Trespassers will be composted

After five months of feeling guilty about chucking fruit, veggies, eggshells and other organic matter into the bin, we finally got a compost bin for our new house. It nestles under the edge of a 45 year old camellia, and gets the western sun to warm it. It looks a bit like a Dalek in disguise. I'm surprised it doesn't shout "Exterminate!" every time I open the lid and put more veggie peelings into it.

I visit it daily and turn the contents with a stirrer that looks like a long metal corkscrew. Already the contents - my fruit and veg scraps, together with coffee grounds, tea leaves and the like, plus a healthy proportion of dried leaves - is starting to look like compost. Once I see a few worms in there, I'll be truly happy. The system will be working.

Buoyed up by living a bit greener, we have also bought ourselves a rechargeable lawnmower. Mum used to have a lawnmower man, John, whom I was quite happy to keep on in the role, but he's gone AWOL. He was going backpacking in Asia for six weeks in February, but I haven't heard from him since. I've tried phoning at different times of the day and his phone just rings out. I'm quite concerned about him, actually. I don't know anyone else who uses his services so can't contact them.  I hope he's OK.

But, sans John, with a lawn growing madly after a rainy autumn, we debated what to do. We were doing it ourselves with a whipper snipper and a little push reel mower (i.e.,. I was the motor!), but that was a pain in the teeth. The push reel jammed on every twig.

We considered other lawnmower men, but most of them work on a schedule. They come every couple of weeks whether you need the lawn doing or not, and you are duty bound to pay them, and they all charge more than John.

So I decided we would DIY as it would get us fit. I looked at petrol mowers, and recalled the childhood days when Mum would mow the lawn with our 1960 Scott Bonner and it was a pain in the arse to start.  I looked at electric mowers and rechargeable mowers and most of them wouldn't have the grunt to do justice to our lawn. It's big and sloping. Finally I found one that would: Eco-Mate.

As luck would have it, the Eco-Mate importer was awaiting a new shipment and had a demo model for sale, which had only had about two hours' use. It was nearly $100 off the list price, so G and I grabbed it. It rocks!  It's half as loud as a petrol mower and all you smell is the delicious scent of freshly cut grass. The downside is the battery is humungous so it's quite a heavy unit, but it's well-built and - bliss! - starts every time. I found it easy to mow the main lawn even though it slopes. I did the higher slopes outside our chimney area and that was bloody hard going. This week G did the higher slopes and he found it hard work too, but we both agree it's a great bit of kit.

Eco-Mate can do up to 90 minutes' work on a full charge; you don't even have to remove the battery to charge it if you don't want to, either; just run the charger up to the unit. Even after ploughing through our overlong grass last week it was still half-charged when we'd finished.

I've been doing the edges with hand powered grass shears; I found an manual edger in the garage and it's shite. It just hacks at the grass, but the hand shears work a treat. There's an electric edger in there too and I'm unsure whether that still works. One weekend we'll try it, but I do worry about G and electric lawn tools. Every time he gets the whipper snipper out I wonder whether he'll chop the cord in half! He can be rather slapdash. Hence I haven't suggested we try the electric edger yet.

And not for us the awful noise of the leaf blower. Seriously, I hate those things. I don't mind the ones that actually hoover up the leaves, but all the neighbours have lawnmower and maintenance men who use leaf blowers, and they simply blow the leaves off the neighbours' drives onto the road, where they end up in the gutter and storm water channels. Annoys me no end. They all seem to work here on a Wednesday and I hear leaf blowers in triplicate. We have a big garden broom and decent garden rake and of course the new compost bin will be delighted with our leaves.

To end this post, apropos no reason at all except it's pretty, is a photo of one of my camellia flowers, Paradise Vanessa.

The Constant Gardener

Coming back here to live presented me with a challenge - namely 89 pot plants from large to small on the balcony, many of which were destined to be planted out in the garden.

