Sculpting the Garden: Easter Project

I've got the family down for a good holiday digathon. At Christmas I lured my family down to Tassie with offerings of turkey and homegrown vegies for a similar reason: cheap labour.

The task for Easter is to sculpt the side area of my backyard. It's been vegie garden beds with an uber functional aesthetic since I moved in (although it was originally all weeds apart from the rhubarb square in the corner). I don't want my garden just to be functional, as in purely for fruit and vegetable production. I also want a place to sit in, study, eat, enjoy. So I drew up a plan which has nooks for seating areas: one near the house for table and chairs, and one up the back where the rhubarb (and the best view to the north east) was for solitary contemplation.

Here are some photos from yesterday's construction efforts. I stupidly forgot to take a 'before' photo, but imagine a couple of large beds with overgrown leeks, silverbeet, weeds, strawberries, raspberry etc etc.

The head digger:


My uprooted raspberry cane, sitting in a bucket of water and liquid fertiliser:


The rhubarb patch. It needs to be totally uprooted


....and a view from the other direction:

bed removal:


And some photos from today:


Bunny, my sister's Jack Russell, is helping:


Will post updates tomorrow. This afternoon we laid out tiered beds and I dug up the rhubarb, placing them in buckets of water and liquid fertiliser before we plant them out as 'decorative functional' border plants along the new scalloped beds. I just forgot to take photos at the end of the day. I hope hope hope the rhubarb plants survive, because they've been spectacularly productive the last 18 months. I also hope my attempts to split the bigger ones go well. If anyone has any rhubarb hints, let me know.

The great rogaine debacle of 2009

I was just trawling through my old LiveJournal account, abandoned since 2009. My last post made me laugh because I'd been thinking of dusting off my walking boots to do a bit of an exploration of the Bay of Fires in the NE of Tasmania. The boots haven't been used since what could probably be called 'The Great Rogaine Debacle of 2009', which was recounted in my last LiveJournal entry. It was the 2009 Tasmanian Rogaine Championships. I'd only done the small 45 mins Sydney Summer Series mini rogaines, so when Dad asked me if I wanted to do a proper rogaine with me, I suggested that maybe we do the concessionary 8 hr, as opposed to the traditional 24 hr rogaine. For those who've never heard of a rogaine (ahh..... more innocent times), it's a masochistic exercise, the bastard cousin of orienteering, where you're given a map with numbered markers (which are worth between 10 to 30 points), a hint sheet (eg. south and bottom of the cliff, in the middle of the clump of spiky weeds) and let loose in the bush. You have to get to as many markers in 24 hours, or at least get as many points as possible. Therefore you should plan to go a route that is not only manageable but strategically crosses the best weighted markers. In Sydney, you run along roads, foreshore bush tracks and various other human friendly areas. What I didn't realise in the true rogains is that it's quite the opposite. Anyway, I'll let the following entry from 30th November 2009 explain the rest:

0 mins: it's pouring, freezing cold

10 mins: Dad suddenly realises when we get up to the first ridge that he was holding the map upside down and we were actually meant to be going in the exact opposite direction.

20 mins: we leave from the Hash House for the second time, this time in the right direction (slightly puffed).

30 mins: we are standing in a valley. I say 'I think the first marker is over there by the tree edge'. Dad says 'no, these maps are deceiving luce, believe me, it's over the next ridge'.

1hr: still no marker. I finally convince dad that we are near the second marker and that we should forget the second one, which was back where I said it was. I ask what the hint sheet says, and dad tells me that he left it in the boot of the car. We crash through the bush for quite a while longer, with dad running away from the second marker and back again a few times, before I finally spot it.

1.5 hours: we are on the top of a ridge after crashing through more spiky weeds and near-impenetrable fences, most adorned with barbed wire, some with electricity. I stop to empty my boots which had become buckets, and wring out my socks. I apply a bandaid to a blister on my heel, while dad obsesses over the compass. [21.03.11 note: Dad at this point introduced me to my now favourite saying: 'false economy'. Apparently I should have told him that my heel was hurting before the blister formed. Yet if you'd seen his frantic 'must go on regardless' state, you wouldn't ask to stop even if a Tasmanian Tiger had devoured half your leg]

2 hours: we make it to number 11. Easy. Dad readjusts the compass.

