Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Yes, I do still garden.

Yes I do still veggie garden but after a long, hot and arduous Summer I'm glad to say Autumn has arrived. Though, sadly, the garden has suffered badly from long periods of neglect.

The reasons for this neglectfulness on my part are many and varied. One has been the weather this Spring/Summer. Firstly spring was rainless hot and obviously dry which meant more watering which meant I needed to spend more time in the garden to keep everything alive which led to resentment by me because I could be doing so much else with my time. Then Summer was wet/hot and dry/wet/hot and dry. Long periods of damp, high humidity and overcast weather meant the plants became soft then the sun would come back with a vengeance, like a week of 30+ temperatures, and fry the poor little buggers, which led to me becoming very frustrated and again resentful (time wasted, nothing to show for my efforts) with the whole veggie thing.

Another reason for my Summer of neglect was due to me working nights in the Cab it means that when I do surface of a day time it is some where around 11 to 2 o'clock. This puts me right into the highest heat and humidity of the day. Needless to say getting me motivated to go out and do and hour or two of gardening at that time of the day is next to impossible. So there you have it, my excuses for having a poorly run down garden and I'm sticking with them.






Now on a positive note I was able to get out in the garden this morning and get some work done. First of which was plant some picking lettuce and some baby spinach.

So into a unused bed I added a bucketful of compost and a few handfuls of Rooster Booster, turned the whole lot over and in and bunged the seedlings into the soil. Easy as huh?




And last but not least watered the whole lot in with some fish and seaweed emulsion.
















Just a photo of a ruby chard that managed to survive my summer of neglect.










This is my Rosella flowering. First time I have grown a Rosella so I'm keeping a close eye on it to see what happens next. I am hoping though that it is not too late in the season with Winter just around the corner.










Anyhow that's it for now, hopefully with some cooler Autumn and Winter weather I'll be able to get more jobs done out in the garden and come up with some kind of plan for getting through Summer around here.

Cheers

Stewart.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Woo Hoo. Lets go

Just try and stop me!!!

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Which one.



My heart says this one.















My head says this one.

Oh what to do!






Build a bridge.


What is it about bridges that I find so appealing? Even the simplest one are interesting to me.

I found this one yesterday while out walking around Prince Henry Drive, a local tourist drive around the range escarpment here in Toowoomba.

Saturday, April 3, 2010

More Autumn walking


The Summer rain we have enjoyed here in Toowoomba has certainly made it an especially sweet time to go for a good long walk now the Autumn flowers are here.





























Gordonia axillaris (renamed Franklinia axillaris, but still known and sold as Gordonia axillaris)















Random Dahlia in an abandon front yard.















Coral vine has been one of my favorites ever since I became interested in gardening.












Rustic. I like fences and posts with random vegetation covering them.


























I'm beginning to feel my frustration of not being able to take a half decent photo take over the rational half of my thinking. Because giving the credit card a max out to buy a good camera is becoming very appealing to me right now.

I see Canon have some nice cameras out.
This one looks interesting (PowerShot SX200 IS). And it has full HD movie capacity.

















Cheers and Happy Easter,

Stewart.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

A bit more Autumn


A bit more Autumn.

I guessing a bit here but I think these are the flowers of our local rain forest Black Bean tree.
I'll know for sure when it starts to produce its bean pods which can grow up to 20cm long and 30/40cm's in diameter.
It is certainly showing the benefits of the 200+ml of rain we had earlier this month.

Speaking of rain we had a few storms rumble through here last night and gave everything a good watering for Easter and it looks like I have managed to secure the Houdini chooks so with a little good luck over Easter I'll be able to get some good gardening happening.

Happy Easter everyone and keep safe.

Cheers
Stewart.