Before they could be planted, garden beds needed to be created.

I am proud to say that one has been (with two to go). G and I worked over the Easter break to dig a bed one metre wide and 22 metres long along one boundary of the property. It curves in front of two existing mature camellias, one of which is the same age as I. G was in the throes of a head cold and the hard work just about did him in (thank heavens for life insurance in case it did!).

We had to clear a couple of metres wide and deep full of fishbone fern on the left hand end. Well, I did, while G ripped out some Morning Glory. Mistress of the Mattock, me. Fishbone fern leaves horrible little balls behind it, the seeds for more to come up, so I had to mattock it out chunk by chunk then sift through the soil to get the seeds. In short it took eight hours to weed that patch over about three days.

In the middle of my mattocking I got 'bitten' by the neighbouring palm. Cutting a long story short, two of my fingers swelled like sausages, I had to have a ring cut off, I was on antibiotics for ten days and a week after the event I pulled a 7mm thorn out of one knuckle after it had festered satisfactorily. I was so pissed off about the whole thing I got the tree fellers to get rid of the bastard.

The tree fellers also took out two japonicas which had grown into an ugly mound (covered in Morning Glory too), an under performing wisteria which had flowered maybe ten years out of the last fifty, and a Carissa which was doing OK but frankly I had other plants I'd sooner put in there.

After the tree fellers had done their stuff and Sam the Stumpy had ground the stumps, we got stuck in with mattock and shovel, digging up turf for the beds. Our lawn used to be all buffalo but over the years some crap grass has started to take over. We threw the crap grass in the green bin and reused the buffalo turf on other parts of the lawn.

In the meantime I'd been to a plant collectors' fair and bought seven hydrangeas, six salvias and a collection of other useful, pretty or edible plants such as Cordyalis, Cat's Whiskers, Campanula, Omphalodes, Liliums, Broccoli and Cauliflower, all for the new garden bed. You see, I may have 89 pots on the balcony but they aren't all destined for this particular garden bed. The six roses will have their own bed, the four or five pots of bearded Iris will be in a third bed, and my orchid collection will be staying on the balcony.

I was able to move a number of pots from the balcony down to the new bed:

• 2 miniature fruit trees, a peach and a nectarine
• 1 Camellia Sasanqua Paradise Vanessa
• 1 Camellia Japonica Black Magic (red flower)
• 1 Hibiscus
• 1 pot of Melissa (lemon balm) which divided into a number of smaller plants
• 1 Brazilian Cherry. This was quite large and we lowered it over the balcony with thick rope. Digging the hole for it nearly toppled G.
• 1 Tibouchina Jules
• 2 Hydrangeas - Ayesha and Endless Summer. Ayesha was in a big tub too.
• 1 Nellie Kelly Blueberry bush
• 1 pot of Patchouli
• 6 pelargoniums, some scented, some just with pretty flowers
• 1 Deutzia
• 1 Japanese Windflower

Phew!!!

Because I'm too lazy to photo stitch a panorama together, here are three images showing the new garden beds.

Left hand side

Centre, with my two mature Camellias and the two fruit trees in front of them. Lots of veggies planted here!

Right hand side. The Brazilian Cherry is the biggest of the plants in the new garden and stands nearly 1.5 metres.

The overall colour scheme is white, red, blue and some existing pale pink (i.e. the mature camellias). I love strong colours and the red and blue salvias should look truly striking when they grow and are in full bloom.

This afternoon I planted some dwarf peas in the right hand side of the bed. All the salvias etc planted there won't grow enormous overnight but I'm hoping for good things by springtime, by which time the peas will all be harvested. And I can plant tomatoes there then.

This is exciting for me. I love gardening. I love growing things. We are hampered as the garden is built on sandstone; parts of the lawn only have about 20cm of soil under them before you hit bedrock. Mum never wanted big garden beds, even though she was a keen gardener too. She had some shrubs along here, but I think the whole area will look fab when the taller plants grow at the back and the salvias and metre high plants grow in front of them, with annuals, veggies and smaller perennials at the front.

