Round Up!

Although it has been cold, wet and inconvenient I have enjoyed the recent rainy weather as I have so many memories of crispy brown plants at this time of year. Having full water tanks also makes me feel good.

However the weed growth is phenomenal and I now accept that we simply have to use poison to maintain some sense of order on our block.  So we were busy this morning with "round-up" in anticipation of further rain over the weekend.

We've had a wonderful crop of beans and I will plant more seeds this morning.  Which reminds me of the hugely successful snow pea crop we had earlier this year which I attribute, in part, to the laundry airer that I used to support the plants.  This was the first year that I had no problems at all with mould on the plants.

What a brilliant idea! (His, not mine, I must admit!)

Yesterday I took some table mats up to my mum. I made them using the "sew & flip" "quilt-as-you-go" method from fabrics she gave to me when she last moved house.  She was delighted (and thought I was clever).  I do enjoy sewing but am never in a hurry to finish things. It's a bit like enjoying the journey rather than the destination!

Long absence from here

So long since my last post! I always feel I should be doing things instead of writing about them.

It's getting quite warm outside so my gardening activities have finished for the morning and I want to record my observations.  The jacaranda is in flower, the star jasmine and gardenias look beautiful and add perfume to the air, the agapanthas are in bud and even the melaleucas (bracteatas) are flowering brilliantly this year. So everything is green, purple and white/cream at the moment.

I have picked my first tomatoes for the season, we've had a few pickings of zucchinis and beans are compulsory each evening. (I can hear our daughters reminiscing about the bean gluts!)

Galahs and pale-headed rosellas used our nesting boxes again this year and the babies have already flown the coop.  My poor old magpie that I fed for over 21 years died earlier this year but his absence has contributed to a change in balance in the bird life we see regularly. We have a group of babblers http://birdsinbackyards.net/species/Pomatostomus-temporalis that have been hanging around for months and have built several nests on our block although don't appear to have raised any young. They are lovely happy chatty birds. Years ago when they nested here, the blue-faced honey-eaters moved in after them.

2011 has been a pretty good year and I will blog some more soon (while I can remember it.)

Very hungry caterpillars - and other things!

The butterflies (dingy swallowtail, papilio (eleppone) anactus) are beautiful but their caterpillars are decimating my citrus trees in pots, especially the one that I am babysitting for my mother.  I have been unable to take a photo but know I have identified them correctly when my reference (Queensland Museum) writes "larvae feed on citrus trees in suburban gardens."  I have not yet been able to identify the ones that are munching away at my gardenias. I hate using poisonous sprays and also hate squashing caterpillars but every day I pick them off the plants and stomp on them. At least by doing this so regularly most of them are very small so, for me, the act is not so gross.

The wet summer has changed the balance in the garden. Shrubs and plants that survived and almost thrived in the years of drought have "drowned" while others have sprung to life with vigorous new shoots.  We have never cut so much grass so often and I am not complaining because the lush green growth is very pleasing visually and emotionally. I have revived my vegie patch, repotted plants and renewed my interest in the garden.  I use the term "garden" loosely as we simply have a few garden beds on a bush block plus dozens of pot plants in our outdoor living area.

This is a picture of one of my bromeliad flowers.  (They are wonderful drought-resistant plants that grow out of pots - literally.)

The flower head is about 10cm in diameter and quite prickly. This morning I was amazed to see that something has eaten away a large patch of the prickly "petals". I have absolutely no idea what would do this; a possum, a rat???

Actually we've observed several other amazing things lately.  My vegie patch is enclosed by chicken wire to keep out the wallabies and hares  and something had made a big hole in one of the walls at ground level. We concluded that it must be a rat although there was no other evidence. Last week I was surprised, in more than one way, to disturb a big goanna in my garden. It would have been about 4 to 5 feet long and made a quick escape through the hole in the chicken wire. Perhaps it had learned that chicken wire enclosures can be a good source of eggs?

Recently something has been chewing out the centres of the "pups" on our agave. In the absence of any evidence we again blamed a rat initially but what a surprise to learn that crows are the culprits! We've seen them on several occasions and have yet to determine the attraction.

No - we don't live in a rat-infested area!