Branching out into Fruit and Citrus

When we were planning our foray into gardening, one of the things we looked at was what we eat and what our parrots eat. We figured that with a little planning we'd be able to have fresh food on hand at all times to satisfy our hungry parrots.

As well as vegetables, there were some fruits that grow easily in pots that we decided to include. Our neighbour also has a fantastic lemon tree that we look longingly at each year, so we thought some dwarf citrus in pots would be just the thing for our small yard.

At the Gardening Expo, we bought a Passionfruit, an Alpine Strawberry, a Raspberry and a Blueberry. Unfortunately the blueberry died before we could get it established. We had also planned to purchase some Citrus trees - in particular we wanted an Imperial Mandarin, but they had sold out before we had a chance. Instead, we visited our favourite nursery - Hampton Gardens at Kenmore - and got a Dwarf Lime, Dwarf Lots a Lemons and an Imperial Mandarin. We plan on adding a Lemonade tree as well, but these seem hard to come by.

Passionfruit vine and Blueberry plant in flower

New growth on the Raspberry plant after pruning

Strawberry plants - the dark green plant is an Alpine variety

Dwarf Lime and Lemon and Imperial Mandarin tree

The new shoot on our accidentally chopped down Bush Lemon - what a survivor!

Imperial Mandarin covered in flowers - the scent was so glorious and sweet

First growth

The raised beds were fully installed and filled with organic herb and vege soil from Centenary Landscaping Supplies in mid-August. We were going to The Mouses House for our wedding anniversary the following week, so I planted the first round of seeds just before we left.

I had planned three plots based on advice from the excellent book One Magic Square by Lolo Houbein - an awesome book and well worth checking out before you plan your veggie garden layout. The seeds I chose to plant snow pea, broad beans, leeks, beetroot, cauliflower, corn and carrots (based on what we would eat the most of and what fitted in with my crop rotation plan). I chose Greenpatch Organic Seeds at the ABC Gardening Expo - untreated, non-hybrid, non genetically modified, open pollinated seeds. They had an excellent pollination rate, apart from the marigold seeds which have a 100% fail rate :-(

I had also been propagating and growing my own seedlings indoors in toilet rolls, but when I planted them out the local magpies and crows decided to dig up the toilet rolls - ruining weeks of TLC in an afternoon. Rather than go through that again, we supplemented the seed planting with commercial seedlings. These included broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, tomatoes, capsicum, cucumber, celery, radish and garlic bulbs.

Here are some pics taken on 6th September - approx 3 weeks after planting.

Bed #1: Corn, Broad Beans, Capsicum, Tomato with a Pumpkin in the middle

(The silverbeet is accidental - it somehow grew next to the pumpkin - go figure!!)

Bed #2: 12 x Snow Peas, 9 x Broad Beans, Radishes, Broccoli, Cabbage, Celery

Bed #3: Tiny Cauliflower seedlings poking their heads up after 3 weeks growth!

Bed #3 again: Look closely and you'll see the distinctive red leaves of Beetroot plants

Each of the raised beds also has a pot of Marigolds to help with organic pest control. The Marigold was supposed to get planted in the soil, but I ran out of room!

3 beds also didn't end up being quite enough room for all the seedlings that we chose. So the garlic and the cucumbers are in their own separate pots - here are the pics:

Raised beds ready to go

When we installed our first Hills Hoist earlier this year, we were interested to note that underneath the topsoil was good red clay - and very clayey clay at that. The kind of clay that came out in sticky concrete-like chunks and not particularly fertile for growing anything.

Being the lazy kinda gal I am, I didn't much fancy the idea of digging fertiliser and compost deep into the clay to improve it. No-dig gardens are the rage, and a darn good idea too in my opinion. The other challenge with our proposed garden site is that it's not really level - our block slopes slightly and it's quite pronounced on that side fence area.

The perfect solution presented itself in April when we attended the ABC Gardening Expo. It was an awesome day out, and we gathered reams of interesting brochures on all kinds of gardening products. We also made two very exciting discoveries, as illustrated below:

1) a fantastic herb and veggie planter stand (which we bought at first sight!!)

2) Corrugated iron raised garden beds

ideal for our style of house and the perfect solution to clay soil!

How the backyard began

Earlier this year, in March, I heard Morag Gamble from SEED International speak at a library seminar. She was incredibly articulate and held the audience captivated for over two hours as she spoke about gardening organically and growing your own food.

In fact, she was so inspiring that I immediately vowed to grow my own food.

My wonderful husband was supportive as always. We measured the garden along the fence, which was currently miscellaneous plants and weeds, and I began digging. Our backyard was full of lillypillys that had grown quite huge after years of neglect from us. Neither of us were particularly fond of them, so we decided to do some pruning to let more sunlight in on the proposed veggie garden site. With the help of some good friends and some good sharp tools, we made good progress. You might even say we got a little carried away!

Here are some before and after pics from June:

Before view of backyard - a little pruning wouldn't go astray!

View of side yard - more large trees but some clearing and digging done already

"A little pruning" indeed - the now completely deforested backyard!