Last weekend I finally got around to spending a voucher I got for Virginia Nursery Last year for my birthday. So loaded up with 20kg of Blood'n'Bone, some garden gloves and some Seasol, there was a few nice days to be in the garden.

Sunday saw the Citrus trees get a handfull or two of Blood'n'Bone each and a good deep watering, and hopefully this will have them growing nicely. The orange is looking very sick, I originally thought it may have had weed spray sprayed a bit too close to it, but I am hoping it is just the clay soil we have and the lack of deep watering and the few days of cold and disgusting weather we have had which I am surprised the winds didn't rip the poor trees out of the ground.

Blackberries have lots of new leaves and even flower buds ready to start opening any day.

Peach tree has quite a few fruit on it and will need to be covered very soon to protect them from the dog and the galahs which have decided to fly in most days to eat the grass and weed seeds.

Have found 3 Apricot fruits which have set, but there is still more flowers to come, again this will need to be protected from the dog and birds.

Spring is here

Well I know I haven't posted for a while but I hadnt realised it had been all year, so whats happening in the garden?

The peach tree has flowered and has little fruit on it.

The apricot tree is starting to flower.

The Apple tree is still dormant but does appear to have a couple of flower buds on it starting to swell

The blackberry has grown quite a bit since putting it in last year and is now bursting into life again, and in amongst the leaf buds which are opening I can see flower buds (It was flowering when I bought it was planted last year)

The citrus are all coming to life as well, with flower buds and signs of new leaves, although the older leaves are still looking a bit yellow even though they have had a couple of feeds of dynamic lifter.

Something I am looking to try is planting a living mulch of legumes under them, for the nitrogen fixing qualities. I noticed that a Grevillia I had planted in the native garden was looking a bit yellow as well, and a couple of weeks ago I noticed some Wolley Pod Vetch had started to grow (I am assuming out of the pea straw I had used for mulch) Since this has been growing the new growth has been a darker green. 

If this works it will be a perfect example of  "a weed is just a plant growing in the wrong place" because we have been trying to get rid of it from another area in the yard due to the risk of snakes, but I think in a bit of a controlled environment where it can spread along the ground, rather than ramble up and over other plants, it should have a job to do (provide nitrogen and out compete weeds) and look nice and lush with pretty purple flowers.

Happy New Year!!

Well there goes another year!!! Amazing that in a month and a half it will be a year since we moved here. In some respects it feels like we have been here forever and then it also feels like we have only just moved here.

When I look back on older photos I can see that we have actually changed things since moving in, and looking at the old real estate photos looks almost like a completely different house. I can remember coming here and looking through the house with the real estate agent and yes its still the same house but now we have made it our "home".

We have put in a garden shed. I have created more "garden" areas, with a native garden and fruit trees, there is intentions of having a veggie patch but for the moment that is on hold, manly due to my indecision of where to put it and lack of time and energy, and as I have told myself, wanting to see a year out to observe the yard though all the seasons (well that's my excuse anyway)

Along one of our fences which we share with the neighbours I have planted around 6 tubestock Acacia Argyrophylla (which is also known as the golden grey mulga) with a myoporum parvifolium as a groundcover. It should look interesting as the myoporum is a purple leaf variety so should provide a nice contrast to the acacia. This variety of Acacia is the same as one which I planted at our last house near Port Augusta and it grew fantastically, with very little water, reaching higher than the fence within a couple of years. With lovely silver grey foliage making a good screening plant.

I am yet to get tanks hooked up to the house to collect rainwater so that a) we can use rainwater instead of mains water to water the garden and b) we have water on the other side of the house. Would you believe it in a back yard which is around 2/3 of an acre there is only one outside tap, which is on the side of the house.

I have decided that where I originally planned to have my herb garden will probably bare the brunt of a bit too much sun, and also be positioned in a spot which is not often passed by, and hence will be likely to be forgotten about. I now want to get one of those colourbond raised beds to put out the back, in front of a 22,500L rainwater tank which we want to put in and hook up to the carport and house, this will be just off the lawned area, within eyesight of the kitchen window, and hopefully make a (slightly hidden) feature of the rainwater tank.

I also want to get a few passionfruit vines to cover what was a shadecloth covered play area for the previous owners kids. The shadecloth didn't last long with some of the windy storms we had, so we decided to pull the shadecloth off, but the actual structure is still there.

So as you can see there's still lots of plans and hopefully now that we have a better feel for the house and yard through the seasons we will start to put some of these plans into action. I should apologise for not blogging all that often anymore, but real life just seems to be taking over and I have been trying to not spend much time on the computer, as I was finding that time was just disappearing and I really wasn't achieving much at all sitting on this thing.

So until next time take care!