Gardening

[Sprintcyclist]

yes, you will certainly have to be onsite.
Garden are such personal areas, he will not be able to fulfill your dream by himself.
He is a tractor driver, not an artistic gardening guru like you.

yes, get the guys suggestions. They generally have a few really good ideas on how to run a job.
I can see it happening. He used the tractor thingie to dig some holes.
He uses the tractor thingie to take the trees to the holes and lower them in .......
You stand there leaning on your shovel. :-)

I've supervised little jobs like this. You will be very busy, overseeing everything.
Make a list of stuff to be done by priority and in order . Maybe dig tree holes, plant them. Scarify, path ?
It's all suddenly sounding very doable .

Say Hi to the Tarkine Forest for me

[HBS Guy]

Once I am living there I will certainly spend a bit of time exploring my new state.

LOVE to visit the Salamanca market regularly, once a month say. find Farmers Markets closer to where I am: Launceston is a great Market but a way to drive to get to it. Last April I organised so I caught the Fri night ferry. Stop in Elizabeth Town for breakfast (food on the ferry is expensive and crap, I buy my meals before/after the ferry) then on to Launceston Market then on to my block. Usually a stop at Bunnings Prospect (South Launceston.)

[Sprintcyclist]

Does he have a dingo ?

[HBS Guy]

Looks like a nice bit of gear!

[Sprintcyclist]

yes, I have heard it is better to hire someone who has their own dingo than hire your own dingo and DIY.

They charge little and do a better job. Any damage to the dingo is their problem

[HBS Guy]

Yup.

I am going to spend time re-running the pegs and line, then measure and peg out the cherry trees. Mark where the trees will go with circles of gypsum, remove the 400mm star droppers I put in there (hammered them to just below ground level. Then deep ripping can be done, holes dug, trees moved to appropriate spots. Wrap trunks in weedmat.

Plant the threes, prune as drastically as I can. Install irrigation. Probably a simple system, pay someone to run it once a fortnight (clay holds on to water) and once a month when the hot weather is gone then cease once leaves start dropping. Renew mulch.

Cheaper than me moving Adelaide–Tassie all the time. Save money towards my house.

[Sprintcyclist]

I am getting excited about your garden

[HBS Guy]

Me too!

Between the trees and the house quite a few metres.

Draw a circle. Divide it into wedges, maybe a small circle at the centre of the big one or put a fountain there.

Plant step over apples (eating and cooking apples) to form the lines of the wedges. These are on extreme dwarfing rootstock, won’t grow over a metre. In the wedges plant flowers (perennials, I am lazy) and decorative veges. This is parterre gardening. Usually low hedges form the parterre, rosemary is a good one, but step over apples more useful: blossom, fruit then nice fall foliage. Look a bit bare in winter, of course.

On the kitchen side—same sort of thing to divide vege beds and herb patch, hide compost heap, etc.

On the other side—plant some blueberries in pots, strawberries in pots. Go potty

I am a brewer so second grade fruit can be preserved or turned into wine or mead!

Definite eye to selling cherries, raspberries, early apples and eggs to tourists in Jan. Another big lot of tourists over Easter long weekend.

[Sprintcyclist]

I use a 2M curtain rod for measurements in a garden.
Put some marks on it every 500 mm.


' ....... Plant step over apples (eating and cooking apples) to form the lines of the wedges. These are on extreme dwarfing rootstock, won’t grow over a metre. In the wedges plant flowers (perennials, I am lazy) and decorative veges. This is parterre gardening. Usually low hedges form the parterre, rosemary is a good one, but step over apples more useful: blossom, fruit then nice fall foliage. Look a bit bare in winter, of course............'

wonderful

[HBS Guy]

Between the wedges white gravel paths say 500mm wide.

The perennial flowers can be top mulched with gravel, black gravel say (or grey.)

Decorative veges at the back, mulched with peastraw: romanesco broccoli, rainbow chard, cavalo nero kale mixed with frilly pink russian kale. Purple cauli or broccoli. Probably some others.

