Who do I read?

At the moment I subscribe to around 15 RSS Feeds from other blogs.

Reading these blogs gives me ideas for my own garden, as well as providing me with some ideas to post about.

Here they are in no particular order…

Tiny Farm Blog

My Tiny Plot

Scarecrow’s Garden

Fluffius Muppetus

Veggie Gardening Tips

Garden Desk

Her Gardening Blog

The Herb Gardener

Glenns Garden

Mr Brown Thumb

Smell Like Dirt

All the Dirt on Gardening

Backyard Gardening Blog

Adventures in my Urban Garden

This Garden is Illegal

I highly recommend that you should subscribe to any or all of these blogs!
You can also subscribe to my blog HERE.

Subscribe to this blog's RSS feed

I’ve recently found a new Auction website for Australian’s.
Under normal circumstances I don’t refer sites like this to my readers, but I can’t help but show you the great selection of seeds that are on offer in the Home and Garden section. At the time of writing there are over 4000 items in the Plants, Seeds and Bulbs section.

I like the range, and the prices are cheaper than the ‘other’ auction site.



Yes this is an affiliate link, but I will only get paid (a whole $2) if you sign up and buy something or sell something.
If you feel that I am not worthy of the referral, then type www.oztion.com.au into your browser and enjoy the range

Tags: auction, seeds, gardening

Last weekend we packed our ute and headed bush to Lawn Hill National Park in North West Queensland, Australia.

While enjoying a weekend of walking and canoing through the gorge a couple of photo’s were taken…
I can not believe that some of these plants survive!

Lawn Hill Gorge


Fig Tree on the edge

Nature’s vertical garden


Twisted Fig Roots

Waterfalls


Vertical Garden

Lawn Hill Gorge

Tags: LawnHill, national park, photo

Who would have thought that a pot plant would suffer from compost worm infestation?

Everywhere you read that worm castings are the best thing for fertilising your plants, this is no lie. But the very maker of your valuable worm castings can mean a slow growth rate for your plants in pots.

The job of worms is to eat organic matter and break it down into smaller and more usable elements. When you use a good quality potting mix, it is generally made of 100% organic matter that is mixed in such a way to retain enough water to keep your plant happy while draining freely enough to allow the roots to breathe.

Worm castings are a great source of nutrients of plants, the mix of organic elements slowly fertilises plants and is great to use in potted plants which can only access the nutrients that you give them.

Combining the makers of this magic ingredient with your fabulous pot plants is a recipe for disaster. Worms eat organic matter (read potting mix) and deposit worm castings (read heavy soil). By having a population of worms living in your pots, they eat all the fine material in the potting mix and leave behind a heavy soil that is prone to water logging and poor drainage which will cause your plants to suffer.

Ensure that you don’t get worms into your pots, you should remove any worms from the castings you place in. Also by removing any visible eggs from the castings you will reduce the birth rate of worms in your pots.

If you’ve got a plant that’s infested with worms you should soak the plant in water, remove the plant from the pot and discard the potting mix to the garden where the worms will be appreciated. Re-pot the plant in fresh potting mix and add worm free castings.

Learn more about Compost Worms

Tags: wormcastings, worms, compost worms, worm eggs

Recently posted on the TimesOnline in the property section, Stephen Anderton and Lucy Alexander have stated that having ‘A cracking garden’ can add 2 to 10 percent to the value of a property.

There are a few rules to follow though, City home owners want a small walled garden with nice pots and furniture. Their country cousins like a cottage garden in the English theme, fast paced people with little time to garden like low maintenance lawns and shrubs, while keen gardeners (Like us!) love to have a kitchen garden and herbaceous borders.

From all of that, I think I may be a bit of both. My front garden is going to be a low maintenance water wise garden, while the back yard will have an area of tropical rain forest, a kitchen garden and a formal garden. This may be hard to imagine, but I will post photo’s as it goes.

So lets see, having spent a lot of time and a little money on designing and planting your garden, you could easily make $30,000 extra on a $300,000 house… Not bad going if you enjoy gardening!
Thanks to ladybugbkt for the photo!

Tags: garden, property value

Mulch seems to be the new buzz word here in Australia when people start talking about having water wise gardens. What people don’t realise is that using an organic mulch is the same as adding un-composted compost.

In my garden we have very sandy soils which don’t hold a lot of moisture for a long period of time, sandy soils are also popular for some very prickly weeds that get stuck in your feet when you walk on the grass.

My solution to mulching a large area of nutrient poor soils is to remove any weeds, spread a layer of grass hay to around 5cm thick, then cover with a layer of rotted cow manure.

The mixing of the manure (nitrogen rich) and hay (carbon rich) will over time cold compost down into a thick layer rich in organic matter ready to hold water in the soil and to give your plants a boost.

Each year the hay and manure needs to be topped up, so put another layer of hay on top of last years manure then more manure to create a layered effect. This goes some way to being a ‘No Dig Garden’ but in a much slower format. After about 3 years you should not have to plant anything in the original soil, the mulch layer should be deep enough and have enough nutrients to support any plants in it.

The key to mulching is to use what you have available to you, this could be dry leaves, grass clippings or rotted manure. You just need to Mulch It!

Tags: mulch, water wise, garden, water, wise, water saving, no dig

I’ve been reading an old book a friend loaned me called A Practical Guide to Composting by Frank Haddon, its is all about composting in the home garden in large and small scales. After reading through it a light bulb went on and I have decided to use an existing structure in my yard as my new compost bin.

