Why Jess's Garden


As I think about it now, I chose the name because I garden to create a space that I want to share with my family.
This blog has now evovled to be a discussion about how I'm attempting to create a personal and physical home for my family.
Creating a garden is a key part of that process, but it is not the only part, so I feel the different parts of this blog are all congruent to the same goal.

Wednesday 31 January 2007

Garden Update

I was just checking the lemon tree and it looks like its finally given up on trying to reproduce. For the first time since I planted it last autumn it has put out new leaves, instead of flowers. Must make sure I give it a good fertilize this weekend. The tomatoes could also do with a fertilize. The rosemary in the lemon tree pot needs to be cut back. I think this weekend I will cut it right back, some I I will use in a roast, I might freeze a heap and try and strike cuttings from the rest. With me luck with that.

Everything else in the garden is going well, I went for a walk this morning while I watered. Both the normal mint and Vietnamese mint and going overboard, in particular the Vietnamese mint, it needs cutting back too. I suppose I could freeze it too. There are more flowers on the cucumber, and one cucumber ready to eat, must make a Greek salad tonight to go with the quiche. The corn is still growing, but a worry that it is not getting enough water, but there is not much I can do about that. There are lots of watermelons in the watermelon patch. Basil is finally taking off, after the second batch I planted; don’t know what I did wrong. The tomatoes in the bath and doing better than the pots, but the hanging cherry tomatoes, near the back door are also doing really well. It is everyone’s habit to pick one or too as they walk past and have a little snack. Spinach to be eaten might have spinach pasta later this week.

I have just realised that because tomorrow is the 1st after today was the 31st we get two watering days in a row, so I think I will try and fertilize tomorrow morning after they have all had a good drink today.

The camomile in the herb garden has had beautiful flowers for weeks now and are just starting to die off, but the feverfew has come into flower with similar shaped and coloured flowers, the flowers are just a bit bigger.

I picked a heap of cherry tomatoes for breakfast, but realised I don’t have bread for toast, I think there are dried biscuits so I might use those. I love having fresh produce for our meals, I’m really beginning to understand the concepts of eating what is in season.

Monday 29 January 2007

6 weird things about me

I have been tagged by Carol and have been thinking about it for awhile. When asked Miki said there is nothing weird about me, but I think he might be biased.

1) I never wear a watch, because if I do the battery goes flat in about a week.

2) I like to listen to heavy doom music like Anathema sometimes. But I also listen to classical music, jazz and folk to name a few.

3) I married my first serious boyfriend

Ok this is getting hard now

4) I'm married, but I still live with my mum. Well Ok, she lives with me in a granny flat, but I still think that counts as weird.

5) I don't wear makeup or jewelery (Other than wedding ring).

6) I'm obsessed with "shining my sink", thanks to flylady.


That is six weird things.



I forgot to tag people, so i'm adding it in now. I tag sweetpea

Sunday 28 January 2007

Green Thumb Sunday

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I have been very excited to see my corn growing, soon they will be ready to eat



Saturday 27 January 2007

Silver



When I read that Silver was this weeks photo hunt, my first thought was my wedding ring, which I think of as silver, but it is really white gold, so that didn't count. And then I thought of this

But that's not silver I hear you cry, thats wood. She mustn't know anything. But wait a minute let me open it. This box is a very precious gift from my Nana.


See this is my Nana's silver cutlery set. I love this set, and I open it on an inregulary basis just to look and touch. Some of it needs a polish, but these one's don't.


They are very shiny and I love the way the catch the light.

I wish I was brave enough to use it, but I haven't yet. Maybe one day, I will have a proper dinner party and use these, and the special tea set she gave me.

Friday 26 January 2007

New books

Yesterday I had several appointments and with an hour and a bit between them, somehow I ended up in a secondhand bookshop. I can't imagine how that happened, but luck was with me and I found a couple of very interesting books.

The first was "The country diary of an Edwardian Lady" by Edith Holden. The cover looked really interesting and when I started flicking though it, I realised it really was a diary from 1906. Very quickly I realised how close this was to being a 1906 version of a blog and I just had to buy it.

The first discovery got me excited and I kept digging :lol: and suddenly I found a bible that I had never expected to find. "Esther deans' gardening book: growing without digging"
Ether Dean created the idea of no-dig gardening which I have been using to create my gardens in the baths. The book is amazing and I now have a much better understanding of how to make the gardeners and the science and process behind the steps. For more information on Esther Dean and no-dig gardening try Gardening Australia which is how I originally learned about it.

