Growing Vege's

Yummy greens for my sandwich

Here's my little vege seedlings one month after visiting the markets. Even after this short period, the outside leaves of the Cos Lettuce are ready to be cut and placed on a nice open sandwich. Same with the Rocket. I lost all but one beetroot to bloody Bandicoots (vile, filthy creatures) The Kale is growing really quickly. The flowers you can see in the foreground are self seeded Coriander - themselves about to go to seed. Some of the seeds will be harvested for curry and some will be left to grow. Don't forget to harvest some Coriander root which is an ingredient for a nice Curry paste.
Baby Lettuce leaves are best served with a nice Shiraz.

The Vege's 4 weeks ago

And about 2 weeks ago

Regular Garden Maintenance

Before

After

There are some jobs that a Paddock Worker has to do regularly. Hard pruning of vine plants is highly recommended unless you don't mind loosing your Cubby House to vegetation. Shown here is the Wisteria and Jasmine. Both take hard pruning well - the harder the better. Both will grow back after about 3 or 4 minutes, or at least that's what it feels like. You may notice the handy bins that always travel with me on pruning expeditions. I use these as nothing that grows in the paddock leaves the paddock. Everything gets recycled around trees that I want to grow. Dumping these around trees helps retain moisture in the soil, helps prevent weeds from growing and will rot down to feed the trees and improve the humus in the soil. As for me, it's a nice Shiraz which improves my disposition nicely. Cheers.

Garage Sales

I don't normally go to garage sales, but there were a whole lot of cars parked in our street yesterday and the sale was right across the road so I went over. Here's the stuff I bought for $10. The most expensive item was the hose nozzle. Brand new by the look and it will be very handy down at La Studio when I get to planting in the next few weeks. The garden string line will be handy and the other things in plastic bags looked great quality for a dollar each. Turns out the are some sort of clip on thingy to go on brick walls and hold up hanging pots. There isn't a brick in sight of the paddock so I will have to adapt them. Then the Responsible Adult went over and negotiated to buy these 3 wall planters for $30 (she's a very tough bargainer - you've been warned). They'll look great somewhere.
Unfortunately, they didn't have any bottles of Shiraz for a dollar each - but you can't have everything.

 

Mulberry Season

 Mulberry Season has happened at the house paddock. There is now a 2 week window of opportunity to get as many Mulberries as I can - then the tree will grow like crazy and can only be controlled by hard pruning four times a day. Don't ever be tempted to buy a Mulberry tree. If you want one, just cut a bit off mine and stick it in the ground. You will have a tree in no time. Caring for your Mulberry tree is easy. Ignore it. I have found five uses for the Mulberry tree. Jam, Pie, feeding the Dear Little Chaps silkworms, tempting the cow to the bails (cows love Mulberry leaves) and mulch, mulch, mulch.
I know what's worrying you - what about the evil dicky birds knocking off your fruit? - you ask. Don't worry. For some reason they only knock off the fruit that grows above my head height. This means, I don't need a step ladder to fall off and there are plenty of Mulberries at my height to feed the humans. Now that my first harvest is in, will it be jam or pie?

Bay Laurel tree in a pot

The Responsible Adult recently took me to our favorite Organic Store which also has a fancy Organic Cafe attached that sells fancy herb seedlings and plants.
I took a fancy to a Bay tree which was $8.95. Shocking, I know - I could have had a bottle of not fancy, but passable Shiraz for that. But there was a Bay tree in the home paddock when we moved here. It died soon after and ever since, I have wanted another one. So I used the Magic Plastic Card and have brought it home. According to Google, it will grow well in a pot in full sun or partial shade. It needs frequent watering as it is shallow rooted and should be pruned in spring. My normal fertiliser routine with fish emulsion should keep it happily fed.

Is it a conspiracy??

Yesterday was one of THOSE days. I try to avoid THOSE days, but they sometimes happen. Couldn't find a square. I have two that I inherited from Big Daddy but could not find one of them. Immediately blamed this on My Youngest who recently, under threat of torture, revealed that the secret location of my cordless drill was in the boot of his car. Then I took the trailer that Good Mate had lent me to get some sand, gravel and cement. As the load went in, the tyres went rather flat. Blamed this on Good Mate who surely should have checked the tyres before lending out his trailer. Then Responsible Adult turned up. She had irresponsibly left her lunch at home so I cooked her crispy bacon and eggy bread thus loosing valuable minutes away from concreting. I tell you, they're out to get me.
But, then again, the squares could have been mislaid by, well, me. The tool shed does need a good tidy up. I guess the Good Mate is not known for putting heavy loads in the trailer, so perhaps I could have checked the tyres first. And, it is always a pleasure to cook for Responsible Adult as she is my sweetie. So perhaps best to calm down and just proceed around or over those little irritable obstacles and get through the day one step at a time.
Just keep in mind that at 5pm, the cork will be out of the bottle of a nice Shiraz.