Kale will taste fantastic: “hard frosts improve the flavor” say the packets of seed. I do believe will get some frost there will I get frost there!

Great kale, lettuce, broadbeans, peas, Dutch purple podded peas (capucijners) and probably cabbage will do well in Tassie winters. They all grew in Adelaide winters back when we had frost (before UHI and AGW meant no more frost.) Will see, have to amend the soil like a lunatic to grow veges in the @#%&*! clay!

[HBS Guy]

Step over apples:



The trees are small, the fruit is full size.

[HBS Guy]

Woodbridge nursery reckons:

Because the plants will be encouraged to fruit early, they’ll need the same kind of water and nutrition as vegetables so it’s a good idea to plant low-growing, fast-maturing vegetables around them to remind you to look after them.

3.In winter plant the one-year-old, one-metre high, single-stemmed apples at 45 degrees, about 1.5 metres apart.

https://www.gardenclinic.com.au/how-to-grow-article/how-to-grow-stepover-apples

Unlike semidwarf fruit trees, stepover apples will not grow over 1m so can fertilise them. Bit of composted pig shit will do wonders! Wonder if I can buy some there? Else sheepshit is good, more useful potassium and phosphorous, less leaf-encourager nitrogen. Rest of minerals will be in the clay.

Interesting—1.5m apart. Guess this means the trees will stretch to 1.5m along the wire, 750mm either side of the trunk. So the wedges need to be multiples of 1.5m: 1.5, 3.0, 4.5. Need to work out how long the back of each wedge is.

A 7m diameter circle is doable, radius 3.5m. Circumference is 2 x 3.5 x π ≈ 2 x 3.5 x 22/7 = 22m.

Need paths to subdivide the circle, say 700mm, wide enough to walk easily in single file, say 2 x 300mm for the step over trees either side of a patch, 1.3m per path. Assume 4 paths (keeping it simple, I am lazy as I said) that is 22 - 4 x 1.3 = 22 - 5.2 call it 22-6 = 16m of circumference needing stepover trees is 16/1.5 = 11 stepover apple trees. That’s a lot of apples! And haven’t counted the paths and their step over apple trees.

Reducing the size of the circle doesn’t change much.

So some thinking to do. Have a circle, an English box hedge parterre. On the southern side a curved colonnade with dwarf apples trained up and along a pergola, couple garden seats.

[Sprintcyclist]

yep, still a lot of planning to do there.
I have found paths 1M+ wide is good. As they get encroached it'll end up less than 1M after a year or so.

Also curves suit gardens well. Aesthetically pleasing, give more microclimates
I use garden hoses to set out curves. Then view them from all sorts of angles, distances.

[HBS Guy]

Yeah, a cottage garden, meandering path through it bounded on one side by step over apples would work. Granny smiths are versatile: eat, cook or add acidity to a cider. Also apple butter, apple cake. Winesaps for juice.

[Sprintcyclist]

meandering path are inviting.

[HBS Guy]

Yup, can put a nice pond in there with fish and water lillies etc—have to see about aquatic plants, native Tas. fish.

Gonna be lovely, lots lovely research and planning to do! Get tractor guy to do the hard work, dingo guy to run in compost, loam etc—need to feed soft plants more than semi-dwarf trees. Especially cherries—no veges near the cherry trees!!!

[HBS Guy]

Big circle, 1.5m wide path bordered by step over apples2m circle in centre with fountain, path divides around etc. Very doable.

[Sprintcyclist]

For planning the path in our forest we did 3 separate field trips to a forest that is 1 hour from here.
We walked around various tracks there to see what we liked in a forest path.
At first I thought I was being a bit silly, cause, we all know what we like in a forest path, don't we ?
It made a big difference to the path in our forest.

During the construction I put the path in. Looked at it and emphasized 5 different areas.
Next day, altered them again. Next weekend, emphasized 3 of them again.
Took me 3 times till I was happy with it after studying forest paths on 3 field trips. But see, a path just has to be right.
It has to be convincing, has to invite people in and hide them when in there.

Checked the Fung Shui of a pond ?

