Gardening

[greggerypeccary]

Remember that TV show Burke's Backyard, with Don Burke?

He used to pronounce pergola as PERgola, instead of perGOLa.

Whatever happened to him - did he get in trouble for harassing his staff or something?

I remember hearing something in the news a few years ago.

[HBS Guy]

Never watched it, watched gardening on the ABC back then. No idea, no interest in what happened to Burke.

Been out and about talking to people, have somewhat changed my ideas. Also saw a nice large metal finial, off a tram barn, be perfect. For when I get back from Tassie.

[HBS Guy]

Don’t plant wisteria!

http://decorno.blogspot.com/2008/05/wisteria-lovely-menace.html

Jasmine is OK. fine wif daT.

[HBS Guy]

Follies:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/uk/add-little-joy-house-put-folly-garden/

[HBS Guy]

Found two brilliant gardening books on the weekend—$4.00 each! Then today, out to Westfield Marion and Mum wanted to visit the op shop across the road from it. Found three books on growing roses, $7.50 the lot! $11.50 well spent!

[HBS Guy]

Found a great plant nursery. Two old fashioned fragrant climbing roses, will have a range of clematis early Sep and they have yellow and white jasmine etc.

Piere de Ronsard rose:

[HBS Guy]

Kiss me Kate rose:

[HBS Guy]

The roses only grow about 3m, so do most clematis. I have three 3metre posts left over from April. Two of those planted 3 metres apart with wires every half metre between them, plant 3 roses (two kiss me Kates at the outside and maybe a white or yellow rose in the middle situated a metre or metre and a half (a metre is roughly 3.25') from the end of the big pergola will give a nice privacy screen and something nice to look at. In front of that will have three 1m deep holes drilled and filled with cement: on top of those I can put a nice ($800 say) bit of garden statuary there and a HUGE fucking plant pot (say 1.5m/5' tall pot) and maybe a fountain.

Fountain gets water from a pond at the far side of the pergola, runs from the fountain into a sink then from there into a wide PVC pipe which runs into a buried sink a bit over halfway the length of the big pergola where another pump pumps it up into a “waterfall” which is drained by a “stream” that runs into the pond. No idea if this is doable, might have a disappearing fountain endlessly recirculating the same water and a waterfall and stream closer to the pond. Don’t really care to be honest. Want some water under the pergola, maybe a pond under and in front of the gazebo/summer house that also goes under the pergola—a tunnel effect. And native fish. Fuck goldfish, carp are rubbish fish!

Want part of the pond really deep for the sake of the fish, closer to 90cm/3' than 2' because fish tend to hibernate in winter (if not quite hibernate something similar.) OK having a “stream” and a “waterfall” but in a sunny part of the pond out of any current or splashing from a fountain or “waterfall” you want waterlillies for a display and shade and hiding place for the fish.

On the top of the pergola white star jasmine will sprawl or maybe white one side yellow the other? While up the posts will climb gorgeous clematis, maybe some banksia rose? These only reach 3m high, perfect for my pergola.

So two sides of the backyard have pergolas. I fancy a third pergola opposite the smaller pergola later. This will become an “apple tunnel” which sounds to me like a bloody lovely thing!

In Hahndorf today (Captain Hahn carried a heap of German (Lutheran probably) refugees from Germany to Australia and stayed with them until they found a place to settle, they named the town after him, Hahn’s Village.) Look up the Pioneer Women’s Trail some time: the women in the settlement left at midnight loaded with produce, veges, fruit and eggs I guess, walked from Hanhdorf to Adelaide to sell the produce and buy supplies before setting off back to Hahndorf.

I takes me hat off to these ladies! Me and the dog have walked the Trail, in 6Km/4mile stretches, anyone that can do the trip in the dark, reaching the place the Hills meet the plain at like 3.00am, sit down and wash the feet in the stream coming out of the gully then walking all the way into Adelaide, sell the produce and buy supplies (no doubt tobacco for the men) and walk back, reaching Hahndorf at midnight (then get up at 4.00am no doubt to feed the chooks and slop the hogs etc etc—stamina!

Yeah, so, in Hahndorf today walked around a bit. Bought a nice leather belt that fits me and some nice mallee honey. Think I might go to Strathalbyn via Hahndorf once in a while, have breakfast there. LOTS of cafes, bakeries and restaurants!

[HBS Guy]

I think I can plant a fig tree, need to check up how invasive the roots are but the branches can be espaliered into a fan shape. Now, which variety. . ..

[HBS Guy]

Finally got my brief for a plan of the pergolas and where they go on the block to a draughtsman—the problems I had with something so minor and straightforward!

Now need to finish the plan for care of the fruit trees, apple, pear, cherry and peach. Had worked out ingredients and amounts to make up 15L, 5L and 1L of spray constituents. Bunny decided he only needed the 5L spray. Nevermind, is all I need now but will need to work out the 15L spray when the trees get a bit bigger. Need ot work out a couple other things. Not much time left—leave Fri27th

[johnsmith]

I think I can plant a fig tree, need to check up how invasive the roots are but the branches can be espaliered into a fan shape. Now, which variety. . ..

mission figs

[HBS Guy]

Not the black genoa?

[johnsmith]

Not the black genoa?

i love them all so probably no good asking me. Probably best to find out which one is best suited for that climate.

As I understand it, mission figs are easier to grow and bear more fruit, but that was just one persons opinion ... not sure how accurate they were..

[HBS Guy]

It will be a while but see how it goes.

Get all the trees and vines planted, nurse them through first few years. Likewise the two pergolas, get construction started. Then a third pergola, maybe made with metal hoops and rods—apple tunnel. At the right time—understory plants like red currants and pepperberry etc. THEN can see where more can go incl a fig.