I was very excited and kept looking. I found two small paperbacks about gardening with Australian Natives. Grow Native: Creating an Australian Bush Garden by Bill Molyneux and The Native Plant expert by John Mason. Grow Native, in particular looked interesting as a book to help me plan and develop the native local garden at the back of my yard. The funny thing was when I visited my mum to show her my purchases I was telling her about the books and my description was "I got a fairly heavy text book type on native plants and gardens." at which point she interrupted with "Bill Molneux, I've got that book." But I guess I needed to buy my own copy, as I flipped through it again I realised it was signed by the author which is pretty cool.
So that I was impulse buys for yesterday, but I have spent a lot of time since scanning, flipping and reading them all.
To all the Australians out there, I hope you have had a good Australia Day.

Wednesday 24 January 2007

Awhile ago Carol over at May Dreams Gardens made this post about plants that you planted and are now not part of your garden. This has encouraged me to go back to my photo journal about the pond garden to see what I planted that has survived and see if I can work out why.
The first one that jumped out at me was "the blob"(scientifically known as scleranthus uniflorus), this is a plant that has been in every family garden since I was a kid. I decided to plant one, but it died fairly quickly. I planted another one, but it died too. Thus I have given up. I still don't know why it didn't grow, but the back of the tag says "plant in very well dreained, gritty soil." and I now I'm wondering if it got too much water. I might try again in the new native garden.



The other plant that has "disappeared" is a Pratia Puberula - Alpine Pratia. The back of the label says "thrives in moist to wet soil". I can't decide if this died because the dogs walked on it to get to the lemongrass which they love eating, or wether I didn't get the water right. I don't think I'll try this again.

Storm Front


Wordless Wednesday

Tuesday 23 January 2007

Watermelon

Well I finally gave in and picked my first watermelon. Think now it was probably not fully ripe but it was very exciting. It has lots and lots of seeds, but it does taste like watermelon.

Here is the outside of the watermelon after I sliced it




Here is the inside of the watermelon

Planning 2007

Well last night I sat down and looked at my gardening scrapbook calendar. In the “what to do in January” section was make a plan for the year. So that’s what I’m doing.

What do I want to achieve is 2007 in the garden.

I want my vegetable garden to become a more constant ongoing project, rather than just starting again in spring. Ways to do that are:
• Plant my Brassicas now
• Buy more baths and get dad to help me attach the axels.
• Fertilise my plants on regular basis.
• Plan what I need to plant in advance
• Use more seeds rather than seedlings

I want to get my native garden at the backyard established
• Plan
• Set up soil. I was going to use no-dig again,
• Put in structures
• Chose plants

Skills and Habitats I would like to develop or improve
• Dead-heading flowers
• Fertilising plants (How often and What to use)
• Growing things from seeds

Other things to work on over the year for longer term goals:
I would like to start caring for and extending the garden at the front of the house.
Plant bulbs in the back and front lawn
Start planning to turn the back lawn into two separate gardens.
Start building a mini-orchard along the fence.


In relation to this I have been thinking about ways to improve the vegetable garden.

What worked well?
The baths and the watering system within the baths
Corn, beans, lettuce, spinach, tomatoes all grew well in the baths.
The Chillies did well in pots and I would do that again.
The zucchini and pumpkin did well in the small child's pools.
I think the potatoes are doing OK, but I would try for something deeper next year.

Things I would change
Next year I would like to have two baths of tomatos rather than the pots, the pots dry out to quickly and it was only in the pots that I got blossom-end rot.
The capsicum plants really need to be in a bath, so I might consider 1 bath for the capiscums or putting them in with the tomatoes.
I think I could plant the tomato plants earlier next year, in particular the tub bush tomatoes.
The grape tomatoes are yummy when fully ripe, but they are very messy and hard to stake.
I'm still not sure if I will grow watermelon again, but if I do I won't go as many seeds and aim for a a few large plants rather than lots competing. I would also put the cucumbers with the watermelon, rather than with the zucchini.


Things I'd like to grow in the vegetable garden next year that I didn't this year.
I'd like to plan to grow butternut pumpkin's rather than the golden nuggets.
I'd like to try the roma tomatoes in the bath, rather than pots.
Beetroot
Garlic and onions
Broadbeans
Brussel sprouts
Broccoli

BRING ON 2007

Sunday 21 January 2007

Green Thumb Sunday

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I thought photos of pretty flowers were in order this week. I've only just got into flowers, but I brought 10 pots of summer flowers. But now I have a problem, I don't actually know what these flowers are, even though I love them. They are in all sorts of colours, dark purple, white, pink and light purple


Updated to say according to comments, I now think that is is a petunia

Saturday 20 January 2007

Photo Hunter - Wild



I tried to take some photos of wild parrots in my garden, but they flew away.
So instead I took some photos of my "wild" pumpkin plant. I certainly didn't plant this pumpkin as seeds or as seedlings. I think it must have grown from seeds in the compost. As the photo shows it even has a pumpkin on it.