So now I'll be a constant gardener. Having created this lot it's my job to keep the weeds out of it. I need to mulch it. I also need to build a little wall to ward the grass off and stop it encroaching, but that will happen when we build the second garden bed in another part of the garden, as it will be a raised bed with a retaining wall. Until then it'll be me and my trusty lawn shears. I don't trust G with the whipper snipper, he's just as likely to behead the broccoli. 

Stay tuned for close up pics when we get a nice sunny day. It's been raining on and off since we planted out, which is a good thing for the young plants and those older ones who are probably shuddering in shock at being transplanted.

My gardening jeans are standing up by themselves with the dirt in them, my gardening gloves stink. Stink, I say! I'll have to wash them too. During the week it took to dig and create this garden I worked an average three or so hours a day, some days more, and it wasn't girly stuff with a trowel, it was mattocking or pulling out Morning Glory (bastard of a thing) and poisoning it. I was hauling pots and tubs down from the house and being happily, exhaustingly active. After the second or third day my muscles stopped complaining and I reckon that mattock did wonders for the bingo wings. Beats working at a computer any day!

The joy of getting physical

This has been the strangest year of my life so far; the saddest too. It's cognitive dissonance, living in my old family home with echoes of Mum in every room. I expect her to be there, but she's not. I talk to her anyway.

The weird thing is, I can't spend all day at a computer any more. I get twitchy. I also feel like falling asleep. I long to get up and DO something. Herbert knows there is plenty to do.

So my goal now is to do something for the house every day. It could be something small, such as tidying a cupboard. It could be washing a wall. It could be garden work. As long as it is something physical, which gets me away from the computer and the slightly depressed attitude I get when I sit at it for too long.

Most of my weekends are now largely computer-free. I catch up with Facebook but often on a mobile device rather than the computer.

Last weekend was lovely. Lots of outdoor work in the garden - poisoning morning glory (how romantic, the two of us under a camellia bush, one clipping the awful vines, one dipping them in a lethal mix of Resolva and diesel), weeding the lawn of dandelions yet again, recementing the stone coping around one garden bed, digging old and hopeless soil out of same.... Just great. I was sweating like a bastard in the early autumn sun, covered in dirt with a light coating of herbicide. Utter joy. My muscles ached pleasantly and my mind was on the vision of what this garden will look like when I've finished ripping out dead stuff, underperforming plants and a multitude of weeds.

Understandably I had trouble focussing on work today. The sun shone outside, beckoning me. We'd started the day with a brisk 30 minute walk as G was flying our for work at lunchtime so we didn't have to get up at six and get him out the door by 7.30 after a full breakfast. Nope, it was a leisurely if physical start.

I put up with work stuff until four, then headed for the garden, to finish digging out a bed we'd started on over the weekend. There was a ten year old golden diosma in there which I was heartily sick of, as it had gone scrawny and was too big for the bed, realistically. Ten minutes of tugging and carefully finding and pulling at roots saw it gone. We've had plenty of rain lately so it was a fairly easy job pulling it out. My back feels fine right now.

After digging I was able to plant out some young plants I had collected in readiness. It's so satisfying seeing a garden bed come together. I've chosen a predominantly blue and white scheme with occasional forays into red. I think too I'll have to pop a few more plants in there to bulk it up a bit - and keep the weeds out.

This is the smallest bed I'll be working on. I have grand plans for the rest of the garden area which will see me busy for months. And of course once it's all done it will need regular maintenance to keep it looking good. I'm planning a mix of ornamental and edible plants. It's funny how good a broccoli plant can look next door to something ornamental like a hydrangea.

Whatever goes in my garden will have to either be edible, look good or smell good. Or a mix of at least two out of those three! I can foresee some very physical times ahead. I think my winter workdays may be rather short as winter, with the cool days, is the best time to be outside, digging madly.

