Saturday, August 9, 2008

Lots of Photos - New Project

Okay, where to begin....
I have convinced my mother to upgrade her side garden into a humungus vegie patch. We have always had fruit trees in there, but the old veg thing has never been our forte.
In times past this has been a pretty tropical garden, and in our childhood, it was referred to as the secret garden as no-one seemed to know it existed (probably as it is pretty much fenced in and back then we had bananas growing up to the entrance of the one side you could get in).
Anyway, gone are the rhodedendrons and tamarillos etc. (through age and plant death). Fruit wise there are still 2 big mangoes in there and around 4 avocados, an orange, a mandarin, a fig and macadamia.
So I thought I would do here a visual journey of our progress through to vegie patch galore. The pathways were laid down by my dad many many years ago, and we are retaining a lot of the trees (all the palms will eventually go), and the orchid area will stay.

We have been doing a bit of work before I remembered to bring my camera along .....

Ready for the journey?

The Mango at the entrance to the garden...she gives us big beautiful Kensington Prides (when the rats and bats dont get to them). The photo next to it is the main path into the garden.

Here is the other Kensington Pride Mango interwoven with the Macadamia tree. As CWM Goch has said, it is proably why the black parrots havent decimated the macadamia crops. They havent noticed it yet! The photo next to it is the same area but camera looking straight (not up), so you get an idea of the size. And thats one of our baby Mangoes (we have 5).

This is the other main path into the garden, runs adjacent to the other main path. Photo next to it is of one of the interconnecting "winding" paths. All the little green flecks are seedlings of miscellaneous vegies.
VEG BOX 2 & 3 On the left here we have the remains of 2 old vegie boxes that my dad made, that usually housed flowers, lol. We are in the process of dismantling them (they were made out of old jarrah floor boards), and getting the area ready for a huge vegie tank (3m x 1.5m). To the right is the Navel Orange tree. It had a severe pruning and is feeling sorry for itself. Uncle C has been busy topping the bed up with mulch and has been slowly planting it out with various things. Actually, just noticed that the 2 photos together like that give a pretty accurate interpretation of the area.
VEG BOX 1 Down here we have the lone veg box. Also in the process of being dismantled and replaced. They have lasted a long time (at least 15 years) but have started to bust now, or otherwise we would of used them to plant out. The area next to it is underneath our mandarin tree. Best tasting mandarins ever! It too has had a severe pruning and is feeling sorry for itself, but still managed to give out a bag of mandarins this year. The broadbeans dont like this spot methinks. I'll have to fish out an old photo I have of this spot, you wouldnt pick it as the same area with rhodedendrons and very tropical feel it used to have.

The orchid house. They are all pretty much starting to bust a bud at the moment. Very pretty. We picked up 2 new ones last week, but they havent made it here yet. We got naming rights on one, so it is now called Pumilow Caterina. Awww
Okay, now for some during work progress shots. After 2 hours we had dismantled VEGBOX 1, sifted all the soil - egads what a freaking nightmare that was (box was filled with some sort of rhizome grower and we had to get out every single opaque carrot like bulby thing and let me tell you, there were hundreds!). Anyway, we then flattened off where the new veg box will go, so that area is pretty much all ready. Im planning on putting in raspberries along the brick wall there.
And here are some photos of my bad, bad attempt at doing some edging to stop the soil run off when it rains. I hang my head in shame. I wil have to dig it all out and put it in like the rest of the garden, upright and overlap the roof tiles.
This weeks job is to mulch all the piles of crap that are laying around in the garden, and to sift the soil on VEG BOX 2 & 3 as one had ferns in it so the soil if full of those ball like ?tubers. Fun and games. I so cant wait until the tanks are in and ready to plant up. All my seedlings at home are begging for a new place to live.

8 comments:

The Crone at Wits End said...

Cath it's not the broad beans fault. Mine are all in flower but not a bloody bean to be seen; lack of bees for pollination and the cold snap we had a couple of weeks ago have set them back.

Cathode said...

Ah, I was going on their size. Mum planted them the same time that I planted mine, and mine are bigger and thicker stemmed. Also covered in flowers. Some are starting to set, but only because I read somewhere that you have to snip out the top 5cm of the plant to help make the flowers set.
There are ants all over them, so I assumed that they have pollinated for me.
I have been finding the odd dead bee around. I swear one of them was just waiting to sting me posthumously. It was spread out on its back, wings spread out and sting sticking straight up. Just as well I was taking notice of where I was walking barefoot that morning!

Anonymous said...

Wow, that is a beautiful space! I can't wait to see it grow with voluptuous veggies! I'm totally jealous of all the tropical fruits and nuts you have. I think of all the things you listed, only figs could grow here - and that is only a borderline possibility. Question: what is an opaque carrot?

If you have a chance, come over and check in this week!

Cathode said...

Ah, they arent actually opaque carrots, it is the root system of the miscellaneous plant that was growing in there. Its roots were these clumps of things that looked like a carrot, but small and opaque white. They snapped really easy too, so was a total bitch to get them all out with the soil sifting. Ergh, dont recommend that to anyone!
Still dont know what that plant was, but mum is famous for putting stuff in the garden that takes over everything. She gave me a small pot of arthritis herb once and it took over my whole garden in 1 year! Im still digging it out now!

The Crone at Wits End said...

rofl! I had some jerusalem artichokes like that in Canberra. Total bastards to get rid of if you plant them in the wrong area!

That said, I am after some to grow at Wits End!

Cathode said...

LOL, Im after some too (the amercans call it sunchoke).
Let me know if you find some!!

I'll keep them in a separate planter box though after what you just said!

Anonymous said...

Oh, wow! An orchid house! That sounds so exotic (& fabulous!)...

Cathode said...

Wildside - it sounds much more fabulous than it actually is, lol.

Now if I can get a photo of Uncle C's orchid house ... there is something fabulous!!