Welcome to the new year.

Yeah, yeah, a bit late, I know. I blame summer. This summer has seemed fierce. No moisture in the air, not even enough cloud for people to get  grumpy about how muggy it is.. just the heat and the feeble see breeze on some evenings, that only us lucky Freo folk get coz I reckon it must peter out by the bottom of the next dune.

The garden is just hanging in, we probably water too often but the garden is our haven and we don't need much more than a happy garden. Dripper line has given us 20 odd minutes reprieve each morning from having to hand water and the "potted orchard" is all still looking pretty happy.
The pests have changed since putting the drip line in. Slaters are much reduced, possibly also because we have changed our mulch this year. Mites seemed to enjoy the dry out there, though. They like dry situations so, with the lack of spray, they had attacked a lot of plants. Too much shade from the much-too-large powton didn't help, nor did us not being very good at feeding things. Summer is a hard time to do anything out there, really.

If we ate rats and tomato borer grubs we would have had a good summer's feast, sadly it was mostly herbs and the odd dragon fruit, along with three pumpkins which grew themselves. Basil always does well here and that New Zealand spinach stuff that no one actually eats.

In a moment of autumn hope two weeks ago vegetable and herbs seeds were sown across the Perth suburbs as a cloud drifted across the sky and made us think it would rain soon! It'll be interesting to see how long into March this late summer persists. I'll be glad not to need to water so much though, whenever that is. Maybe when it goes down to only a maximum of 32C, maybe then I can plant those seedlings.

Gardening with an old dog

Dogs can create havoc in a garden but we have always been lucky with our dogs, the last of which Gruntle is still with us. Dogs can chew everything to bits and dig stuff up so we made sure it was always obvious where they couldn't go and made plenty of runways where they could.

Our old dog, Gruntle, is 14 and a half. He goes alright once he's up and even gets a bit excited when we take him out for his short evening walk. The garden paths have become wider and low growing herbs and weeds have been removed around the edges so he can get around more easily. He staggers into things at times so I have placed pots around the garden so he can sidle around a bit and not fall over.
He's doing okay, he still uses various ways around the garden and explores a bit, so he he hasn't forgotten his way around and anywhere he could get stuck has been barricaded off so he can't get stuck outside somewhere while we're at work. The large potted fruit trees and ornamentals have been handy for this use and they can be used to shade various parts of the garden where needed.

Summer is coming and it's a worry leaving the old bloke at home all day but we have a lot of shade out there and he mostly sleeps during the day. He may well end up having another haircut though!

Community seed sharing.

Last weekend there was a seeds, plants and cuttings sharing event at a nearby high school. It had a pretty good turnout with lots of interesting and rare seeds and cuttings on offer. It was the most prompt I have ever seen people turn up to any event.

Some of us didn't label our propagules very well but some folk had made little seed packets up with expiry dates and instructions. It was lovely to meet some of the good folk from a facebook gardening group I spend some time on as well, though it turned out later there were others there that I didn't manage to sus out.

One fellow had a basket of an edible plant tuber that he's been trying to grow down south and now he's getting likeminded gardeners to try and keep them alive up here in dryer, hotter conditions. He (or rather his adorable young daughters) made us write our name and email address down so he could check how we went with growing our special little oca plants from their jellybean shaped tubers.

It was also great to speak to some folks who had beans or other seeds or plant matter from their own cultural backgrounds. One species I got a cutting from is an ornamental but I didn't know it has edible flowers. And a thing called fishmint, that isn't a mint but does smell of fish.. haven't tried yet, it is still deciding whether to strike or not.

It was a fun little event and many lively chats were had in a two hour space. Next time we will try and be better with name tags, cos it's good to know who the other plant fiends are in person.

My turn at the amazing Perth City Farm.

Twenty years ago a bunch of people with vision and determination started a place called Perth City Farm right next to the city and the train line. Over the years the management has changed a few times, dozens of good folk have come and gone while behind the scenes Men of the Trees over see what goes on with the farm. The site isn't all that large but it has a good area of built space, vege gardens, loads of compost and the accumulated love and knowledge and sweat and, no doubt some tears, to be what it is today, an excellent working example of urban agriculture, growing chemical free food in the city.

Many people i know have worked there over the years and I recently had the opportunity to be in charge of the nursery. This is pretty exciting as I love growing plants. It is a very cool chance to grow some interesting permaculture plants  to sell in the nursery. More perennial things ... asparagus, globe artichokes, moringa and also some tough and pretty plants to attract beneficial insects, such as Salvias and various daisies.

As long as the retic works and we can keep up with planting out on the farm it's gonna be some fun making plants to sell.

And, it's been really good to have a weekend, not working Saturdays is wayyyyy cool.

Rarer perennial vegetables.

I have the opportunity to grow some interesting perennial herbs and vegetables. One of these will be yakon, a South America plant that is gradually becoming more available in Perth as people share it and the circle of yakon keepers gets gradually wider. We are also going to grow some asparagus, yam beans and other cool stuff. I will post more once we have some going.