Dear Diary: 8th May 2025 - winter is definitely coming

OBSERVATIONS:

Getting colder, down to early 20s. More damp weather,

CHOOKS:

Hamyuu is doing okay, she and Kerry both get an extra 'shot' of nutritional liquid. Kerry is no longer laying soft-shells, but she's still tiny.

COMPOST:

Slowly sieving compost. There's a bunch of tree roots in the compost and I don't know where they're coming from. I also don't know how to keep them out in future.Perhaps use the corflutes on the base in future?

PREPARING:

Chook tractor is on the PLUM-STONE bed, with a lot of autumn trimmings in it, and some shredded wood. I need to add more chook manures, and basically turn the space into a giant compost pile, if possible.

SEEDING:

Heirloom seedlings, another attempt now that the weather is better?

PLANTING OUT:

Got all the BEETROOT planted out (see bit on BRASSICA plantings), all the (bought) SPRING ONION, some of the GARLIC, and most of one punnet of BROCCOLI.(Aurora F1)

Still have another punnet of BROCCOLI (Aurora F1)

HARVEST:

FEEDING/SPRAYING:

Sprayed the ROSE BUSH and the DUAL STONE with some lime sulphur. Need to read up on what trees can take it – might need to give the APPLES a go? Probably the DONUT PEACH. I can't remember about the APRICOT.

PRUNING:

I probably need to do some more careful trimming on the trees.

THOUGHTS:

re: using tractor to make compost
why not make the compost in the tractor? That is, let the chooks in to start with, then dump the manures, the trimmings, the clippings, the wood, the paper the everything in there and let it sit for a while, then allow the chooks to scratch it all up. I've been relying on the chooks to do more work than they're used to doing.

TREELINES

along front of house, facing west

GRAPE, KUMQUAT, PASSIONFRUIT, HOPS
also ROSELLA and maybe COFFEE bush

along chicken yard, facing north

LYCHEE, APRICOT

under jacaranda

WHITE SAPOTE, BLACK SAPOTE, ICE CREAM BEAN

Improvement Plans for the next 12 mths

metal bed in triangle garden

• Garlic
• Lettuces

IBC Wicking Bed on porch

• Grape
• Passionfruit (??)

Under the Frangipani

* use slasher weedkiller on the space

• freesias
• other bulbs
• meadow seeds
• poppies

Big Vegepod

• Passionfruit up the north side from vegepod?

In front of lounge room chook run

• sugarcane, lemongrass
• ginger, galangal, turmeric
• dahlias in front? Or too close to the grass?
• fig? In a deep pot?

In front of chook yard

• kumquat - citrus, likes rich soil
• mulberry - suitable for chickens to shelter under and eat from
• apricot - likes lighter soil, not clays: build a mound? (needs potassium and phosphorus more than nitrogen), feed once a year in early spring
• black sapote
• lychee - fragile, wants protection

various thoughts - fruit trees

Chill units (number of hours below 7C): Thornleigh's average winter temp is 11.9 (17.5 + 6.3, divided by 2) which puts it in the 600-800 chill units according to Heritage Fruit Trees, although apparently one can extend the chill units simply by keeping trees out of the sun for longer.

I'm sure I've already posted these thoughts somewhere...

APPLES:

Tropic Dorsett: v low chill, flowers in late August, fruit set by mid September, will need its own netting, harvest late December early Jan

Golden Delicious: harvest mid-January

Gala: late Sep-early Oct '22 flowering, harvest mid-January

Braeburn: (winter harvest, late), flowering late Sep-Oct '22 flowering, harvest mid-January

Anna: flowering Aug-Sep

Dorsett: flowering Aug-Sep

Granny Smith: never flowered, (winter harvest, late)

Akane: never flowered

APRICOTS: Reader's Digest and Forty South

Tilton : early Feb harvest, 600 chill hours (low), but it's sitting in sun from pretty early in the morning.

Paterson : Jan harvest, 600 chill hours (low),

Unknown (backyard): most likely a low-chill apricot, it gets marginal sun through winter.

I'm wondering if I should maybe get plumcots, which are supposed to be like apricots but hardier?

AVOCADOES:

Sheppard: type B, 2.5m with plenty of flowers but very little pollination: may require an A type to go with it I guess it required a really good season of rain so the flowers didn't all fall off. I can easily harvest an avo or two a week right now, with still at least a dozen on and more fruiting.

Note to self: don't ever look at how much you've spent on fruit trees over the years... An awful lot of them have died in their pots before they ever got into the ground...

