A little bit more on Mcfarlane!

Just a little word on my Northcote garden. I rent the house i'm in but actually I quite like the layout and the choice of plants which apparently is the owner's work. Iv'e put up a few photo's please don't judge me it's a bit of a mess! I planted the little native wattle a little while after I moved in and actually it's doing pretty well. my dwarf lemon tree has a few green lemons which actually look like they are turning yellow??? maybe! There is 2 lavender bushes one in the front and one in the back, Magnolia grandiflora, Maple tree, Cordyline, Ornamental pear which has almost shed all of it's leaves. I pressed a few of the leaves in a little flower press and then made a greeting card and stuck the leaves on it. The leaves are just so beautiful, and I don't mind in the least that they are deposited all over my lawn. but actually the most impressive of all the species in the back yard, is the Mahonia x media! an awesomely impressive species. I actually pressed one of the leaves for my plant press for the the hort plant prac, the flowers are bright yellow erect and spreading and the leaves long, compound with prickly edges - have a look at the pic. The rose bushes however eh! I'm not really into them. Perhaps I don't know how to prune them, down the side of the house the stems grow huge and I can see them from the lounge room, which should be a positive but it's not. They don't really produce any flowers and just look like prickly weeds. I grew cherry tomatoes down the side of the house last summer, well two summers ago you can't really call what we had a summer. I thought they looked nice at the window and smelled great when the windows were open. I grew basil next to the tomatoes and they grew beautifully too i couldn't keep up with it, i made 2 pestos that summer...mmmmmm pesto!

perhaps the newest member of the garden is the Loquot tree - Eriobotrya japonica My husband bought it for me for my birthday in December. When I lived overseas I used to eat the fruit by the bucket load. I have seen quite a few of these trees in the neighbourhood but none have fruits yet. (The bum in the picture is my brothers) photo further down the page.
This is the area I live in.

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I do love living in Northcote it's a great suburb and community! there are plenty of well loved gardens and exciting vegie plots. I go down to CERES quite often, I just love it there. CERES is the Centre for education and research in environmental strategies.

It has something for everyone. it's built on an old decommissioned municipal tip that was once landfill and wasteland. Today however it's a stunning community garden. and all waste and water is recycled, and much of the site is powered by renewable energy such as wind and solar.
They have 300,000 visitors per year. Amazing!

I am a host for there organic vegie box delivery, which means people order mixed veg/fruit boxes and they are delivered to my house for people who live close by to pick up. The idea is that CERES are using less petrol delivering to individual houses.

If you haven't been to CERES you should visit there website - www.ceres.org.au
and then go down there. they have lots of hidden treasures for example they have a bike shed workshop, they build bikes or sell parts if you want to fix your own, and the staff and volenteers there are more than happy to offer advice. they have a permaculture nursery, green energy, cafe, a market on the weekend and first wednesday of each month, and there is usually a band playing. Clearly i'm a fan!


On another note I checked out the smart water website http;//www2.smartgardenwatering.org.au/ and at first i didn't really know what it wanted from me but then when I actually tried to navigate it, it was quite user friendly. the site recommended I obviously water less in winter or even from now, and more between october and Feb. I think it's a really great site! when i get back into the garden I will no doubt visit again for more advice. and for people maybe just starting out gardening I think it would be very useful.

Well that's it for this time, stay tuned and keep digging!

Gus and Lou's backyard transformation

For this next entry I would like to introduce some friends of mine, Lou and Gus. Lou and I are in a mothers group together and her son Grover(great name) and mine are great friends. They just moved to Reservoir in October last year into a "family home" from a warehouse in Westgarth. At first they found the move quite stifling, well maybe Lou more than Gus as Lou has lived in warehouses for many years. There back yard is quite large but whoever lived there before them had some, how can i put this? interesting taste in landscaping! there is a small patch of grass, surrounded by painted concrete, Yakka trees and weird square hedges and plenty of red volcanic rock, very unappealing in my opinion.

Over the mothers day weekend gus decided to create a vegie garden, and i think he did a remarkable job. I don't have a photo of what it used to look like but basically the ground was all covered in volcanic rock, it would have been quite a big job to get rid of it all.