If you are looking for a book to read on composting here are two of my recommendations:

• Let it Rot!: The Gardener’s Guide to Composting (Third Edition)
• Easy Composters You Can Build

Background:
The chosen area is situated on a cement slab, and is constructed out of cinder blocks (large hollow bricks). It was previously used as a dog kennel, but after removing the tin roof I think it will be perfect for hot composting.

The structure has walls on three sides and is approximately 4m wide (lots of dogs!). I plan to build a pile in one half, let it begin to co 
mpost, then move it by garden fork across to the other side. By doing so it will aerate the mix, giving all the little microbes which break down the organic material oxygen to breathe.

Here is my starting mix:
- 2 parts mango leaves
- 2 parts dry lawn clippings
- 1 part horse manure

I have had success using a similar mix in a small 60 litre bin.

By moving the compost from side to side in the bin it will aerate the mix, giving the microbes more oxygen in which to work and generate temperatures of up to 70 degrees celcius. High temperatures such as that will kill off any weed seeds and diseases that may be living in the plant material added.

By aerating the mix it will prevent any anaerobic (live without oxygen) microbes from growing and giving off a horrible smell.

The compost I create over the next few weeks will be used on my garden to enrich the sandy soils that I have.

In an up and coming post I will detail the best uses for compost.

Tags: Compost, compost bin, build compost bin, composting method, hot composting

Ever need a new use for an old PET bottle? Here is a new product that will allow you to use old bottles as watering cans, or use the smaller one to help pour soft drink at home.
Bring in the Twist and Spout. We have been using these at home for a month now, and have found them to be great! A friend gave us one as a gift, it was put to use on our patio to water my seedlings. Since then we have bought another set to allow us to have one in the back yard as well.

Twist and Spout Kitchen Pour Spout

Tags: twist, and, spout, watering can, recycle, PET, bottle

I recently bought some seeds from the Nursery so I could prepare to grow this years tomatoes, these seeds are cherry tomatoes known as ‘Sweetie’. I’ve also got some seeds left over from when I saved some seeds from nice tomato I bought.

Using the method detailed in an earlier post on How to Make Newspaper Pots I made 9 pots out of my local news paper.

Tomatoes need a fine well drained seedling mix to grow, it’s best to pre wet the seedling mix prior to putting it into the pots. Put however much mix you require into a bucket and add a small amount of water, it needs to be about as wet as a wrung out sponge. Fill your pots and tap on a table to get the mix all the way to the bottom.

I planted my seeds about 5mm beneath the soil, this is the ideal depth for tomatoes. In 4 of the pots I made the hole deeper (10mm) and placed one grain of Osmocote, then back-filled to 5mm to plant the seed. I am trialing this method to see if I get stronger plants. If you are planting different varieties of tomato, make sure you label them so you know what variety is what.

Germination of the seed usually takes 10 days, keep them in a sheltered position which gets some sunlight.

After germination I intend to water the seedlings with diluted worm wee, see my post on Compost Worms for the full details, to give them an organic boost.

After they have formed two real leaves, place the tomato seedlings in the sun for short periods 3 hours at a time to get them used to full sun. This is called hardening off.

Tomatoes have a great feature, you can plant them at any depth and the fine hairs on their stems will grow roots! This works in the gardeners favour, as you can plant them out laying on their sides, which in turn will grow more roots and give you a stronger plant.

You need to plant the tomatoes out into warm soil after the last frost in your area. As the weather warms up, the tomato plant will begin to flower and produce.

Fruit should be picked when red and slightly soft. Refrigeration is needed if you intend to keep your tomatoes for more than a week.

Each time I plan out a new section of garden I try to make it as low maintenance as possible. A garden bed that will grow happily with some water and fertiliser, some mulch to keep the weeds down and a prune every year or so and requiring minimal water to stay alive.

So here are my top ten plants to have in your garden that will grow well in hot or cool dry conditions, they are ranked in no particular order.

Duranta ‘Geisha Girl’ - A plant that originated in Japan, it grows well in hot or cold conditions and forms wonderful purple flowers with a white center, followed by orange lantern shaped seed pods. It loves full sun and requires nothing more that a prune and fertiliser after flowering. Grows to 2 metres as a weeping standard.

Gazania - This plant is that hardy in all conditions it has been noted as a noxious weed in Australia if grown outside of a contained garden. It produces medium orange and yellow daisy flowers. It grows low to the ground a spreads easily. If you grow Gazania make sure you keep it under control!

Lavender - Growing as a medium sized bush, it can be hedged or pruned to any shape. A hardy plant that produces small purple flowers on stems with a lavender fragrance. A must in any garden.

Dwarf Sacred Japanese Bamboo  (Nandina domestica ‘Nana’). Comes from Asia (Japan and China and South East Asia). Despite it’s look, it is not related to bamboo and wont take over your yard. Sporting lime green foliage, it grows to about 45cm in the garden, is great as a mass planting, and its other attraction is that in autumn its leaves turn red and orange, grows well in pots!

Acacia cognata (Wattle) Several forms are great for the garden, ‘Green Mist’, ‘Limelight’ or ‘River Cascade’. The stems are lovely weep down and form a rounded bush about 75cm tall and 1 metre wide. It’s great for pots or small hedges.

One of my favorites called Lomandra ‘Seascape’. With blue green foliage that looks fabulous. It would be terrific in a pot, or mass planted in the garden.

Coastal Rosemary It’s a low, rounded shrub, with wonderful mauve flowers. It’s a tough, hardy plant.

Pelargonium peltatum, commonly known as geranium. Goes well in pots, garden beds or balconies. These plants don’t need much water, but in a hanging basket water more than if it’s in the ground. The fabulous range of flower colours include pinks, mauves, rose and cerise pinks.