CITRUS

:
Tri-Citrus (Bi-Citrus?): Oranges, tangerines - might have had a lemon/lime at some point
Kumquat

Makrut Lime
NOTE: neighbours have a lime tree and are more than happy to gift limes

BANANAS

Banana circle - at least one Red Dacca, the others are unknown, none have ever fruited - probably not enough nutrients

PINEAPPLE

three (3) in pots; have never worked out a good place for these to go.

MULTISTONE

apricot: lots of leaves, no fruit
donut peach: died 2022
nectarine: cut it off 2023 - it never usefully fruited, always rotted before I could harvest anything
plum: full of blossoms and fruit - yellow flesh, starts off very green, ripens to a violet-purple blush

PEACHES/NECTARINES

white peach - on dual stone
yellow peach (clingstone) - single
white nectarine - single
white nectarine - on dual stone

hardware:

Veggie patch AU - clips and clamps

Dear Diary: 28th September

WEATHER:

The high temps are rising, but the low temps aren't moving - currently around 13C minimum, but getting double that during the day. 30C predicted for tomorrow, a cooler day on Sunday, then HEATWAVE for early next week. ARGH.

RAIN

Rain last night - about 5mm, I think. Cool and occasional showers today. The tank is filling, there's more due later next week, but we have to get through the heatwave first.

CHOOKS:

Laying regularly: Siyao, Goong, and Carambah. Chouqette is still fluffing around, being noisy, but not apparently laying.

OSBERVATIONS

Dandelions everywhere in the front yard. Couch grass everywhere in the back. Keeping the grass in check is a trick and one that I've not gotten the hang of. The comfrey is growing back in places I don't really want it, and there's onion weed everywhere. I think the removal of that is going to be manual and slow, season by season. It's just a PITA to have to do so often and so much!

PREPARATION:

Trying to manage the dandelions, manually pulling them out (wonderful tool) and weed-tea-ing them for compost. However the north lawn (driveway side lawn) is a bit of a loss - it's almost entirely dandelions at this stage. I've actually acquired some weed 'n feed and am trying that on the lawn, but wow it smells of iron! I did find an article about organic weed control which recommends a product called corn gluten meal.

The truth is, I don't want the lawn so much as I want to be able to develop a nice meadowy space on that north side. Grass need not apply! Unfortunately what I have is creeping buffalo grass (and couch in the backyard; ugh). It's going to need more work and maintenance in the coming season to try to get it to a point of survival - especially as the summer gets hot. That said, a meadow might survive where a garden would not.

Backyard, the couch grass is starting to perk up; I'm pulling some of it up and have weed tea'd it in a bucket off to the side. The promised teenaged assistance has not materialised, so that's a PITA, and I'm mostly pulling it up by hand (and doing my back in the process).

Got the PLUM-STONE, APPLE-CREPE, and AVO-SHED beds in. Need to get the CREPE-APRICOT bed frames cut up and put together and set in place. It wasn't difficult to do - easier with 2 people, I suspect - but it wasn't difficult.

TO DO

• cut panels for last garden bed, or else buy more barrier edging from Hammerbarn.
• draw up measurements for BENCH SEATING
• white oil/pest spray KUMQUAT, MAKRUT LIME, PERSIMMON (after heatwave, when temps have dropped again)
• repot TINY BLUEBERRY
• pot TEA CAMELLIAS
• net front NECTARINE and GOLDEN PEACH
• shade back beds

PLANTING

I repotted both the KUMQUAT and the APRICOT

ICE-CREAM BEAN seeds planted

PLUM-STONE: SPINACH (perpetual), BEANS (blue ribbon - double check this) with a climbing pole in the middle, SILVERBEET?, RADISH (black spanish), BEETROOT (found in packet, unknown type), ONION (found in plastic packet, unknown type)

PLUM-STONE: TOMATOES (both indeterminate and determinate types: indeterminates up the back with suitable structures for hanging plants off (hopefully), EGGPLANTS (labelled, but also have a pic saved and set up), BEANS (pole, possibly snake) at the back.

1 Jaune Flamme, 2 Marmande (red), 2 Brad's Atomic Grape (yellow), 2 Waspinicon Peach (orange), 3 amethyst cream (magenta), 3 blue berries (blue), 2 pink bumblebee (green)

VEGEPOD: Planted Cecelia's GINGER - I don't think the other rhizomes are GINGER, they don't smell right.

RIPENING

Last of the CITRUSES. That's really about it, I think. Other than the fruit which are slowly growing.

HARVEST

Brassica leaves from APPLE-CREPE: should be suitable for a coleslaw-type thing. Last orange, maybe a couple of tangerines? Oh PARSNIPS from bathtub. There's also CORIANDER and ALPINE STRAWBERRIES coming good, and some RED CELERY is making itself known in various spots of the garden.

