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Haopy gardening
Robyn
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One of the joys many gardeners have is going outside into the garden to deadhead roses. I have never met anyone who does not get some kind of pleasure in doing this. Each time you cut one there is always the chance a new bud with shoot through and develop into a stunning rose. Continue reading How to deadhead roses I went to see the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show on Thursday. I arrived about 9.00am by train which was such an easy way to get there. I got out at Parliament Station and it’s just a 3 minute walk to the main gate of the exhibition. I was amused to see the two distinct types of people in my train carriage. It was so obvious the older more sedate people were going to the Garden Show and the rest were without doubt petrol heads going to the Thursday Trials for the Melbourne Grand Prix. Opposite me were three men in their late 30’s all revved up for the big day at the Track, talking nonstop about cars, times, breakdowns, records etc etc etc. I almost burst out laughing when one of them told the others he was off to the Garden Show on Sunday with his wife, the other two chimed in saying they went last year and how good it was. You can’t judge a book by it’s cover as they say. As it was so early there were not that many people so wandering around was easy and the temperature cooler. I spent time initially looking at all of the various stall holders and their goods for sale, nothing new there from what I could see although they had all taken a lot of care making sure their stalls looked fantastic. My main focus was the garden exhibitions and they were well worth going to see. Continue reading Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show 2010 Today I visited a dear friend ‘up the country’ and while she was attending to some other visitors I used her computer to check my emails. Just outside her office window I noticed my Dad’s birds nest fern in full flourish. Memories came flooding back of Dad and how he used to tend his ferns on a very regular basis. He made new back frames for the stag horns and would wire them afresh as they grew larger and larger. Over the 24 years since Dad’s death we are only left with this one birds nest. Little did I know when I moved to the country it would be another nine years before I would attach a garden hose to mains water and hand water plants. We had moved onto five acres in an area gripped by disastrous drought and there is still no sign of it abating. Of course that meant not enough water for our garden. The hoses we had in the country started to wither though lack of use, in fact ants took up home in most of the hoses and lived there for years. For our entire nine years there we could not use the hoses once. It came as such a culture shock to be in the city today and get out there with a garden hose and hand water the plants on this suburban block. But, between 6.00am and 8.00am every Tuesday and Saturday you are permitted to water plants by hand, so off I went with the best of intentions, what I didn’t know was that I lacked skill. Continue reading Water Wise Gardening can be dangerous Clever vegetable garden design will always ensure you achieve healthy plants and an abundance of food. I guess it might take another vegetable gardener to appreciate just how lovely it is to visit someone’s home for dinner and wander out with the host to their garden and help select fresh produce for the meal. There is nothing in the world like it in my opinion. Continue reading Good vegetable garden plans produce an abundance of food I finally learned how to make Risotto! May seem like a small thing to those of you who already knew but I had been trying for years to make a decent one and failed every time. I even paid and went to an evening cooking class to learn but walked away defeated. Well, life has changed let me tell you. Continue reading Basil and Tomato Risotto It seems many of our house sits these days also include looking after chooks (hens, chickens,fowl). It certainly adds a lot of flavor to gardening when you can use their manure for compost and they also help by keeping garden pests under control. Recently we returned to one of our rural house sits. In July 2009 apart from looking after many farm animals we were also caring for five chooks. At that time they were certainly alive and very healthy, laying eggs daily. However, by January 2010 three had ‘fallen off the perch’ (died) and the remaining two had stopped laying eggs as ‘they were too old now’. Continue reading Chooks falling off the perch With mulch the use of the word organic comes from fact the ingredients have derived from living organisms, that is, they originate from animal or vegetable life, it has nothing to do with the health of the mulch at all. My intention in writing this article is to help clean up any confusions that exist about the way in which advertisers use the word organic in regard to mulch. If it once lived or is still living, then it can be called Organic. Well, it’s not as complicated as you might think. Anything, and I mean anything at all that has lived at one time or another can rightly be called organic. If it has come originally from a plant or animal it is organic. A piece of wood that has survived a nuclear explosion it can be called Organic. Here is the crunch, it doesn’t matter if the item has been drenched in pesticides, herbicides, poisons, petrochemicals, even survived a nuclear explosion, if it has once lived it can rightly be called organic. Continue reading Difference between Organic Mulch and Certified Organic Mulch One of the key components of any Permaculture course is about learning how to grow some of your own food from your own garden. It is possible to supply approximately 80% of your annual food requirements within 50 metres of your home. Think about that, 80% of your food would be organically grown, chemical free, herbicide free, pesticide free. You would be regenerating the soil, creating new life where once only lawn, weeds, cement, concrete or paths existed. That has to be good for the environment and importantly good for you and your family. |
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