It’s been a while . . .

OK, so I am the world’s slackest blogger.  I went to a workshop on using social media to market your artwork during the week and the key message was to be regular with your posts.  Well my bad, but it’s been seven months since my last post and I’ve been threatening to do it but life’s been a little too busy.  As a consequence this is a long post with about 90 photos, spanning mid summer to the depth of winter, so if you aren’t turned on by pictures of flowers, organic vegetables and ice you better click away now, otherwise read on . . .

We had some lovely liliums this year but still not up to the standard set at Bagdad. The poor quality shallow soil and acidity mean that it’s going to take a couple of years to get the soil to where it needs to be. Still we had a lot of pleasure during the summer watching things come and go.  We’ve planted eight different buddleias  and they are growing rapidly, the scent was beautiful on a hot day.

One task we got too last summer was to set ourselves up to make compost tea.  We did a workshop with NRM South on making the stuff and they had a couple of different set-ups for sale but were a bit expensive for a domestic garden, so we improvised.  When we made tea at the workshop we took it home and watered it on everything and the results were amazing.  So we bought a pump and two bubbler stones at the pet shop, and used an odd sock, and that’s all it took.

The pump is one used for small fish tanks, and the stones and tubing were only a few dollars. You need to use a couple of handfuls of good quality inoculant compost (we make our own) and put it in an old sock, don’t use a stocking as the compost breaks down and leaks through the mesh too readily. Attach the bubbler to the pump using plastic tubing (also from the pet shop) and place the bubbler stone into the sock in the middle of the compost and tie it off at the top to stop it escaping.

We fill a 20 litre bucket with rain water, then add a cup of molasses and half a cup of seasol. Then lower the bubbler into the mixture and turn on the pump. We run it for 24 hours, it uses very little energy and doesn’t drain much from our 1kW solar. Here you can see what happens, the pump aerates the mix which creates an ideal environment for the bacteria in the compost to multiply, by the millions.

This stuff is great for the garden, we water it out in watering cans mixed to the strength of strong tea and add another tablespoon of kelp to feed the little buggers so they have something to eat when they hit the dirt.  It adds beneficial microbes and bacteria to the soil by the millions if you water it out straight away and helps fight disease and feeds plants to keep them healthy and strong. Don’t leave it to sit too long or they will start to die off.

This little fellow was caught out in a rain storm which is why he looks so shabby. You can see he is eating some honey Bryon gave him to get him back in form. Bryon spends time looking after the smaller occupants of Banksia Hollow when they are in trouble.

I’m not sure what this one is, it’s got six legs so not a spider (thank goodness) but he was so bright he caught my eye when I was walking past, he’s only about two millimetres across.

The tomatoes were only OK this year as we had enormous problems with white fly in the greenhouse, even the field tomatoes were affected but to a lesser extent. The crop gave us enough to make relish and some to eat but not the usual bumper crop, we couldn’t give many away this year.  We tried every organic remedy that we could find and each time we’d knock them but not enough to get rid of them and they very quickly breed back up.  You can see some of the little bastards on the leaves.

We finally cracked it with the sweet corn this year and harvested 48 cobs from our small patch.  I had decided that this was my last attempt as four years in a row I have raised a dismal crop.  We took Peter Cundall’s advice and made sure they were well fed and watered (yes, it was that simple).  A very well prepared bed with lots of goodness added and regular deep watering.  A little trouble with black aphids but not too bad, and the taste was really out of this world.  It never ceases to amaze me how good home grown vegies taste. The carrots tasted so carroty I thought there was something wrong with them, I’m dribbling as I write (no it’s not old age)!

These “Cloud 9” chairs are suspended on the back verandah, they are really comfortable but we rarely get time to sit in the buggers as we are too busy, one day maybe!  The last time I sat in one I fell asleep almost instantly. I guess this will be something to look forward to in old age, sitting in my chair dribbling into my tea, as the grand-kids come out to change the incontinence pads, and maybe check I’m still breathing!

We decided to let the swallows nest on the house this year.  Normally we encourage them to nest on the shed despite their best efforts to build on the main house.  This was a big mistake as I am still cleaning the shit of the wall. We were fortunate to witness the first clutch of chicks take flight on Boxing Day.

I’m not au fait with the habits of swallows but the parents raised two lots of chicks this year, three chicks both times, they don’t normally do this so if any swallow experts out there know what’s going on please let me know. They are very tame and allowed us to photograph them at close quarters.

Bit by bit the garden is evolving and we started work on the ponds, but haven’t got back to that project for months as I now have two part time jobs which sometimes end up full time. We have been traveling quite a bit this year which makes it hard to get ahead in the garden.  Still when I look at photos from six months ago I can see where we have been.

