February 2015 Garden News

Well there is finally no comlaints about the lack of rain in this month’s blog.

We have had over 600 mills since Christmas and the Cyclone produced  230 mills with no real damage, just one blocked drain.

All our tanks are full and so much water is being lost through the drains it makes you want to cry.

The garden presentations have well and truly started with trips to Tweed Heads, Caboolture and Kenmore Garden Clubs.

The trip to Kenmore was an absolute nightmare taking me two hours to get there through bumper to bumper traffic virtually all the way.

When I arrived there my first priority was a strong cup of coffee as I was a tad uptight from the drive.

The venue at Kenmore Library was amazing as they had three projectors showing my presentation on three screens.

It’s hard to get used to seeing all the green grass, means a lot of mowing every week as the grass is growing like crazy.

Dont forget to check out my new Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/birkdalegarden

Have you ever had one of those periods where everything that could go wrong or breaks down?

Well, we have certainly had one of those periods with plumbers and electricians called in, projector and computer having to be replaced, pool pump problems, blocked drains and water filter leaking.

The garden is looking good and growing like crazy.

A big month coming up in March with three presentations and hosting two bus tours.

Just realised that in the last 16 months I have only had one day away from gardening, I could really do with a holiday.

January Garden Blog 2015

Well the BIG news is that it has started to rain and we have had 340 mills in total, what a difference that makes, less stress, less or rather no time wasted watering and of course all seven tanks are full with 108,000 litres of water stored.
I have also started a Facebook page called 'The Giving Garden', it's full of interesting articles I have written and great photos. Has received 500 likes in a short space of time.

The only downside is the mowing; with it being so wet it’s hard to find a day when the grass is dry enough to mow, then when you do its extra long, but what a change to see green instead of brown.

I have an infestation of ‘spider mite’ on my Amorphophallus collection, so it’s a regime of spraying for a while until I have killed them all; you can’t see them by eye as they are so small but you can see the damage they do to the plant.

The garden is very messy at the moment with the gums shedding their bark, the Macadamias and Neem trees are losing their leaves.

I was almost killed this month when I was walking through one of the pathways when a gum branch fell on top of me, I was so lucky to be standing in the v of the branch, half a metre either way or I would have been a goner. Not my time to go yet.

One garden presentation this month and that is Maleny Garden Club, it’s a nice friendly club and well worth the drive up there.

I have 17 bookings already this year.

I stripped an old garden brought in crusher dust, soil and compost, moved a water outlet and replanted mainly with a selection of Cliveas, should look really good when established.

I also had to rebuild two bridges, this time I used a hardwood timber instead of treated pine and will oil not paint.

I really have not stopped since the ‘Open Garden’ and am feeling the pain as all my joints and back are aching. This is the first year where we did not have a holiday after the ‘Open Garden’ and it certainly feels like it.

I have bought a container of ‘Wood Vinegar’ to use in the garden especially for propagation; it’s worth looking into and testing as there are some interesting articles about it on the net.

I split up my native bee hives and have three new hives to go to new homes.

Jaboticaba

Myrciaria cauliflora ‘Jaboticaba’ is a small fruit tree from South America. The fruit is sometimes called ‘Amazon Tree Grape’.

It bears large amounts of grape size fruit on the trunk and main branches and the time between first flowering and eating the fruit is about 30 days.

The tree can fruit several times a year dependant on the weather.

It is slow growing and can reach up to five metres high, but like me you can keep them trimmed to a desirable height.

They like a sunny position and do best with plenty of water.

There is no need to spray the fruit as the only things other than you that will eat them are birds.

They do not get fruit fly grub.

They grow well from seed but I recommend you buy an advanced tree as they are initially very slow growers.

Jaboticaba’s can be eaten fresh and Judy makes a great Jaboticaba Jam. Some people say Jaboticaba wine is nice.

 Judy’s recipe for 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.

Gardening 2014 in review

2014 has probably been one of the worst gardening years I have known and many of my gardening friends agree with me.

We went through all summer (which is usually our wet season) without even one millimetre of rain and it was not until the end of March that we had a good fall. The next rain was in August, we were so lucky to get that as our tanks were virtually dry.

This water lasted until early October when we had to start using town water (dreading the bill) then just before the ‘Open Garden’ we had a small fall of 19 mills, which at least added a little bit of green for our opening.

We opened our garden on the weekend of the 22 and 23 November and it was a great success with a little over 600 people visiting.

We stopped opening with ‘Australia’s Open Gardens’ in 2013 and instead opened for a charity. We selected the ‘Lions Club’ as 100% of what is raised goes directly to the source, in our case ‘disabled children’.

In the last two openings we have raised $8292 all of which has gone to assist disabled children, we are very happy about this.

Now that ‘Australia’s Open Gardens’ are closing mid 2015 it will be up to gardeners like us to open, just hope we can get the support from the media.

Not only was 2014 hard gardening it was probably one of the most physical years I have had.

I worked on new projects in our garden and of course carted in many metres of garden soil, mulch and compost.

My eldest son who is a Paraplegic moved into a new house. It was on a corner and needed retaining walls and fences on three sides, plus fill, soil, grass ect, ect.

A big job but done in record time and now his children have a great ‘Aussie Blue’ lawn to play on.

There was no let up with gardening presentation; we travelled as far afield as Boonah and Nambour, in total I gave 17 presentations. I already have 11 bookings for next year.

We had eight bus tours through the garden, all seemed to enjoy it no matter how dry it was.

We have ended the year with some very good December rain, so far 160 mills, not all the tanks are full but it’s just so good to see everything become green again.

Judy and I wish you all happy gardening for 2015, all the best.

Here's some pictures taken in the December garden.