Goodbye dear sunflowers

I realised that I'd been at the art school too long the other day when I rationalised to my neighbour that I was retaining the blackened and aphid-infested giant sunflowers in my front yard as "a reminder of my own morbidity."  It was in part true; however, there were a few other reasons why I left it 'til today - council green waste day - to remove the majestic creatures.

tied up with string on the nature strip [sob]

Firstly, I was so proud of them - most grew bigger than me, and they fed bees with their pollen, then birds with their seeds (the birds would sit on top and swing upside down), then aphids, and by consequence, ladybirds.  It seemed a waste to remove them while the leaves were still green, despite the fact that the flowers - the reason for planting them - were black.  They also created some height in a garden that is filled with low (albeit growing) plants. 

 Frontyard sans sunflowers.  It looks so bare!

I'm also ashamed to say that it had a little bit to do with the neighbour.  He's nice, but he and his wife are the type that has a perfectly manicured yard, with hedges that have not a leaf out of place and cut with the assistance of a spirit measure, a weedless lawn, and grey painted concrete.  He also has the unfortunate habit of giving me business cards of the local mowing company every time my grass dares to grow beyond 2cm high.   As a result, when he suggested to me that it might be time to remove my sunflowers because the flowers were dead, I told him that I liked them like that, and that I had no intention of removing them.  I also added that I liked the way that the aphids were attracting ladybirds to my garden. 

In all reality, I'm not a annoying neighbour.  For a Y-gen I'm pretty quiet - I don't listen to loud music until 4 in the morning, throw weekly parties, or let the weeds grow higher than my sunflowers; however, I take a rather organic approach to gardening and don't mind if I have natives mixed with cottage garden plants, or if trees grow larger than expected, or plants sprout in the wrong place.  Letting the sunflowers live out their natural cycle was just an extension of this gardening philosophy.

in their prime (RIP)

I look forward to planting them again next spring.  They're certainly amazing (even if ephemeral) additions to a garden.

Open Garden Scheme: Two Tasmanian Gardens

 Entrance to an open garden at Castle Forbes Bay, Tasmania

Last week my mum and aunt came to visit me in Tassie (from Sydney and London respectively), and we drove down the Channel to see a couple of open gardens that were open as part of the Australian Open Garden Scheme.

The first garden in Grove illustrated how non-flowering trees and shrubs can create amazing textures and colours in a subtle, yet exciting way.  Many of the trees were turning shades of reds and yellows, and there was a crazy mushroom growing near a stream-like pond.  Like many Tasmanian gardens, there were a couple of rows of fruit trees (apparently it used to be an orchard), and a beautiful hilly, native bush backdrop.

The guy who owns the garden had planted a memorial garden to his son with his wife, who sadly passed away just as it was being finished.  The memorial garden was populated by roses, and was a pleasingly symmetrical and formal space in the middle of the otherwise rather casually composed garden.

 Swoonworthy artist studio, Grove

The Castle Forbes Bay garden was more flower-based, although they had an impressively extensive treehouse.

The roses smelled amazing.  I'm not usually a rose fan, although I was tempted by these gorgeously scented specimens.

 A three-way grafted apple tree

 A greenhouse for vertically-grown tomatoes, capsicum and cucumbers

The husband was fuchsia-obsessed, and not only gave me propogation hints, but also cuttings of a number of his specimens.  It's amazing - I never knew there were so many varieties.

I've planted the fuchsia cuttings in individual pots after dipping them in rooting powder (you can also use honey), and I've placed the pots underneath a cheap mini-greenhouse so that they don't dry out.  I referred to the Gardenseeker website for help, which has a page on how to take Fuchsia Cuttings.

After the gardens we drove to Cygnet for lunch at the Red Velvet Lounge, which was the perfect Autumnal Sunday arvo treat.  We then continued on to Fleurtys at Birchs Bay, which has an extensive sculpture walk throughout the natural bush grounds.

In all, fantastically inspiring day.

Photo Credits: Thanks to Nola James (photographer extraordinaire) for supplying most of these photos.

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)

A walk around the vegie garden

I haven't posted any pictures lately, and yet I've had so much growing.  Here's an overall view:

top tier: pumpkins, leeks, spring onions

second tier: globe artichoke, fennel, tigerella tomatoes, bok choi, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, rocket, lebanese cucumbers, lettuce, mesculin

third tier: multiple types of tomatoes including Roma, cherry, Grower's Delight, Digger's [something], Lenah Valley market unidentified; basil, dying passionfruit, unidentified curcubit.

fourth tier: failed cauliflowers, dwarf beans, white beans.