My Mum originally planted a rose garden in one bed, so one plan is to reinstate that. That's definitely a winter job, while the roses are dormant. If only I could get paid for doing the gardening, I would happily give up the day job.

Spring has sprung, the grass is riz

I wonder where them birdies is?

Them little birds is on the wing.

But that's absurd,

Them little wings is on the bird.

Yes, it's spring, and them little birds is chattering outside; lorikeets, noisy miners, ibis. I can hear them as I type this. 

The last month has been a scented world at our place. Jasmine bloomed madly until earlier this week, when the last bunch finally succumbed and turned brown; every evening and early morning the scent would waft in through the windows.

Now the little orange tree is in bloom; intoxicating!

Out the back of our place Brunsfelsia - Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow - is covered in achingly pretty shades of violet and lilac; beside it a deep purple salvia, a monster that grows 2 metres high, is starting to bloom as well.

We have irises in the veggie bed. I started off with half a dozen when we moved in seven years ago, and believed they were blue. They came from my Mum's where I had some blue ones in a pot. Dagnabbit, they are yellow, which is fine, but they look weird with maroon bits on the 'falls'. Yellow and maroon - like a primary school uniform. 

Nestled at their feet are rocket, baby spinach and strawberries.

And at the end of the veggie bed are some miniature fruit trees in pots - nectarines and peaches, and also a small blueberry bush. A month ago the nectarine and peach were covered in pink blossom, delicate and ethereal. I was amused by the testicular pose these little nectarines provided for me.

We have had such a lovely wet autumn and winter they have all gone bonkers. I've been hoping for a wet spring to save on the water bills but we've already had two days over 30 so far this week. Ugh.

And next in the garden? The gardenias have buds on them. Yessss!!!

Just peachy... and then the oil exploded

In my pocket-sized courtyard garden I've got a veggie bed currently producing Rouge de Marmande tomatoes among other things, and it's a real delight to pick a fresh, sun-warmed tomato every day for our salad lunch. For the last few days we've also been enjoying our own peaches. I have a miniature fruit tree in a tub; while the tree is less than a metre high, it produces full-sized fruit and the flavour is soooo much better than anything bought at a shop. The tree is only young, and this year it gave me 13 peaches. We've eaten half, but here's a sample of what's left. A few marks from branches, but grub-free thanks to the EcoLure organic fruit fly destroyer I used earlier in the year.

Yum, yum, yum. But speaking of other yummy things I've been preparing recently....

Owning cats means you occasionally hear weird noises in the house often followed immediately by the sound of breaking glass, shattering china or something solid thumping to the ground. This year we've become accustomed to hearing the small Christmas tree we have fall over. I'm sure the cats think,"TimBERRRR!" as they give it a push. Last night we were sitting in the living room enjoying a re-run of Doctor Who when there was the ominous noise of breaking glass from the kitchen.

"Bloody cats!" grumbled my husband.

"Charley!!!" I yelled, for that is Birman Boycat's name and it's usually he who causes any breakages.

To our surprise no nervous cats came scattering through the kitchen door - they usually bolt from the scenes of their crimes. In fact they were both in the living room behind the sofa looking at us with mild surprise. Why were we jumping up like we'd seen a bird fly onto the fence? Had someone mentioned fish and they hadn't heard it?

In the kitchen my last bottle of Chilli and Garlic Infused Oil was in pieces. The top third of the bottle, cap intact, was on the floor. The rest of the bottle lay in splintered pieces on the bench. The oil was everywhere. All over the bench, all over the floor. The room reeked of garlic.

We came to the conclusion that the garlic - or the chilli - was actually fermenting, and had caused enough pressure during this process to make the bottle explode. I've never had that happen with my oils in previous years. I suspect the garlic clove I'd used for this bottle - which was to be my own - was a little past its prime hence the fermentation. It must have gone off like a bomb as it had knocked a plastic jar 1/4 full of honey to the floor.