2.5 hours: still looking for the next marker. Dad runs up the cliff then back down again, even after admitting that it was too far away from the river. I wander down to the spot where the marker is meant to be, while dad decides to run off over the next ridge in the opposite direction, scaring the sheep. The Derwent rages below. I find the marker, while dad is out of earshot, and I briefly joke with a group of two girls (one of only two groups we bumped into the whole rogaine) about males and navigation. They comment that he seems to have 'a lot of energy'. He finally returns, and we swipe our tags and continue up the cliffs, dad raging up like a demented mountain goat ahead of me.

3 hours: we find the next marker, after dad unnecessarily leads us downhill through the weedy and more dense scrub, and then back up again despite my protestations. The two girls are at the marker too having followed the higher road, and laugh sympathetically with me as I ask dad if he wants take his compass bearings and he replies 'no it's this way... it just feels right'.

4 hours: the blister rears its ugly head once more and requires another boot drainage, sock wringing and blister bandage (the last one).

4.5 hours: I see a copperhead snake just as I'm about to step on it in the long grass, and jump higher and further than I ever have.

5 hours: we have reached the lyall highway again after grass bashing our way through muddy paddocks, around electric fences, and through barbed wire fences. Dad decides to take the road that leads away from the Hash House in the hope of getting a mere 28 point marker. As we walk up the road, he works out that we are 8 km away from HH as the crow flies (ie. lots of hills between us), and that even at our initial speed we wouldn't be able to make it back by 8 even if we don't get any more markers. Meanwhile, I'm limping because the blister has burst, the bandage has unstuck in the wet. I'm in pain beyond belief.

6 hours: We cut into a property, climbing over a gate, which tears my beautiful raincoat. we trudge up a weed infested hill, the same spiky plants that have been getting us the whole rogaine but on a thicker and taller scale than we have so far seen. we give up on the marker that should be nearby.

7 hours: deciding that we are on 'prohibited land' (as if I cared by that stage), dad leads us over a fence, across a creek and into a steep, rocky, weed and spiky bush-infested slope. My raincoat is torn on the arm from a thorny tree. We see the 45 marker up the hill, but decide to give up on the markers due to time (and on my part, pain). I start wishing that I had been bitten by the snake at 4.5 hrs so that I would no longer be here.

7.5 hours: wading through a sea of spiky weeds (the feet pain has put the spiky weed pain into perspective), we come out at another road, and then trudge up the hill, dad counting down the minutes, and getting worried. Poor thing! I feel extremely guilty for slowing him down and making him worried. I also feel like throwing a tantrum, but decide to smile instead to try and make him cheer up. I finally gather up the courage to ask if we can stop and fix my water which stopped working a long time ago. He scolds me for not telling him earlier [false economy, again], then points up the hill we have to climb. More spiky weeds.

8 hours: Tasmanian twilight colours, the relentless hills and exhaustive walking reminds me of recent movie about Tasmanian convict Alexander Pierce and his gang of co-escapees. Decide not to eat dad though.

8 hours and 7 minutes: dad announces that we have just lost 70 hard (and that's an understatement) earned points. The sun is setting, slowly but surely. The good news is that we are nearing the original 'second' marker. The familiar surroundings give me a kick.

8 hours and 31 minutes: we are now officially disqualified. Dad's running to and fro looking for the 1st marker that we missed. He spots it finally, and despite our determination to get it on the way back, the 100m detour and extra fence crossing is enough to deter us.

8 hours 35 minutes: still trudging up the steep hill through the thick ferny mounds. Good resistance training I think as I limp through them.

8 hours 40 minutes: We squeeze through and over 2 fences. I have lost all control of my limbs it seems.

8 hours 50 minutes: we roll into the HH, having lost all points. 'At least we got here before 9pm', we think....

At 10.30pm we roll into [my driveway]. I have a burst blister on my right heel to rival my Milanese blister, an angry but intact one on my left, blisters on 5 of my toes, and bruises on both legs. I pull two spikes out of each hand, relics of the weeds that 'blessed' us the entire way. Dad asks me if I want to do another rogaine.

So there it is. At least I can laugh at my account now. Oh and if this description doesn't put you off wanting to try out a rogaine, you can visit the Rogaining Tasmania website or the national Rogaining Australia. My dad is still doing them at every opportunity, in fact he's now helping organise them for the NSW org. I might just stick to the Sydney Series shorties where the worst that can happen to you is a clump of Lantana and a nippy Maltese Terrier.