Wednesday 17 January 2007

Tuesday 16 January 2007

Scribble Sunday - Idea

Gardening is all about ideas, planning, thinking, reviewing, planning and inventing and imagining. I think that is partly why I enjoy it so much, it gives me a way to be creative that allows mistakes, changes and is very long term.
At the moment I have lots of ideas about my native bush garden I want to plant at the back of the yard. But at the moment it is just imagination, ideas and planning, but eventually over many many months and years it will be a solid form of my ideas.

The other way ideas are important in gardening is fixing problems. One of my roma tomatoes in a pot has some kind of disease. Oh dear a problem, which needs some ideas to fix it.
Research told me what the disease was and what caused it. That funny looking stuff on the end of the tomato was blossom rot and it is caused by "erratic watering". Well I know my watering has been pretty good, but we had several really really hot days, the 3rd most hot day in history in Canberra,
apparently. Well I suspect that the hot weather was enough to cause the pot to dry out and cause the disease.
What could I do about it?
I didn't read much, but I got the feeling once it has started on a tomato it is not going to stop. In the end my "idea" for this year was to pick all the "bad" and "damaged" tomatoes off the plant so it can put it's energy into ripening the "good" tomatoes. To help with the watering problem I've taken to soaking the pot in the dog's pool. (Jess my dog is
NOT happy about that, but we all have to make sacrifices occasionally.
OK so I've kind of solved the problem for this year, but what "ideas" can I think of to prevent it from happening next year.
Idea 1) I could just not growing any roma tomatoes, but hey I like them and I want at least one. That idea, not good enough.
Idea 2) What about growing the roma tomatoes in one of the baths? Yep that might work, that idea has potential.

So I begin to realise that being a gardener is about constantly having ideas, trying them out and seeing if they work. I don't know that I have reached a full solution to my blossom rot problem, but I'll keep thinking about ideas until I plant next November. I just have to remember to think about this problem, when I am planting next year. (It's called learning from your mistakes)

Monday 15 January 2007

Photo Hunter


I am coming to this a bit late, but I thought I would join in and do last week's technology idea before getting into this weeks.

The technology one really inspired me because originally I started thinking about old technology and I was going to use the photo of my grandfather's barometer which I have just inherited.
But it got me thinking about how I garden and how my grandparents gardened. I also asked myself why I garden compared to why they might have gardened. I know both grandfathers and my grandmother on my mothers side were all "gardeners" and I'm sure all different. My Pa was all about food, he had a large vegetable garden at all times and grew the most amazing tomatoes. My grandfather was very organized according to mum, he liked his garden's laid out carefully, while my grandmother was the opposite apparently . One of my favorite stories of my grandmother is that she would come home in her good shoes and clothes and end up gardening even before she got the front door open.
Any way to my photos, I thought I would include photos of gardening technology.

First the barometer, that I'm sure my grandfather used to predict the weather and help with his gardening.


Next a gardening fork that both my grandparents and I use/d


Finally my solar water pump which I use in my water features, I bet my grandmother would have loved it.

Sunday 14 January 2007

Green Thumb Sunday

Green Thumb Sunday



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This is my first Green Thumb Sunday blog, I have been thinking all week about what I would use for the photo. I was thinking about a zucchini flower, or maybe one of my fuschias. But when I was wandering around my garden, I found this uncurling fern frond and I thought it looked so beautiful. I love that my ferns and doing better and what a wonderful way to start my green thumb sunday. I know the photo is not great, but it has got me inspired to read my camera instruction booklet more carefully, so I can do a better job next week.

Saturday 13 January 2007

My new courtyard.

Well it is not a new courtyard, but with all the new plants it feels like a new courtyard. This is the first garden that I have truly planned before buying and planting. Back in about November I suddenly realised how much I love sitting in the courtyard, and how much nicer again it would be if it was a garden, rather than a bare brick yard. Well instead of my usual rushing out and starting buying plants, I decided since it was such a small and unusual shape I would have to plan it carefully. The courtyard has the large heating unit for our central heating and earlier in the year, my mum had organised for her handyman to put in a trellis screen for us. It does a good job, but I decided that I really wanted to grow a climbing plant on it, but what? I spent time reading, talking and thinking about all the different plants I could have. I started really wanting a passionfruit, but then decided it might be a bit cold for it in Canberra. The I went through the options, potato vine (we’ve got 2 already and they do really well, safe option.) But we’ve already got 2 and I want something different. The family used to have a beach cottage called clematis cottage what if I grow clematis. I like that idea, but I really want a passionfruit. So I came full cycle back to the passionfruit, so guess what I planted a “Ned Kelly” black passionfruit today in a big brown ugly pot. My mum helped me plant it out and she insisted we put a lamb’s liver near the bottom of the pot. She says it’s important, don’t know why, but she’s usually right when it comes to gardening stuff. (Even if she’s not right about lots of other things, I know you’re reading this Queen of Misinformation). The courtyard is a triangle shape like below, the corner with the smily face, is the most difficult corner and I knew it needed a larger structural plant to fill it out. At first I thought I might have a fern tree, to go with the fern tree near the pond, but I didn’t think it would go well in a pot. So I decided I would give in to one of my longings and buy another lime tree, this time I would get a Tahitian lime for the fruit, after buying a kaffia lime last time. When I went to the garden nursery I was very excited to fine no Tahitian limes, but instead they had an Australian lime, so that now graces my courtyard.



