new digs there a constant intrusions of the pussy variety in our yard. Thankfully though they are brief incursions, unlike the old place where they camped in our yard.

I also must congratulate socko who has managed to grow some wonderful Sweet Peas from seed. They are very fragrant and their odour is wafting through the room as I type this blog. socko also takes credit for the broad beans and generally managing the garden when I have not had the time or been bothered.

To all those interested in the drip spikes, I never got around to trialling my fixes before winter arrived. Now that summer is here I may pull them out and give it a go this season.

We have also been to the mecca of Australian motor sport, the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000. We were of course cheering on the Holden driver generally, and for me at least, the Sprint Gas/Tasman team of Jason Richards and Greg Murphy. Richards/Murphy were the consistent and always in the top 3 in practice. In fact Jason Richards became the second quickest around the circuit in history, second only to Greg. Unfortunately Jason did not get it hooked up in qualifying and as a result the grid position was back a little. Due to the grid position, and the fact the car was faster than where it was, led to an altercation with Craig Lowndes/Jamie Whincup tin can with wheels that ended up with damage to the Sprint Gas car, and eventually an early pit stop. This ultimately cost the race win to Lowndes/Whincup in an ugly red/silver F**d. The weekend though was great. It is always good to get away to Bathurst and escape reality for a few days.

Had the pleasure of seeing Greg in person at the motor show the week after. Managed to get his and Rick Kelly’s signature.

Anyway I think that is it for this post. I hope it will not be so long until the next.

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Preparing for the Move

Gardening, Herb, Fruit and Vegetables, Worm Farm/Vermiculture | Posted by Dean
Jan 19 2008

This week and weekend has been very wet in Sydney. It is basically miserable and is preventing me from doing a number of things, including gardening. As a result there has been a devout lack of gardening posts on the site of late. Today is no different in terms of the weather as it has been steadily raining all day.

This is a bit of a bonanza for the garden in preparation for the move with all my plants receiving a monumental soak. The plants were struggling at times with an extended dry period prior to this rain setting in. The plants have now had an extended soak and are looking healthy once more successfully recovering from their heat stroke or other dilemmas.

Generally the garden was coping, however as happens with container gardening the combination of thirsty plants and evaporation the moisture was leeching quickly. Those plants that I had mulched in the two sessions I mentioned in my Mulching Day post were doing better than the others. However, it is fair to say that most of the plants were spending the day starved of moisture and looked forward to a daily drink.

On this problem I have some products to try and fix this that will deliver moisture, and liquid fertiliser directly to the roots of the plants in a truly recyclable manner. That said given our impending relocation to Wollongong I am holding off implementing these measures until the plants are settled once more. Back to the plants.

The plants that have benefited the most seem to be the 2 varieties of lettuce and spinach. The Green Coral lettuce was suffering due to its transplanting. This would not have been a major issue, except the heat caused it to continually dry out and struggle. Now it has regained its former vigourous growth and green foliage.

The Red Coral Lettuce was already struggling prior to its transplant. Remember this is the lettuce that looked like a Christmas tree. I had to free it from its previous dilemma, and then it was struck by the heat extremes and the constant lack of moisture. It is now looking very good and finally beginning to spread and look more like a lettuce than a Christmas tree. I am happy for that as I have been unable to havest anything from this plant to date due to it being a runt when bought, then crowded by the Green Coral lettuce in the shared accommodations.

My perennial Spinach was also struggling with the heat. The paradox of this plant is that it loves full sun, however that means that it dries out constantly and then wilts. This plant was starting to benefit from the rather deep mulch that I had placed around it on Mulching Day, however the constant soaking has turned the plant right around. It has once again resumed vigorous growth.

The only plants that a really struggling are a number of very immature sun flower seedlings. They are struggling not through a lack of care, but because something has pecked off their leaves. The stalks are thus back in the home made green houses and are remaining green. With luck they may produce some new leaves and grow, however that is more hope than anything.

So all in all the garden is very healthy, which is good news given that in less than 10 days time they will be facing a new challenge in a new post code. The weather in Wollongong will be reasonably similar to Sydney at this time of year, if anything a bit milder. That is a good thing for both the garden and the gardener in my opinion. As such I do not expect much of a culture shock for the traveling plants. The plants will have some months to adjust to the area, prior to winters onset that will be a few degrees cooler than Sydney.