Garden vs Time

I'm curled up in bed at 1am writing a post about not having enough time to garden. I've been working in multiple jobs around the clock for the last couple of weeks and the poor garden is a bit neglected. The seedlings that I've raised from seed are way too big for their pots and need planting out, the weeds are crawling up where they can, and the grass is so long that my dog disappears from view when she walks across the lawn.

However, over the last year I've developed some great 'time insurance' systems, which means that the universe doesn't implode if I'm absent for a couple of weeks.  Here are a some of my faves:

1. The watering system.

Sounds complex, but in reality it's only hard for the procrastinator.

I buy the 'starter kits', simply because they're usually cheaper (mitre 10 often does '2 for $15' sales, for instance).  Oh and if you buy the kits, you don't have to look like a fool digging though the buckets of miniscule parts for which you have no idea of their purpose.  Just lay the pipe out in the garden, cutting at bends or t-junctions, and then stick in the upright spray bits (I'm not into technical terms).  Just a word of warning on the fitting of the upright spray bits.  There are little nozzle bits about 5mm in size that have to be fitted to each of the 'rigid risers'. Do NOT attempt to do this in the vegie garden. You will cry. Instead, sit inside one night with a mug of boiling water in front of the telly and a large bar of chocolate and/or wine, softening the risers in the boiling water and squeezing the bastard bits into the impossibly narrow pipes. Your hands will hurt, but that's okay because you're on the pretty path to sanctioned laziness.

The kit will tell you to measure the garden, to draw complex plans etc etc. which, if you're anything like me, will terrify you and result in the kit being abandoned in the corner of the laundry, gathering dust for 3 months. The manufacturer will also direct you to a website where you can develop your complex system, however, you have to have a conformist PC. In retrospect, I'm glad I have a mac and never got the opportunity to be overwhelmed by their program, because it's bloody easy just to go with it.  And luckily the system is fool-proof. If you make a mistake, cut the hose, buy a connector or wrap it in gaffer tape and HUZZAH you've a very snazzy-sounding 'watering system'.

If you want to make it even fancier, you can buy a computerised water timer, but a) that requires a lot more money that I can comprehend spending, and b) it means that you have to work out how many litres/hour your garden needs and I'm not really into that shiz. I have manual timers on each of my 3 taps, which means I just use my own judgement as to when the garden needs watering.  You can buy them for around $10.

Dial and walk away. Happy times

2. Mulch.

Until 18 months ago, I thought mulch was just the pine bark peeps put down to give their gardens a certain 'Aussie suburban' aesthetic.  Yes, I'm a fool. 

Mulch is sugar cane mulch, straw, pea straw on the vegie garden; wood chips around the natives; pine bark under the play equipment; gravel around the standard roses (again, I'm thinking of a specific aesthetic with this last example).  Mulch is great for the time poor gardener not only because it helps retain moisture in the soil and keep the plants at an even temp, but if you chuck on enough, it helps prevent a lot of weeds from sprouting.  Those that do sprout seem to come out more easily too, perhaps because they've grown tall at the expense of strength?

Oh and the sugar cane mulch gives the vegie garden quite a 'professional' look if you want to impress the neighbours.

3. Weed matting

I've just bagged out pine bark, and now I'm waxing lyrical about weed matting. Yep, I'm somewhat hypocritical.

Weed matting looks ugly, but if you want a semi-temporary solution to a lot of weeds re-sprouting, as I need in my post-weed seeding backyard, it's like black gold. Hmmm... maybe I should turn down the hyperbole a little.

After valiantly resisting the roll out (ha) of matting in my backyard, I finally decided that to keep weeding the same naked patches around the fruit trees over and over until I came up with my 'grand plan' for the area, was a false economy.  So I surrounded the area with weed matting over Christmas, and I've never looked back since. It's not going to be there forever, but I love not lying awake at night worrying about the evils that will sprout overnight.

4. The ability to go with it and not freak out about bok choi going to seed, grass overgrowing, or a couple of plants dying.

I will now try and sleep on my last point of advice.

'The Metaphysics of Cutting Grass'

I just want share a link to this wonderfully poetic article by Jerry DeNuccio published on the Smart Set, a website managed by Drexel University.

'The Metaphysics of Cutting Grass' discusses the connotations of grass, the zen of mowing, and varying relationships to the plant (and to the weeds that wage war amongst the blades).  He explains that "mowing is applied art; in doing it, one edits the lawn, grooming the ragged, shearing the shaggy, making the unruly ruly," relating this 'transformative' activity back to his job as a university teacher and his relationship to his students.  I read this article just as I finished teaching my first year class, so it definitely struck a chord.

