Barkley Blah!: June 2008

When I first moved into this house, back in 1997, I made a decision not to garden! Over the years I have moved about a bit. And in quite a few of the places I've lived, I have tried to create some semblance of a garden (more of mothers influence, I've worked out..) and every time, or so it seems to me, that the garden has reached the time when I could sit back and enjoy, I've had to move again!

So, when I came here, I thought, no way, let me just leave the trees, keep them trim, and cut the grass; I wouldn't have called it 'lawn' back then, the previous owners had fenced in a big dog, so there wasn't really any ground cover left. Let me see if I can find a picture to put in here.

Then it started - 'I'll just put this little plant in here, and another one over there, oh look, that would make a good place for a little bit of bushie stuff..'. Things grew, most things, others went in; I took out one of the big trees to bring in more sunlight, and lo and behold... a garden...

But we CANNOT grow vegetables! We have tried everything, tomatoes of course, and lettuces, capsicums, silverbeet, all the salad stuff that I love to be able to pick fresh. Each year we would try a new tack, figuring all the tree roots were a problem, we bought and planted big tubs of things. We moved the garden; into the sun, out of the sun, face east, face north, but nothing would work.

The plants got a start, we've even had quite large tomatoes at different stages; but then everything wilts and dies. The tomato plant leaves go yellow then brown and fall off. The fruit falls off and the plants die. So we gave up!

But this year, because I have no landscaping to do, and I find it hard to sit idle, I have been thinking about ' what if I grew things when it wasn't so hot?' - and so I germinated a couple of seeds and got them to 'transplant' stage, and then I didn't know what to do next. Somehow it didn't seem right to put them out in the cold hard ground to fend for themselves; so I put them into a pot and out where they get sun for plenty of the day - but, nope, they haven't done a thing, not a single extra leaf, and they lie down quite a bit...

And so about the glasshouse/greenhouse... I am almost convinced that I have to have something like this for my 'salad' garden. A place where I can grow through the months that aren't really hot - but I don't know which one I need; glass and/or clear plastic? or shadecloth and sun protection? I've been doing some research, and watching eBay for a bargain, but not knowing what I want makes it hard...

I've ordered a book - hopefully it will help me work it out...

Monday, June 16, 2008

mother's rose

Mother's rose has a new bud!

The first one since I transplanted the bush..

I was back living in Queensland when my mother passed away in 1997, at age 92. There would have been about sixty people who attended the funeral, much to everyone's surprise, I think. Lots of family, some I hadn't seen for years, and locals, mum was pretty well known and befriended in her community, although she had been non-compos for the last 5 years or so, and hadn't been in contact outside the house, so yes, we were surprised that so many turned up.

We had decided that the afters would be held at my place, and my sister and I, luckily, had put together a pretty good spread, so there was lots of food for everybody.

My friend and housemate Noel had entered into the spirit of the day and had placed lit candles around appropriately. He had also bought and planted a rose bush, for the occasion, and that became known as mother's rose.

I don't think he actually knew that my mother was famous for her ability to grow roses. Her small house was surrounded by these really large rosebushes, and she loved the big smelly red roses... so how Noel had come to choose this particular rose is a bit special anyway. But that rose has been amazing, there is hardly ever a time that it doesn't have at least one bloom - and it hasn't been coddled, planted right in the way of one of the car parking spaces in the front yard, it has been pruned more to suit the space than to consider it's needs.

A few months ago, I finally decided that the rose had to be moved. I have bought and planted several roses in a new garden at the back of the house, and wanted to have 'mother' in there too. So, I did the right thing, cut lots of branches to propagate, and trimmed the whole bush almost back to bare branches. And dug it up, and replanted it with lots of TLC, and my fingers crossed.

The propagating hasn't gone well - out of about 15 cuttings I have about 5 left that look promising. They all looked promising in the beginning, but, not knowing what I was doing, I think I killed them off with the wrong treatment. Oh well.

It wouldn't put out a bloom if it wasn't still alive.. would it?

posted at: 5:29 PM posted by: DellaB
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Sunday, June 15, 2008

more synchronicity: choirs everywhere...

I was over at Lindsay's Lobes where he wrote about singing with a parish church choir. Took me back a bit, I remember mum had us all in the local choir when we were young. She was very like that, we were into everything going and she was always taking courses in one thing or another.

Choir practice was held on the first floor of a local hall, a large open space with dusty wooden floors - we could sing our hearts out. The walk home after practice was always a musical journey with a stop for icecream at the local shop.

I think that's where I first found out I cannot sing, but that was okay, I learned to open and shut my mouth at the right times, and nobody seemed to mind.

Next I was having an email discussion with a friend, and she happened to mention that she was going off to choir practice that night.

And now I've been watching the ads for tonight's Battle of the Choirs, on channel 7. Apparently inspired by the success of the Choir of Hard Knocks that got so much publicity last year, people are flocking to join choirs!

Good on them, I say - I wish I could sing, they look like they are having a lot of fun.

posted at: 2:14 AM posted by: DellaB
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Thursday, June 12, 2008

Catch up on One Year

Visitors to my other blog last year (yes, it's been one year) might remember that I spent a lot of my time landscaping in the garden, much heavy work and planting, sharing the space with a pair of scrub turkeys who eventually raised 2 babies.

Well, he came back again last summer but this time we weren't so friendly and had him removed off into the hinterland bush. Cost a LOT! Anyway, now we have the 2 babies they produced checking out the backyard, probably scouting out for their nest for next summer.

Synchronicity: we tried again to grow some edible produce, just basic stuff like tomatoes and lettuce and peppers, with the same dismal failure. At the moment I am trying to get some seedlings up and running to try glasshouse growing in winter. But I haven't got a glasshouse yet - cruising eBay in the hope that a nice cheap one will come my way. They are a special seed type supposed to tolerate cold climates. We'll see.

Well, the blog's had it's first visit from an old blogger chum remiman - very exciting, and I went to see what he is up to. (I am about to do same for all of the blogs on the list - got to get the links up-to-date, soon) - anyway, what should he have on his blog but a lovely healthy looking tomato plant. Of course, he is on the other side of the world, in New York, so I guess it's their summer starting.

I've been keeping busy with study, finished the Editing & Proofreading course, and have just completed an Autobiography & Journaling course with the lovely people at U3A. I guess that is what has started me 'writing' again. I am sure some of the tools I picked up from the course will make their way into my blog blah's...

Just started playing around a bit in 'facebook' - one of the young blokes in the department where I work asked me to be his 'friend' and I said, "why not? yes okay" - and so I became his friend, then another asked, and another, and now I have about 30 friends on facebook. And I have to confess, it's good fun - I am amazed at the people popping up out of the woodwork - not just from my online past, but from different places and times in my life! (Mardi, if you are reading this, promise, I am being very careful..).

If you've got this far - well done - I'll stop now...

Della

posted at: 6:30 PM posted by: DellaB
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