[HBS Guy]

Having worked out the layout of the pergolas I sent the brief off to a draughtsman (actually THREE, one they wouldn’t let my email server connect, another reckoned he was only licensed in/for SA finally someone accepted the job. I hope!

So started finalising the care plan for the trees: schedule of sprays, what goes into each spray and when to do the spraying. Trying to get all that to make sense and be clearly laid out got most of it done then got sick of it. So put the laptop away, put the dog in her harness (she hates it and I can understand that but too fucking bad!) and with Mum in tow (amazing how fast she can run tied to the towbar! Spry near centenarian! ) headed to mothra’s stamping ground, the Fleurieu Pen, specifically Yankalilla and Victor Harbor. No luck finding great books in op shops today

Will finish the sprays page tomorrow and start on the schedule of when the sprays should be done—it will have to be done by a local yocal so e v e r y t h i n g has to be spelled out clearly. Dear god I wish I was already there full time! The spray makeup and the schedule will be blown up from A4 to A3 and pasted onto a board in the garden shed.

One of the sprays is Surround™ kaolin, to spray on leaves if insects are eating leaves in summer. (It will also protect fruit from sunburn, coating it in a very fine white reflective coating.

ALWAYS wash your fruit & veg, even the “organic” ones: one of the ingredients of a horticultural spray is “effective microbes” incl streptomycin!

[HBS Guy]

There is a great bookshop in Tanunda in the Barossa Valley—huge cookbook range.

Looked first in the gardening section—so much landscaping—pavers, walls etc I can’t do—the clay would tip over or break the walls and lift the pavers making tripping hazards. I look, sigh, put the book back. Did find a neat little book on native plants—the swamp Banksia and the Water gum seem a natural fit—damp clay soils! My bit of Tassie is in Zone A like Adelaide and a lot of Victoria.

Then a book on pan pizzas by an author I know and a book of apple recipes. (Well, some apple some cider but no prob I will have both! haha!)

Cost me a bit more than my op shop purchase of last week: left over $100 there.

[HBS Guy]

Pick up the rest of my trees tomorrow: some eating and some cooking apples and eating and perry pears.

Looked at one of my cherry trees today, Early Burlat—be blooming next week! The trees survived the winter in my little garden shed alright!

[HBS Guy]

Planted 7 trees today, making 15 all told this visit so far. Tomorrow—two Beurre Bosc (one for eating, one for perry, nice pear character) a Williams pear to pollinate the beure bosc and a Doyenne Du Comice for excellent eating. Next year Gin and Moorcroft to fill up the rows, a couple yellow huffcap to have 4 distinct types perry pear.

I paint each tree with bitumen paint: plenty of rabbits around and they LOVE the tender young bark of young fruit trees. Not my fruit trees!

[HBS Guy]

Only planted 2 trees today, a Williams and a Beurre Bosc. Beure Bosc good to eat, good in perry. Tomorrow will plant a Doyenne Du Comice and another Beurre Bosc. Had to cart soil and compost.

BUT! {fanfare} I now have a tap! Previous to today I had a water meter ($2100+) but no fucking tap to use the water meter! Had been quoted $220, holding three $50 notes in my hand I asked if he gave a discount for cash. He asked for $100. Nice little saving! (still a rip off bit not a $220 rip off!)

But—isn’t there ALWAYS a but? Tap had a 18mm thread, hose a 25mm fitting. Two visits to local hardware shop, useless so 150Km trip to closest big town with a Bunnings. Hose is watering a perry pear not looking too happy—transplant shock or lack of water. Went to a nursery—closed!

[HBS Guy]

Two more trees plus started marking out the main pergola—tomorrow plant 4 cherry trees there, 4 semidwarf apples (eating/cooking apples mostly, one can be used in a cider as a tart—Sturmer Pippin. Also Granny Smith and the premier English cooking apple—Bramley’s seedling.

[HBS Guy]

Oh thank goodness! Help on the block tomorrow, will get all the trees in, pergolas outlined with string and pegs. Then Fri all I have to do is spread mulch, hardwood chip and peastraw over that. Skive off all day Saturday, nice looong drive past wineries cideries breweries etc. And a working windmill that grinds wheat, buckwheat etc using stones as in the old days: means ALL of the grain ends up in your flour AND the grinding is slow and cool unlike modern high speed steel roller mills—the grain heats and loses some nutrient content and all the different parts of the grain are separated, semolina, bran etc.

Fruit trees all look pretty—shiny black from ground to 50mm up—and streaks of bitumen paint on what were my good jeans

[Aussie]

A picture tells a thousand words, they say.

[HBS Guy]

So keep dreaming of pictures Drop Dead Fred!

[Aussie]

[HBS Guy]

Five apple trees, six cherry trees and 2 peach trees planted and two shelving units assembled.

So planted:
Cider apples King David x 2, Dabinett x 2, Yarlington Mill x 3, Improved Foxwhelp 1 and Brown Snout 1

Pears Beurre Bosc x 2, Williams 1, Beurre Hardy 1, Doyenne Du Comice 1 and Green Horse x 4 (1 freeby)

Crab apple John Downie 1 (for pectin jelly and crabs are the universal pollinator for apples (well, nearly)

Eating/cooking apples Sturmer Pippin x 2, Granny Smith 1, Bramley’s Seedling 1 (UK #1 cooking apple)

Cherries Napoleon x 2, Early Burlat (starts ripening around Christmass, bet I can make some $$$ from tourists?) x 2, Stella 1 (pollinator) and Kentish Sour, a light fleshed sour cherry—cherry jam!

Peach Anzac and another one.


Still have 17 spots for perry pears, 2021 maybe.

Next week the posts at least for 2 pergolas will go up.