PRUNING

Pruned the AVOCADO tree - it's too broad and too wide, and I'm kind of worried about the weight of the avos going forward. Not very neat, though.

THOUGHTS

Thinking I'd like to plant some groundcover in front of the chook yard, but the problem is giving it enough time to get some roots in, particularly this summer.

dear diary: 3rd June - spraying

Sprayed the fruit trees today - Lime Sulphur
Peaches & Stonefruit was 20% solution
Apples was 10% solution
And just for kicks I also did the frangipani (1%) which has rust on its leaves and is probably spreading it everywhere through the garden

Gotta do it again in a week.

Then the week after, the Copper Spray

I think at least one of the trees shouldn't be sprayed with one of the sprays. I think it's the apricots with Copper spray.

Permabee is going ahead - new chicken tunnels! Maybe new garden beds.

throwing shade

Back garden is a lot of shady spots.

What do I need for filler? Where do I need it?
- shady spaces, like in the south-east corner (hellebores, coleus, bromeliads, aussie native violet, anemones)
- under the avocado tree where the tomatoes are failing miserably (daffodils for spring? aussie native violets, maybe the kidney-shaped leaves thing)

Planning for climate catastrophe:
- water (want to get a filter for the tank water - filter entry on the tank, filter outlet, too?)
- fire protection: if fire comes to the neighbourhood, how to stop it from spreading?
- petrol runout (bicycles - need to do some work on them)
- electric cooker (induction top?)

 

May: feed citrus
pruning branches and leaves
spray lime sulphur (1st time)

June: spray lime sulphur (2nd time)

July: spray copper, run chooks in triangle garden

August: grafting, run chooks in triangle garden

 

Bought 7 african daises, 5 single-petal hellebores, 5 dahlias.

African daisies to go on the far side of the fence; Hellebores to go in the shade space; Dahlias to go in the trimmed-back picket fence garden space.

dear diary - 6th Dec

OBSERVATIONS: The rodents have basically destroyed all the fruit in the backyard, and are working on the fruit trees. They haven't hit the avocados yet (so far as I can tell) and they may not be able to get to them on account of the avos hanging. Depends on how smart they are - whether they realise they can gnaw the things off and then eat them.

Got pest managers in to set traps and baits, and the rats have reduced around our lawn, but are still in and out of the chicken yard, and along the neighbour's fence. I think they have them under their house, too. Wondering if I should move the rat bait boxes into the chook yard...

In the front picket fence bed, the elderbush is shooting everywhere. So is the mugwort. The mugwort I still have a half-hope of digging out, but the elders put out roots all over the place. And when you dig up one, then another just keeps going! Not sure if mowing them will do the job. Am hiring a local company to do the lawn as often as needed - next one in the week before Christmas.

CHOOKS: Shantung has gone back for another implant - she had a swollen belly. Si-si has also been sitting down a fair bit; I found her just parked on the grass this morning. Might be a leg injury. I'll bring her water and some food later. A day or two later, she's recovered and seems to be in good spirits. But while Shantung is pretty spirited, she's not all that spry anymore and her abdomen still feels swollen even after they took out the fluids from it. Basically, there's another pathology going on, and the vet may not be able to do anything short of surgery. And I'm not really willing to pay for another surgery.

The chooks are being allowed to run pretty much across the front yard. They make whining noises when they're confined to the yard; there's not much there to eat or play in there, and they like nesting in the triangle bed under the citrus. It's low enough to give them cover, and thick enough that they don't feel exposed.

PRUNING & PREPARING: I put the chook tractor back on the Crepe-Apricot bed, but nothing much is happening in there - the girls don't seem to much like going in there right now. Might be the open-airness of it? Need to cover it with one of my new sacks.

I'm going to severely prune down all the backyard trees next year. Especially the Flavor Supreme plum, which doesn't produce anything at all. Or maybe I should do that now? Let them spring back over the summer/autumn, then maybe fruit in winter/spring next year? Need to think about that.

I've decided to cut down/dig out the front nectarine in the triangle garden, because it never produces edible nectarines - they go mouldy far too easily and don't grow to a decent size. If I cut it down, I could use the stump for grafting. But if I dig it out, I could put an apricot in its place. But I wonder if it's never done well because it's sharing the space with the golden peach... Also, if I could dig up the golden peach and reorient it so it's more upright, that would be excellent.

PLANTING: I'm not really in a planting mood, tbh. Should toss some stuff down - lettuces, radishes, beets, etc. Green mulches, etc. anything that will grow in the coming weeks/months. (Coriander? Needs/wants cooler weather.)

Put tiny baby potatoes in the SMALL VEGEPOD 2 (King Edwards). Trying to decide where to plant out the peanuts.

