For the love of trees

Twelve years ago Angus and I used to wander around the older parts of Canberra looking at the trees. We learnt to identify trees we liked and researched how fast they grew, how tall they grow and whether they were protected. We wanted fast growing, strong, deciduous trees for summer shade but that would still let in winter sun. We collected seeds from our favourites: oak, elm, ash, robinia, and started them in pots of the windowsill of our third storey apartment. When we bought this place in April 2007 we brought them with us and planted them out.

We watered them and waited.

And waited.

In the summer of 2011 when we got chickens they weren’t big enough to provide any shade yet.

We planted some “emergency” pittosporums and put out table tennis tables covered with tarps for shade in the interim.

And each year they grew a little.

Then it seemed like all of a sudden, around 2015, they were providing meaningful shade. Two of the pittosporums were now not necessary so we pulled them out.

And two summers ago we realised they were big enough to hang swings and hammocks from.

So here I am today. Chilling in a hammock that is hanging from two seeds that I planted in the ground 12 or so years back.

There’s still a few more trees I want to put in (more fruit trees especially) but present me is super happy with past me right now.

Its 37°C (98°F) today. But under the awesome power of natural evaporative cooling I am content.

They say the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is today.

Topping up

The snow peas I planted a month or so back have not done well. A combination of starting late, old seeds and neglect, I suspect. This weekend I topped up the bed with some indoor-sprouted seeds:

They took a few days to germinate on the kitchen windowsill.

For either inspiration or demoralization, my dad’s snow peas look like this:

Wine glass for scale and sustenance.

Winter garden 2014, part 1

The beginnings of snow peas. Also on the left is Urtica dioica, the stinging nettle. Our soil was too dense, dry and low in nutrients to sustain then before, so I take their arrival as a good sign. If they grow well, I might try a nettle soup this year. To the right is a self seeded fennel plant. Getting a bank of edible plant seeds in the soil is a step towards a self-sustaining edible garden for us.

These are broccoli and silver beet, chard, etc. The garden they’re in doesn’t get quite enough sun, so we’ll see how they do.

Here’s the bodge greenhouse. It’s two discarded windows over a raised bed. The bed isn’t quite full of soil, so there’s a comfortable gap between glass and seedlings. It’s rocket and kale in here, which don’t really need coddling like this but I had the windows so why not?

Autumn 2014

It’s autumn again; almost winter. New baby is 6 months. We lost a cat to a snake bite but we have a new cat now. All of the summer veg is out and winter crops are in, hopefully not too late to germinate.

The basil is under a makeshift cloche: Jerusalem artichoke stems tied together to make a frame, with a plastic bag over them.

This is the kids genuinely helping to harvest said artichokes! Miss 5 even helped to scrub them.

In another bed, we have silver beet and rainbow chard just starting again, self seeded from last year’s crop. Silver beet is our most reliable winter veg, but it’s hard to get the kids to eat it.

Miss 5 gave me a sticker for my hard work.

Mulberry cuttings

Ever since friends had their engagement party at a park near some white mulberry trees, I have been keen to go back and get some cuttings. That was years ago: this week I managed to get the cuttings!

The black mulberries are also great apart from their fruit making just about the worst stains!

I have them in some willow tea. Apparently willow steeped overnight in hot water will make a diy rooting hormone. The kids and I collected a few handfuls from a nearby creek and cooked it up the day before we took cuttings.

I haven’t ever had much luck with cuttings, but we’ll see how this goes. I’ll post the progress.

Broad bean and broccoli progress

The broad beans actually have beans on them! This is the prize bean, a whopper in miss 4’s lexicon.

The broccoli is coming along too:

I don’t think we’re growing it at the right time of year, but we’ll see how it goes.

Spring update 1

Alpine strawberries are fruiting already!

Last year’s self seeded grape has bounced back

Berries (Loganberry?) are flowering

Last year’s bean teepee was a flop: take 2 in a new position

Broad beans and purple beans in succession. We aim to use the purple beans as shade each year on the west side of the house. On the far left is mallow, a weed I’m cultivating to eat.

Stay warm, little veggies

It’s going to be a very cold night after what had been the hottest winter on record in Canberra. To protect or baby tomatoes, it’s stakes, plastic and bricks to form a makeshift temporary cloche. It should be enough to keep the veggies safe. Hopefully it defrosts soon!

Companion planting

This is a post from a while back that didn’t get published at the time.

These days we’re coming to think of our garden as a tiny created ecosystem. I’m now trying to expand what started with companion planting and the chickens to another kingdom: fungi. The idea of foraging for mushrooms is a tempting one, but comes with its dangers. Foraging for spore-bearing mushrooms for companion planting had many of the benefits without the risk!

The ink caps are endemic it seems and grow on decomposing matter. We have a ready supply of decomposing matter in our chicken manure, so I hope to be able to keep a colony supplied. And curiously, structures in the fungus are damaging to nematodes. Nematodes are a natural part of the soil, but some species eat vegetable roots.

We have what appears to be a species of ink cap that grows naturally in the garden:

Using some shaggy manes (I think!) that I found in a garden, I’ve inoculated my garden beds.

Hopefully they’ll flourish and I’ll have a poo-digesting, nematode-busting, soil-stabilising and curiously autodigesting ally in the garden!

Hail!

We had a fairly heavy storm come through yesterday and it dumped a lot of hail on us. Here are a few pictures of our yard just after the storm.

Thankfully the chickens were sensible and stayed in their house.

Our broccoli seedlings were safe and warm in their little mini greenhouses (aka upturned plastic cups), installed the night before in the nick of time (good work MacGyver!)

The silverbeet looks okay but this might be the end of the basil and mint for the season though – I’ve been expecting them to curl up and die for well over a month now, but so far they have stayed alive.

 

This morning there was still lots of hail left on the ground.

The chickens came out and braved the icy ground this morning and seemed quite perplexed by the cold white stuff.

Splash was not amused by the cold stuff.

The broccoli seedlings and mint (amazingly) look fine, but I think this is it for the basil.

Our makeshift kafir lime greenhouse (aka a plastic bag over a tripod) has also done a great job of protecting the little tree.

All very exciting really.  It’s rare for Canberra to get snow that sticks to the ground so seeing everything white was a big novelty for the kidlets.  Mme Four had a lovely time building “hail castles” after the storm had passed.