Autumn Apple Picking - Paynes Orchard Bacchus Marsh

We were back at Paynes Orchard at Bacchus Marsh this morning, for our fortnightly supply of apples.

Just half an hour from our place, very convenient and easy trip, and lots of fun for kids (and grown ups).

Amazing fresh apples with lots of variety.

First Stop, the Pink Lady Apples.

Fun kids activities for the action packed.

Second Stop, the Granny Smith Apples. These are exceptionally large and (surprisingly) sweet apples.

Not usually our favourite, but we picked a few anyway, because they're yummy.

Last Stop, the Fuji Apples. The large apples were already picked, these ones were small but flavour packed. We picked lots of these.

Our supply for the next 2 weeks!!

They are nearing the end of the picking season now, I asked before we left.

The picking season will start again in Nov this year, with stone fruits, followed by cherries.

And then apple season will start again, until May.

LittleMsGreenies First Four Beds Crop Rotation - Summer 2016

With the extra space at the back garden, I’ve decided to try out the Four Beds Crop Rotation and split up the areas into 5.

Garden Bed 0, as I call it, is dedicated for the permanently planted trees and bushes. It's not part of the crop rotation.

Photo from left to right: Betel, Bay Tree, Sambung Nyawa, Curry Tree.

Garden Beds 1 to 4 are going to be used for crop rotation and I picked the easiest rotation for a newbie, the plant type rotation. Unfortunately, I started planting a bit late in 2016. We moved in to the new place in early November, and I only started planting in mid November. The Melbourne weather at that time was still a bit cold, I heard the winter lasted a bit longer in 2016. I still had to wear my winter coat when working in the garden in the early morning.

So, here is my Summer 2016 4 Beds Crop Rotation.

Garden Bed 1 is for Beans, currently occupied by Dwarf Round Beans, Broad Beans, Snake Beans, Sweet Peas, and Snow Peas.

The first batch of the round beans was harvested a few weeks ago.

Since then I had tied up the vines to the wooden fence to support the plants.

It looks like they are growing better with support.

Garden Bed 2 is for Leaf Veggies and Herbs, currently occupied by lots of different herbs, Chinese vegetables, Cabbage and Broccoli.

 Seedlings Planting

Growing Plants: Spring Onion, Coriander, Bok Choy

We keep harvesting and planting seeds for this bed, I will need to figure out how to seed save to reduce cost of buying seeds.

They’re a lot of fun to grow.

Broccoli and Cabbage are supposed to be winter crops. I’ve been maintaining it and looking after the young plants, caterpillars are very attracted to these, I guess, they must be very yummy. I’ve been spraying them with a mixture of water, chilies, and garlic to get rid of the pests.

Garden Bed 3 is for Fruit Veggies, currently occupied by Tomatoes, Zucchinis, and Pumpkin. The Chili and Capsicum seeds that I planted had not been a success.

From left to right: rows of tomato plants, very small pumpkin seedlings, and giant zucchini plants.

The Tomatoes were a hit and miss, some grew really well, and we’ve got a good harvest.

But there are some that didn’t grow well.

My guess is probably because I was using old seeds that had been kept for too long.

The Pumpkin was planted from seeds and has been a slow grower, although a few weeks ago a few flowers seemed to emerge. So, I don’t know what is currently happening with it. I’ll have to keep an eye on it.

The Zucchini plants are great producers, I've already harvested 6-8 zucchinis in the last 3 months. 

Garden Bed 4 is for the Root Veggies, was occupied by potatoes. I had a few potatoes that had sprouted and I put them in this garden bed. They grew, flowered, and we have harvested them a few weeks ago. I think we should’ve waited a bit longer before harvesting. We could’ve had bigger potatoes.

This bed is currently occupied by lemongrass, ginger, galangal, Chinese Keys (Temu Kunci), garlic and mini round carrots.

So it began my first year journey in Crop Rotation.

The next rotation will happen in September this year, 2017.
I'm hoping by then, all plants will complete harvest with our last harvest being the garlic.

The plants interstate move Part 2 – The Trees

I’ve been growing a few trees on my apartment balcony in the last 3-4 years and I brought them along with me interstate.

The Curry Tree was struggling really badly, to the point that all its leaves dropped.

To my delight, they grew new branches and new leaves within a few weeks.

It had even flowered.

First photo - the struggling Curry Tree, leaves drooping and eventually dropped; Second photo - newly emerged leaves; Third photo - Fresh new leaves, finally growing, and even flowering; I can’t wait for this to grow bigger so I can start using the leaves again.

The Dragonfruit Tree was fine, it’s like nothing happened to it. I just put them on the ground, and new stems are growing out of them.

