Garden thread.

[fourx]

Update on the upside down garden- picking oakleaf lettuce, purple-top turnips, cherry tomatoes, okra and silverbeet-
....growing are potatoes, swedes, more turnips, beetroot, kohlrabi, parsnips, carrots, broad (fava) beans and eggplant...in two days it's winter.

[Sassy]

we've been picking a lot of strawberries & a whole variety of heirloom lettuce, some carrots left but a lot of the veggies are either blooming (tomatoes, squash, peppers, melons), corn's coming up; everything else is going to seed - we just let it all reseed itself & don't have to do much besides water & weed & we have a whole new winter crop.  

Does it get very cold, Fourx, where you're are in your upside down world, since winter is only a couple days away? You have a great variety of veggies - food fresh out of the garden is so much better!  

Daddymem, your garden looks like its getting a good start - lots of good stuff - & a great way to use your leftover granite pieces - makes for an interesting flower garden  .  

[glenn-k]

gotta be one of those relatives of Glenn's he mentioned that are from around here.

I think I know that guy, Daddymem.  Who knows...   my great great grandfather may be the fertilizer for that tree.  

Actually they put him in the ground in Brockton, but he could be moving around down there. :-/

[fourx]

Sassy, it gets cold enough once or twice a year- in July, usually, for there to be a light frost, but by 10 am most days I'm just wearing a pair of shorts because winters North of about Sydney are dry, and as soon as the sun is up it's constant sunshine all day. Summers are when it rains most, and when it's needed most, so it's ideal for 12 month vegetable growing. In the Southern half of the country, the rainfall pattern is the opposite, so Winters are cloudy and cold.

[glenn-k]

Southern half of the country

Now you are confusing me, Pete -- is that to the North?

[fourx]

 8-)Yeah, if you think of the South Pole as the North pole, and Sydney as San Diago...

[peg_688]

 Update 29 May 2007,




This lil guy or gal , not sure which , is coming to a garden near you,












It's Momma was right there in the woods , the lil one just froze like that for about 2 mins or so. I was about 2' away , pretty cool , was about the size of a big beagle , must be only a few days or so old.

 

[Sassy]

Garden looks great, where was the fawn? Cute little fawn, better watch out, you won't have nuthin left once that little one gets a bit bigger...  

[peg_688]

At a job site , no where near my place   Another doe , at least I think it wasn't Mamma , cuz the wee one wasn't with her , layed down for a napping in the back yard , right out in the open , by the flower beds in the sun , layin in the gravel path  

It was tiny , never seen one that young / small before  

[glenn-k]

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, How does your garden grow?

Sassy wanted me to post a new pix of the garden - here's one.

[fourx]

You must have built the soil up heaps to have stuff growing right at the base of the tree like that, Glenn. Tough looking ground in this pic....Is that lettuce near the tomato plants?  Whats the dish near what looks like poppies and hollyhocks for?

[glenn-k]

Actually completely built the soil there, Pete.  I scrounged the topsoil and saved it with the Bobcat last year when I made a terrace for storage.  I built the rock walls with local rock about 2 feet high then put 1 foot or so of good topsoil on the bottom.  I kept adding rocks as the fill material was added - faces as even as I wanted - backs random.

The last foot of fill was about 3 year old composted horse manure.  The garbage company removes it from Yosemite National Park each year - so about 3 years ago I got over 200,000 lbs of it delivered here.  Horse manure is the perfect mix of carbon and nitrogen to compost - just ad water to taste - I mean until moist and turn weekly to allow to mix with air.  Try to keep it from getting so hot it turns to ash.  In about 1 to 2 months it will be great soil.  I mixed it with top soil about 2 to 1 and that is my growing soil.  Stuff is really liking it - nice bunches of earthworms too.

The Bobcat is the tool that makes instant gardens etc. like this possible for a lazy guy like me.

The dish is actually an old oblong tin bucket I found near an old mine dump at the base of the mountain.  It is rusted paper thin in many places.  I was thinking of planting flowers or something in it.  It has no bottom - probably 70 to 150 years old.

[glenn-k]

The ground is about 1/3 to 3/3 rock and or claystone around here.  Hardness of bricks to concrete - softening in places if soaked for days.  Takes a couple minutes of hammering with a jackhammer to drive a 1" stake in about 2 feet if rocks are not encountered.  