What do you think? Is cutting grass a zen activity? Do you wage war on the weeds that invade your grass, or do you coexist?

The first of the fruit trees is in!

Today I planted the first of my fruit trees: a Greengage/Golden Drop Plum combo.  While the cherry, apple, apricot, plum and nectarine trees are going to be planted along the southern fence in my backyard, I thought I'd plant the mini plum tree out the front for a bit of variety (plus I kinda ran out of space along the boundary fence in the backyard but still wanted a greengage).

I read quite a bit about planting fruit trees - many of them say things like 'start preparing your soil early, 6 months is best' (!).  Despite my best intentions, I haven't had time to even so much as weed the area out the back and the front year patch has only had a bit of minor digging in of mushroom compost.  However, I've spoken to a few v successful gardeners since then, and they all say that as long as you mix some good compost or well-rotted manure into the soil when you dig the hole for the tree, that should be more than enough.  In fact, if you believe some of Peter Cundall's recent articles in the local paper, fruit trees are pretty resilient and can actually benefit from a little neglect!

I mixed in some compost with the soil, and planted the tree in an earth mound for drainage as I have very dense clay soil and plum trees appreciate good drainage apparently.  I then laid wet newspaper over the soil and spread sugar cane mulch over the top.  I've got a lot of crazy little annoying weeds in the area and the newspaper coupled with mulch will stop the weeds from making home in the area and also keep soil damp come summer (that's if the black birds don't dig it all up like they do the pine bark).  I'll also extend my front yard watering system next weekend to include the tree.

I did a wee bit of remedial weeding as well.  As a result of my 3 week leave, I've got a mini weed jungle in the back yard including some very irritating, quick-spreading weeds that have a clover like leaf and a root that stems from a bulb like thing at the bottom.  It's quite hard to pull up the plant without leaving the bulb.  Additionally, if you leave it more bulbs grow on the root stem, and so it spreads.... ergh!

Easter Weekend Gardening Part 1: the front yard

The distinctions between the vegie garden backyard and ornamental frontyard are slowly melting away.  Apparently the (now) old couple who built and lived in the house for 50 years had a deal where he would tend the vegie garden in the back and she would do the ornamentals and flowers in the front.  Of course, when I moved in the vegie patches were just bare earth with the exception of the rhubarb (oh and a lot of weeds!), however the front yard had a lot of cottage-gardeney kind of plants.  What's even more exciting are the bulbs that keep sprouting up.  Not a month's gone by without a new variety springing out of the soil, such as these brilliantly red flowering ones to the right and below (no extra points for the old daggy plastic edging though - I think that'll have to go).

Many people have advised me to live in my house for a year before planting so that I get to know about the weather, sun patterns and wind etc. to make informed choices, however, I was rearing to go.  However, the bulb thing is another reason to wait.  The ugly plastic fenced patch above, which is in an awkward position in the backyard, was first on my list to go when I moved in, yet 6 months later I'm enjoying the near constant changeover of bulbs.  These red ones are dying back now, and there are some pink budded ones just about to emerge.  It's kind of like bulb tag!

Anyhoo, my Easter weekend list had a lot of things on it, and gardening was not high on the list in terms of deadlines.  However, as gardening is a fantastic procrastination method, I actually got quite a lot of digging, planting, weeding and strategising done. 

Firstly I got myself a couple of tiny box hedges (left) in a first step to realising my life-long dream of creating a topiary of my dog.  I figure that my sculpture major should be utilised somehow.   I planted one in the front yard, and I think I'll put the other in the backyard, just in case I find that I get performance anxiety.   I was going to topiarise (?) my bay tree that I planted when I first moved in, however, they grow so slowly and I'm chomping at the bit here!

My other purchase was a large native that, according to the woman at the Hobart Farmers' Market, is apparently very good at screening out nosy neighbours, being sufficiently tall, bushy and quick growing.  I don't think she knew who she was up against, but I bought the Dodonaea Viscosa (or Hop Bush) anyway, and strategically placed it down the side outside my kitchen window behind the bay tree.  I do worry quite a bit about blocking light to other parts of my garden, however, there are some sacrifices you have to make...