Planted out the various pumpkins into spaces where they have a chance to grow and spread (I hope), we'll see how they do! I should put something under the apple trees, but I'm still trying to kill off the grass weeds underneath, I think...

RIPENING: Peaches now, very rapidly. Lots of the potatoes in the triangle garden potato bed.

HARVEST: NECTARINES. I'm pretty much asking everyone to come by and get nectarines. Done with preserving - did that last year, still had crazy numbers, now mostly looking to give away fresh. Including making local connections if I can.

NOTES: Sydney Edible Garden Trail is next November - 4th and 5th. Before then, I would like to:
- change the chicken tunnels from the plastic wire to metal tunnels. Also make them a little wider than they were.
- change the Apricot-Avo bed to a seating space (not enough sun in summer) Maybe also consider the Avo-Shed, although that could be perennially leafy greens and maybe some green shallots which don't need all that much sun.

Dear Diary - 21st November

OBSERVATIONS

The grass is long and the lawn mower from the last couple of goes hasn't been by, although he said he'd be here on Monday, and then this weekend. I don't think he's going to turn up - I don't like our chances. I just wish people would say they're not going to instead of setting expectations and then failing them.

Contacting a local gardening guy, but might just farm this out to AirTasker.

CHOOKS

We ended up giving away 'Baby' - a.k.a. our unexpected windfall of a chicken who turned up on the street at B1's friend's place, and who was given into our care. We didn't end up finding her owners, but we couldn't keep her - she was too much of a free spirit to fit in with our flock (who have a routine down) and so we gave her to someone in Turramurra. She's got three chickens already, they get to free range a lot, and she'll be pretty happy.

PRUNING & PREPARING

I'm down to hand-picking out the seedy weeds where I can, but I think a session or two out on the front verge may be necessary. Not that I want the grass, mind you, but that's what I have to work with...

PLANTING

Nothing. Haven't planted anything new in the last few weeks, which is stupid; should have at least planted some lettuces, or the coriander in something that's able to be kept cool.

RIPENING

Nectarines and Peaches

HARVEST

POTATOES: King Edwards, some Nicola (long oval), some Dutch Cream (round), maybe some Bintje? (long and a bit knobbly).

RASPBERRIES: getting a handful every couple of days

NOTES

None of the backyard trees are producing this year, except for the AVOCADO. I think the end of this season is going to have to be some major pruning and rethinking. Year 3-4 was the good year, when things bloomed, blossomed, and produced. This year - the last few - have been tricksy. CHERRY isn't producing, APRICOTs aren't, PLUM barely is (only the Mariposa, the Flavor Supreme doesn't).

I could dig the backyard trees out, clover up the ground, and rebuild the chicken tunnels. That's the two year plan, I think, after the windows.

Sydney Edible Garden Trail is set for November next year, so there's going to be a fair bit of interest in the fruit trees, I thihnk.

dear diary: 24th September

OBSERVATIONS

NASTURTIUMS are everywhere in the backyard.

FRONT PICKET BED is going beserk and in a bad way; probably going to need to poison the mugwort and the red salvia is seriously worrying me with its tendency to sprout from just about anything... But the little bulb garden I put together is now flowering ANEMONES after the JONQUILS and PAPERWHITE (also jonquils) have finished. There appear to be some DAHLIA crowns coming through, but the only thing from the meadow mix that seems to be sticking is the ALYSSUM.

GALA apple is flowering, so is BRAEBURN.

CHOOKS

Hainan had to be put down back around the middle of the month. The peritonitis wasn't getting any better in spite of the draining and antibiotics, and in the end it was better to end her suffering. She's buried under the peach-nectarine tree in the triangle garden.

Goong is broody again, and somewhat grumpy at being left out right now.

PRUNING & PREPARING

Planning to take off a giant chunk of the four-apple two very productive branches. They're not going to fruit this year - I think the rats ate all the buds. Give the other two grafts a chance to shine, maybe...

Planning to put the chooks into the dining room VEGEPOD at some point to clear it out. Don't know how well it will go; they like a bit of shelter - not too exposed. Could maybe put a few sacks or green shadecloth over it to give them some protection.

Planning to plant the snapdragons out in the PICKET FENCE BED.

PLANTING

Planted out the CORN (country gentleman) in APPLE-CREPE

Planted out the BUSH BEANS (cherokee wax) in the APPLE-CREPE, and CREPE-APRICOT, and PLUM-STONE

White BEANS (might be blue mountain), ebisu PUMPKIN, popping CORN, and maybe one EGGPLANT and one CAPSICUM coming up?

Blue CHILLI from Margaret by way of Cecelia.