Cleaning it up was a bugger. We scraped the oil from the benches into the bin, and used an astonishing amount of paper towel to mop up the remainder. Then it was time for the secret weapon. The Enjo green glove and mop.

I love Enjo. This Austrian company makes the best cleaning products ever. You can't buy them in the supermarkets, you buy them on a party plan basis where the sales rep demonstrates them and takes your order. I'd been sceptical until I bought the starter kit. Then I ordered other bits and pieces as the system is so good. All you need is the Enjo glove, water, and an old towel to dry the bench etc off with. I don't sell Enjo but I'd recommend it to anyone and everyone. Good for the environment, too: no chemicals or detergents are used when you clean with Enjo.

A couple of years ago I'd broken a bottle of olive oil on the kitchen floor and nothing could clean it properly. I tried dishwashing liquid, and floor cleaning detergent, but the floor was still slippery as ice. Then I tried my green Enjo mop and a bucket of hot water - should have thought of it first - and the floor was normal again after only one scrub at it. I was thrilled (gosh, how housewifey this sounds!), and grabbed the mop again last night to sort out the floor without mucking around with other detergents. Once again it worked a treat, straight away.

I think I'll be trying a slightly different process next time I make a batch of infused oil! :-)

Nothing like a wet weekend...

... especially when it's a long one. Three days off...and three days of rain. Sigh. Not at all conducive to getting out on the bikes, which was really annoying. We'd planned a ride in the country but instead did indoor DIY, made marmalade (batch 4... a bit thick and sticky but very flavoursome) and read books after a bookstore binge last Thursday when we picked up half a dozen more goodies on the sales table.

Now of course I'm in work mode again and the rain has stopped for the moment - not to worry, the rest of the week is forecast to be gloomy. But I took some time off this morning to take photos of my garden, which thoroughly enjoyed its spring soaking.

The pink roses are out the front, tumbling over lattice and providing amazing scent when you walk past them.

The irises and all the other photos are taken in our back courtyard garden. You'll see sorrel growing next to the irises. It likes lots of water so has gone ballistic this week; I'll have to cut some of it back to give the other herbs and the tomatoes a chance. You can make a wonderful sauce with sorrel that goes well with chicken and fish, or use the younger leaves in salads. You can blanche the leaves with spinach to pad out your veggies on the dinner table as well. The older leaves can be a bit bitter to eat raw.

The red and white flowers are salvias; in this case, Hotlips, with its big pouting lips. I love salvias - I have six different ones in my garden and another three at my mother's. Some are ornamental, like Hotlips, some are edible like sage officinalis, but with the bigger ones there's a lovely trick you can do with the flowers: pull one off carefully and suck it at the base - you'll get a hit of nectar :-). The native honeyeaters love them just as much as I do.

Lots of herbs doing their stuff now too; the borage is in bright blue flower, and apparently planting blue flowers at the ends of your veggie beds attracts the nasties away from your veggies and onto the blue flowers. The blue flowers don't seem to suffer as a result! The blue also attracts bees which apparently then buzz around your veggies and fruit. I have rosemary planted at the other end; that will soon be covered in blue flowers too. Borage flowers are a visual way to dress up your salads or put into a drink like Pimm's. They are edible; they're not a taste sensation but not unpleasant either.

I have young tomato plants in, so the next thing will be to plant some basil in between them - this helps keep fruit flies at bay. There are also some marvellous, but not cheap, products in the EcoNaturalure range which I use to control fruit flies. I use a lot of the Eco products by this manufacturer - they really are fantastic, they're organic, there are no nasty chemicals (I figure we put enough chemicals into our bodies unthinkingly, unwittingly and often without our knowledge or consent unless we are really viligent about reading packaging labels and the manufacturers are truly honest about just what goes into things).