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| What a difference hard work makes |
The past few weekends have been spent out in the garden digging, clearing weeds, preparing beds and planting. I ordered in a load of topsoil to replenish the soil level which has dropped as the result of flooding. I mistakenly topped the garden with bark chips once - needless to say they all floated away. The mulch that has rested for several months tends to stay in place. The water rises slowly here, it does not come through in a raging torrent. Todays photos were taken just before the storm we are expecting so they are not as bright and sunny as usual.
A huge improvement around the water tank. The soil here was amazingly fertile with heaps of worms. I was able to dig down to about 30cms and gave it a good turning over before adding the topsoil. The landscaping place I ordered the soil through advised me it had been fertilised with chicken poo so I did not add any further manure.
The celery is thriving without the weeds. This side is north facing so it gets full sun for most of the day, and is shaded by the house in the afternoon.
The row of Bok Choi I planted in front of the dwarf beans is thriving. I have fertilised them once with worm tea and they seem to like it. The dwarf beans on the other hand have not developed as much as I thought they would by now. They get full sun but I did read that they don't like too much attention so I may have watered them a little too much? I am only watering them every second day now so will see what happens.
This is what I call my flood rose. Its the only one to survive this bed. The others took a beating when the tank moved last year. I cut it back two weeks ago and this is my reward. It seems happy to sit amongst the vegies.
My snow peas and tomatoes have a unique trellis base. I recycled the boys old bedheads as their bases broke so they were of no use (that's what I get for buying cheap beds).
This was hard work but the transformation is amazing - the benefits of having two fit 14yo boys to help. Notice the boat has moved from the lawn of the dead vehicles. Paul is on holidays this week so progress is being made on the bigger things too.
I have planted a few zucchini and squash on this side and cucumbers behind the lemon tree. They have all grown from seed and coming along really well.
The boys helped me with this garden too. You can see that even though it is under the trees it still gets a lot of indirect light and full sun at the front. The passionfruit vine is no longer climbing up into the trees and has been trained around the garden fence.
I have planted rows of spinach, silverbeet, chinese greens, kale and rhubarb. It gets very hot here over summer so I had great success planting these types of vegies here a few years ago. The only maintenance is clearing the leaves away from the plants. It does not get very many weeds.
Can't wait to be eating my own vegies. I am already planning more garden beds with my leftover topsoil
Cheers
Tanya