RIPENING

ASPARAGUS: purple in the polybox, green in the ASPIE BED

MUSTARDS in the CREPE-APRICOT

MUSTARD in the VEGEPOD

SILVERBEET in the garage MINIPOD

RADISHES/LETTUCES in the dining MINIPOD

HARVEST

RHUBARB stems: both the green in the APRICOT bed and the red in polybox.

BRASSICAS in lounge room window, CABBAGE in pot on VEGEPOD, FENNEL in bathtub bed, CORIANDER in bathtub bed

NOTES

FRUIT TREES in triangle garden got netted (TWO-STONE and DUAL-STONE)

GOLDEN DORSETT graft has flowered and is fruiting; have started covering it over but not very thoroughly. Going to need to evaluate how that branch is managed.

Things need to be in the ground before I go away on holiday - all of October, pretty much; that, or they need to be in something that has a water reservoir...

NATIVE BEEHIVE: Opened it up with Sue, found the structure there but just no bees. Looks like the colony simply didn't manage to re-queen, and just died. Now I have to trim out all the mouldy/pollen/honeysacs in the hive and prep it for probably an October/November split.

fruit trees in the springtime: espalier, netting frames, and other small details

Did the espalier course with Brett at Limestone Permaculture. Great guy with great ideas and a fresh way of thinking about it and communicating his ideas. If you have the chance to do any of his courses, I recommend it very highly!

I came home, and a week later started fixing up the not-so-well-done espalier for the apple trees in the triangle orchard:

This is a less acute angle, although the background is not as good.

I need to cut the ties for tying the limbs to the wires and then tie the limbs down. The wires will also provide some support for the fruit.

The apples are presently underplanted with peas of various types (should have been planted earlier, they may not survive if things get summer-hot fast, or if we get too much rain - peas tend to go mouldy pretty fast around here), and there's a comfrey plant at the end. Other than that, I'm not sure if I'm going to grow anything more here. At some stage, I need to redo the watering system in the front. (No more underground watering systems, they all get forgotten and dug into later and it's not pretty!)

The one branch that's in flower and leaf is a grafted branch of an early apple - Golden Dorsett variety, and produces huuuuge sweet-and-crunchy apples by, oh, January? February? Actually, I think it keeps producing it all the way through to March. Or maybe that's just how long I leave it on the bough?

I've roughly started a frame for the APRICOT tree in the backyard, but doing things with the DUAL PLUM, the FOUR STONE, and the FOUR APPLE in the back is going to be tricky. I don't think I could (or should) do it with the AVOCADO, but getting a net over that sucker is going to be an effort and a half in coming years. It's already 2.5m tall (and covered in flowers, which will hopefully pollinate well)!

EOFY + Minibee

Raspberries are fruiting - think it's an autumn one:

Sprayed front stone fruit with Lime Sulfate (last time was done was on the 2nd, also Lime Sulfate), budswell is about to happen. I'll try to spray with Copper Spray after 9th June which is when I've rescheduled the minibee, but will likely lose a few of the early flowers.

MINIBEE PLANS

• trim rosebush down to 50cm
• trim frangipani down
• trim bee bushes down to 50cm (salvias, thai basil, mexican marigold)
• trim fruit trees down to 2m
• dig out kumquat
• dig out lychee
• dig out acerola cherry
• dig out citrus
• move chip mulch to back paths

tree management

There are several fruit trees I think I need to dig out:

1. elderflower by the fence: keep in a large pot for all eternity to stop it from shooting all over the place

2. lychee tree in the front yard: not doing well in the ground, think it might need a pot and a better position

3. kumquat tree in the front yard: not doing well in the groudn, think it might need a pot and a better position

4. citrus tree by the gate: not doing well in the ground, dig it out and give it away

I also have another citrus tree up by the garage, in a tiny pot, that I don't actually need or want. I don't want to grow most standard citrus: I don't think I need to. Other people are doing excellent lemons and limes, all I need is one every now and then, maybe a bunch to freeze for the out-of-season citrus flavour.

Big pruning energy needed in the coming weeks. BIG PRUNING ENERGY. A lot of them are going to get pruned down massively, because I can't cope with such large trees right now, particularly in the backyard.

Also, organise better guilds for under the trees, seeing as this is a La Nina year and it's going to be a lot wetter and rainier than usual.

busy fortnight: fruit tree assessment

All the harvest processing, all the canning, all the mess and exhaustion and time taken...

And there's still some yet to go - although the main processing is the early nectarine and early peaches.

Overall in the fruit harvest:

1. Dual Stone (white peach and white nectarine): very heavy crop, lost about a third of it to mould and possums. That's usual. The nectarines are sweet as ever. The peaches are *meh*. Nectarines harvested in the first couple of weeks of Nov. Peaches harvested in last couple of weeks of Nov.

