My Autumn and Early Winter Garden Antics.

Grandmother Goose

Valued Member
GOLD
Joined
Jun 30, 2021
Messages
321
Location
Broken Hill NSW
Climate
Arid, Desert, or Dry
My goals were to maintain my espalier tree garden and other fruit trees, get a flower garden growing out the front, convert a large old rusted out and full of holes water tank into a large compost bin and fill it with the mess that was my compost pile which, started as a 2m x 4m pile that was my head height and grew to become 18m long! So how far did I get with all that?

Maintaining my espalier tree garden and other fruit trees turned out to be more of a challenge than I anticipated. The first problem I had was my dog. He decided that digging was lots of fun, and so was pulling down the wires the trees are meant to grow on, so I had to stop him from doing that, so now all my trees and garden areas are surrounded with chicken wire and whatever else I could find, which doesn't look nice, but it looks better than lots of holes and dead plants. I still haven't found any remains of the little banana tree he dug up and vanished on me, thus I'm still convinced he ate it. The second problem was once the marigolds I'd planted between the tree planters ended their season, died, and were removed, before I got a chance to put anything else there, the area was overtaken by weeds. In removing the weeds, I found some new little marigold plants had popped up from self-seeding, so that's pretty. I'm considering planting something different there for spring but haven't decided what yet. Meanwhile, most of my trees have gone dormant, though some of the apple trees are being quite resistant to that until just this past few days. It's been a strange winter, still too cold for human comfort, but it's been unusually warm overall, we haven't had the frosty mornings and cold days we normally have at this time of year yet, so I don't know if it's going to be cold enough for the trees this year to set fruit, but oh well. I don't mind having apple trees that don't grow apples every year, so long as they do it some years when the winters have been cold enough for them.

My Autumn and Early Winter Garden Antics.


Once dog vs tree problems were under control, I got stuck into landscaping a large garden bed in the front yard, in which to grow flowers. Sure, I'd love to just grow food there too, but I need something to draw a larger variety of pollinators to the yard and cottage garden flowers are great for that. It was supposed to be a job complete within a month or two, but weather, other responsibilities, excessive weed growth, pandemic related dramas, and my own personal 'demic of minor illnesses and infections kept delaying everything. But I'm nearly done, just need to add a bit more compost, moopoo, and mulch to the far end of it, add some more seeds and bulbs, and then I can sit back and let it grow, but I'll have to wait until early spring before I can get into doing any more planting. The plants, bulbs and seeds that were planted at the end of autumn have been doing well though. This project involved breaking up and removing a significant amount of old concrete, arguing with the dog about filling in the trenches I'd dug for the edging instead of helping me dig the trenches until I chicken wire fenced him out of the front yard as well much to his dismay. Digging the area within the garden bed down deeper because it's not a high bed and everything underneath was worthless sand and rocks of all sizes including some that needed extra people to move for being so large and heavy. Then back-filling up the garden bed with a blend of sifted really cruddy bad dirt and sand from the yard, mixed with huge amount of compost and moopoo, and of course covering it in mulch. My dog still stalks the front garden area from the other side of the chicken wire fence and has broken though it a few times, hence the more solid old coro-iron sheet additions.

My Autumn and Early Winter Garden Antics.


As I was doing all this, a random pumpkin vine that I have no responsibility for appeared in the dirt area that isn't garden bed and has produced 2 little pumpkins. It's not doing well, I admit I haven't looked after it, never expected it to be popping out pumpkins at this time of year, but I let it grow just to see in curiosity what a random pumpkin vine of unknown type and origin would try to do so out of season in this area.

My Autumn and Early Winter Garden Antics.


Meanwhile, after a family friend cut the top, bottom, and section of side away from the old water tank, I rolled it where I wanted it and started filling it up with the disaster that was my compost pile, as well as all the weeds I'd been digging out from all over the yard. This compost drum has a 2m diameter and is as tall as I am (1.64m). I filled it to the very top, let it break down until it was down to the top of the open side, rinsed and repeated that process 5 times before it wouldn't break down quite so low anymore, so I just kept topping it up every time there's been any space on top, and as of today it looks like this...

My Autumn and Early Winter Garden Antics.


Most of it is brown matter, but we've had rain and in the dry spells between rain I'll sometimes hose it down, the extra wetness has been breaking down that dry brown mess quite quickly without any need for lots of fresh green stuff. Everything that can go into a compost pile goes in there.

My newest food garden additions have been two pink lemon trees - the trees aren't pink, the inside of the lemons that grow on them are pink, but the leaves are variegated which is interesting and pretty - and a miniature mandarin tree that grows super sweet miniature mandarins. I've got one lemon tree in a large tree planter in the back yard, and one in a pot on the front veranda as a back-up lest something goes wrong like my dog decides to eat it. They're not easy to get hold of in Australia, I waited almost 2 years to get hold of one, so when I had the chance I got two as I didn't want to wait another two years to replace a tree if something went wrong. The mandarin tree is also in a pot on the front veranda at the moment, but it'll be moved into the back yard some time suitable next year.

