Dear Diary: 20th March

WEATHER:

Rain, but had a heatwave on the weekend - 37C and sunny!

RAIN

Light sprinkles, not seeping into the soil

CHOOKS:

Shan and Coldie have been to the vet. Shan has swelling and got a new implant. Coldie has lumps inside her. Vet will drain both on Wednesday, and advise further from there.

OSBERVATIONS

Spiders.

PREPARATION:

VEGEPOD - did some 'edge composting' with comfrey

PLANTING

VEGEPOD - planted GINGER (probably), BLACK TURMERIC, YELLOW TURMERIC, and something else that might be GALANGAL (can hope)
VEGEPOD - CARROTS (purple dragon), SPRING ONIONS, and 6 BEETROOT (golden detroit)

RIPENING

CUCUMBERS, AVOCADOS, TOMATOES (the ones around the front, anyway)

HARVEST

earlier on in March, picked the APPLES and stored them.

CUCUMBERS - 3 hanging from the vine that's growing up the peach tree
AVOCADOS - might pick one and see how it ripens - except we have so many avos in the fridge right now!

PRUNING

everything needs pruning; need to talk to the Mormon youths volunteering about a date and time for them to come by and help

THOUGHTS

I planted some tomatoes late - about three or four varieties, including BLUE SMURF, AMETHYST CREAM, and a couple of others that I don't remember right now. Hopefully they produce at least two tomatoes - one that I can eat for flavour and one that I can save for seeds.

Windows are supposed to be done today, which means clearing around the house. Cement bricks to go down to the south-west corner, I think. I may need some time and assistance to sort out/throw out stuff in the shed so that there's space for more things. (Also, putting things that we don't use on freecycle.)

Lawn was done today - they came at 10:30 and were done by 11:30. Whirlwind. We have a bin full of lawn clippings - have to tip that in with the chooks in the next day.

Some local JW youths are offering gardening services free of charge. I'm tempted to ask them to come by and pull up the long runner grass in the backyard, then lay down woodchips and start planting the groundcover for the 'back lawn'. Could possibly ask for their help in cutting the steel down to bed-size.

Need to ask W's help to not only move things, but maybe also sort through the 'resource centre' - all those metal sheets and PVC pipes. Gotta work out where to store them. Under the house? It's a bit of mess down there, and crowded to boot.

If I was going to work out an under-house storage, the primary need would be to make it vermin-proof.

The rats are back. DAMMIT.

Thoughts in late Feb

not valid anymore, just notes

Winter this year, need to think about how to enrich the soil for the next season, even as planting/growing for this one.

GARLIC and slow ONIONs - small vegepod 1

GINGER - polystyrene box (maybe one of the black council boxes?)

POTATOES - box (black council box?)

CARROTS, LEEKS, SPRING ONIONS - small vegepod 2?

CABBAGES & CAULIS (maybe in TRIANGLE BED): buy a fine netting (Diggers)

APPLE-CREPE:

currently: CORN & BEANS

follow up: BROAD BEANS

CREPE-APRICOT

currently: TOMATOES & PEANUTS

follow up: green vegies (SILVERBEET)

then BRASSICAS

APRICOT-AVO

currently: TOMATOES

follow up: return to grass/path/lawn - use the 'lilypad' netting stuff? It grows like crazy but also seems to be pulled up pretty easily - look it up for advantages/disadvantages...

Dear Diary: mid-Feb

WEATHER:Hot. Upper 20s, heading for the 30s over the weekend. It's going to be very hot.

The patterns are shifting out of La Nina. Whether they'll head for El Nino is another matter, but the chances are about 60% right now? No more normal seasons; too hot, or too cold.

RAIN & WATER

Had some very decent rains the last few months - usually very clear skies and then abruptly, DOWNPOUR. Last Thursday night had a pretty major storm to the point where the large water tank was significantly overflowing. I pretty much removed the cap on the 'first flush' and then it stopped overflowing but it was basically all going out to stormwater.

