Today was the day.....

It has still been raining here :-( but it has only been showers (very heavy showers at some points) so I have been able to get into the garden. Everything has needed to be fertilised, but with the rain my normal liquid seaweed fertiliser would be totally useless. So I have been using a slow release fertiliser. It has been a great success, particularly with the herbs that we grow on our back verandah.


But this morning I started weeding the last half of our main garden area. It is going to be a big task. I have to remove all the weeds, turn the soil over (removing any roots that I find), dig up & separate some plants that are going alittle crazy, replant those plants & mulch. I am very hesitant to begin, because if we get rain again that makes it difficult for me to get out into the garden then the weeds just take over again. But since we are coming to the end of summer & entering Autumn it is a slow growing season so it is my best bet for getting on top of our jungle before next spring.

Wish me luck!

On Saturday I looked down from our back verandah & I saw some plants growing in our lawn. On closer inspection it was confirmed that we had sunflower plants growing in our lawn. Why do we have sunflower plants (seedlings to be exact) growing in my lawn? Our bird Curios is to blame (thank probably a better word), why? His seed. Lately our Curios hasn't been too interested in the sunflower seeds that come in his seed mix, so they have been just thrown out onto the lawn (with the thought that some other bird would eat the Curios uneaten seed). Right where the seedlings are now growing.


Only 1 problem.....I realised that since it was Saturday my WH (wonderful husband) was going to come home from work in the afternoon & is going to mow our lawn! Oh no! Now our lawn on Saturday was is desperate need of a mowing but those seedlings weren't going to survive!

Side note: I have been trying all summer to grow sunflowers. The first lot of seeds got completely eaten by birds, the second lot I built a bird proof cover for that worked great and I germinated all of the seeds. Only to have them eaten by more birds & caterpillars (only one survived & it is growing in a pot on our verandah where I can keep a close eye on it) once I planted them in my garden :-( So finding a whole lot of seedlings in my lawn that I could try again with was so exciting.


So began Operation Rescue!

I grabbed my gardening gloves, filled a spare pot full of potting mix & my gardening spoon. Sitting on the lawn (in the hot sun I will add) I carefully pulled up pretty much all of the seedlings that I could. A couple didn't survive being removed from the ground, no roots. But a few casualties were not a problem with the number I was actually able to 'rescue'. Once I had filled the pot & and apologised to the plants that I just couldn't take (yes I actually said 'sorry'). I brought the pot upstairs onto our verandah & gave them a good watering.

Do you think them know how close these little seedlings came to being destroyed by the lawn mower? Do you think they are appreciative? Or maybe I had too much sun? Later more likely :-)

I'm back!

Bet ya didn't even know I was gone, me and WH (wonderful husband) decided on a whim to got to Toowoomba to see the Carnival of Flowers, it was a very last minute decision, went on Wednesday morning and decided to go mid way through Tuesday. I will post about what we did and the photo's we took later. Still have to go through all the photos we took!

It has been raining all week here so far, which is kinda sad since my WH is have holidays and I was hoping to get some heavy lifting done in the backyard with his help :-(

But before all the rain started I did manage to get some of my pots plants all planted ready for spring/summer YEAH!

I still want to re pot all of my pot plants but that is really going to have to wait till the rain clears, soon I hope!!!!

At the markets week before last I picked up a new basil plant and a chilli to the markets at the Big Pineapple in Woombye should check out this stall, 6 seedlings for $2! Oh yes for those who have never heard of the Big Pineapple, it just as it sounds a tourist attraction that has a giant pineapple.

I have also decided to have a go at growing sunflower seeds, here is my seeds planted out in some empty egg cartons, best free seed propagating trays. Looks good right........the next day I went out to water the seed and founds that the birds had gotten to them :-( I don't know if the birds got all the seeds, so I have moved the seeds so I can keep a better eye on them. Not holding out much hope.

Gardening

Since I have been reading 'Planetwise' by Dave Bookless (see posts about this book here), I have had a great longing to be out in the garden. Actually want to be pulling weeds and mulching, I think that I know have about 1/2 of our garden done now which is great as I have been battling the weeds for the last 3 months.

I have learnt that things have got easier because of the cooling of the weather and the change in the season, the weeds are not so much in a growth phase which means that I have little more time after pulling the weeds out before I have to get the mulch down. Great because I don't have a constant supply and can only buy mulch when we can afford it.

Because money is a big issue I have found a way of making the mulch that I do buy go alittle further, cardboard & newspaper. These are things that I can get in quite a ready supply thanks to my wonderful hubby. Normally my husbands work just throws the cardboard boxes that their orders come in into the recycle dumpster out the back. Which is great that they get recycled, but it is also good for me. Everytime they get a delivery of large boxes my husband gives me a call I go down a pick them up, remove any tape & stables and cut/rip into size. I cover the newly weeded ground with the pieces of cardboard or multiple layers of newspaper wet with the hose or watering can and then covering with mulch. I have found that the layer of cardboard/newspaper means that the layer of mulch doesn't have to be as thick and thus you can cover a larger area. The cardboard/newspaper will eventually breakdown as does the mulch, but it takes a little more time.

Can't wait to get the whole garden mulch, really hoping that I will be able to stay on top of the weeds now. Next thing is to decide what plants to put in, I am thinking about low growing guerrilla and other natives. Attract some more birds into our backyard, Curios will enjoy more birds to sing to.