Yay for Zygos!

Well, I didn’t make it to the gym today, as I had my cello lessons… and a sleep in… so, anyways, I went for a run instead. Nick is going to the UK for five weeks on Monday, so I’m going to extend my challenge to next week - when I’m more likely to get to the gym a few more times rather than trying to store up five weeks worth of cuddles!

This weekend I’m off to the ‘Plant Fair in the Back Paddock’ at the Botanic Gardens - it looks awesome. Though, knowing my history, I’m likely to come home with waaaay more plants than I actually need. Though, when it comes to plants, the more the merrier!

I have to say, one particular plant I’m immensely enjoying at the moment is the zygocactus. For those of you who don’t have one… here’s one of mine in full bloom.

Most of the year it’s a rather boring succulent - but when it flowers, it does a proper job of it!

They come in all sorts of colours - pink, white, red, variegated, and apparently some yellow and orange, but I haven’t seen these. I’d love to collect them all. They are fantastically easy to propagate - just break off one of the stems and stick it into some good soil, and like any good succulent, it will eventually take root and form a new plant. I plan on having a big collection one day! Just a few years and a little patience.

I shall update you on what I succumb to on Saturday…

Spraying for freedom!

I had lots of plans for the garden today, but unfortunately we are being assaulted by fierce cold winds at the moment. We managed to re-pot our lovely new trees, and also to spray some possum deterrent around some sacrificial basil and tomato plants. We already have ‘the cage’, and we were going to build another one as we need more room for our ever-expanding potted vege garden, but I suggested we try this first, as it will be a lot less hassle than building another cage and having to get into it every time we want to harvest anything.

So, we shall see how our sacrificial plants fare over the next week, and if the possum gives them a miss, we’ll go crazy potting out all our poor tomato seedlings that are getting sick of their little pots. I’m hopeful that it will work, as my poor cat, Gobbolino, who usually loves the balcony (where we sprayed today) was hesitant to even go out there at all.

My Latest Aquisitions!

After my ride to the gym this morning, I faced a much nicer task - going down to the organic nursery at the Northey Street City Farm and buying us a few new trees.

We’ve got a Macadamia nut, a white Mulberry, and a Lemonade fruit. Yum! I’m hoping the Mulberry, being a fast fruiter, will give us fruit within a year or two, and boy am I looking forward to it.

When I was little we had an old Mulberry tree on our property, and I used to love ferreting around in there and eating the warm fruit straight off the tree. Good memories

I’ll be starting these little guys off in pots, and perhaps planting them out when we buy our own place.

But they will have company…

The Story So Far - May 2008 - Part 2

So, to continue…

Today - the compost heap. Well, not so much heap as column. When I first moved into the house, there was no composting going on. However, when I suggested the idea, everyone was up for it. So, we pulled out an old ice-cream container, which has successfully functioned as our bench-top compost bin ever since.

However, we were lacking the main ingredient - a compost bin. I ventured underneath our house, which, being a high-set old Queenslander that has been rented since the dawn of time, had accumulated the detritus of generations of housemates. Amongst the mess were a stack of old tyres and an old metal rubbish bin. Voila - the compost monster was born!

We had to shove a few old pieces of thin plywood inside to stop the food scraps falling into the inside of the tyres. However, as you can see, with the food scraps of four people going into it over the last few months, it has almost reached capacity!

I’m really looking forward to somehow pulling it apart and seeing what we have sitting at the bottom. I’m hoping to find some really dense, nutrient-rich compost to give to my plants. I’ll keep ya posted.

The Story So Far - May 2008 - Part 1

So, here’s the situation.

At the moment, we are living on a regular suburban block in Brisbane, and winter’s slowly sneaking up on us. Unfortunately, we’re only renting in a sharehouse at the moment - so what gardening we do is of the temporary variety.

So far this year we’ve feasted on our own home-grown lettuce (which is, I truly have to say, far superior to anything we can buy from the supermarket), snow peas, cherry tomatoes, beans, basil (I love fresh pesto!), chives, mung beans and parsley. The main problem we have discovered has been quantity! Or rather, the lack thereof!

We fell into the trap of planting one lot of seeds, and then forgetting about them because ‘we’ve already got snow peas’… But once we tasted our own home-grown ones, we couldn’t get enough! We’ve only just planted some more seeds out now, as our last vines have already died.

So - Lesson No. 1: Plant Sequentially! Make sure to keep a regular schedule of planting out new seeds and seedlings. When you’ve got limited space like we have (there is ground space, and we’ve tried some of it - however the soil is bad and we don’t know how long we’ll be here before we buy our own place, so we haven’t wanted to put more effort than necessary) it is difficult to grow the quantity of foods needed to actually keep a regular supply.

So, for the moment, we’re concentrating on increasing the number and density of our plants!

Another problem we’ve had to overcome has been the possums. Now those of you who live in Brisbane will know what we’re talking about… risk leaving a tasty tomato seedling out for even one night, and you’ll come out to find it leafless in the morning! Those hungry little buggers like to get their teeth into anything that we might possibly like to eat, and so we are also limited in our growing space by the need for ‘The Cage’.

So far, it’s worked a treat to keep the possums out, but it does make just picking the few ripe cherry tomatoes each day a bit more of a chore!

And the food garden isn’t the only thing. I believe that creating a more sustainable life includes creating peace and beauty around yourself to help temper the stressors most of us face - so I have a growing collection of ornamental plants as well!. All that plus the recycled-tyre compost heap and the best way to beat water restrictions is coming up in the next installment