 From another angle.  You can see the rhubarb in the top right corner.

Crazy pumpkin plant, stretching over two garden beds.  I had to build a 'bridge' between the two beds:

My lone artichoke. I thought I'd try one and see if it survived before trying more.  It's growing like a fiend, so I think I'll get another:

A few young fennel plants. Only four survived the snail feast:

The only cauliflower (out of 10 plants!) that has actually produced a flower: 

Rocket:

My two faithful cucumber plants.  They look a bit scungy now, but they're still growing and producing about four cucumbers a week between them:

Beans.  Also looking a wee bit scungy but they've got a second wind and are producing slowly:

tomatoes

 

My cute tigerellas (so stripey!). Still waiting for them to go beyond the green faze...

Rhubarb

Unidentified Curcubit:

Young broccoli seedlings, with my trial dog-proof snail poison box based on a suggestion by Hobart Kitchen Gardens.  I've never used snail bait because I don't like the idea of poisoning the soil or my dog, however I've lost so many seedlings to the damn creatures that I was willing to compromise

Bok Choi and Spinach plants:

Herbs including flat and curly leaf parsley, rosemary, basil (my better basil is cuddling with the tomatoes), coriander, chives, spring onions, dill, oregano, lemongrass thyme, and mint. Oh, and a scungy orchid:

Last but not least, my cute little fig tree who has more fruit than leaves. I know I should be taking the fruit off to encourage it to grow, but I feel mean because it's trying so hard!

thank goodness for Salamanca Markets

I finally gave up on my coriander, sage and curly-leaf parsley seeds.  They just didn't want to sprout.  My flat leaf parsley sprouted, so that rules out anything being wrong with the soil or compost.  So on Saturday I trotted down to Salamanca Markets, to the lovely woman who runs a stall in the middle opposite Salamanca Arts Centre, and purchased some pre-sprouted curly-leaf, coriander, some bok choy and some broccoli.  The broccoli has already been devastated by snails. grrrr....

On the upside, my beans seem to have got a second wind (of course, just after the markets), and I've had a few good meals of beans this week  (woot!)

at the mercy of nature

Maybe I'm being a wee bit dramatic, but for the first week in a few months I haven't had that many vegies.  Why this week? Well, Sod's law says that if I've got a market stall this week with the intention of selling some of my vegies, then the beans will dry up, the tomatoes remain green, the cucumbers are slightly too small, and the pumpkins, albeit massive, are not ready for picking.

Today was the second Lenah Links market, and the organisers were really keen to have some fresh produce at the markets.  I initially planned to sell only my pipecleaner creatures, but ended up selling a few of the produce I had that was sellable: rocket, rhubarb, the herbs rosemary, parsley, oregano, basil and thyme.

I also got up early, despite a hangover, and picked a massive bag of blackberries which I made into tiny blackberry pies for selling.

I stupidly didn't get a photo of today's stall or the pies, but here's the blackberry pie I made last week from the same lot of blackberry bushes along the rivulet in Lenah Valley:

Winter's coming, the happy times are over...

...well, that's what it seems like anyway.  We've had an extraordinarily warm, dry and enjoyable summer (for Tassie), the weather was great for my first summer in a 'plantable' house (albeit a bit dry), and it was a good reward for our record-breaking wet and snowy winter.

But last weekend - the last two days of summer - Tassie got back to its old tricks and was cold, wet and windy.

It's a good reminder to start planting autumn/winter crops (while the soil is still warm enough to germinate).  Plus, I know I have to start really using up the basil because once the frost comes it'll shrivel up and die.  This is only a portion of my active plants, but it made a bumper batch of pesto:

As this is the second time I've posted about making pesto, I thought I'd share my recipe (and bear in mind that this is all very approximate):

one bunch of basil
3 or 4 cloves of garlic (I like it quite garlicy)
handful of pine nuts
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil
a quarter of a cup of parmesan, grated.

I have a mini blender that I wizz it all up in, but I've heard of people using a mortar and pestle to blend the pesto.  I usually mix the garlic and pinenuts and olive oil up first, adding salt and pepper to taste (remember however that the parmesan can often be quite salty).  Then I add the basil (washed and dried - little green caterpillars like to hitchhike on the basil).  I add more olive oil as I wizz so that I can get a smoothish mixture.  Then I stir in the parmesan.  I taste it and add more salt or pepper if necessary at this stage.

Eat on pasta, pizza, toast, whatever.

Pesto also lasts quite well in the fridge as long as you cover it with a layer of olive oil to keep out the air.  It's quite normal for the top of the pesto to go dark brown while the underneath stays bright green.