Such a delicious nectarine!

2. Two Stone (golden peach and white nectarine): lost most of the nectarine to mould. Still harvesting the golden peaches. Nectarines harvested in second week of Nov. Golden peaches harvested last week in November through to early Dec.

3. Quad stone in backyard: nectarines were ready in 2nd week Nov, but mostly lost to possums and mould. Apricots in 3rd week Nov - only two harvested. Plums ripening early December and a solid crop, no fruit fly. Donut peaches won't be for a number of months yet.
4. Cherry: 4 cherries, ripened in last weeks of Nov. *sigh*

5. Apricot: 2 apricots, still ripening in late Nov.

6. Dual Plum: about 5-6 plums, mostly on the mariposa side (probably), no sign of fruit fly.

7. Donut peach: not expected to ripen until later in the season.

8. Back avo: a couple of avos, lots of leaves. Trimming it down now.

9. Four apple: a few apples on the left branch, ripening. One or two apples on the right branch, ripening. Tried a few that fell down early - floury. They'll go into an apple-rhubarb crumble.

10. Hedge apples: harvested a couple from the early graft, but rather floury right now. Might not be ready yet? Or fell off because not ready? Otherwise, they're all small and growing.

11. Gala-Braeburn: Braeburn graft still growing pretty well, no sign of fruit fly or codling moth (would have to cut open an apple to find out)

12. Blueberries: doing okay by the fence, but haven't harvested any yet (must go look at them)

13. Mango: has a few fruit, not sure if they'll survive any longer than this

And yesterday I harvested a bunch of carrots - thinned out one of the beds to make space for others. It's a pretty good rainbow from this mix.

Regarding the fruit trees, I'm going to massively trim them down this year. Front and back, both. They're just getting out of hand so far as overproducing fruit is going. Also, I really rather wish that they were spread out across the summer better. My bad for not getting early and late varieties, accidental or no.

nectarine nation

As problems go, over-abundance is a good one to have.
Doesn't mean I much like having this issue!

To the chooken go the spoils:

And the best become preserves thanks to Fowlers' Vacola:

While the rest are dried into fruit bits:

Then I get to do it all over again with the peaches!

*sigh*

I am going to trim all the trees in my yard down quite significantly in the coming year, I think. They've gotten a little bit out of hand in the last couple of seasons. Some of the boughs of the nectarine graft were breaking, and the rain meant a lot of the crop went mouldy, particularly because they weren't being picked every day.

stone harvest: worst time to be away

I didn't think when I booked a holiday away from home. I just thought 'ooh, it'll be nice to get away for a bit'.

As a result I am away during the when my early nectarine and peach trees are turning from ripe to overripe, and I am not there to harvest them.

I've done what I can, trimmed down branches and gifted them to neighbours, picked everything that's ripe and put it in the fridge, and frozen the ones that seem unlikely to last for later making jam...

Still, it's an abundance...and I am absent from it. I've invited friends to come around and do some picking, but I'm not sure they will. The sisters have promised to keep an eye on things, but they're limited by energy and location. And in four days, a lot of fruit fly can find their way into the fruit and wreck the latter half of the crop...not to mention any other crops that happen to be around at the time...

Next time, no holidays in November!

tidying up the garden: weekend report

Spring is in, which means everything is growing (or going to) and the crops need to be gotten into the soil.

I planted glass gem corn a couple of weeks back, during the fruits/leaf planting period. I planted them out on Saturday in a bighuge block (an entire garden bed). I also shook out a bunch of basil seeds, and planted some beetroot in the 'shallow' part of the bed (where I need access to step over to the brick).

Hopefully they'll be growing pretty decently by Christmas, at which point I can replace it with late summer tomatoes. Or more leafy greens for winter.

--

On Friday evening, I got a call from Gardening Australia - one of the people who runs the 'storyboarding' process, looking at the kinds of stories they can run. She'd been given my name and number by someone who'd been featured on the show (and is something of a friend of the show) and wanted me to send pics/video of my garden and particularly the setup with the chooks. They were looking at a 'suburban chicken owner' segment, and wanted to see what kinds of options there were. So I ran the video around the (admittedly less than impressive) garden. It is spring, and the garden doesn't do much over winter (except house the chooks) so things are still in the slow-growing stage.

In the end, she opted to go with another idea for a segment - the secretary of our permaculture group, who's been doing amazing things with his house and yard in the last five years.

But it lit a fire in me to get the backyard looking a bit more decent than it does. More perennials, more chop-and-drop plantings (comfrey; more comfrey!), and garden beds that are made to last longer than a season so they don't look quite so miserable!

