What Wattle?

Just a quick plug for the Belgrave South Community House and their What Wattle? course which runs on Saturday 1st September, considered the first day of Spring and of course, National Wattle Day :)

This course is a hands on workshop where you will be taught some simple guidelines to help identify some of the indigenous wattles in the local area, as well as the weedy intruders.

The course is from 2-4pm and includes light refreshments.  Total cost is $10, or $5 concession.

Book now to avoid disappointment! :)

The Fence...

What can I say?  At least it's half done! :)

Oodles of wonderful wrigglers!

No idea if I've posted this before, but here's what you can expect to see if you look after your soil and keep getting that organic matter in there!

I couldn't remember if I'd posted that particular picture before, but DD1 was asking whether her worms would have had babies by now and how many there would be...  a LOT!

Our soil is a veritable worm spaghetti :D

Treat Peach Leaf Curl Now! Lime-Sulphur Recipe

For those with peach, nectarine, apricot, plum or almond trees in particular, it's almost time to treat your trees before bud burst in order to prevent any hibernating fungal growths from infecting the new growth.

As soon as you see the pink starting to show on the buds, spray your tree - it is not possible to control the fungus once it's entered the leaf, so don't leave it for the buds to open.

Get your garden growing!

This is going to feel like a bit of product placement, but bear with me!

Recently, I was making a return visit to Heronswood and wondering through the vegetable garden area when I heard a group debating what chemical fertiliser products must have been used to have everything growing so well in winter.

Birdsland Reserve

This area of riparian bushland off McNicol Road in Belgrave Heights is important both from a community and an environmental point of view.

On occasion referred to as "the lungs of Belgrave", Birdsland Reserve is a 75 hectare reserved managed by the Yarra Ranges Council and abuts a further 36 hectares that is currently managed by Melbourne Water.  This latter area is referred to officially as the Monbulk Creek Retarding Basin, but to us locals the whole area is known simply as Birdsland.

Unless you have under 5's in your family, in which case it may be fondly known as Duckland :)

"What? Is that it?!"

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 :)