I've been using the watertank to water the trees and the beds in the triangle garden, the potted trees and so forth.

CHOOKS:

B1 and B2 have been formally named - in French, because our knowledge of Chinese dishes ran out pretty fast: Caramba (Caramel) and Chouquette (Cream puff) for their colours. They're growing very fast and today are much more chicken-shaped than pullet-shaped.

Goong is back to being broody again. Sissy (Siyao) is laying. We're afraid that Coldie or Shantung's chip has worn out and they're laying again, though - we got an egg that didn't look like a Sissy egg today, so the sister is worried. I have the money to put another chip in, but I kind of don't want to.

OSBERVATIONS

Comfrey is growing really thickly just about everywhere. I'm picking off the flower buds as fast as they grow, but they're still growing quite fervently. Not sure if they'll dry up and die with winter (I think they do, which: whew) but I hope so.

PREPARATION:

The APPLE-CREPE bed has chicken poop and straw all over it. I should put another layer of straw on there, Maybe mix it all in together, rake it flat, and cover with more straw?

PLANTING

I tossed some old PARSNIP seed down in the BACKYARD BATHTUB earlier this week.

Need to interplant some carrots, I think.

Might have to use the front vegepods for ONIONS, LEEKS, CARROTS, BEETROOTS, RADISHES...

RIPENING

The Rosewood PUMPKIN is long and green, the Queensland Sunrise is round and fat and orange, and there's at least one large longneck from the ginormous vine that started in the pumpkin-potato bed. Not as many fruiting flowers as I'd have liked, only one per major vine so far... The smaller curcubit vines aren't producing anything.

TOMATOES:

HARVEST

APPLES - the Gala are very ready, and the Delicious are ripening steadily.

CORIANDER - the short sprouts are starting to go seedy, but even just having it there makes it good and ready

BASIL - the bought basil is doing great, the seedling basil keeps getting dug up by the chooks when they get out. ARGH!

PRUNING

Fruit trees will need major pruning, quite possibly involving a chainsaw. I need to get one of the neighbours in on this sometime.

THOUGHTS

Still haven't heard back from the window guys; need a date - trying to arrange to move things away from the windows.

I want to make a vegie frittata entirely from Things Grown In My Garden: potatoes, basil, sage, parsley, green leafies, eggs. Okay, maybe I'll add cheese to that. It's kind of the wrong weather for baking though. I always want to bake when it's hot. I don't know why.

2023 is here

There are AVOS in the tree, APPLES on the branches, PUMPKINS growing in the front, and TOMATOES in the triangle garden. The CORN is doing very well up in the back corner by the APPLE tree.

But oh, I'm starting to fret about the backyard and the way it's falling apart. It need a serious makeover with a solid chicken tunnel and better garden beds. Plus, I need to let some of the grasses grow back - but not the awful runner-grass that just ends up growing everywhere and is impossible to get rid of. That's starting to take over the paths because I haven't chip-mulched them in a year...

Then there's the comfrey that is refusing to stay down and dead, and which I planted all over the place and which is going to be a pest going forward...

I mean that, there, in the pic above? That's rhubarb. Something else entirely. but, yes, comfrey can be a pest, too...

Something that I'm thinking of doing this year is redesigning the 'Victory Garden' for:
a) Sydney, Australia and our temperate climates (far more variety available, and a recognition that summer temps are not going to grow cabbages and leeks very well)
b) permaculture gardens (instead of rows along a backyard which would be awful to weed)
c) my permaculture garden

It will require rethinking things in time and space. And possibly remodelling the backyard. Even remodelling the front yard.

If I think about it, I have a whole lot of garden beds available for use: not just the ones in the back which I plan to keep (PLUM-STONE, APPLE-CREPE, CREPE-APRICOT, and possibly AVO-SHED), but also the IBC (now on the porch), two small VEGEPODs the large VEGEPOD, two metal beds in the TRIANGLE GARDEN and a growing space between the espaliered apples.

