Flourishing Today

 This is the recycled gutter garden that we built earlier this year with the Bok Choy flowering and attracting lots of bees. Hopefully they will self-seed into the gardens around them and we have enjoyed being able to pick fresh leaves every day for weeks and weeks. The native violets also attract bees and as the thyme grows bigger it will too. The lettuces and strawberries are also doing well, although that may change as the weather gets warmer.

  

We currently have a garden full of self seeded nasturiums, which we are leaving in place as much as possible as they are great nitrogen fixing plants and the bees and butterflies love them. If we do need to pull any out we chop and drop them straight onto the mulch to feed the soil and other plants. Three of the four grape vines now have leaves on them and bunches of grapes starting and the pepino bush also has lots of flowers and fruit. The mulberry tree is also covered in fruit and I can see that mulberry tree seedling are also growing beneath the tree which means I will be able to give some more plants away which I love to do,



Another quick harvest of white sweet potatoes, they are so delicious and much easier to grow here than potatoes we really love them. They still retain a great taste and texture even when they are huge and can be used in so many dishes. As well the leaves can be eaten and the bees love the flowers, win win!

Mulberries, Mulch and More

More bananas on the way - hooray, this is the third bunch in our grove, and so great that they will all be staggered. Here are the other two bunches with a rapidly growing Paw Paw tree beneath them. Planting them in clumps, with mulch and the frog ponds has been very helpful and the bananas are now really tall and lush.

Amazingly a piece of Mulberry I cut off the tree and used as a stake for another tree is now sprouting leaves and turning itself from a stake into a tree. This will be great to give away in the future and I have already found a new home for it, will just give it a bit longer to get some more roots before potting it up. I guess then I will make another stake and see what happens.

Here is another pile of mulch from Shayne's Tree Services, we said yes as they were right around the corner but as we only finished the last truckload last week this will be used slowly. As it is winter that is not such a problem and we have also offered it to neighbours. We have now put over 60 cubic metres on our yard and nature strip and the benefits of no lawn mowing, reduced water usage and weeds and improved food production have been outstanding.

One of the things that we have done is used mulch to build up our Hugelkultur beds  and here we have the first seedlings appearing in the second bed. The Willy Wagtails love visiting too and can be seen hopping over the beds catching bugs almost all day, which we love to see.

Mulberries, Pepinos and Loquats Daily

We have been able to pick fruit every day for weeks now as the Mulberry tree is absolutely laden with fruit and the Loquat tree has produced its very first crop. I had never had either of these fruits before and an really enjoying being able to pop out into the front garden and pick them straight from the tree.

 We ran out of time to trim the Mulberry and cannot possibly reach the ones at the top or eat/share all of the fruit on the tree. We will have to find more mulberry lovers!

This is the first time that we have successfully grown pepinos and we are growing them as an under-story in the food forest out the front. We have discovered that you need to wait until they are orange and the purple stripes are darker, then they are ready and they are delicious.

Mulberries

Source

Mulberries

• The fruit provide great feed for poultry and pigs when planted among them. Great for fattening pigs. Plenty of falling fruit means no need to harvest and feed at certain times of year. Might we add it’s also very tasty food for humans.
• Grow fast and fruit fairly early in their lives.
• Easy and hardy to transplant, grows well from cuttings
• Has a pretty good resilience to pests and disease.
• Trunks of the trees make good posts, while branches make for decent firewood.
• Leaves that are high protein and edible as a vegetable for humans, as well as for cows, goats, sheep and rabbits. ( Extracted from http://milkwood.net/2014/05/04/david-holmgren-on-tree-crops-a-book-giveaway/#more-21142)

We have two Mulberry trees in our garden now and are really pleased to find out that they have even more uses than we knew about. I have also seen a video about creating new trees by using an aerial layering technique, so that will be a good thing to try in the future.

Berries and Boards (cardboard that is!)

These are the first few flowers on our raspberry plant, last year was the first time we had a crop so I am hoping that we are able to pick them once again. Being able to pick a range of different fruits from your garden is a pleasure that is now part of our daily lives. we do not have a huge garden and we do not tend to have multiple plants of the same type, preferring diversity, so each time we get a crop it is exciting.

The Mulberry tree in the front garden appears to have finished fruiting now, however if is still providing valuable shade for the vegetable garden and a great place for the birds to perch as they swoop in and out of the bird baths. In the back garden we planted a Weeping Mulberry tree this year and are pleased that it is cropping. The fruit is smaller but incredibly sweet and delicious.

We have now decided to get rid of the small rectangle of grass in the front garden and remodel the latest bed so that it is three separate beds with paths in between. So we have laid down newspaper and two layers of cardboard as preparation, this is called sheet mulching. I have stopped planting in the newest bed until we can change it, but harvested Kale today and made some mouthwatering Quiona and Kale Patties from a new blog, Yummy Supper,  both the recipe and the blog are highly recommended.

Flowers and Food

  This is actually the inside of a glorious tulip, I purchase a pot of them at the Grower's Green market recently. Every time I walk past them and see them they make me smile.

 This was one of the vegetable that we purchased as a seedling from the Heritage Farm stall at the market, it is the new garden, the one that we have half filled with cardboard, ash, coffee grounds and manure and mulch.

There was a time when I considered getting rid of these daisies as they can be invasive and we cannot eat them. But I now realize how important the bees and insects are and am moving towards a more edible cottage garden model and these now fit in just fine, Like the rampant nasturtiums we have currently I am just chopping and dropping where they go too far!

 This year we chopped back the Mulberry Tree much harder and have been rewarded with branches loaded with fruit.

 Another set of seedlings from the markets were cauliflowers, which are all doing really well and thriving on the neglect I provide, and the rain and sun from Mother Nature. And below is the Celeriac that we purchased on the same day, it has been really successful as well.

Paths, Traps and Produce

 The front hedge is gradually becoming a hedge and now I have used newspaper and wood-chips to create a path to try and stop the grass continually growing into the garden.

 The mulberry tree is producing fruit and we are using the Mediterranean flytraps in all of our fruit trees. Hopefully this will be effective, and is less work than the exclusion bags we tried last year.

 Our kale and spinach has been very effective, now to find lots more recipes to use them in!

Here is the blueberry plant, lots of tiny flowers so we hope for fruit again this year. In the background is the fruit salad plant, we have not yet had fruit from this.

Mulching Mulberries

 

Spring has arrived and with it warmer weather, buds and bees. This Platypus Gum will soon be humming with bees and meanwhile the Daises below are attracting the bees to the garden as well.  

One patch of our front garden, I have been mulching today, using wet newspapers, mushroom compost etc. We have lots of Spinach and Rainbow Chard, so I am able to give away our surplus which I love to do.

 

I have also mulched under the Mulberry Tree, it is covered in fruit and I hope to be able to retain the water in the surrounding soil so that we end up with buckets and buckets of juicy Mulberries. I also picked up the twigs that i had trimmed off a few months ago, they are dry now and I will use them for kindling.

Lovely Ladybirds and Marvellous Mulberries

The temperature has soared here today, we will reach temperatures of 36 degrees for the first time, and some of the plants look very sad in the heat of the day. Not the Mulberry Tree though, and these two beautiful mulberries have been harvested and eaten on the way to the letter box.


And meanwhile, despite the heat, an army of ladybirds is working its way through the unwanted bugs on the Kale and Spinach.