In terms of moving the plants we shall be using a truck and ensuring there will not be wind shock on the journey. So I expect the plants to travel well and simply assume a new position in the yard of the new digs. The thing that I will need to prepare for transport with much more care is my worm farm.

I have been trying Google over the past few days, however drawing a rather large and consistent blank on the subject. I am thus thinking that I will drain the worm juice, remove any usable vermicompost to some storage containers (to use at the other end), and then tether the three layers together. The tethering should keep the layers in place and reduce the chances of the farm separating in transit. If anyone has experience, or knows someone who has had experience, in relocating a worm farm please let me know of any ideas.

Fingers crossed I will get a shot at the garden tomorrow as I need to dig out my black mondo grass from the front garden bed and plant it in some pots. I am buggered if I am leaving the plants that first kindled my interest in gardening behind. They are good to look at and drought resistant, and thus need to come.

Thats it for now, and please any fellow vermiculturalists with experience relocating worms please contact me via a comment to this post.

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Mulching Day

Gardening, Tools | Posted by Dean
Jan 14 2008

As I have mentioned previously mulching has been a weak point in my gardening quests. This became very apparent when I read Mulching Day over at Urban Cultivation very early on in my gardening quest. Lee talked about the many benefits of mulching and chose to use store bought sugar cane mulch. I agree with the benefits of mulching and am primarlly concerned with the water conservation aspects. I was also keen to avoid having to purchase mulch, which after all is simply shredded garden litter and prunings.

So I had a look at how I could produce my own and decided that I needed a garden shredder. As luck would have it my company runs a rewards scheme that is linked to the Wish List site. Within the site was a Ryobi 2400w electric garden shredder that I had enough reward points to obtain. So after consultation with socko I placed my order and was waiting for its arrival somewhat anxiously.

Ryobi Garden Shredder

On Friday my new toy arrived. After unpacking the box and assembling the unit, only a few screws, I set about mulching. Where the unit was assembled was near a stack of wood that is used during winter in the fire pit, or the traditional wood burning barbecue. As we have little intention of stoking either in the midst of summer I tested the unit with this material.

Within a half to three quarters of an hour I had a good supply of fresh mulch to apply during my watering run. So the mulch was applied to about 25% of the front garden. The capsicums, chillis, tomatoes, kangaroo paw, rosemary, egg plant, and frangipani’s were the beneficiaries on the run. The reason these plants were picked was that their pots always seem to be the driest upon inspection. Regularly requiring a good soak, and not just a casual maintenance watering. Also, many of these plants are currently bearing fruit, and I do not want to lose that valuable produce because the plants were missing out on the precious water.

Fresh Home Made Mulch

Due to a wealth of prunings I intended to get back to mulching on Saturday. However, due to me having to manage several web site issues by the time I was in a position to resume mulching it was dusk. I decided that Sunday would be mulching day instead.

As such, I intended spending the whole day performing this task with my new toy, however the weather played havoc with those plans. First it was too hot to get enthused about leaving the air conditioning and performing such a physical task. When I checked the thermometer on the weather vane it read 41 degress celsius, this is a bit of a misleading reading due the weather vanes positioning is in direct sun. Then when the heat broke, it quickly turned into thunder storms and the reading plummeted to 29 degrees celsius in an hour. So all in all I got about an hour of mulching in. It was enough to mulch half the front garden. So there is about 25% of the front, and the entire back vegetable garden to do.

The Ryobi garden mulcher has lived up to expectations, and in some ways exceeded them. I can see that it is, and will continue to be, a valuable garden tool. As valuable as the Homelite Mighty Lite Line Trimmer. I would recommend this product to anyone looking for a home mulching solution. It will do most small prunings with ease and produce a great mulch to spread on the garden and protect from weeds and save water.

The rain in the evening has been a benefit to the garden, and the mulch will trap that goodness in. I also have a new product to trial soon that is essentially a bag that holds 1.2 litres of water. I will not be giving anything further away at this stage, but it looks like a really good true blue Australian product.