This is them a year ago!

I thought it would be fun to interview Gus and thought i'd share the experience.

Bianca: Sooo, what inspired you to start a vegie garden?

Gus: I wanted to be able to grow things and then be able to eat them, and I wanted to see if that was possible, having no real prior experience in gardening.

Bianca: why did you choose an above ground plot?

Gus: Because it was easier to install, rather than having to condition the large patch of soil, we could just add soil to what was existing – it was also less expensive (and time consuming) that way.

Bianca: where did you get your materials?

Gus: The majority of them came from Bunnings. The soil we got from a garden supplies place. We also reused a lot of junk to make the garden work. For example, reclaimed materials – old bits of wood. And old carpet we used to line the ground as a barrier for weeds, and then covered it with some inherited volcanic rock.

Bianca: what did you choose to plant and why?

Gus: Carrots, Potatoes, pumpkin, lettuce, broad beans, peas, snow peas, passion fruit, blackberries, raspberries, cherry, apple and apricot, herbs – rosemary, sage, lemongrass, parsley; garlic, onions, watercress. We chose them because they are the ones in season and available and they are the ones we will eat!

What soils did you use?

Gus: A combination composted soil that was recommended was good for growing vegetable gardens!

Bianca: What type of mulch did you use?

Gus: We used pea straw for the garden bed.

Bianca: Did the design work out the way you imagined?

Gus: yes, it did – there were only really slight changes to our original plan.

Bianca:What has worked so far?

Gus: At this stage, everything seems to be going really well, except one lettuce which we lost early.

Bianca: What watering system are you using?

Gus: We have a 1000-litre water tank collecting from the roof which we use a wateringcan with, and there’s been heaps of rain going directly onto it too!

Bianca have you checked out the smart garden watering website?

Gus: no...

Bianca: On a scale of 1 - 10 how has your life improved since having a plot.

Gus: 10. But our gardening life has improved 100%!

would you say the cups of tea delivered to you during this process improved the overall outcome??

Gus: Yes, wholeheartedly – in fact, it couldn’t have been done without the various cups of tea, sandwiches and other beverages!

So there you have it another successful "DIY" garden experience, this project only took him and his mother in law along weekend to achieve. It just shows what you can do with a little extra time.

He has created six plots there. and is using 5 of them at the moment so he has room for some summer veg. He has also planted a couple of fruit trees. there is an apricot treePrunus armeniace which Gus feels is not doing very well. and a lemon tree in the front.

and here are some photo's!

John and Shirley an inspiration to all!

Im going to write little bit about my neighbours as there garden is much more fascinating than my own. John and Shirley moved to my street in October 2010. Their kids live in the area and they thought it was time to be close to them. They have moved here from Inveloch which seems funny to me as I always imagined retiring to the country.

They are a very sweet couple and they are crazy keen gardeners, especially shirley!;they're so enthusiastic about their relatively new garden, and were super excited to tell me all about it. John is in his 80's but he is very fit and not afraid of a little hard work.  they have quite a small paved back yard but they are trying to create a lush full feeling out there. in the front yard there used to just be a  Weeping or Ornamental cherry which they have kept but everything else they have planted themselves and  this includes:  Pitosporum angulatem, Hardenbergia, Asparagus densiflorous fern, Nandina, Magnolia grandiflora, Cordyline austarlis, Abelia shulmanii so they have planted a lot and that's just in the front and down the side. they also had an entire side fence covered in Hedra helix which was pulling the fence down. They have pulled that away, but it's a pretty persistent little vine and is still trying hard to conquer.



In the backyard  they have planted Callistemon, geranium, port wine magnolia wild rasberry  hibiscis hibbertia scandens. native wahlenbergia, so you can imagine it's starting to look pretty amazing. If i had such a bare uninspired space i'm not sure I would of had their vision. they made a very small vegie patch and planted a few herbs when they moved but they started to sprout and then all died.  so they are convinced the soil in contaminated in some way. maybe from  the paint from the fence so they are trialing a few other things and then they might change the soil entirely. i will speak to them this week and we can see how it's all going.