  

First photo - Right after transplanting; Second photo - Taken a few weeks after transplant, new branches appeared. They’re a bit of a slow grower, don’t they?

The Bay Tree is I think still adjusting, as how the Curry Tree was, the Bay Tree dropped all of its leaves at one stage, but, look now, they’re doing great.

First Photo - Right after transplant, it dropped all its leaves after that; Second photo - Taken 4 months after, in Feb 2017, recovered, after quite a long period.

Just recently, in April, they actually have more leaves than when they were on the balcony.

I still have a lot of store bought dried bay leaves that I haven’t used up. So, I’ll let this grow a bit more before I start picking fresh bay leaves.

The new kids on the block

We bought new fruit trees to be planted on these 3 half wine barrels.

There are Mandarin, Pomegranate, and Lemon Lime Trees from the Citrus Men.

They have been growing quite nicely in the last few months.

Mandarin Pipsqueak

Angel Red Pomegranate

Citrus Splitzer, Lemon and Lime Grafted

This will be our first time owning citrus trees, so we will have to research and learn how to maintain them.

We also managed to source from Green Harvest, Tamarind, Betel, Pandan, and Sambung Nyawa (Life Extender) Trees/Bushes.

All have been growing at a healthy rate.

 

First Photo - Young Tamarind; Second Photo - Betel

First Photo - Pandan; Second Photo - Sambung Nyawa (Life Extender)

The Tamarind is still in a pot, as I think they’re going to be quite a large tree when planted on the ground, so I still am not sure what the plan is in the future.

And we’ve been shopping at Daleys Nursery for more exotic plants. We got Mango, Chinese Keys and Javanese Ginger.

 Mango Tree, and I planted a few Takinogawa Burdock seeds around the Mango (from The Seed Collection)

Mix of Chinese Keys (Temu Kunci) and Javanese Ginger

The plants interstate move Part 1 - Roses

I brought along a few plants during my interstate move from Sydney to Melbourne.

They originally were planted in pots on my balcony apartment.

Now, they are occupying the ground, as how they should be.

At first, the plants were struggling. They looked like they were dying at one stage.

But thankfully, after a few weeks, they recovered.

The roses:

You can hardly see them, they lost all their leaves.

Three new members in the family, bought from my new neighbour on Gumtree:

The smallest size rose was planted in the backyard in a little pot, just outside the side sliding door where we put our outdoor table. It has been flowering vigorously, but lately was attacked by black spots.

The Pope John Paul and A Country Woman roses already flowered a few times and I managed to get the petals before being blown away by the wind.

They are now sitting nicely on our dining table.

The Pope John Paul rose is extremely fragrant, but the petals are smaller in size and the shape doesn’t hold very nicely. (They shrivelled)

So I mixed them up with the Country Woman red petals. The Country Woman rose petals are large and thick, with very deep red colour. It has a very beautiful presentation for dried rose petals.

This is a really beautiful rose that I think is going to grow really tall after being planted on the ground. Just a few weeks ago, new shoots came out from the ground, it’s very exciting. This rose is going to be very rigorous plant.

The red coloured stems are the new shoots. One of them is already taller then the older stems.

I’m still waiting for the Double Delight and Ebb Tide Roses to flower.

They have been growing taller, and have lots of leaves, but no sign of flower bud yet.

Ebb Tide is another fragrant variety that I love the most, and it’s purple.

It’s going to be amazing once this flower.

Please flower soon, please…

LittleMsBusy finally has a garden

And now, she is also LittleMsGreenies, because she loves her greens.

Hello all, it’s been a very long since my last blog post and so I thought, it’s probably time to start again.

The great news is, I’ve finally got a garden of my own. *happy dance*

And, yes, I think it’s probably time to start my own gardening blog. Oh, it's very exciting.

Our new suburbia place has backyard and front yard that were originally covered in crushed rock, gravel type, very not kid friendly.

Lots of weeds were growing on the yard when we moved in, which we had to pull out manually.

I ordered new soil from Soilworx, 8,000 litres of Organic Soil Improver, Lawn Mix for the grass area, and Garden Soil for the planting areas.

All of this done within 2 days, thanks to my trusty lawn cart and spade.

Next, came the grass delivery from StrathAyr. We picked Santa Ana Couch, a softer blade variety, which I personally prefer because I like to walk on them barefoot.

This was done the day after, as I was running out of time.

Not ideal, as they should've installed in the same day as they were delivered.

But, I was working on this solo, so, can't do much about it.

The laying process was not too bad, they are heavier than I thought they would be, so loading them onto the cart was a bit of a challenge.

But, all done now!! I probably wouldn't do this ever again :-)