Queensland Gardening

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Jaboticaba Jam

Have a couple of bowls handy and a sharp pointed knife then pick up the washed fruit, pierce the skin and squeeze the pulp and seed into one bowl and the skin into another. Do this a few hundred times and you will have enough for quite a few bottles of jam. Simmer the pulp for 10 minutes then put through a strainer then throw out the seeds.

Chop up the skins in a food processor or similar to a rough texture only adding minimum water. Simmer the skins for 10 minutes then add the pulp and skins together, measure amount in number of cupfuls. Heat up this mix and add sugar cup for cup with the mix then boil until jam thickens. If you have trouble setting the Jam add 'Jam setter', if you need to do this then you have added too much water in the skin chopping process.Judy has been standing over my shoulder while I have been writing this telling me she is the jam maker not me.

June Garden

Well, finally a wet start to a month.
We had 6.5 inches of rain in the first week of June with good follow up showers for the next couple of weeks. All the water tanks are full, so the water outlook is looking good for winter.
I haven’t said this for a long time, but we need a small dry spell so I can do some of the dry weather jobs that need doing.
I have used all of our sugar cane mulch and cannot get any more until the end of July.
I have started to use last Septembers compost, it is very good brew, dark, fine and rich, this was all the shredded material from last years custard apple prune, I know it takes a long time but it’s well worth the wait.
We are having a meeting of the ‘Internatonal Cordyline Society’ at our home during June, of course the garden is in winter mode so it will not be at it’s best, but, Cordylines always look good at this time of year.

There was a display of photos on canvas at our local shopping centre and that set me thinking, how good would the shade house wall look with a selection of pictures from our garden, so I have ordered three at 750mm x 750mm and perhaps I will order one rectangular one once I see the quality, should look good.
I have also come up with the idea of two battery-operated waterfalls for two of the small ponds along the garden trails.
The photos on canvas are brilliant and will be a great addition to the ‘Open Garden’.
The meeting went well and all enjoyed our garden.

May Garden 2008

Sorry to keep on harping on the same old subject but it’s so bloody dry, it’s been over eight weeks since we last had rain and everything has turned brown again, so much for ‘La Nina’ which was supposed to bring good autumn and winter rain.
Had a nice little break at Caloundra and of course brought back a car load of plants.
I went back to the Redland Bay nursery and bought enough plants to fill some holes in the garden, not many left now.
The big job this month has been to cut out old mother Bromeliads and mulch the garden, cannot get the small bales this time of year, so had some of the massive bales (equivalent to 10 normal bales) delivered.
It finally rained on 17th but was only a few mills, anything is better than nothing, and then the next day we had gale force winds which dried up what little moisture left.
Big jobs this month have been to take the chainsaw to the Mulberry Tree and give it a severe haircut, take out shred and compost the old mother Bromeliad plants and to plant a number of Tree Aloes in the front garden.
Then I decided to re-shade the neo house, we had previously made a big mistake putting 70% shade when I built it, now we realise the neo’s do not have the colour they should have, so I bought a 50 metre roll of premium shade cloth and cut the whole roll into four lengths and stapled together with chicken wire staples, then old cloth off and new on, mind you I had to enlist the help of our Subaru forester and a length of rope as it was too heavy for me either to take down or put up.
The end of the month and finally some decent rain, thank goodness.
I am really happy with the garden at the moment it’s going to look great for 2008 ‘Open Garden’.

Sorry to keep on harping on the same old subject but it’s so bloody dry, it’s been over eight weeks since we last had rain and everything has turned brown again, so much for ‘La Nina’ which was supposed to bring good autumn and winter rain.
Had a nice little break at Caloundra and of course brought back a car load of plants.
I went back to the Redland Bay nursery and bought enough plants to fill some holes in the garden, not many left now.
The big job this month has been to cut out old mother Bromeliads and mulch the garden, cannot get the small bales this time of year, so had some of the massive bales (equivalent to 10 normal bales) delivered.
It finally rained on 17th but was only a few mills, anything is better than nothing, and then the next day we had gale force winds which dried up what little moisture left.
Big jobs this month have been to take the chainsaw to the Mulberry Tree and give it a severe haircut, take out shred and compost the old mother Bromeliad plants and to plant a number of Tree Aloes in the front garden.
Then I decided to re-shade the neo house, we had previously made a big mistake putting 70% shade when I built it, now we realise the neo’s do not have the colour they should have, so I bought a 50 metre roll of premium shade cloth and cut the whole roll into four lengths and stapled together with chicken wire staples, then old cloth off and new on, mind you I had to enlist the help of our Subaru forester and a length of rope as it was too heavy for me either to take down or put up.
The end of the month and finally some decent rain, thank goodness.
I am really happy with the garden at the moment it’s going to look great for 2008 ‘Open Garden’.

April Garden

Still slaving away every weekend shovelling soil, the refurbishment of the long side garden which is about 50 metres long has taken much more soil than I thought, altogether I will have carted in 13 metres all at one metre trailer loads. I will be really happy to have a weekend where I am not shovelling something.
I have booked a four-day holiday up at Caloundra. My body needs a rest as I have gone pretty hard every weekend since last years open garden.
I must admit the garden is looking very nice at the moment and that’s with all the caladiums and most of gingers dormant.
I am again going to try for ‘Gardening Australia’s’, ‘Gardener of the Year’. Why not! I certainly put the hard work and effort into our garden and it’s all a love job, not a business and I do not get any assistance other that what Judy can do with her bad Rheumatoid Arthritis.
Our new neighbours have started on their new home and have removed a massive silky oak tree, which was only a metre from our back fence; it was a very dirty tree (leaf drop) and roots everywhere, so I am not sad to see it go.
A local nursery was having a plant sale and we bought two carloads of very nice sub tropical plants.
The side garden is now completed after a very hard long weekend of trimming trees, going to the dump and trailer loads of soil, pine bark and mushroom compost.
The mushroom compost is what I mix with the leaf, lawn and shredded material to make my garden compost.
This month has been one of those months that has made a ‘difference’ to our garden.
No rain during the month of April.

Video of our Garden