That's another project: make more garden bed/chook tractor frames. Use screws to put the panels in, rather than nails (screws will hold better), and paint/limewash the frames so they last longer than a single season! Also, the panels towards the 'back' of the bed frames down the side (apple-crepe, crepe-apricot, apricot-avo, avo-shed) need to be longer, to prop it up higher, because the ground slopes significantly down to the fence.

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On Sunday, my sisters helped me get the tarp to a higher elevation - a less saggy position - and as a result it looks way nicer!

Still need to paint the chook house properly, and add a roof of plastic/corrugated iron that actually does the job of keeping the rain out, rather than the weird green roof thing that is pretty much just slowly growing mould. I don't think I have anything to hand that will do the job, but there's a council clean-up coming and I can probably scavenge a couple of sheets of something. Polycarbonate would be best (nice and light) but we can do corrugated iron.

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I'm going to need to put netting over the trees: this is the last you'll see of the backyard without netting for some months. Unfortunately, the fruit flies are here and they're here to stay, and if I want any kind of a crop, netting is the only way to go.

I'll take a photo at lunch today.

Overall, I feel like I've gotten a handle on the backyard and how to grow things. It certainly helps to have five chooks adding fertility: it seems that almost all the trees are blooming really well this year - so that's hopeful.

weekend gardening

Weekend was warm and sunny before a cold front bringing rain was to hit us mid-week. So it was a good time to get stuff done in the garden.

Did/Done List
1. Removed a wire fence from behind my two driveway bed apples. It was useful back when I was using it to confine the chooks, but now that we have so many more chooks, weeding is going to be a lot faster: done in a couple of days rather than over the course of a cople of weeks. The fence wasn't helping guide the apples anymore, and it was detrimental to netting the trees, so I replaced it with two wooden posts to string some wire between for netting to cover the apple trees.

2. Planted out my mother's black lilies in between the apricot and the elder tree
3. Planted ranunculus bulbs in front of the multi-stone in the backyard.
4. Grafted two apples - don't know if they'll take: I can't get the whip-and-tongue grafts to fit properly enough that the cambium layers match. I might have to stick a butterfly clip on it to properly pin the surfaces together.
5. Planted out a 'green fodder' bed in the second chook yard.
6. Planted blue turmeric and galangal, and I did the ginger just this morning.
7. Set up the north side garden beds - including the turmeric, galangal, ginger beds - ready to be watered from the kitchen vegiewash run-off. I'll need more soil with which to fill out the polyboxes that I'll be doing the growing in (insulated), and I need to better work out the watering system so it more evenly distributes, but...it's a start!
8. Attached chook wire to the new midpoint post of the chicken yard. Now I just need the hardware for affixing the beams and bracing them against each other so they stay square and don't sag.
9. Moved the composting frame from the compost in the chook yard to the banana circle (where it's blown over in the present winds). The plan is to get mostly garden clippings and stuff from the neighbours and toss it in there to decompose and rot. I may need to put a wire base on it to keep the rats out.
10. Closed up the fruit fly netting around the peach/nectarine and set some traps for them within the netting to catch the ones that had already turned up.

Planned to do but did not
I was also planning to repot the black sapote, but that didn't happen and now I'm out of soil. I'm going to have to dig out the chook yard shortly, get all that good chook poop and soil for it to grow in. I doubt I'll get any fruit from it - I think it's too cold through the year for it.

We had rain all of Tuesday, along with gusty winds, our water barrels filled up and our soil soaked it up. Hopefully this means there'll be a lot more growing in the coming month, and then some more rain in late September/early October to give bulk to the fruit that's setting even now.

Gonna have to get my nettings on over all the fruit trees. And that's going to be a job and a half, oy.

Spring makes its inevitable march; unfortunately, the warm temperatures we're having now promise a burningly hot summer. It won't be pretty at all.

pruning fruit trees

PLUM A plum tree with two different plums on it has produced me all of one plum.

I may have been pruning it wrongly.

The types are 'Mariposa' (a Japanese plum) and 'Flavor Supreme' (a pluot hybrid, also from a Japanese plum).

Apparently Japanese plums fruit on the previous year's wood. Best pruned in summer just after the tree is harvested. Cut back all shoots by at least half, while opening up the centre of the tree by removing inward growing branches.

After seeing a seriously amazing espalier at the SEGT (I managed two gardens on Sunday after opening my garden on Saturday), I am very tempted to start espaliering my backyard trees. It would mean a few years of very limited harvests, but the results could be really good for a small backyard, rather than the crazy shrubberies that I'm having to deal with.

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APRICOT

Old Apricot Tree Pruning from SFGate.