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Weighing In

Fitness Challenge | Posted by Dean
Jan 12 2008

Well today is the weigh in day for the Go Smell the Flowers weight loss contest I mentioned in my earlier post entitled Goodbye Store Bought Pizza It Is Time To Get Fit. So I stripped down and looked like a beached whale. I jumped on the scales and waited for the reading. The final readout was 144.4 kilograms (318.347 pounds).

I was not surprised I have been around this mark for ages. Briefly before Christmas I broke through 140 kgs, but Christmas being as it is I am now back above that mark. For some reason converting it to pounds has proven an eye opener and is a further driver for this old tub of lard to get up and do something about it.

The strategy begun at the beginning of the week with the reduction of coffee in my diet. It has been directly replace by copious amounts for cool fresh water. Courtesy of my 1.5 litre Grolsch bottle I can easily gauge my consumption. On the first day of implementing the strategy I drank 2 cups of coffee and 4 litres of water. Yesterday I drank 1 cup of coffee and 5 litres of water. Today, with 6 hours left I have consumed 1 cup of coffee and 2.5 litres of water. I expect that by days end I will be around 4.5 litres today. I am already feeling better about drinking water and have noticed that the cotton mouth I usually get is on the decline.

I also have cut back on the intake. Last night the meal was Spaghetti Bolognaise. Now I am not a fan of the dish, but would normally consume at least a second helping. Last night I consciously decided that i had eatten enough after one helping. Later in the night I did have a munch on a bread roll and some of the remnants of a Christmas cake, but I would have done that normally anyway. I am now reteaching myself that one portion is enough and that I do not have to consume it because it is there. That is primarily how I have gotten into the beach ball shape I am today.

Healthier and leaner alternatives have also been introduced to my diet. The first such alternative replaces butter and margarine from being spread on my bread. I never used to have it on the bread, however started to again in line with the rest of the family. So instead of butter or margarine I am going to be having nothing or avocado. Avocado is one thing I used to despise, but after being with socko and trying it I find I quite like it, so much so that I am going to try and grow my own.

I have never been a breakfast consumer, bad I know, and that is something that I will be endeavouring to change over the coming days. I am planning to go with Up and Go which has been recommended to us by a dietician in the past. It is a milk based drink that contains the equivalent of a serving of Weet Bix. So it is healthy and low in the GI scales. I was almost being good in its consumption last year, but have fallen back into old habits. It is now time to shatter those habits.

There has also been the conscious avoidance of naughty food that if consumed now will simply end this. For example, my niece is staying over night and went to Sugar Fix today. Sugar Fix is a candy store that gets a lot of overseas candy in, primarily from the US. My niece has literally been falling over herself to share her goodies, which does make me proud, however I have had to turn her down flat each time. I know that if I have one I will have a hundred, and thus defeat the purpose of this challenge.

Exercise has also begun. Last night I begun with a brisk 15 minute walk around the local streets with my iPod pumping the tunes. Whenever a slow tune came on it got skipped to keep me moving briskly. Yes I know that sounds corny but it worked. On the length of the walk I know it does not sound like much, but when I am used to do nothing at all it is an infinite improvement. In fact last night it was so late that I could have quite easily skipped it, but I didn’t. I also managed to score a nice garden pot and a perspex container to use as a mini hot house from the imminent council cleanup.

Today, I sacrificed my lunch break and went for a 30 minute walk around the streets in the next suburb. As it was 27 degrees C in Sydney today I managed to get the heart rate up. I actually intended to go for a 20 minute walk, but the route I took was untravelled previously and had a couple of long steady inclines. I thought that was great and will be going that way again for sure. Also, as a bounty on this run I collected about 6 pots that were being scrapped on the council cleanup. I intend going for another walk a bit later in the evening when it has cooled down a bit.

I will also be getting my bike out later and cleaning the spider webs off of it. I also need to fix the brakes on sockos’ push bike so that she has some. We will then begin riding around the neighbourhood aswell. Probably also with my sister tagging along and my Mum on her tricycle when its modified. It will be a pleasure going around as a family, although that will mean the iPod being left at home.

By no means am I on the complete road to gaining control over the blubber that is my belly, but I have made a promising start. I now need to maintain the momentum for a few months and ensure that the current activity is not in vain. Thanks again to the Go Smell The Flowers crew for giving me that final nudge to take action. Also, many thanks to all the kind commenters that have stopped by so far.

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