The final key structural point of the garden was a largish rectangular window box along the wall with the star. I knew I wanted flowering plants in this and I have planted blushing butterflies, hot lips and a Christmas lily (which my nursery gave to me for free, because it was dying)
What else have I put in my courtyard? A large water pot with 2 goldfish, a pineapple guava (a thoughtful impulse buy) and a pot of black bamboo. The pineapple guava I saw in the nursery and my mum said they were nice. So I was thinking about buying one, when I saw an article about them in an old Gardening Australia magazine, that clinched the deal and off I trundled to buy one. The Bamboo Miki allowed me to buy as a Christmas tree and after it had served its job of guarding all the presents, he carefully carried it to the courtyard for me.

Photos
Here are the before and after photos of the tricky corner with the smily face. As you can see I have some pots for more planting. The brown pot is the same as I used the passion-fruit. I brought the pots because they were very cheap on special, thinking it was because they were ugly. When I got them home I realized that they were not only ugly, but very very heavy. It takes 2 people to lift them empty.





Here are the before and after photos of the other end of the courtyard with the trellis and the window box.



Last photos,
My passionfruit vine! Fingers crossed it survives and does well. The courtyard is very sheltered and doesn't seem to get frosty.

My fish, They are all hiding under an old teapot plunder than my mum gave me. The ugly green thing is a solar pump water fountain that is set into a fake lily pad. Hopefully it will look better when I add water weed from my mum.


So now I have the beginnings of my courtyard oasis.

Friday 12 January 2007

Growing Food

Last spring I decided it was time to expand my vegetable and fruit garden. The previous summer I had grown tomatos in a bath and I wanted to grow more vegetables in more baths. The trouble was moving the baths around the yard, so my Dad designed axles and wheels so that the baths can be moved like a wheelbarrow, he even made me handles. The photos below are of my dad attaching the axles to the baths I got from revolve (our recyling depot) and yes my wonderful dad drove four hours with a trailer to pick up the baths from revolve and bring them home.


I then made gardens in the baths using the no dig method, and planted them out with tomatoes, lettuce, asian veggies, peas, beans and spinach. Later on I added corn, beans, more lettuce and carrots. I also planted seed beet-root, but it didn't grow.
Then I brought from revolve, those clam shell kids pools, in those I planted potatoes, watermelon, zucchini and cucumber. In a dogs bed I planted golden nugget pumpkin. I also planted chillies and capsicum in pots.
Here is a photo of the garden I took around christmas
I love looking out on this from my kitchen window over the sink.

Friday 5 January 2007

Expanding the pond garden

It has been a long while since I updated this blog. I want to get the older information out of the way so I can start talking more about what I'm doing now. Awhile after finishing the first half of the pond garden I realised I wanted to expand it so the whole corner was turned into garden. Using the end patio post and the corner of the brick work to create a line to finish the garden.
The layout
Both myself and my mother were using the grass as a pathway between her house and mine, so I knew when I made the garden I wanted to put in a path. I decided to use cheaper square pavers. We lay news paper on the ground and then covered it with sand. DH helped lay all the pavers and we were both very proud to make a curved path with very little wobbling. Dh used a leftover paver to make a step at the end of the path. I used a large rectangular pot and a platic square one with bulbs already planted to create the boundary and then lay compost and potting mix to create a planting medium. The camomile I had planted earlier was the start of the new garden.
Plants
To be honest it is so long ago I can't remember what I planted originally, but I know the savory plant, some beet-root which are now replaced with lettuce. In the big rectangle pot which created the boundary of the garden I put mint and parsley. Later on I found out that they shouldn't be planted together so I put the mint in a seperate pot and they have both been happier since. The last spring I add italian parsley lemon balm in a pot. And in the garden I added more parsley and Marjoram.
Photos
This shows the garden when I first planted it, looking down the new path.

Next shows the garden now from a similar angle.

This shows the garden looking up the path at the time of planting

Same angle taken recently