Spring is on its way

Well what have we been up to? I spent all of last week in Sydney, besides seeing the Swans loose to Geelong I also organised a stall for BikeSydney at the City of Sydney yearly festival Live Green. It was a great day, talking to people about getting on their bikes, giving people info on the best routes to follow etc.
The day was followed by a night at the Botany View Hotel, dinner, beer and a great band.
So this week was a long week without the family, me being stuck in Sydney and them in Yass, one day I will be able to say good bye to the Sydney life.

So back to this weekend I ordered a bunch of summer seeds, split between
3 providers, Diggers, Eden Seeds and Green Harvest.
So what was ordered?
Tomatoes: Roma San Marzano, Cherry Fox, Broad Ripple yellow Current,
Green Zebra, Amish Paste
Beans: Snake Climbing ,Blue Lake Climbing,Magic Bean Mix
Beetroot: mini Gormat
Chilli/Capsicum: Alma Paprika, California Wonder, Corno Di Toro,
Anaheim, Long Red Cayenne, Rocotillo, Tobasco
Cellery: Tall Utah
Cucumbers: Mideast Prolific, Mini White
Egg Plant: Listada di Gandia, Little finger
Fennel: Florence Fennel
Leek: Musselburg
Melon: Minnesota Mini Melon
Radish: French Breakfast
Water Melon: Sugar Baby
Squash: Golden Scallopini

This is on top of the few different seeds I already have.

Also on the agenda for the past few weeks has been hay of any sort. Last year on the ABC gardening show Jerry Coleby-Williams created garden beds with bales of sugar cane mulch to use as the wall around the garden bed. This year in the ABC Garden Aust mag he was telling people how it went.

And from his experience, he saved water, protected plants and it help add to the soil. The bales themselves do begin to rot down so they become this years mulch and you replace the bales.

So this got us thinking, can we do that. The issue being is that the cheapest bales in town thru our rural supplied are $17+ and I would think I need at least 20 preferably 40 bales, so basically almost $700 worth. I thought we were being ripped off especially since Jerry said he could get his at $3.50 a bale. The hunt was on. I searched but nothing came up, found a few for $11-$15 per bale, but it was Lee-Ann that found them from a small farmer in Young who had pea straw at $4 per bale. Bargain. Does he deliver? No. So how can we get them? We decided to rent a van from Hertz. So Sat morning dropped Lynsey at a friends house where she was staying the night and Lee-Ann, Alyssa and I went and picked up the van.

The farm was in a small place called Tubbul, approx 25kms past Young (which is 101kms past Yass). When we got there we met the owners and he said looking at out 1 tonne van we would only get approx 16 in there. I was disappointed at that but thought, well, we are here now, lets see how we go. Anyway in the end we managed to cram 27 bales in there and they were packed tight. The pea straw itself was slightly spoilt and not of the quality of the $17/per bale, but at that price it would do the job.

Once we got home we had to get them out, now this was a chore and half, they had settled and were packed so tight, but once we had the first two out the rest came relatively easy.

Bales of Peas Straw

So that was Saturday, Sunday was just as manic as we had to also return the truck to Canberra (also stopping to vacuum the van of all its pea straw) . Once back home we started planning a new vege bed, cut back the grass, put some lime and blood and bone down (this will hopefully help with the breakdown of the grass). Laid out the cardboard and paper as weed suppression mats and placed the bales on the three sides we cover. Only the north side got no bales.

New vege patch with pea straw

Also the two of the three variety of potatoes went in, the King Edward and the Nicola. The Dutch Cream still need to be chitted, so I expect for them to be place next weekend.

Chitting Potatoes: We all know potatoes have eyes but I didn’t appreciate they have a ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ end. The ‘top’ is the rose end from which most of the new sprouts grow. When you’re putting them in a tray to chit them (encourage them to start sprouting). You should put the tray in a light, cool but frost free place (but not in direct sunlight).  I had this strange feeling my daughters Mr Potato Head was watching me as I did this.

The seed potatoes are in the ground

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Recent Plantings

Well a big two weeks, last weekend I planted the aspargus (10 crowns) and also the rhubarb (3 crowns). Both these are plants should keep on producing for 10-20 years.

So the top part of my vege patch looks like becoming where I plant the more permanent fruit and veg as this is also where I have the raspberries and the silvenberries. It will also probably end up where the strawberries will be.
During the week (once again while I was in Sydney) my bareroot apple trees turned up and so did the potatoes from Diggers.

I have the bed for the potatoes already in place and just waiting for the frost to pass before they are placed into the ground, but I did pick up a couple of bags of manure which didn’t make it into the ground this week but will hopefully next week.

While picking up the above mentioned manure from the local rural store, there was a few blueberry plants. Lee-Ann and I had not thought about blueberry plants for this year, but there they were, infront of us and I had the cash so we thought why not. The real clincher came when we figured we would place them around the Biolytix unit. Blueberries themselves bush out to approx 2 metres wide, so a circle of these around the unit would look good (and relatively easy to net so the birds don’t get the fruit.)

So we bought

• Blueberry Denise – Early Harvest
• Blueberry Northland – Early Mid Harvest
• Bluebeery Joy Blue – Mid Harvest
• Blueberry Brigitta – Late Harvest

Hopefully that will keep us in blueberries all season. So they got planted along with the two apple trees. And with those two apples I believe that is the orchard for 2008. 11 trees in total. I still have space for 5 more so we will have to wait till 2009.

The orchard so far looks like this

• 4 apple
• 2 pear
• 2 peach
• 1 quince
• 1 black mulberry
• 1 apricot

other fruit related crops are

• Raspberries
• Silvenberries
• Blueberries

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How cold has it been

With that sudden cold snap. Today we had light hail which looked so much like snow. The gas heater has been working overtime, but at least we got some things done in the yard before the rain came.

Temperatures for the weekend

• Sat was 1.5 – 9
• Sun was -1.5 – 6

The hail was good while it lasted, Lee-Ann and Alyssa went out and had a bit of a ’snow’ ball fight.

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Catching the Train

As most are aware I do not have a drivers licence. So each week I usually catch the XPT (Syd – Melb or in reverse). Anyway due to track-work today between Liverpool and Moss Vale I got to experience the ’scenic route’. This route goes via Woollongong and then up the escarpment via Robertson to Moss Vale. Sure it added an extra hour to the trip and could have been up to an hour and half  (That is if we had run into a freight train coming the other way), but the view was amazing. Ocean views, cliffs, rain forest, it has it all. At one point I was looking out my window straight down a cliff face.

This track is usually the domain of freight trains and the occassional tourist train. So if you do have the opportunity to do this run I would recommend it.

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