[fourx]

Incredible...It makes me realise just how well off I am, having a decent lot of soil in the bottom of a valley to grow stuff in- not all that common here, of course. Can't beat horse manure for building up the organic content, can you? By the way, the drought that the greenies have been yelping about down here, with predictions of doom as ""global warming"" ( kind of like that horse manure, but from bulls..) turns the country into a dustbowl ( unknown to the inner-city zealots, most of this country any more than 200 k's from the sea is a dustbowl all the time ) has broken, with massive floods which have killed a dozen people.

[glenn-k]

I read that the best garden soil is the soil you build yourself.  Our natural ground here has from 6" to 2 feet of top soil in most areas on the mountain.  The Blue Oaks are natural soil builders with acid leaching from the annual leaf drop into the soil to decompose the green andesite or other bedrock.  You can actually find rocks that are turning to granules.  Acid rain can't hold a candle to the action of the natural oak tannins and acids doing their natural job.

Great on the breaking of the drought - if -- it didn't have to be all at once, eh? :-?

[MountainDon]

Not exactly garden, but I'm certain if I had a garden she'd be helping herself... This first shot was taken 05/21



This Momma Bird built herself a nest in one of the roof support beams for one of our playground structures.  So, I guess I can take credit for providing shelter even if I had nothing to do with her project. Next shot today, 06/10



I'm not a birder, can anyone tell me what kind of bird this is?

[PEG688]

Mourning Dove I think .



 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mourning_Dove

The Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura) is a member of the dove family, Columbidae. The bird is also called the American Mourning Dove, and formerly was known as the Carolina Pigeon or Carolina Turtledove. It ranges from Central America to southern Canada, including offshore islands. Many individuals in northern areas migrate south to winter within the breeding range where January temperatures are greater than minus 12 Celsius (10 F).

[MountainDon]

A while back I posted photos of the cactii in bud stage. They've been blooming a couple days now, there'll be more and more opening each day now for a time.

[glenn kangiser]

Beauty, Don -- the bird and the cactus -- both of which are edible.  

OK, ok -- so I wouldn't really eat the cute little bird.

[PEG688]

Beauty, Don -- the bird and the cactus -- both of which are edible.  

OK, ok -- so I wouldn't really eat the cute little bird.

Yes nice Don , and those doves are hard to hit even with #12 shot Beside it takes a bushel basket full for a decent meal

[MountainDon]

Thanks PEG. I guess that one and her two little ones are safe for now. Never hunted or eaten a bird smaller than a duck.

[Sassy]

How cute!  And the cacti are gorgeous - can't wait until ours get old enough to bloom.  I still have a lot of varieties in pots that one of these days we'll be able to plant.  I like the way you've landscaped  8-)

In Kerman, we have one of those plastic holders they deliver the newspaper to next to our mailbox - for the past 2 years we've had 2-3 nests of little birds - think they are sparrows - tiny little blue spotted eggs.  One batch got old enough to fly off a couple weeks ago & the next week there were 4 more eggs!  The birds are more reliable than the delivery of the newspaper used to be - we finally stopped it 2-3 years ago.  This batch hasn't hatched yet.  We also have a lot of baby owls born in our huge palm tree in the valley - they're flying around now & screeching at night.  Glenn made an owl house - we've had at least 3-4 babies raised in it every year.  

[MountainDon]

Found another one!



... more of a clay pigeon, if you catch my drift, tho'    :-/

We have heard some owls up in the mtns. over the past 2 weeks.

[glenn kangiser]

Hmm - no legs on that one, Don.

Reminds me of the neighbor who put up an electric fence for their horses using those little yellow plastic insulators.  The humming birds would come down and sit on the fence then try to extract nectar from the yellow insulator - thought it was a flower I guess -- and ZAP --- instant hummingbird double amputee.  It would just leave their little legs attached to the wire as they accidentally grounded to the metal post with their tongue.

Not funny but something to watch for I guess. :-/

[PEG688]

Reminds me of the neighbor who put up an electric fence for their horses using those little yellow plastic insulators.  The humming birds would come down and sit on the fence then try to extract nectar from the yellow insulator - thought it was a flower I guess -- and ZAP --- instant hummingbird double amputee.  It would just leave their little legs attached to the wire as they accidentally grounded to the metal post with their tongue.

Your kidding right?? If not , it's a wonder we have any humming birds  left