Garden Diary

The flowering quince is now in full bloom on bare branches and looks amazing!

I'm also loving the colour we have from the African Daisies (Arctotis NOT Senecio pterophorus commonly known as winged groundsel or ragwort and a declared noxious weed in Victoria), camellias, cornflower and English Violets.

Growing at the moment we have the next lot of pea seedlings at about 20cm; the green manure in the bed that will have corn next year is also about that high; tiny little silvebeet that is not appreciating our cats sleeping on it and growing very slowly in it's low light position; lots of flower and herb seedlings,  including coriander, thyme, rosemary and oregano all over the garden; cosmos enjoying the sun of the past few days and starting to flower; aloe vera flower stalks starting to open, the ornamental cherry has buds all over it, and the various melaleucas, callistemons, Goodia lotifolia and Prostanthera lasianthos are also preparing to flower.

I'm keeping a look out for the flower stalks on the orchids and stylidium this year so I can get some slug and snail bait out before they get munched!

On the downside, the sunflowers finally realised it was winter and the cannas are starting to realise it too, with the flowers taking way longer to develop... The feijoa also finished it's harvest about 2 weeks ago.

Shame, as we really enjoyed it this year, but at least we've been able to give the tree a good cut back so we get lots of new growth next year.  The position of the swale and the downpipe divert near to the feijoa should also mean it gets some more water at fruit set this time, so even bigger fruit.  :)

 The nature strip has now been cleared back a bit as we need to add a retaining wall and clear out the area around the steps.  In clearing it, I found a lot of native rushes and sedges, Lomandra filiformis and L. longifolia mainly, but also what I think is Gahnia radula.  We have these now doing well through out the front garden since we stopped mowing it and it's really cool to see our "bush garden" naturally taking shape.

Finally... the fence IS going to be replaced!!

Everyone involved has agreed this weekend is the one and have also purchased the timber etc.  My concern is that the main neighbour we share the fence with has also chosen today to start building his extension and new deck, so I'm not sure how important the fence will be to him.  Better be high on the list though, as I'm running out of time to get the bare rooted fruit trees in and will have to purchase more expensive potted ones, which I can't afford.

National Tree Day Planting with Southern Dandenongs Community Nursery

We had a fantastic day of planting at Birdsland Reserve on Sunday, in support of National Tree Day (NOT I should add, of Planet Ark!), and were really pleased at the turnout - particularly as it was raining for most of the time!

Thanks go to the SDCN Committee, in particular Garrique Pergl for organising it, and of course to Andrew Van Vloten of Parks Victoria who voluntarily came on his day off to supervise the planting.

I also wanted to thank the other Parks Vic volunteers who came along, especially Sandy who, like me and my DH, had to carry a toddler and try to keep a 4 year old (kinda...) dry.  Sandy was a bit more organised and remembered the snacks, which her boys very kindly shared with our girls - lifesaver! :)

A final thank you to members from SDCN, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Cr. Samantha Dunn and family and numerous other non-member volunteers who turned up on the day - often with small children in tow!

Here are some of the pics from the day.  More will appear on the Southern Dandenongs Community Nursery facebook page and website very soon!

Getting started...

Andrew Van Vloten (Parks Victoria) and Garrique Pergl (SDCN)
looking  pleased at how the day is going!

Cr. Samantha Dunn shows that persistence pays off when a
stubborn stake won't go in
Give it what for Sam!

Sea Shepherd volunteers are regular attendendees of SDCN planting days.
Keen, friendly, cheerful (no matter what the weather) and hard working:
You're welcome back any time!

...the end
For this year! :)

Thank you to everyone who allowed me to take pics of them and their children and consented to their use.  I have opted not to include pics of any of the children here, as I specifically asked permission for those to be used by SDCN or Parks Victoria.  If anyone was there would like to see the pics I took of their family, then please get in contact and I would be happy to send them on. :)

Sepp Holzer Films

Here are 3 films on Sepp Holzer's permaculture practices, that I hope you will all find as interesting as I have!

Enjoy :)


Farming with Nature:

Aquaculture:

Terraces and Raised Beds:
(please ignore dodgy initial sound quality - it does get a bit better!  Keep volume down and skip to 15 secs to avoid it :)

Further details on Sepp's hugelkulter raised beds can be found here.

Composting with Paul Taylor of Trust Nature

So many people seem to struggle with composting and many farmers don't believe it's a viable practice for improving agricultural soils.

In Australia, there are several organisations and companies working in the world of regenerative agriculture, who aim to show farmers that composting works and can provide amazing results.

One of these is trustnature.com.au, run by Paul Taylor.

Check out this two part video of Paul's explaining how to make a biodynamically diverse compost to use as a soil improver and for making your own microbe rich compost teas.

Watch out for more from Paul and Trust Nature in future :)

Garden Diary with Winter Colour

I love this time of year!

The Protea with lots of flowers...

So many things growing like crazy and so much colour :)

Protea flower thinking about opening

This past week the protea flowers started to open and will soon be showing us it's lovely fluffy insides, which I can't help but stroke on the way past!








Unfortunately, I have no idea what species of Protea this is, so if anyone knows, please let me know :)

Farm for the Future

Here's a great BBC documentary made by Rebecca Hosking and Tim Green in 2009, which shows how peak oil will affect farming and food distribution.

Rebecca and Tim look at how a return to local food production, diversification in crops, organic methods and regenerative agriculture will help us cope.

dirththemovie.org gets a bit of a facelift!

Just a quick note to say that the Dirt The Movie guys have given their website a bit of a facelift and the new site is now live.

If you haven't already done so, now's the time to check the movie out and learn why soil degradation is such a hot issue.

Or should I say, a dirty word?

Milkwood Permaculture Design Certificate

For those of you who live in or around Sydney and are interested in Permaculture, do yourself a favour and book in for the next Permaculture Design Certificate course run by the guys at Milkwood.

These courses are not cheap, so you really need to be sure that you're choosing one where you will get real value for money: where you will be learning from those with tried and tested PRACTICAL Permaculture experience.

If you attend a Milkwood course, then you can be guaranteed that you are learning from some of the best.

Nick Ritar in particular actually has a background in systems architecture, which enables him to translate the more difficult to understand elements of Permaculture design into a language that the layman can understand.

Here is Nick at the TEDx Event in Canberra last year:

Oh, and here's a great video from Milkwood that shows you what can be expected on the course! :)

Transition Network News

Mike Grenville of the Transition Network has let me know that their new paper, The Transition Free Press, will be available online!

Note that those, like me, who jump the gun will discover that the link in that article doesn't work yet... The first copy should be made available online from lunchtime, UK time, today :)

Ohh...and for those looking for the Rob Hopkins book, The Transition Companion, and not managing to find it locally, it can be ordered from either Green Books, or if you live outside the UK, can be purchased with no postage costs from the fantastic Book Depository.

Australian Native Plants Society (Australia)

The ANPSA is a great online resource for those with an interest in native Australian plants, regardless of level of knowledge.

However, for a novice gardener or internet user, it can be a bit bewildering trying to find your way around, so I thought it might be worthwhile highlighting some of the key resources that are worth checking out.

Hope this helps! :)