At the New Town Station Nursery, I came across a large number of blueberry bushes.  Considering the number of punnets I go through each summer, I felt that their $20/bush price tag was relatively reasonable, so I bought two.  While varieties of plants usually have fairly abstract or esoteric names such as 'Tigerella' tomatoes, 'Cox's Orange Pippin' apples, or 'Good King Henry'; my selected blueberry bushes are called Brigitta and Denise.  I laughed when I saw the names, because only the night before I'd been drinking with two women by that name (one of whom is my PhD supervisor). As a result, the plants have become quite personified in my mind. 

I planted Denise, which is shorter bush growing to about 1.5 meters and which produces big fat berries, down the side of the house next to the pepperberry bush.  Apparently blueberries can deal with part shade to full sun, and while I'm a little concerned that Denise won't get enough, it'll be interesting to contrast it to the larger growing Brigitta who I planted in the comparatively very sunny front yard.

Denise (with a small Camelia in the b'ground)

My two other major tasks for the weekend were installing a watering system in the front yard to counter my laziness in watering, and fixing the front lawn and weeding around the f#@*ing roses (which I loathe but feel guilty about pulling out). 

I've never been much of a lawn fan.  I can put this down to a couple of reasons: a) I'm allergic to grass, b) I've lived in so many rental houses where the grass has been the bane of my existance - it's grown and I haven't had a mower, it's been weed infested, it hasn't been watered so it's died, it's been killed by overexuberant house parties etc. etc. 

Little wonder then that when I moved into this house, I planned to get rid of the lawn in favour of a front yard overgrown with plants and a fairy path down the middle. However, I think I'm coming round to the grass thing.  For one, I haven't enough money for all the plants in my fairy garden scheme; secondly I can see that perhaps it might provide a nice background to my future topiary (in a kitschy, Tim Burton kind of way). Plus the dog appreciates grass.  So my task for the weekend was to scrape off the mat of brown spikey weed seeds that had scared the grass away on the southern side of the lawn, so that I can plant some grass seed (while trying not to sneeze).  You can see the patch left behind in the image below; and the bags of weeds and seed in the image to the left.
 

The foggy bits in the photo are due to my watering system which I finally installed (woot!).  I should point out that strangely, it's cheaper to buy the bits for an entire Neta watering system than to buy a good hose.

The end of my epic post (but not on the weekend - vegie garden update still to come)

The Seeds are Sprouting

You'd think at the age of 29 the excitement of seeds sprouting might have dwindled, but no, the sight of seedlings is still gloriously thrilling.

My spinach seedlings have been shooting:

 and beans:

I took the above photo this morning.  This evening when I was watering my tomatoes, I noticed that they'd grown immensely during the day and they looked like this:

 

You can use the mushroom compost lump (with the white veiney things) in the morning and first evening photo as a size reference.

Even though I've been getting a whole heap of intentional seedlings, I've also got these patches of seedlings that I'm sure I didn't sow.  The weird thing is, they're all in clumps as if I deliberately planted them.

Here's an even bigger clump surrounding my basil seedlings.  The two basil seedlings are on the top left and right of the picture (the bigger leaves):

The question is, do I rip them out now or should I wait and see what they grow into?

Part of me thinks that as the beds were full of weeds only recently they're probably just weed seeds, but what if they're self-seeding from the previous owner's vegie plants?

And what about the areas that I planted in - how do I know whether they're the intentional or unintentional seedlings?  Because I haven't grown a number of the vegies before, I don't actually know what the seedlings look like....

Lucy 1 - Weeds 0

So, after a week or two of living in my house, I noticed that the weeds were descending.  It's been a particularly wet winter in Hobart this year - apparently the wettest in the last 100 years - and then along came heat just as I moved in, resulting in weed city (in hayfever land).  Of course, there's just one of me and a substantial area of garden (although the front was a little less dominating that the back), and so I couldn't (and still haven't) tackle the entire weed problem in full straight away.

So I bought some weed matting, and dug up the weeds in the three bottom patches, covered them with the matting, and went away and plotted my next move of attack.  I've been doing a 6-week vegie garden course at Adult Ed, and at the time I was just about to start the course, so I didn't want to pre-empt things.  Good thing too, as I was soon to learn about such wonderous things as 'soil theory' and compost.  I wish someone had told me years ago that there were consequences to re-using potting mix over and over and over...

Here are some images of the 'dormant' beds smothered in weed matting.  Note the growing weeds in the background (I swear they were growing about 5cm/day)