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I've been working in my garden on and off for the past couple of days to take advantage of this long, long summer. Had a couple of largeish jobs to get done and find this sort of thing is best to stop my mind doing its circling overthink thing. I'd put pictures but have yet to work out the mysteries of loading photos to Dreamwidth so if anyone can do an explanation for idiot, have at it. I've joined the DW ordinary nature community in hopes that I'll be able to work it out.
My plumbago bush has mostly died and looked pretty bad, so I decided to take that out; digging and cutting of roots. That job's complete but I might be awhile with the palm plants. Landlord's given me 12 months to deal with them and it is my job since I put them in. :-) They were great for years but have now decided they want to take over. So I've dug a trench around them and flooded it, which is supposed to help soften up the soil. The scientific plan is to have a go at them with the spade every so often and see if I can loosen anything. If I can't, I may have to call in some heavy machinery. My main achievement was providing food for one of those small black and white wader birds that don't give a shit about a human wielding a spade, except in that said human is turning over soil and exposing tasty bugs.
I'm thinking maybe another vegetable garden where the plumbago was, which means I have to bring in some new soil. What's there was worked out years ago and it was "Bassendean sand" to begin with. That's an actual classification hereabouts according to my local plant nursery. The early settlers had no idea; they sailed up the Swan River and things looked pretty good from that angle, but you go inland more than a few metres and you've got nothing. This area was one of the three points of first settlement but honestly, not a good plan. Half clay, half sand, depending how far you are from the river.
At the moment I've got a few vege seedlings in tubs and today had to try to haul one out of the shade I put it in when we had summer. It's not getting enough light to encourage the lettuce and spinach. That meant trimming the looming woollybush beside the tub. You do one thing and all that does is lead you to something else. At the moment, should the zombie apocalypse fall upon us, I've got about one dinner's worth of edible vegetables out there, apart from the nasturtiums. You don't want to try living on nasturtiums.
My plumbago bush has mostly died and looked pretty bad, so I decided to take that out; digging and cutting of roots. That job's complete but I might be awhile with the palm plants. Landlord's given me 12 months to deal with them and it is my job since I put them in. :-) They were great for years but have now decided they want to take over. So I've dug a trench around them and flooded it, which is supposed to help soften up the soil. The scientific plan is to have a go at them with the spade every so often and see if I can loosen anything. If I can't, I may have to call in some heavy machinery. My main achievement was providing food for one of those small black and white wader birds that don't give a shit about a human wielding a spade, except in that said human is turning over soil and exposing tasty bugs.
I'm thinking maybe another vegetable garden where the plumbago was, which means I have to bring in some new soil. What's there was worked out years ago and it was "Bassendean sand" to begin with. That's an actual classification hereabouts according to my local plant nursery. The early settlers had no idea; they sailed up the Swan River and things looked pretty good from that angle, but you go inland more than a few metres and you've got nothing. This area was one of the three points of first settlement but honestly, not a good plan. Half clay, half sand, depending how far you are from the river.
At the moment I've got a few vege seedlings in tubs and today had to try to haul one out of the shade I put it in when we had summer. It's not getting enough light to encourage the lettuce and spinach. That meant trimming the looming woollybush beside the tub. You do one thing and all that does is lead you to something else. At the moment, should the zombie apocalypse fall upon us, I've got about one dinner's worth of edible vegetables out there, apart from the nasturtiums. You don't want to try living on nasturtiums.