The garden has been bountiful and some days we have had meals solely from our own garden, that is our ideal, and not too far in the future that will be an everyday occurrence. Being vegan makes life so simple (except when you are away from home sometimes) as we don’t have to keep animals and our food keeps longer than meat and dairy.  We have gained a few converts in St Marys and often share recipes and tips with others new to the lifestyle. The next few shots are random ones from the vegetable garden, we really love growing our own food and am so disappointed when we have to buy fruit and vege from outside as it’s usually crap or even if it looks good I know it’s lacking in nutrients due to the chemical methods used to grow it.

This tawny frog mouth owl somehow got himself trapped inside the bird netting on one of the enclosures. He seemed very docile until Bryon freed him and he took off for the trees.  He fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down!!

These are just a few random shots of flowers, we have planted hundreds more bulbs and lots of ranunculus, roses, anemones, ixias, stocks, poppies, snapdragons, violas, pansys, primulas, polyanthus, carnations, statice, and sweet Williams and more.  So this spring the garden will come into its own.  We are doing more rock borders and making paths and soon hope to get a start on the giant Buddha statue.

During summer months the solar hot water boils during the day and has to be tempered back to 50 degrees C before it enters the house. Between the equinoxes we supplement the hot water with back up from the combustion stove that feeds directly to the heat exchanger on the roof.

The dam was not as big a job as we imagined, a man with a 20 tonne excavator did it in half a day. Cost wise you can compare a 25,000 litre tank at $2,700 to a 500,000 litre dam at $850, it’s a no brainer really.  We had it dug with a shallower shelf at the back so that we can grow lots of water lilies (move over Monet) and when we get a minute we intend to build  a small jetty so the grand-kids can go boating and I can go swimming. It only took four weeks to fill from the spring and the reflections have been amazing. Our garden is now drought proofed.

This impressive array of glass bricks are all set up ready for commencement of construction of the long awaited bottle wall. There have been many hundreds of hours of preparation leading up to this point, and a lot of friends have drunk a lot of wine to provide the raw materials. More on this in a separate post soon as things are really moving on this project, the first of two walls made of glass bottles, one in the bathroom and one in the living room.

We had a great trip to Townsville to see the kids and grand-kids, no fire on the luggage carousel this time and no unscheduled stopovers due to fog. We enjoyed helping Alida and Gavin in the garden and taking Will and Madison to school each day and picking them up. We will be seeing them again in November as they are all coming down for Bryon’s 60th.  June is the best time to go to Townsville as its a nice 25 degrees, which is as hot as we like it to get.

Now did I mention the frosts?  How’s this for a segue . . . while we were in Townsville there was a frost most mornings here at home and on our return they continued pretty well every day for another three weeks. The pipes froze several times and we had to improve the lagging otherwise you couldn’t shower until after 10.00am when they thawed out again.

The shot above shows the amazing reflections on the dam, during the first couple of weeks I was tracking off down there with the camera on a daily basis, I can’t wait for the summer so I can swim here at home whenever I like. As a contrast this shot (below) was taken after weeks of frost, the dam stays frozen all day and just freezes more the next night. I actually stood on the ice at one stage and it supported my weight (and got off again very quickly as it started to make cracking sounds).

We managed to get to the Melbourne International Flower Show this year, not a patch on Chelsea but well worth the trip over. We had a great time staying with Nev’s family and thoroughly enjoyed the show and met some really enthusiastic and inspiring gardeners. We brought back lots of inspiration for our garden.  I’d forgotten how lovely the old exhibition building is as it’s been thirty years since I attended anything there.  Here are a few shots to set the scene.

While in Melbourne we went to the Hare Krishna restaurant for lunch, and then on to Federation Square to see some Australian art.  The collection there is great and we enjoyed it immensely seeing so many well known works.

This shot shows Bryon returning to his youth.  It was taken in the Hunter Valley Gardens at Pokolbin in NSW, a very impressive 60 acres of beautifully laid out gardens.  We spent a lovely day there with Ellen and Caleb.  We had five nights in Newcastle on the way up to Townsville as we had not met Caleb, our newest grandson.  He was born a week after we left Newcastle last year, so we hadn’t met him or seen his brother Levi for 12 months.  We are going up again soon to see Ellen and Jordan and the boys for Caleb’s first birthday.

Anyway, it’s time for bed so I’ll leave you with this parting shot of Bryon an I walking off into the sunset . . . until next time.

EXTRA EXTRA: I will be posting again soon as we finished the first bottle wall today, it looks even more spectacular than we’d hoped. Here’s a quick preview just for you . . .