My Autumn and Early Winter Garden Antics.
My Autumn and Early Winter Garden Antics.
My Autumn and Early Winter Garden Antics.
 
Marigolds are great for the garden! They attract beneficial insects and will quite easily self-seed all over again. I vaguely remember them also releasing a hormone into the soil that can help repel diseases.

Such a naughty dog! Haha.
Want to trade? Mine loves chewing on my plants (not eating, I'll just see teeth marks all over my plant's leaves).

That's so cool. I love random plants popping up (that aren't weeds). I wonder how it got there... Perhaps from compost?

Your garden looks lovely and I'm glad you got the plants you were hoping to get for so long! I remember you talking about them and looking up what they looked like. Can't wait to see your little trees in bloom!
 
Marigolds are great for the garden! They attract beneficial insects and will quite easily self-seed all over again. I vaguely remember them also releasing a hormone into the soil that can help repel diseases.

Such a naughty dog! Haha.
Want to trade? Mine loves chewing on my plants (not eating, I'll just see teeth marks all over my plant's leaves).

That's so cool. I love random plants popping up (that aren't weeds). I wonder how it got there... Perhaps from compost?

Your garden looks lovely and I'm glad you got the plants you were hoping to get for so long! I remember you talking about them and looking up what they looked like. Can't wait to see your little trees in bloom!
I have learned about marigolds repelling diseases. They don't, but what they are good at is killing nematodes in the soil. Nematodes attack the roots of plants and that can do some terrible damage to the plants they attack. But when they attack marigold roots, the marigold roots attack back by trapping and killing the nematodes, thus reducing the nematode population in the soil. Thus, if nematodes are attacking your tomato plants - which is a common problem apparently, planting small low-growing (French variety) marigolds among the tomatoes will help reduce the problem. Biology is amazing.

My dog isn't the only thing that loves eating my plants, grasshoppers are horribly common - must find ways to solve that problem - and native leaf cutter bees seem to love my plants as well, but I forgive the bees because unlike the grasshoppers, native bees are precious little things.

As for the random pumpkin, I have no idea how that got there. I haven't even brought a pumpkin onto the property since living here (I do eat them, just not very often, shop bought ones I find to be too bland and often woody so I don't buy them unless from a farmers market which we don't have here) so I've had no pumpkin seeds to add to compost, and the compost pile is a long way from the front garden, so I have no idea how a pumpkin seed got there.
 
That pumpkin looks like the variety @Mark had an excess of, so perhaps he’s been sneaking around dispersing seeds….

How does the dog like the trampoline?

If you keep topping up the solid composter, how do you foresee removing finished compost from the pile? I can think of a couple ways, but there may be challenges with getting it out and getting the ring back in place.

Looks great.
 
That pumpkin looks like the variety @Mark had an excess of, so perhaps he’s been sneaking around dispersing seeds….

How does the dog like the trampoline?

If you keep topping up the solid composter, how do you foresee removing finished compost from the pile? I can think of a couple ways, but there may be challenges with getting it out and getting the ring back in place.

Looks great.
Some of the storms we've had, the pumpkin seed might have gotten here via wind or floodwaters from Mark's place. :ROFL:

The trampoline was given to us by a friend, made it to the front yard, and stayed there for now until we figure out where to put it, because there's no room in the house and the dog will likely tear it to shreds.

As for the compost, the tank is just for holding it all so it doesn't get spread all over the yard for the time being. It's a long term compost plan. Later I'll be getting a pair of tumbler composters and some bins, and I'll be using them for making and storing compost, the contents of the tank will go into filling up some large garden beds I plan to get later. Once the tank is empty I'll probably get rid of it. The only reason I have so much compost is because when I moved in the yard was full of undesirable plants and a very large athel pine tree. The majority of the compost in there came from simply clearing the yard of what I don't want growing here, with more recent weeds topping it up. Once the yard is landscaped and I'm able to better manage the weed growth, I won't need such a large compost bin.
 
The naughty grasshoppers are a real problem here too. I've tried all "friendly" options, but am stuck using Neem Oil when they are around. Luckily there aren't many now so I try not to use it/use sparingly. In saying that, neem oil 'can' hurt bees if sprayed on flowers, so be careful with that!

I often have a sacrifical crop that grasshoppers somehow seem more attracted to that I'll soak in neem oil (and remove the flowers on if it even gets any at that stage anymore). It'll still get decimated but the grasshopper population often dwindles down pretty fast after that.
 
That pumpkin looks like the variety @Mark had an excess of, so perhaps he’s been sneaking around dispersing seeds….
It does look like a Jap (Kent) pumpkin. So hardy but great eating and perfect for the backyard grower! :)
 
Back
Top Bottom