Africanaussie

Living in the tropics, I find that the soil must be covered at all times, either with plants or mulch.  The pine bark mulch at our local supermarket was on special, so I rushed in to get 14 bags.   I tend to switch what type of mulch I use in the garden over time. Last year I used hay mulch, and the time before it was peanut husks.    Of course, all the time I also have lots of leaves falling from my lychee tree.  I do pick up a lot of those leaves for the compost, but plenty lie under tree slowly forming leaf mold.   They can draw nitrogen from the soil as they break down, but I find a sprinkle of home made  compost on the leaves every now and then seems to fix that problem.  The first area I added the mulch was the little bed right outside the bedroom window.  I had weeded that bed the day before, and removed the mondo grass edging as it was getting too invasive. I think the ground orchids will grow well in that area now. Those ar...

I have been MIA for a while now, a lot has been happening.  I suddenly found myself unemployed because of the company downsizing.  I am 18 month off of official retirement age, so am taking things slowly as I look for some part time work.   The first thing I did was to go overseas and spend a month with each of my daughters, one in Europe and one in the US.  Dear hubby stayed home and held down the fort.  He did a wonderful job and when I arrived home I found a bumper crop of carrots in the veggie patch just waiting to be harvested.  they are called red cored chantenay, and I will definitely grow them again - I love the short stubby shape.  Considering I have just been in France, the name also sounds a little exotic!  My veggie patch did really well, with flowers intermingled with the veggies.  The only pests are the little green grasshoppers.  Surprisingly my kale did very well, and i am still enjoying it, even though the weath...

As I was doing my update on my in ground worm buckets last week I began to mull over how my gardening has changed since I started blogging.... Worms ;  I had never even heard of worm composting when I first started gardening.  In fact I thought they were talking about earthworms.  I didnt have room for a worm bin, so discounted the idea of having compost worms in my small garden.  Then I read about worm tubes, but wanted to be able to harvest the castings, so with a little bit of inspiration from here and there my worm buckets were born. worm buckets Permaculture :  This is something that still does elude me a little.  I have such a small garden that I really only have zone 1/2 or 1.  Permaculture can spill out into other areas though and so I see those principles popping up in different areas of my life.  Nice to know that we dont have to own a huge farm to become permaculturists. Food forest :  I have lately been seeing more and m...

As you know a while back I decided to remove the remaining grass and create a new garden bed and path.  I didnt want it to stand out as separate , but the path was to provide access, so I mulched it the same as the garden bed.  Right now it is spring and the scrub hens are looking for places to lay their eggs.  They dont sit on their eggs - they gather together a huge pile of leaves and then the eggs are laid in the warm composting mulch.  Somehow a silly scrub hen thinks she can gather together enough loose mulch in my garden to build her nest.  I hung a very colourful kite above this area to warn her away. Once this lavender takes off and forms a little hedge and the hippeastrum behind put out their georgous flowers, there will be a defined edge to this new path.  Update:  Hubby found her digging right underneath the kite!  I think once they get used to something it becomes part of the garden as it did seem to be working for a  wh...

As you know I am continually looking for ways to garden in a way that is self sustaining.  I "grow" my own fertilizer with comfrey, worm castings and prawns shells.   Sugar can mulch is something I have been buying for the veggies, and with all this wet weather it rots down so quickly I have been looking around for an alternative mulch solution. I called the local hay guy (whch is cheaper) and he said it is too wet to cut his hay. Some gardeners have talked about using shredded office paper.   I dont have a shredder, but tear paper into thing strips occasionally  to add to the compost.  In clumbs it can mat up and would stop water getting to the soil under it.  When adding it to the compost I always make sure I mix it in well with the leaves etc already composting down..  So I tried the same idea in the garden. My tumbling composter is full of red wriggler worms and I think regular eathworms.  I am not sure how they got in there, but I am sure...

I was given a  free bale of hay, and you know me - I never refuse anything free!  I don't really like the look of hay in my tropical garden, but laying it out on the weekend I realized it might be just what the garden needed.  We mulch most of the leaves that fall from the lychee tree to add to the compost bin, but a lot of the leaves that fall in the garden stay there and eventually rot down.  That leaf litter can be a haven for mosquitoes, so a light fluffy layer of hay over the leaves might hide them from the mosquitoes .... just a thought.  Probably not.  I do think different kinds of mulch is good as each type adds different qualities to the soil.  This will soon break down and blend in, and more leaves will fall on top of it.   I am always moving things around and now have the bricks against the edge of this garden bed.  It creates a  ...

You know you live in a rural area when you call up one of the neighboring farms inquiring after some mulch.  "Sure I will pop some over this afternoon, I am going past there anyway, and you don't want to get your car all dirty.  Pay me when you see me....." At 5.50/bale this is pretty inexpensive mulch, and the public areas have been really needing some mulch.  I did sprinkle some slow release fertilizer around and watered it in well.  Those areas have been depleted for so long that I think they need a pick-me-up.  I don't use chemical fertilizers in my own garden so it will be interesting to see the difference.   I hope that with continual adding of mulch and natural amendments that I will be able to forgo the chemicals. I like to use a variety of different mulches over time, and while this hay can look a bit untidy until it has broken down, it does add different nutrients to the soi...

All year long we have to pay to take landscaping to the public dump, then one weekend (4 days) a year you can go and pick up free mulch!  My hubby borrowed his sons ute (pickup) on Friday and got three loads, and it was almost finished by the end of the day, there was a line every time he went back for another load.  Just as well we didn't wait until the weekend!  I spent the entire weekend moving mulch and spreading mulch.  The garden has lapped it up and now looks lovely.   Doesn't this look just like a white tropical Christmas tree? I think a lot of the mozzie problems we have in the back yard has come from fallen leaves.  I do realise just how lucky I am to have landscapers come in every fortnight and mow and edge, but I have asked them repeatedly not to blow the leaves into the garden.  I would rather they blew them into a pile and I can mulch and collect them when I get home.  I try to mulch them before they come, but cant always ...

I prepared the new bed that I will be planting tomatoes in next April after the wet season ends. I had this extra "wheelie bin" and half filled it with some leftover mulch, then kept topping it up with garden clippings, seaweed etc.  I did not mix it like I do the other compost.  It just showed the difference that mixing makes as the top part had not composted much at all.  Also this bin is not open at the bottom. The uncomposted bits went deep into this pit, covered by the richer black gold that I found on the bottom of the bin.  I have a sheet of plywood submersed so that I  have an access path in front of the tomato bed.  I found this worked really well to tip the bin over onto its side and use the lid to support a bucket that I kept filling up and transporting to different parts of the garden.  The other bin next to it has leaf mould, which is busy maturing.  I also used some of the rich black compost to build up around ...