DID BEFORE LEAVING:
Planted NATIVES in triangle bed, filled two LOUNGE ROOM WATERUP beds, TRIANGLE BED, and DRIVEWAY WICKING, added coir to PATH VEGEPOD with GARLIC in it, filled black growbag (GINGER) and blue growbag (DAHLIAS).
Moved CHOOKS to PLUM-STONE
covered APPLE-CREPE with soil and pea straw
watered all TOMATOES with NPK solution (maybe did it a bit hard)
THINGS I DIDN'T DO (*sigh*)
B1 INSTRUCTIONS:
water VANILLA once a week (or when dry): keep it somewhere the cats can't knock it off?
fill water bottles for SOUR CHERRY and ICE-CREAM BEAN (black grow bag) when empty
check SEVAS is empty
check FRUIT TREE nettings every now and then (to make sure possums haven't destroyed them)
spray GARLIC with neem oil (in blue spray bottle on front steps)
if she spots any TOMATOES growing sideways, to loop them into the strings
remind about SPINACH and SILVERBEET and BROCCOLI
Freeze PUMPKIN?
Put PUMPKIN in ESKY when friends are there to pick it up?
check WATER TANK first flush is closed off
OBSERVATIONS:
Came back from three weekends away and...there was a lot.
Fruit trees:
one APRICOT
one YELLOW PEACH
no DUAL PLUMS
no DONUT PEACHES
plenty of PLUMS
plenty of PERSIMMONS
a whole heap of the PEACHES and NECTARINES fell off, but still enough for eating
some AVOCADOS
POMEGRANATE is flowering but not sure about how many of thoe will survive
GRAPE is growing well
TOMATOES in the WATER-UPS BED have gone great guns: those in the DRIVEWAY VEGEPOD are doing well, the ones in the backyard have done badly.
BEANS in the backyard (AVO-CREPE) are going
Backyard vegies barely held on because at some point the watering system stopped working, and my sister had no instructions to water it so... The CORN and CAPSICUM (stripey pepper kind) are doing okay, but not great. The COFFEE trees are still alive, but I think all the MEADOWFLOWERS that I tried to plant have failed.
DAHLIAS in grow-bags are growing, not sure about flowering
GINGER in grow-bags are growing, but not very enthusiastically (slightly yellow shoots; possibly the soil?)
ICE-CREAM BEAN in grow-bag is holding on, SOUR CHERRY is going fine (has a couple of fruit)
Basically, anything that had a wicking base has done well. Things that had an olla did okay. And a bunch of other things have managed to hold position but not with any kind of decency.
CHOOKS:
Siyao is struggling in laying. We'll have to get her an appointment with the vet for an implant, I think. Apparently Barnavelders are prone to this kind of thing as well. *grr*
I think Jima-Wu has gone broody. She returns to the nesting box and pancakes herself rather like Goong does. Goong is also broody, btw. So that's fun. Now we're going to have two chickens with a tendency to descend into broodiness. Possibly at the same time.
COMPOST:
Haven't even looked at them. Should do a test for the pH, see how it's gone down (or not) in the weeks since.
eta: have added rotting lemons to the compost, along with some weeds from the weed tea, and then added more soil/covering on top.
PREPARING:
Tossing the various bits of trimmins from the shrubberies in the TRACTOR – may need to trim them further, though.
SEEDING:
planted BASIL and CORIANDER in AVO-SHED, outside of the BEANS.
nothing to plant until Wednesday, when it's planting fruiting plants. (Actually, today and yesterday were root plantings, so maybe I should get some more radishes and stuff out there.)
PLANTING OUT:
nothing to plant out – nothing grew while I was gone because I forgot to leave my sister instructions! DAMMIT.
HARVEST:
There's plenty of SILVERBEET and SPINACH.
FEEDING:
Probably the CORN needs feeding – going to have to do some of that over the weekend, maybe.
PRUNING:
Pruned the backyard shrubberies.
Pruned the TOMATOES in the WATER-UPS, TOMATOES in the DRIVEWAY VEGEPOD
THOUGHTS:
WATER TANK first flush requires manual replaement of the valve. Can I set up some kind of a manual operation to open/close?
Hongyan keeps getting out and I can't work out where. So far she hasn't dug anything up, but it's been a bit rough!
WEATHER FORECASTS: Rain next week for about 10 days from next Wednesday, which is right when I want to be planting seeds according to moon cycles. I wish I was planting things out then but I'd need to either get hold of things to plant or else...IDK.