Positioning them for best sunlight/productivity, while allowing the lawn to be mowed? That's another matter entirely...

I also need to find a swift-growing, easy-care lawn material that isn't runner grass... haha. Simple!

major things to do in the garden in 2023

Plant out the gingers/turmerics
I'm trying to work out where's a good place to put the bed - somewhere that gets both sun and rain. At this point, I'm landing at 'right outside the lounge room window'. I'd like to be able to separate the gingers from the turmerics, but right now EVERYTHING IS A MIX.

Trim down the backyard trees - very severely in the cases of the donut peach, plum, and the 4-stone.
The backyard needs a lot more sun, and I'd like my trees to be more vigourous, which means cutting them now rather than later (and then chipping the remainder).

Also, once the trees are reduced in size, I might be able to clamber around and look at replacing the chicken tunnels with something more solid.

Move the vegepod from next to the driveway: I would like to make a community garden, but I don't know who'll report it, or what the response from Hornsby Council is likely to be.

Move the IBC to the front porch: get assist by HD?

Set up underneath the house with green racks and storage: assist by HD?

wash all dirty plastic (incl feed bags) and get to recycling centre: could maybe ask HD to do the rinsing off/scrubbing?

clean and take all polystyrene boxes to recycling: ask HD?

move the things along the side (incl cinder blocks) to somewhere else: 

So many things to do, so little time! But at least I took apart the wicking bed in front of the lounge window, and relocated it as a temporary growing bed to between the GOLDEN PEACH and the PERSIMMON.

edible garden trail thoughts

What do I want to showcase in my garden?
what can be done in a small space
chicken keeping in suburbia
microclimates
fruit trees/orchard

How do I showcase these elements/philosophies?

not a diary entry: 2023

Feels like it's been ages since I typed up one of these. Probably because it has. It's easier to go through a list of things and think about them that way than to really contemplate what's going to happen and how to go about it.

2023 is going to be a busy year, starting with the window replacements - which are great, but I also need to work out how to seal the space under/behind the skirting boards of the house. See, there's a slight gap in most of them, and that's probably contributing to the heat loss in winter as well.

First things first, though: getting everything away from the windows, indoors and outdoors, tossing what needs to be tossed, and getting rid of what needs to be gotten rid of.

I need to work out categories for sorting things into, to store useful things together. eg. all pruning equiment, all stuff for fruit trees (fruit fly netting, stocking ties, etc.), hardware, chooks, etc.

Obviously, there'll be some overlap, but hopefully by having them collected together it'll be so much easier to find things!

Before I leave:
1. Fill a barrel with water, soak all the seed pots while I'm away to loosen the dirt.
2. Cut the porch rope into reasonable lengths coil, and store in the shed. (Exactly where? I don't know. Exactly how? I haven't the faintest idea!)
3. Toss out the stuff in the triangle sink on the porch, and put the quick-fix cement into the red bin.
4. Measure the space needed by the IBC and make space for it as needful. (Maybe swap the wooden shelving for the wire shelving at the back of the carport? MEASURE FIRST.) If there's space for it, wrestle the IBC over there.
5. Trim down the BRASSICAS in the FRONT LOUNGE bed.

When I get back, I'm going to hire someone to help me sort through things, because it's easier with someone else there to ask things of ("should I throw out this thing that I like to think I'll use but likely won't?") and someone to share the load.
6. pull out things from 'under the house', would be nice if I could work out storage racks or something there - making more space for things to be stored? Perhaps move the two/three green metal shelves under there? (The problem is getting things off the shelves and stored away while the shelves are being cleaned and moved...
7. I can't think of anything more right now, I'm tired. I'll make a list while I'm visiting K and J at Homeground 2023

Here, have a pic of B1 with a chook under her arm - the incredibly fluffy, broody, and beautiful Goong-bao: