trees – Veggie Patch Anywhere

Melbourne Storms

28/09/2024Posted in Gardening, plants, trees, veggie patchLeave a comment

3 Sep 2024

Melbourne was hit by fierce storms recently, with cyclone-like winds wreaking havoc in my garden. My magnolia tree, unfortunately, wasn’t spared and was knocked over, snapping near the bottom. It was a disheartening sight, but I wasn’t ready to give up on it.

I quickly anchored the pot and carefully wrapped the broken part with tape to help it heal. Now, it’s a waiting game—fingers crossed that it will recover. With a bit of luck and a lot of love, I’m hopeful I can nurse it back to health.

On the brighter side, I’ve just finished setting up my compost station and veggie box, and I’m eager to plant some new seedlings.

Stay safe, everyone, and remember, your veggie patch can thrive anywhere!

The bug wars continue …

02/06/2024Posted in flowers, fruit, Gardening, insects, plants, trees, veggie patchLeave a comment

2 June 2024

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 dish soap, one drop of oil, and half a liter of water. Give it a good mix/shake 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 Seasoil.

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!

Orange Tree and Purple Cauliflower

21/04/202421/04/2024Posted in Gardening, plants, pot plants, trees, Vegetables, veggie patchLeave a comment

21 April 2024

ORANGE TREE

This tree was a lovely present from my wife Sandra to add to my citrus collection. I now have lemon, mandarin and orange trees and it looks much better with 5 large pots instead of four 🙂 .

These 37 cm half wine barrels from Bunnings are great for this purpose. I do place them on top of a concrete paver so they drain around the base and don’t rot and at $3 a paver that’s also very affordable.

I have teased the roots out and added some homemade compost and a decent potting mix. Have given it a decent watering and as always the waiting commences – but I do love the aroma of citrus flowers while we wait.

PURPLE CAULIFLOWER AND BROAD BEANS

I planted the purple cauliflower the other day and a white cauliflower later on. They seem to be doing quite well. Just gave them a little bit of watering and pulled out a whole heap of left over tomato plants that have just randomly sprung out from the compost heap.

The beans have taken off as well – everything is growing beautifully.

In the garden section in Bunnings there is a throwaway section of seedlings for a dollar each and I brought quite a few. We’ll see how they go. Absolute bargain because they’re usually $4.99 each.

Happy veggie patch anywhere in pots!

Mandarine Tree

16/03/2024Posted in Gardening, trees, veggie patchLeave a comment

8 Mar 2024

Here I am outside on another gorgeous and sunny Melbourne day. It’s 24°C with a cool wind and I’m looking at my beautiful mandarin tree.

I can see two mandarins already and they both look very healthy.

I’ve put a layer of mulch on top just to retain the moisture and it’s growing quite nicely in the pot.

Also … a tomato plant decided to just randomly grow out the side of this pot – who knows how it got there, but it seems to be doing really well so I’ll give it some time.

There’s a couple of tomatoes on it also so we’ll see how that goes. I don’t know where this tomato plant came from and I thought tomatoes didn’t like pots but this one seems to be adapting well 🙂

Magnolia Tree

10/03/2024Posted in Gardening, trees, veggie patchLeave a comment

4 Mar 2024

On this bright sunny afternoon I was walking through the garden and once again noticed my beautiful Magnolia tree.

It has tripled in size since I planted it last year in a half barrel and I do love the copper/orange colour when the sun strikes down the side of the leaves.

The flowers are just about to bloom and it looks quite beautiful. It also has a really amazing smell once the flowers open up.

Veggie Patch Cleanup and Strawberries

25/02/2024Posted in Gardening, trees, Vegetables, veggie patchLeave a comment

17 Feb 2024

It’s that time of the year again – to clean up the veggie patch after the season ends.

This year I had a total of around 300 tomatoes (big and small), six cucumbers (mostly very large ones) and then it all ended with a whole heap of mulch and mess to clean up.

I have some lovely bunches of basil that I’ve put into a couple of pots – making the veranda smell amazing. That will definitely be used used for cooking over the next few weeks.

During the cleanup process, I also found three more strawberry plants that were growing quietly on runners. They’ve been divided up into individual plants and put into a pot – one of the stand-up pots. These stand-up pots had quite a bit of sun damage, are quite brittle and are just breaking up so they’re probably going to end up in the bin after this.

On another note, the fig tree has fully rejuvenated fully and it’s looking quite healthy so maybe there will be a “saving the fig tree part 3” soon 🙂

After the cleanup. Some cucumbers still growing on the left.

Flowers and the Fig Tree

25/02/2024Posted in flowers, fruit, Gardening, trees, veggie patch1 Comment

12 Feb 2024

I just have to show you guys these beautiful flowers… they are absolutely stunning and the aroma is almost too much. They are Oriental Lilies. I will have to try and grow some of these.

The fig tree has rejuvenated and is looking great. It took three tires, but my determination eventually paid off. Now an actual tasty fig would be worth the wait!

Growing your own Avocado Trees from scratch

17/02/2024Posted in home made, trees, veggie patchLeave a comment

3 Feb 2024

It’s so rewarding watching an avocado pit sprout and transform into a tree! I’ve grown a few, but the waiting game for fruit can be a couple of years.

After enjoying a tasty avocado wrap, here’s a trick: wrap the seed in damp paper towels, toss it in a ziplock bag, and stash it in a cool, dark spot for six weeks. Once that’s done, unwrap the seed, peel off some outer bark, stick in a few toothpicks (careful, some might have roots), and let them sit over a container with water. Old coffee containers work like a charm for this.

Once the shoots hit about 2 feet, it’s transplant time. Put them into some good potting mix or your garden – just make sure they’re not getting blasted by full sun. Happy growing!

Mandarines and the Fig Tree

17/02/202417/02/2024Posted in fruit, Gardening, trees, Vegetables, veggie patchLeave a comment

27 Jan 2024

Mandarins

I’m exploring all the plants in the garden and have come across our first mandarin. The tree is a great little plant that is very green and compact; not much needs to be done.

There is something wonderful and tasty about homegrown mandarins. I am partial to citrus fruits; in Sicily, there are thousands of lemon trees.

I also enjoy the brilliance of the Pansies; they give the garden a lot of color, and they are my wife’s favorite. Absolutely beautiful!

The Fig Tree

My ongoing saga with saving the fig tree continues. Too many offshoots have dried out the soil, and the plant has withered, losing all its leaves. It is a stubborn plant; I know it’s very hard to kill.

I decided to repot it with new soil and get rid of all the offshoots, except for one that I pulled out weeks ago, and it is doing well.

Additionally, I placed some old newspaper sheets underneath the mulch to retain water and slow down evaporation; hopefully, the weeds won’t thrive either. Today, I noticed new budding leaves.

I also collected a bunch of unripened tomatoes and am letting them ripen in the sun. The wildlife is very hungry and will eat anything, even before it’s ripe.

I have collected over 180 cherry tomatoes so far and have enjoyed many garden salads this summer—very delicious!

Biodiversity

03/02/2024Posted in flowers, fruit, Gardening, treesLeave a comment

28 Dec 2023

The lemon tree has shed some of the smaller lemons – I think this will give the other lemons a better chance of growing.

Lots of bees and butterflies hovering around too – probably because of the very colourful Petunias I planted with the lemon and mandarin trees.

One thing missing in my garden is a green canopy and a micro climate. I would love a few trees for shade and for cooling the house down.

The rabbits have eaten all the green waste from the kitchen to the point where they set off the security cameras a few times – probably looking for more 🙂

A huge flock of Rainbow Lorikeets are circling the house – probably trying to get to the apples in the surrounding orchards. We’ll visit one of them again soon for a coffee and some fresh produce… miles and miles of bird netting looks very strange – like cloud puffs in the distance but keeping the birds from eating the crop no doubt.

Babylonstoren (Part 2)

28/01/2024Posted in flowers, Gardening, home made, trees, veggie patchLeave a comment

23 Dec 2023

Just sharing some more of the photos I took in South Africa at Babylonstoren wine estate. What an amazing place that is – blew my mind.

Babylonstoren (Part 1)

03/01/2024Posted in animals, flowers, fruit, Gardening, home made, trees, VegetablesLeave a comment

8 Dec 2023

Today I’m veering off the veggie garden path a little bit to tell you about this wonderful place.

In April of this year my wife and I went on a long overdue holiday to South Africa and on one of the days there, my brother and sister in law took us to an amazing place called Babylonstoren. It is an old Cape Dutch farm in the Franschhoek wine valley in the Western Cape province of South Africa.

It’s a working farm with agriculture landcare, fresh produce and more varieties off plants then you can imagine along with delicatessen hand made products, interactive activities and a wonderful cafe.

To put it mildly – this place was my heaven! We parked under an immense vine structure out in the car park. Hundreds of vehicles parked here – greeted at the gate by three very friendly donkeys. Just inside the gate we were offered some free pomegranates and they were absolutely delicious. As we walked through the building, our guide Marisa (sister in law) started giving us a tour which lasted a couple of hours or more. I was stunned at everything I saw there and I still think of this place often.

There will be many parts to this story as I experienced so many activities and sights there. Part 2 will follow soon and will be about the succulents, the snake path and open air church.

The Fig Tree Saga

02/12/202302/12/2023Posted in fruit, Gardening, treesLeave a comment

20 Nov 2023

We started with one tree, but then I decided to save a dead one. With some care, it took off and has grown over two feet. Later, a third tree joined the other two.

Unfortunately, one of them was destroyed by rabbits, but the other two were transferred to more solid half wine barrels.

Now, we have a lemon tree, a mandarin tree, and two magnolia trees, all thriving in their respective half wine barrels.

Additionally, I found a lemon tree at a local throwaway spot and saved it. One of the magnolia trees, called a fairy floss magnolia, was particularly magnificent. The aroma of its flowers was fantastic, and it perfumed the entire house.