Category: grass

Winter garden, Daffodils and Purple Broccoli

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Citrus update

It’s a cold, windy day. I come out to my garden to look at my lovely citrus trees. The bugs have disappeared, and they’re looking fantastic. I planted some pansies at the bottom of the pots. I gave them a good feed, and the lemons are looking and tasting beautiful. I also tasted some of the first peas of the season. The broccoli are turning out nice, the broad beans are growing, and I’ve covered all the herbs with bird netting. The strawberry plants have got new leaves, and they’ve got a surprise tomato plant growing. I’ll let that go and see how it does in the middle of winter.

Lawn bare patch

I have to give my lawn a mow. I noticed a couple of round bare patches. The birds have been busy digging up the roots and eating the bulbs and seeds that are underneath, so they’ve left a couple of bare patches. So what I’ve done is roughened up the area, poked holes for aeration, sprinkled some patch-up seed with fertilizer, and watered it in. We’ll see how it goes.

Daffodils and Dutch Iris

One of the things I like to do is go to Bunnings in the plants section. They usually have a little corner where they have plants that have seen better days and have bargain seedlings and lots of other goodies at very, very cheap prices. For three dollars, I got myself some Dutch Iris and some red daffodils, and I have also been lucky enough to find a mandarin tree for a third of its price. I need to figure out whether I need to buy a new pot or whether my fig tree decides to die. Anyway, the fig tree’s replacement is sitting right next to it just to give it a little bit more motivation to grow. I planted these in the tub, and we’ll see how they look in a couple of weeks once they start growing. They did seem to shoot up just in the last two days; that was quite fast. Anyway, have fun with your veggie patch and enjoy your weekend.

Winter Solstice

On the shortest day of the year, on this lovely 1°C Melbourne winter morning with very icy grass, I ventured out into my veggie patch to discover that my purple broccoli has developed and it looks spectacular. The herbs are taking off, and I found a surprise tomato plant growing with flowers. I’m wondering if I’m going to get any tomatoes out of this winter. On the shortest day of the year, it’ll be dark before 5 o’clock tonight, so I’ll make the most of looking after my veggie patch, rug up, and stay warm, hoping for a little bit of sunshine.

Aerate the lawn and the bug wars continue …

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19 May 2024

Aerate the lawn

It’s that time of the year again. Golf courses are starting to aerate their lawns, apply new topsoil, and maybe even reseed. It’s a good idea to do the same thing at home. For a small lawn like mine, a garden fork will do the trick. Simply walk along in lines and poke holes about one inch deep into your lawn. It’s great exercise for the arms, and after a half hour or so, you’ll definitely feel it.

If your lawn is larger, get some equipment from your hardware store. Spike boots or prong lawn aerators work well. Also, add a bit of soil and sand on top of the grass to create a mini golf practice chipping green if you like.

The bug wars 😦

It’s a never-ending saga with my citrus trees: plenty of bugs and leaf miner scales. They really like to hide, so when you’re spraying your trees, make sure you get the underside of the leaves and even unfold some of the curled leaves to find them. Sometimes, I just pick them off when the leaves are too damaged.

For a homemade anti-bug solution, mix one drop of washing soap, one drop of oil, and half a liter of water. Give it a good mix and spray your trees as many times as you like. This solution works well against whiteflies too. If that doesn’t work, a biodegradable room spray is great as well. Make sure it’s biodegradable and environmentally friendly.

Also, top up the pots with some fresh, good-quality potting mix and feed your trees with sea soil. The lemons are looking great. Autumn is my favorite time of the year. What a beautiful day to be out working in the veggie patch!

Traditions, Anzac Day, Mushrooms and the Bonsai Pot

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5 May 2024

Traditions

Traditions are a great source of how things used to be done and a wealth of knowledge. A great tradition handed down through generations is the storage of summer produce. These small tomatoes have a sharp point and taste delicious. Nonno picks them in bunches at the end of summer, ties them together, and hangs them under a cool shady spot. He calls these tomatoes Spuntinni. They last for four months; I would love to see the ones in the supermarket last four days. The ones that go rotten drop off and are discarded, but not before seeds are collected. The same process goes for the peppers, which are strung together and dried to make flakes or to fry and eat like chips. A wealth of knowledge is slowly disappearing, and people like me are trying to share and keep it alive.

Mushrooms

After some heavy rains and a bit of sunshine, the lawn is looking very vibrant, and on closer inspection, I have noticed lots of mushrooms. They’re very pretty but not so great if consumed by the family pet. Lily, our border collie, is very inquisitive and highly suspicious of anything new in the garden; she gave them a good barking (along with the wind, clouds, birds, and anything else that moves or breathes, lol). I put on some gloves and got rid of a heap of them under Lily’s supervision. I also made a dish soap solution and gave the affected areas a sprinkle. After a few days, it did the trick.