OTHER

Central leader

This requires a central framework where the most growth is at the trunk of the tree, growing upwards in a balanced fashion. Make sure the branches have lots of space so they have enough room to expand as they age.
Apple trees:tip or spur bearers (goes to FB, but short version: most heritage are spur bearers, most common backyard are tip.
Cherry trees
Mango trees
Mulberry trees
Avocado trees
Pear trees

Open centre The open centre structure system looks like a vase, keeping the centre of the tree as clear as possible. You start by pruning a young fruit tree at its main trunk but maintaining the ones that surround it, giving more open space to the central part of the tree.
Apricot trees
Nectarine trees
Peach trees
Plum trees
Olive trees

from here

a big black horse and a cherry tree

After watching Gardening Australia's segment on cherries - a few lessons!

Cherry trees: stress them a little.
- too healthy, into leaves and shoots.

If there's too many branches, then they'll put all their energy into leaves and shoots

- soil type doesn't matter
spring: pelletised chicken manure
winter: again
mulch it through winter

But they need to be mulched through the winter, and fed early spring (probably July for us) and winter (I'd guess April, just before mulching.)

- chill factor - 700hours 8C or lower

That's about 1 month below 8C. It can definitely work in the colder parts of Sydney - southern plains, western Sydney, and up in the northern hills districts where we spend most of June and July between 5-10C at nights. I've had a pretty good cherry crop in Sydney, but I'm attributing the fact that it wasn't 'really good' to my ignorance on how to manage a crop.

Pruning: I think this is probably where the rubber hits the road for me.

For seedlings
December: cut back to 50mm
- take the vigorous ones out
- too vigorous too healthy

The trees on the program each had long skinny branches that had multiple fruits on them. I've been trimming my long branches back to shorter stubs because that's how to do it with larger stone fruit and with apples. Looks like it was a mistake - too many opportunities for the energy to go into leaves, not enough energy to go into fruit. So later this summer, I'll be chopping back the tree - take out the really big branches quite heavily, maybe stump one or two of the medium branches and see if we get the long, thin growths around it. Can't hurt, right?

how do you like them nettings?

Working from home means I can take a lunchbreak and sort out my apple tree, which is beset on all sides by the teeth of rodents.

This apple tree in the corner has never fruited. And I figured that it was because it was in such a sheltered spot that it didn't recognise the seasons. But last year, I pruned it quite heavily, hoping for a good harvest. And in mid-August, I found that two of the grafts were full of little fruiting spurs!

I was so excited! APPLES FROM MY OWN TREE!

...and then one by one they started...disappearing.

The blossoms were gone, not fallen or died, just the tops eaten clean off!

Time to do some sleuthing! Going out one night, I found slugs all over the tree, climbing up to do damage to my flowers! ARGH! I disposed of the slugs I found, treated the tree for slugs (grease banding, salt banding, copper wire), but the blossoms continued to vanish! Nooooo!

Considering the tree, I realised that a lot of the higher-up leaves had been chewed off. Rats, perhaps? Or mice? I started netting the tree against rats, and now - now! - I have a few blossoms that will hopefully cross-pollinate to set fruit.

I just have to keep on taking the netting off during the day and replace it in the evening. Once it has blossomed and set fruit, I can leave the netting on all the time, it's just getting to that point that's tricky, because the bees and pollinators need access to the flower to do their thing. They also need access to all the pollinating groups at the same time.

At any rate, the two early grafts of the tree are probably an Akane and a Golden Dorsett. I say probably because the label long ago fell off and now I don't actually know which fruit they are! There's at least one Granny Smith in there, but I unfortunately cannot remember the last one, and although I bought it from Fruit Salad Trees; it was at least 6 years ago and I don't know if they carry records that long.

In other news, the early stone fruit along the front driveway have been netted. Crops look promising this year, although the curl leaf blight has struck again - I don't think I sprayed it early enough. Except that I'm not sure it lost its leaves early enough this year to spray. My friend Steph has a herb (horehound) that she swears stops the leaf curl, so I'll have to collect some off her, maybe?

There are flowers happening on the 'dual plum' tree. Although really it's a plum/plumicot tree: Mariposa plum and Flavor Supreme plum-apricot hybrid. Actually, the flowers are only happening on one side of the tree. Which is a little frustrating. And I don't know which side it is, either! Guess we'll find out when they ripen...

Don't know if the cherry will blossom, let alone fruit. It wasn't very good last year, which might have been the dry season, but this season is looking a lot wetter and more hopeful - back to the La Nina pattern, which is a warm and wet spring to early summer over here on the East Coast.

I've done some grafting, which is going to be an exercise in interesting. This time, I took photos to remember what graft is where! That's a post in and of itself, I think.