5 Spring-time Gardening Jobs

I truly find my inner peace outside in the garden, and this time of year has no shortage of jobs for me to tackle. These jobs are quite general and apply to pretty much any type of garden:

- Weeding!! 
We're having a bumper year for weeds and I've already filled our garbage bin twice over with weeds from the garden and lawn. And I've still got the front yard to go.

- Pruning.
Most of our winter flowering natives are spent now, so I've given them a really good prune, which should encourage stronger, bushier growth in spring/summer. Otherwise they can end up looking weedy and stringy and all-round ugly.

- Fertilising.
The gardens and potted plants need a good fertilise in early-mid spring (low or no phosphorous for your native gardens), water, plus a seaweed treatment to encourage good, healthy growth.

- Mulching. 
Once the gardens are fed and watered, give them a nice layer of mulch. This will help suppress the weeds, maintain water levels once the weather warms up, enrich the soil and protect against big temperature fluctuations, which can happen all through spring.

- Transplanting/Editing. 
Any plant that's underperforming in its current position could be transplanted to a more suitable spot in the garden, to see if it will rally. While any plant that looks too far gone should be taken out. Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind!

In other gardening news, we've decided to put the vege garden on hold until autumn or maybe winter next year, as we've just got too many other projects to work on over spring and summer. As excited as I am about growing some of our own food, it's another nod to living a simpler life by focusing on one job at a time, rather than spreading ourselves, our time, our energy and our money too thinly.

Bonus: getting the backyard tidied up means we can put the new-to-us chook shed in place and get us some chickens soon! 

Spring into Spring with Some Immediate Colour!

It's been a cold winter so far, and suffice to say, I'm really really really looking forward to spring this year...

Fortunately, everywhere I look there are traces of early spring appearing. We have some sweet little purple daisies popping up in the garden, the resident willy wagtails are back, as well as the teeniest of tiny little native finches. The magnolia has started to bloom and it's nearly August.

I'm so freaking excited that we only have one more month of winter left!

When we were prettying up the place for Toby's christening a couple of weeks ago, I bought a few pots of pansies to have around the front and back decks. This is by far the easiest way to inject a little bit of colour and life to the garden while we patiently wait for the warmer days and the boom of growth and colour they bring.

You can pick up pots like this for $1-2 at your local nursery/Flower Power/Bunnings etc and they will go in just about any pot you have. Clump a few together to fill larger pots or squeeze them into small pots like I have.

Regular potting mix is fine, as long as you water them in with a seaweed solution and maybe a fish emulsion or liquid fertiliser, to give you as many blooms as possible in their short lifespan. (These annuals aren't meant to last forever so once they're spent just pop them in the compost bin).

Cutting the blooms off occasionally and keeping water up to them when you remember will help get the most out of them too.

A good, cheap, quick project for the weekend!

In The Garden: Getting My Geek On

So it's been a tumultuous kind of week or two round these parts, but hopefully things are heading back to normal-ish. I can live in hope anyway!!

Aside from drinking a tonne of coffee, any down time this week has seen me embracing my inner garden nerd. I've had my nose stuck firmly in some of my favourite organic gardening books and planning what we'll be planting in August/September, and figuring out how our crop rotation system is going to work. I've also been planning out the front garden, which we'll plant in September/October.

Toby is having his christening next weekend, so it's all hands on deck to get the place looking good before then, but once that's over I'll be garden-crazy all the way. I really want to have the beds in place and the soil worked on by the time August comes. (Or maybe the middle of August.)     

There are a gazillion different gardening resources out there, but in the effort to keep it as simple as possible I've decided to choose two or three resources and just stick to their advice, otherwise I find one book will contradict another and I just wind up confused.

So in case you're keen on starting your own vege garden, I thought I'd list the resources I'm going to stick with as I build and start the garden.

Organic Gardening magazine is great, but they have recently released their third Essential Guide, and they are all excellent. You can buy the newest one online, and the others on special order or from ABC shops:
- Getting Started (bed construction, composting, soil, growing in pots etc)
- Fruit (A-Z of fruits to grow at home)
- Veges (A-Z of veges to grow at home)

City Food Growers website is awesome. There are free and paid versions of the subscription (the paid version is so worth the $50 a year) and it will personalise the planting details based on your postcode, as well as offer a list of the best plants for your area, when to plant, what to plant with and common pests and diseases. It's incredibly helpful and I find I look at it most days when I'm trying to figure out what I'll be planting.

Gardenate app for iPhone. It has less detailed information that the City Food Growers website but it has the benefit of being portable, and it has a Garden Notes section where you list what you planted and when, and it will track the harvesting progress for you. Handy to keep track of the details that seem so simple at the time but will get pretty fuzzy pretty quickly.

So that's where we're at currently. And thank goodness for the gardening distraction, otherwise the past weeks may have seen me consume way too much wine and chocolate! Gardening as therapy = win!

In The Garden: Getting Some Winter Colour Action

Winter is typically a time of the blahs in the garden, and most corners of our backyard would concur, but we do have a couple of bright spots, which I take a ridiculous amount of pleasure from. I go out and visit them every day, looking for new growth, new flowers, buds about the burst open with sweet colour. It does sound a bit silly, but it gives me hope and happiness in winter, the season that is most likely to see me feeling down.

Here are a few ideas for injecting some much needed life and colour into your garden over winter. Some are good for this year, others to keep in mind for next year.

My Hardenbergia 'Edna Walling Snow White' is starting to bloom, and it is so, so, so pretty. If you have a fence or a pergola you'd like to grow something on, these little gems are perfect. They're native, they're easy peasy to maintain and they will grow quite quickly - just provide a trellis or some wire from them to grow along. The flowers start in winter and continue through spring, and they are just super cute. I love having green walls in the backyard - it makes the space feel even bigger.

At the markets on Saturday I spotted a vendor selling potted ornamental kale and had to have one. They are everywhere these days, but with reason. The colours are gorgeous and they bloom in winter, which is what I'm after.

They grow well from seed, and you'll need to plant them late summer/early autumn to get the blooms in winter. They like a sunny spot and will tolerate frost. (Apparently, the colder the weather the more colour you'll get in the bloom). They're perfect to plant in herb/ornamental beds as replacement plants over winter, when some of your herbs or perennials die off in the colder months. They also look gorgeous as a winter edge planting, maybe along a path?

Ah, my sweet peas. Progress is good but slow. They've been super easy to grow from seed, and just need a sunny, open position. I'm keeping an eye on them, to make sure they keep attaching to the supports as they get taller, and keep the water and seaweed solution up to them when I remember. They should bloom in another couple of months, and I will hopefully have vases and vases of beautiful fragrant blooms for a few months after.

Lastly, my kangaroo paws have started to bloom again. Some are summer flowering, but my Bush Gems start flowering in winter and last all the way through spring, which is wonderful. Juts pick one up from your local nursery, pop it in a pot or in the ground, add some slow-release low-phosphorous fertiliser every six months and water it occasionally and it'll be great. They're fairly hardy, but do enjoy a hard prune after flowering (cut them all the way back to the ground and make sure to keep the centre of the plant clear of dead leaves and debris). Cut the flowers to keep inside - they keep really well in a vase - and the plant will send up more and more in a show of gratitude. Win:win!

None of these are hard to grow, at all, otherwise I wouldn't be growing them! They just give a bit of spark to the greyness that a garden can be in winter, so I love them by default. Let me know if you have any gems that you have in your garden. I'd love to hear about them!

In the Garden: How to Make Leaf Mould

image via Self Sufficient UK

While today is actually the first day of winter (boo!) the majority of deciduous trees around us have still yet to lose all their leaves, which means two things: Mess and the opportunity to make leaf mould.

Sounds Gross. What is it?

It's basically the term used for rotted down autumn leaves. The gardening nerd in me knows that this stuff is beeeyootiful for your garden - it can be used as a soil conditioner (to improve the overall health of your soil) or as a gentle, rich mulch to help retain water and keep weeds at bay, and gardeners often refer to it as "precious gold". It's perfect for ferns and rainforest plants in particular, but will help enrich any soil in your garden by improving the water retention and overall health of the garden.

How do I Make it?

Super simple. Just rake up all your fallen leaves and give them a spray with the garden hose. You want them to be fairly wet, to help speed up the decomposition. Then fill some heavy-duty black plastic bin bags with your leaves, adding a handful of blood and bone every 30cm or so (this appears to be optional, but I trust the word of Gardening Australia!) Close your bags up, poke some holes in it with a garden fork and leave in a sheltered place, preferably on soil/grass, for at least a year.

So, this isn't an activity for those who are after instant gratification, but it is worthwhile. If nothing else, it gets me outside in the chilly winter air for a while, and gives me something for my garden for basically no cost.

How do I Know When it's Ready?

It will be crumbly and sweet-smelling, and resemble the look of regular compost. (Just a side note: you can't add many autumn leaves to your regular compost bin, as they don't easily break down in those conditions. Too many and it will slow your pile down.)

Sounds Good. Any Tips?

If you want the process to go a little quicker, try dumping all your leaves on the lawn and mowing over them. This will break them up, meaning they'll break down quicker. Also, there are special leaf mould compost bins available, which compress the leaves, apparently speeding the process up some more, so perhaps try keeping a weight of some sort on top of your pile. Maybe some timber or corrugated iron would do the trick.

So, if this ridiculous sinus infection goes away some time soon, this is what I plan on doing over the weekend. And, funnily enough, it makes me not dislike winter quite so much!

Sweet Peas and Sickies

Do you know what's worse than having a sick kidlet? Having two. Which is where we currently are. Awesome.

But both littlies are currently sleeping off their cold/fever/cough thing so I am going to get in a spot of quickie gardening and a dash quickie crafting. Then some longie ironing.

Quickie gardening first. Hurray for the sunshine!!

source: Muck About

12-14 weeks and I hope to have something like this blooming on our front and back decks. Because in 12-14 weeks, it's going to be miserable winter to the maximum and some sweet floral tones will be much needed. Enter sweet peas! And if you have 15 minutes and a plant pot spare, you could share in the joy.

It's traditional to plant your sweet peas on St Patrick's Day (apparently seeds planted before sundown on St Paddys Day gives you the strongest, most prolific flowering plants) but all around Australia you can plant your seeds any time before Anzac Day, to give a beautiful show of winter/early Spring flowers.

I have a few spare terracotta pots in the backyard that I'm using, but you can grow sweet peas in the ground, as long as the soil is rich and free-draining. They also require full sun (at least 6 hours a day).

I picked up a few packets of seeds at Bunnings - they're Mr Fothergills - and they were about $3 a pack. One is a dwarf, and the other two grow to around 1.5-2m tall, so obviously need a trellis or some sort of support support.

I bought some 1.5m bamboo posts from the local nursery that I'm making into teepees (check here for instructions) and have a good quality potting mix. Plant your seeds about one knuckle deep (roughly twice the depth of their diameter and water the soil. If the soil is damp when sowing, you won't really need to water them again until the seedlings emerge in a couple of weeks' time.

*Gardening Australia suggests gently rubbing your seeds in some sandpaper and soaking them in some water overnight prior to planting, but I need a fix right now, so I'm popping the seeds in straight out of the packet. Tut tut, I know.

As the seedlings emerge and tendrils start to grow, gently wrap the shoots around your trellis, to encourage the plant to grow upwards. And once flowers start blooming in 12-14 weeks, be sure to cut them regularly, as the more you remove the flowers, the more the plant will produce. And that means more beautiful, fragrant, ridiculously pretty blooms for your house. And your friends' houses. And your nana.

source: Cupcakes and Cashmere

Have you planted anything lately? Got some soil beneath your nails? Sun on the back of your neck? x

How Does Your Garden Grow?

The weekend just gone was a really insanely wet one, and I think it was only by sheer determination that I got outside and did a little bit in the garden. My rain jacket got a workout, put it that way, but it made me oh-so-ridiculously-happy.

I planted a flapjack in the chamberpot. It looked a lot healthier at the nursery, so I don't have high hopes for it, but we'll see how it fares.

I also dug up the liriope from the garden, where we plonked it about a year ago. We knew nothing about gardening then (still know very little now) and thought it was a native. It's not. And it would also take over the garden if we left it there, so out she came. I divided it into two and put it into two old pots though, which will go to the front deck.

We have a long, empty stretch of garden bed where my beautiful lavenders died off late last year (the shame!!). Too much water then not enough water meant very sad plants. We're not entirely sure what to put there yet, so rather than waste money I decided to throw a few snapdragon seeds in there for some winter flowers. I merrily emptied the packet in the turned soil and watered in well. Then I read the packet and saw that I had just planted 1500 snapdragon seeds. 1500! If it's not a spectacular display of colour then I will feel mightily ripped off. Of the 1500 I'd expect at least 12 of those seeds to give me some flowers. That's what I get for gardening in the semi-dark at 7:30 on Saturday night though, I guess!

Succulent Planter

I've already lamented the fact that I didn't buy the beautiful powder-blue chamber pot at the vintage shop over the weekend (probably the only time "beautiful" and "chamber pot" will appear in the same sentence on this blog). My non-buyer's remorse has had me online, searching for quirky planter ideas that I can use instead, but all it's done is made me determined to get back to Windsor as soon as possible to see if the chamber pot is still there.

Either way, I've decided I'll be putting a little collection of succulents and cactus in quirky planters both inside and out once we start to, you know, actually buy some plants.

Succulents are such a good choice for both indoor and outdoor planting (particularly if there's a little cover or shade around - many don't love full sun) and they provide a pop of colour and personality wherever they sit. They're drought-tolerant and low-low-maintenance (only no-maintenance plant is a dead one or a plastic one, I'm afraid), they're also really easy to propagate (snap a section off a healthy plant, leave in a sunny protected area for a few days and then plant out into a pot of well draining succulent mix) and pretty tolerant of disease and pests.

I love love love the indoor cactus collection on Hindsvik (below) but also am keen to put together some different succulents in teacups and other containers on the front deck. I plan on having quite a few pots with a few types of plants, and these would look super cute in amongst.

Inspiration via Hindsvik blog

Super cute. Will try. via Green Renters

Cardboard takeaway container planter - directions on Instructibles

Wearable Planter by Colleen Jordan

Top (Australian) Gardening Web Resources

There's tonnes of info online for budding (ha!) gardeners, but it's taken me a bit of time to find really good, local sites that have the goods.

I'm slowly putting together a list of websites that I frequent now that we've started to plan the garden (even though the food garden is a while off) and thought I could add them here for your reading pleasure.

Cityfood Growers:

It's such a brilliant resource for anyone who already grows their own food, or for people who are interested in trying. I'm a paying member, which does provide lots of extra benefits, but even the free membership gives you a tonne of useful stuff.


Gardenate:

I'm also a big fan of Gardenate and their fun app. I can only imagine at this point, but I think it really will come in handy once I start planting our vege garden in spring.

Gardening Australia - self-explanatory really.
The Vegetable Patch - super practical info for, well, vegetable patches
My Garden - there's a lot to wade through, but heaps of helpful stuff to be found

I'm sure there's others I frequent but my brain has decided to check out. So I'm going to follow suit.

Project Compost: Do's and Don'ts

Because a photo of compost is boring. Huge earthworm found here.

In follow-up to last week's post on restarting the compost bins, I've put together a list of compost do's and don'ts that may make the whole process a little easier.

Again, I am no composting expert and much of what I say is probably quite unscientific, but it is a record of things that have/have not worked for us.

DO:

• compost most vegie scraps, egg shells, tea bags and coffee grounds
• take a sniff of your bins occasionally - there should not be a rotten smell at all. if there is, the heap may be too wet or you may need to add some dry hay/garden waste to the bin
• look out for insects in your pile - a good pile is squirming with worms and other helpers
• ensure you keep the lid on tight - not only to keep possums, cats, dogs etc out of the bin but also to keep the heat generated in the bin, in the bin. this helps speed up the composting process

DON'T:

• compost corn, breads, rice or pasta - these can attract rodents
• compost meat or fish - these types of bins don't reach sufficiently high temperatures to kill any potentially harmful bacteria
• compost human waste or dog/cat poo. for basically the same reason as above.
• add water to the heap unless it's totally dry - the scraps and garden waste should provide enough moisture

If I think of anything else that's similarly important, I'll be sure to add it to the site. And if you've got any questions let me know - I may not know the answer but I could likely find out.

Gardening: Getting Started

Our beautiful jacaranda. I can take no credit for this. It's much older than me.

When I was younger, I would listen to my parents talk about their garden, what plants they had planted, what was performing, what needed fertilising, pruning and mulching, what had to be moved and what they would change. I found it so incredibly confusing and remembered thinking, "How the hell can you know all this stuff? How can you remember all this information?!"

Fast forward a few years, and while I'm very much still a novice gardener, I think I've discovered the secret to garden knowledge and know-how:

just do it.

I tried reading gardening books before I ever planted a single thing and it just didn't work for me. Unless I had the physical experience in digging, planting, watering, weeding, fertilising, feeding and pruning, the words in the book meant nothing.

So I got started. I bought a really cheap, crappy set of hand tools from Bunnings (I think it cost me all of $10), bought some natives and tube stock from the local plant reserve and gave it a shot. I put in about 20 plants in the beginning and I haven't looked back since. Initially, Don Burke's The Lazy Gardener was the only book I took my lead from, and I've learnt heaps since just through trial and error.

I do love seeing the garden come together, and spring is by far my favourite time to plant-watch, but for me the real, simple joy comes from just being outside, hands in the soil, getting dirty, hearing the birds, smelling the earth, watching the worms, checking the flower buds. It seriously is like therapy to me, and a major part in why I started The Lavender Experiment in the first place. If there was so much pleasure in such simple, grounding tasks, then surely simplifying other parts of our life could only be a good thing?