Bonsai Pot cleanup

It’s Anzac Day, time to relax, pay our respects, watch the football, and give the Bonsai pot a cleanup. I cleared all the dead leaves, propagated as many as I could, removed stones, and gave them a wash. I pruned the Jade bonsai slightly to retain its shape, then placed some red rocks around the base and also some for the elephant to balance on. I might blue tack her down and have decided to call her Caron, a beautiful reminder of a great friend who gifted her to me. I topped up everything with white crushed rocks that were only $6 at Bunnings. It was very relaxing and therapeutic. Turned out looking really nice in the end.

Succulent progress

On another sunny Melbourne day I’m happily veggie patching my way everywhere and enjoying the sunshine before the cold weather hits later on this afternoon . I had a peek at my succulent propagation cuttings . The leaves have some roots – some have just withered away and died, but the ones that have taken off still look healthy . I will leave them alone for a couple of weeks and some time in the future I’ll transplant them into pots. I’ve got some from even about a year ago – they’re coming along nicely. I spray them with some water maybe once a week depending on how hot it is. They do like things to be nice and dry though. I will be keeping them undercover as it has been very cold weather and lots of frost and the little greenhouses have worked a treat.

Mowing

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22 Mar 2024

On this beautiful sunny Melbourne day I decided to try my new lawnmower and cut the grass myself.

It was costing me $135 a month to get it mowed by a professional gardener. The last time the gardener came over he only spent 25 minutes mowing and I felt like it was a waste of money and that I could probably do it myself. But I would have to get my own mower and whipper snipper first of course.

After putting the new mower together I thought to myself it looks like a toy because I decided to get a small, lightweight battery powered Ozito model. I was wondering if it was even going to work because it was just so small :-).

I’ve gotta say … it’s done a beautiful job and it’s well worth the money. So easy to use and not hard to push at all. The battery also seems to last forever and I will enjoy mowing my grass myself from now on.

Here is a link to the mower I got from Bunnings for $229. I think I’ve probably already made my money back – light as a feather and hardly any noise either. My next step will be to get a whipper snipper to get those edges nice and straight.

Happy mowing everyone!

More succulents and my winter garden plans

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3 Mar 2024

I have started propagating a few more succulent leaves by laying them down in some soil. This is day 1 so we’ll see how this goes.

I again spent a little bit of time clearing out the veggie patch and turning over the soil – even the cleaning up is a full time job I think 🙂

Then I contemplated maybe buying two recycled steel containers and filling it up with fresh soil and compost to plant the winter crops in, but I’m not 100% sure yet if I’ll do that… watch this space.

I’ll be keeping some of the larger pots to grow cucumber and peas in next season. They are quite compact and the cucumbers and peas seem to like the pots. As long as you remember to keep them moist by watering them often and take good care of them regularly.

They also don’t take up a lot of space and you can put them just about anywhere – under a patio or a veranda – as long as it gets a bit of sun every day.

You’ll learn how to look after them eventually and they should give you a nice tasty crop with not too much effort at all.

Just another fig tree … 🙂
More cleanup done

Recycling cardboard boxes to stop weeds

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2 Mar 2024

A couple of weeks ago I trimmed the fig tree again and pulled out a couple of shoots that were growing out of the base. I decided to plant one of the little off-shoots because it had some roots at the end of it and it has taken off. It’s a lovely little tree in a little black pot. So now my fig trees have multiplied to 3 – I don’t know where it’s going to end. All depends on how much room I have in the garden I guess.

The tomatoes are all gone now. I’m still getting some scraggly little cucumbers which are still very tasty though.

Everything else now looks nice and neat. I did plant a few lettuces and spread out the strawberries into a standard pot and then I covered them with bird netting to stop the birds from digging around and destroying everything.

I’ve also decided to brush away some of the bark and soil and laid down some flattened cardboard boxes – then I covered them with soil again. This is a good way to contain some of the weeds and grass shoots that are coming through under the fence from my next door neighbour. I did this before and it works a treat – the cardboard gets wet, compacts and creates a nice barrier against any weeds that are trying to poke through. You can then cover this back up with bark or mulch and it controls a lot of the weeds while you’re also recycling cardboard boxes at the same time and doing your bit for the environment.

Some dead leaves that I clipped off the cucumber plant
Last of the cucumbers still persisting
Strawberries covered up with bird netting
Cardboard boxes flattened and covered with soil to stop weeds growing through

Lawn Care

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18 Feb 2024

Today I used some of the soil from the veggie patch cleanup to top up the bare patches and low points in the lawn. This is a very good use for all the soil that I was left with after the cleanup. The vegetable soil also contains a lot of nutrients still so it is really good grass food essentially.

The piece of grass I like to call my golf practice area will definitely appreciate the loving care.

I also pulled out a whole heap of weeds and hopefully it will green up in the next few weeks and end up looking wonderful again.

Veggie garden soil used on top of the grass here
The golf chipping target area in the back 🙂