More on Non Weeding

A small load of rough mulch

My name's Prince and I use herbicide. It has been 4 days since I last sprayed. 
Some people around here consider that herbicide use is very, very bad. I do offer to stop using if they will come over and weed for me, but so far nobody has taken me up on that. Herbicides help me transform an area from weeds to garden with a view that eventually I won't be reliant on them. To help reduce my spraying I use mulch. Most afternoons, I prune around the house paddock and fill up the little trailer with cuttings. 

Rough mulch added to rainforest area

 These get dumped around rainforest trees. In a year or two, I will have a canopy to shade the ground and the vast bulk of weeds will stop coming through. The mulch will have rotted to improve the soil. The area will maintain itself with a minimal amount of hand weeding. 

Native Violets - great for keeping out weeds

Great if you're growing rainforest, but even small areas can be grown out to be weed free. The aim is to not garden on the basis of perpetual herbicide use, but to use herbicides sparingly as an aid to getting your paddock in order - then stop using.

If only it didn't taste so good with coke.

Visitng the Markets

Every few months, I wander down to the Caboolture Markets. Best time to get there is about dawn. By breakfast time, it is hot and crowded. There certainly is plenty of stuff to buy there, but I go for the plants. Veg seedlings, trees, shrubs, flowers - whatever. Not everything is cheap, but there are plenty of bargains if you look closely. It's also a good place to buy fruit and veg, old tools that are still better than new tools. Bits of hardware and so on. What would sell like hot cakes is paddock slaves to plant all the things I bought, but nobody seems to have thought of that yet.

Repotting the Birds Nest Fern

We've had this little beauty for a long, long time. A large Birds Nest Fern should probably be repotted every 4 or 5 years. The new foliage grows on top of the old, so it starts to climb out of your container. After pulling it out of the old container, feel free to hack away at the bottom, cutting away the old dead stuff. An old bread knife is handy. You may also notice that my new basket has an extra liner - one size smaller than the basket - for a bit of added protection at the bottom.

 And there you go. A nice new bed for wandering carpet pythons.

Free plants

When we moved to the paddock, someone gave me a Clivia. It looked a bit like this.

After a few years, it looked like this. So I started to dig up the new ones and move them around. Now we have about 100.

 If only I could find a lipstick to match.

Well, well, well - 3 holes in the ground

Having moved the timber around the paddock (and increased the size of my manly muscles) its time dig some holes. These three likely looking holes were a breeze. Digging in nice soft red top soil with a crow bar and shovel is easy peasy. These 3 posts will finish the front fence at the house paddock. A job that I started about 10 years ago and never got round to finishing. It will soon be off the bucket list.

                                                                   
Not so easy digging at La Studio. The site had already been excavated to a depth of about a metre, so I'm digging in subsoil. The fossilised velociraptor bones are pretty jarring when I hit them with the crow bar. There's only a dozen or so of these holes to dig, so I tell myself that they will all be finished by Christmas. In the hole is a very simple depth guide. I want to build a 40cm high wall so the holes need to be 40cm deep at least to take an 80cm post. Oh well, hopefully I will have a very manly 6 pack by the time all these holes get installed.

Digging Holes

I'd rather be doing this

So the timbers all moved now comes the next bit of fun, fun, fun. I need to dig some nice big holes to install some posts. Installing timber posts is not a bit like facebook posts. Instead of a keyboard and monitor, you use a crow bar and shovel. And rather than exercising your fingers, you get to use all sorts of muscles - some you didn't even know you had till they start aching. But instead of the transient nature of facebook posts, your fence posts should last years and years.One thing you don't normally get with a fence post is likes or comments, but I may have a cunning plan to overcome this deficiency - stay tuned.

As for the picture, well the caption says it all. You too can be just like this. Give your responsible adult a good feed and a few glasses of a nice Shiraz and guide her to the comfy chair.

Easy way to move timber

Some of the timber moved to La Studio

So I bought a big pile of timber to do various jobs around the Paddock. I asked that delivery be as close as possible to La Studio. For the truck driver, this was about 50 meters uphill of the site. And, to be extra helpful, the timber was all stacked on top of each other with the bits I need first carefully located at the bottom of the pile.