[HBS Guy]

Yeah, fruit trees I don’t care what they look like.

This part tho is something pleasing and interesting to look at so different considerations.

[HBS Guy]

Feng Sui of a pond? Hadn’t considered it.

Definitely want a pond, stock with native Tassie fish: doubt my Murray River Rainbows and Flinders Ranges Purple Gudgeons would like winter in Tassie even if I could bring them in which I can’t. Council wants swimming pool type fencing if I want a pond deeper than, forget what exactly but something like 400mm. By the time you add a decent layer of sand, few pots of water lilies etc not much water! So have to work something out so that the fencing is the main thing you see: a “room” in the garden that has a hedge or espaliered trees outside the fence. Paint the bloody fence green maybe?

[pinkeye]

I know they sound good, but ponds can be a whole lot of trouble if you don't have the right ground. Plastic membranes..?

No nearby water sources in your area?

[HBS Guy]

Also been doing some thinking/reading about swales. Won’t have them. They work where the ground is sloping and my block might be a millimeter lower on the front than the back, hardly much of a slope! Nor good with clay soil:

Avoid using swales in areas with compacted soils or soils that have a high clay content. The runoff will not infiltrate quickly and could lead to problems with mosquitos if water stands longer than seven days. A perc test (short for percolation) may be needed to determine if the infiltration rate is acceptable.

https://pubs.ext.vt.edu/content/dam/pubs_ext_vt_edu/spes/spes-12/SPES-12.pdf

So a ditch a spade deep and wide, filled with gravel and sloping slightly to the north to meet up with a slightly deeper and wider ditch running E-W, to drain into a basin of mulch and water loving plants around it. Soil from the ditch will go where the fruit trees and bushes will be planted, raising them a bit. Compost and mulch will raise the mounds a bit more.

A swale will have water on the surface for a very long time meaning mosquitoes etc. Best to get water away from the trees.

One disadvantage: will have to be dug manually using a spade and you know what they say about a spade: a stick with a blade on one end and an idiot on the other.

[HBS Guy]

I know they sound good, but ponds can be a whole lot of trouble if you don't have the right ground. Plastic membranes..?

No nearby water sources in your area?

Well, went through this for my present pond. A rubber sheet is one way, or concrete (not with 4' of clay that moves!) or a galvo round pond, looks like an open ended shallow rainwater tank. Not going to think too much just now. There is a river not too far away (half a Km) but that is saltwater, not even brackish I would think.

Or an aquarium inside.

[Sprintcyclist]

I know they sound good, but ponds can be a whole lot of trouble if you don't have the right ground. Plastic membranes..?

No nearby water sources in your area?

Well, went through this for my present pond. A rubber sheet is one way, or concrete (not with 4' of clay that moves!) or a galvo round pond, looks like an open ended shallow rainwater tank. Not going to think too much just now. There is a river not too far away (half a Km) but that is saltwater, not even brackish I would think.

Or an aquarium inside.

Yes, does not sound like you have a viable solution there.
My wife bought one of the 'preformed' plastic ponds from a local nursery.
It has varying depths in it. She studied what plants to put in there to aerate the water, what fish to put in there to eat mozzies.
She did it to encourage frogs. We have frogs. She is very good at that sort of thing. She also put it in the right location, feng shui speaking.

The permanent water source there is a big factor to all the small flying insects we have, I believe
Her frog pond went in years before Butterfly Forest. It could have well inspired the Forest.
They all work together.

[HBS Guy]

One of those preformed jobs is a possibility. The butyl(?) rubber sheets are pretty bloody pricy from memory.

Any fixed shape pond will require a lot of digging, 300–500mm deeper and wider than the pond, fill with dolomite sand to give the required depth and some protection from movement by the clay.

Would love a nice big ($$$!!!) pond with a “waterfall” a “stream” with “rustic bridge” over it and a “lake” where water lilies can grow, all powered by a couple discreet solar panels. (Water lilies do NOT like water on the tops of their leaves or currents in the water.) Need native fish to eat mosquito larva.