Fruit tree maintenance

I have a few fruit trees in the paddock at the rear of our block, well 2 Plum trees, 2 Apple, a Lemon a Lime, 2 Pear Trees, 2 Apricot and 1 Nectarine - the other died. So 11 in total, and the all need to be weeded every year around Spring time. I decided to get in early this year and weed during the Winter, as the soil would be wetter and in theory the weeds easier to pull.

Its hard work as the paddock pretty much doesn't get mowed near those fruit trees and the grass by Spring is waist high. Some of the weeds needed the Folk but most with pure Sue aggression were tugged from that ground shaken and thrown into the chicken pen. The pile has been high, the chickens have been busy fossicking for worms and eating the greenest leaves. I re-use all my rabbit wood shavings and of course there is the bonus of their poo being mixed in and I spread it all around the trees, I am hoping with all that rabbit urine it isn't going to be too strong for the trees, but so far the ones I did last month have no new weeds coming though and with luck they will be getting nutrients from the manure for a nice Spring fruit crop!

My pictures are in reverse the bottom one is the unweeded, then weeded then mulched, sorry about that order, blogspot must be having a bad hair day!!

Potatoes and the Veggie Plot.

Last weekend I planted some Desiree Potato's and thought I would share the pictures, I brought 10 potatoes and were able to cut the tubers in half some into 1/4's to make around 40 tubers to plant. Its always important to buy the virus free seed, usually easily obtainable from your local nursery. I had a gift voucher from my birthday so even cheaper I didn't have to pay a cent!! The total cost would have been around $8 though and I anticipate getting over 150 potatoes in total, just a guess though, we did do so well with the potato's last year I thought it needed to be done again although this time we have chosen to plant them in a wine barrell and some smaller pots, I really hope that works alright as if will definantly get drier in Summer, I plan to mulch with some pea straw though as a back up.

Although have taken some pictures of the rest of the veggie garden, the rocket is very slow, no idea why it always grows so well in the veggie beds, it's over further to the East in a old trough and it's possibly not getting quiet as much sun as when in the veggie bed. The Spinach is also a bit slow and the Cress and it's the same deal also planted in a similar spot. The Broccoli is getting there, and looking forward to getting a good crop of that, and the onions are looking healthy too.

A new fence and Lemons!

I can't believe it's actually nearly August and Ive blogged so little this year! Its been such a busy year with my youngest going off to school and now having all 3 boys at Primary School for 1 year until the eldest moves onto high school next year I actually thought I would have a ton more time and get out into the garden more!!!

I also work part time as a Remedial Massage Therapist and work did manage to get a little busier then dropped off again about a month ago, my husband as well as working full time as a Firefighter also runs a web based business selling weather meters and other safety and fire gear and needed an Admin person to help him out after 9 years in the business, the past few have taken off and he's super busy so I am now helping him out, helping at the school in my youngest childs class listening to the preps read, and caring for 2 new litters in the Rabbitry with 11 kits in total and consequently little gardening has been done!

I did however manage to get into the garden this weekend with the lovely weather and managed to plant some daffodils, Freesia's, Ranancula's - those things remind me of teeny spiders and some Hyacinths all over the garden, 25 tulips in pots that have been chilling in the crisper for the past 2 weeks, some were starting to go a bit mouldy so not so sure about their ability for flowering, built a fence to utilise a garden bed in front of the chook yard, this bed the dogs were jumping on and the wire covering the chooks window was getting bent so it needed a plan and I figured why not use the bed! I moved some Rhubarb out of a large pot where is never seemed to do any good into the bed 3 large corms and then planted some Broccoli (a punnets worth) around the Rhubarb as these two are companion plants. Then we built a super study fence from some old wire we had lying around to contain my free ranging rabbit Pepa.

On that note and we never did get that wire up against the front fence Pepa has now been missing for 3 weeks, we are sad he is gone for sure but I am also glad we let him roam for 3 years after all he really hated being caged and had a great life even though by our standards it was short.

Also planted a few packets of sweet peas and a couple of Daphne plants - yes I love scents!

I noticed also this weekend that finally we have a few Lemons on the tree - oh joy I think I have been waiting about 4 years!! I have also got some distorted and claw like Lemons which means there is a mite on the tree damaging the buds as they form although I am still going to eat the lemons though, should still be able to use some of it.