So I thought about how to move all this timber. After thinking for a month or two, I noticed that not once piece of timber had moved. So I decided to pick it up one piece at a time, start at the start and end at the end. It was a slow process, but at least I had time to notice all the weeds that need pulling out around La Studio.

Oddly enough, I slept really well this morning. 

Wisteria

Every summer, when the Wisteria is growing 3 meters an hour, and when its roots go all the way under the cubby house and throw up shoots the other side I sit on the verandah and plan its total destruction as a menace. But then I know it will look like this for two weeks every spring and so it stays. If you're ever tempted to take one home to your paddock - be warned - it will never cease in its quest to dominate the entire paddock. My tip is to be brutal. Never encourage it with fertiliser and show it the secateurs every week. An occasional flogging may help. 

Des and June's Orchids

Des and June grow and sell Orchids at our local Co-op between June and September each year. The Responsible Adult told me years ago that while she appreciates cut flowers, she does consider them to be a bit wasteful and would much prefer Shiraz and chocolate. From time to time then, I may purchase a flowering plant on the basis that we will get the nice flowers over and over. The problem with this theory, is that while I can usually get the plant to remain alive, they never seem to want to flower again. I've tried the Princely methods - talking to them nicely, talking to them not so nicely, playing Mozart to them as well as Death Metal, but nothing has worked for me.

So it was great when June phoned me last night and I had an opportunity to ask Des for some advice. Pretty simple really - keep them in a well ventilated spot with just a bit of sunlight each day and add slow release fertilser from time to time. I shall try this and report back. If it doesn't work, I may just take them back to Des with the advice that he should make it flower and sell it to me again next year.  

Pottering about

Around the end of each month, I come up to the house paddock to do some maintenance on the pot plants. As it warms up, this will be increased to once a fortnight. It doesn't take long. Orchids, ferns and Palms get a sprinkle of slow release fertiliser and all other pots get a dose of liquid fertiliser - Charlie Carp. Doing this gives you lush green growth and promotes flowering. Each time I do this, I also look to re-pot a plant or two so that re-potting doesn't build up to be a big, nasty chore.

Your Prince's recommendation is to do this work in the late afternoon with a glass or two of Shiraz which makes the work much more pleasant. For those Paddock workers who prefer pot maintenance do be carried out at lunch time it is recommended to switch from Shiraz to Pinot Noir - your plants may not appreciate it, but you will. 

Another before and after

What a lovely Fathers Day. All weeds were granted a stay of execution to mark the specialness of the day. The Responsible Adult and I went down to 'La Studio' and played for a while. Apart from that, I read and am now awaiting a dinner cooked by baby Ben and his main squeeze Marigold. So I thought I would reminisce with a before and after photo of the little gully at the bottom of the Paddock. 

The before (if you hadn't guessed)

Rest and Be Thankful

Across the road there is a driveway bordered by some rather nice Azalea's which has a sign - "Rest and Be Thankful". Sounded like a good idea to me and for the first few months after we had moved to the paddock I did a fair bit of that. My day was get the kiddies up to the school bus (the top of our driveway), rest and be thankful, pick the kiddies up from the school bus.

 One day, a man wandered down that driveway and introduced himself. Turned out to be gardening guru Colin Campbell. We had the first of many brief chats about this, that and the other and it was always a delight to bump into Colin - it was a bit like seeing an echidna or a particularly nice water dragon. He was a real charmer and blended in with the natural world extremely well.

Colin was one of those sorts of people you just imagine always being there and it was a real shock when he died last week. Even though my meetings with Colin were brief, I will miss not seeing him.

Rest in Peace, Colin - I'm thankful I met you

Non Weeding

6 years ago - similar to the area I'm working now. See what it looks like today at the end of this blog.

I'm still weeding. 'Bravo, my Prince -what commitment!' you say. Well, while there is no doubt that Paddock workers will never, ever finish weeding forever, there are ways to greatly reduce the numbers of weeds. Weeding should only happen in areas where you want something else to grow. Otherwise, mow, pave or build a chook house in that area.

Really Rough Mulch - weeds

The great gardener Peter Cundall was once asked if grass clippings were OK to mulch plants. His reply was that any mulch is better than no mulch. 

Rough Mulch - mainly Bougainvillea

Mulch protects against weed regrowth while breaking down and feeding the soil around the plants you want to grow.  

Weeding Tools

Here's my handy weeding tools. I call them Wills and Harry. Wills is a sturdy Hoe, good for chipping out shallow rooted weeds. Harry is some sort of home made blunt instrument, good for whacking things hard.