Spring garden

15/10/10

Today I planted two eggplants, 'Bonica' and 'Fairy' something and a capsicum. I also sowed some mint and sage. When I was tootling about, picking up some sugarcane mulch, something caught my eye in the composting grass clippings-a potato! I put some potatoes in the clippings in Autumn and then watered them only when I remembered and they grew and I have enough now for a potato salad! Yay! I have also been harvesting the broad beans, silverbeet and carrots.

The more I harvest, the more I am inspired to grow out own food. It is so satisfying to wander out to the garden and choose the evening meal based on what it ready to pick, pluck or dig up.

I planted out the cosmos this morning around the base of two standard roses. I have reached a stage where I am maintenance weeding-a short-lived victory that I will not take for granted, the garden will run away from me once I am back into studying.

Last weekend I prepared lots and lots of box cuttings. My goal is to plant low borders around my garden beds-it defines them. I also did some cuttings of curry plant and the chilien Guava. I am unimpressed with that plant, having failed to tip prune it to promote bushiness, it has become leggy and pointless. If the cuttings fail I will ditch both plants, if they work, I will make cuttings out of both plants and ensure I prune them more diligently.

Here are three different white roses from the garden.

Blossom

2/10/10

Just read an old post from April, where I described removing jasmine from a cherry tree in Bowral. I worried the tree was beyond hope but the worry was needless, as this picture attests.

Before and after

2/10/10

Here are some before and after shots of a bit of garden next to my driveway. I planted a rose that is ailing-I thought it had died and I almost chucked it, but we'll see how it goes. I also planted a small May bush, taken from a Bowral cutting, a pink pelargonium and some lambs ears.

I am obsessed with geranium/pelargoniums at the moment. This morning T and I went to Geranium Cottage, in Dural, to buy some. I bought the pink one in the picture as well as a variegated scented one that will have mauve flowers and one with deep burgundy leaves. There were to be planted beside the drive as well, but I couldn't bare to have them tucked away where I will hardly ever see them so I think I will put them in the front garden somewhere.

The sweet smell of spring

15/9/10

Today I went for a walk and the air smelled sweet because of the jasmine and other spring blossoms. On Monday I planted some pansies, verbena and greeny-creamy petunias, which should complement my little 'seafoam' roses.

This afternoon I sowed some seeds that had a best before date of 2008-Queen Anne's Lace and white cosmos. We shall see if they germinate. I also sowed some red and pink cosmos-"red dazzler" and "Sensation" and some alyssum. Finally, I planted a punnet of basil as companions for my tomato plants.

Miscalculating

5/9/10

I walked for an hour with T today, then tidied up the garden by the driveway. I pulled out some scrambly native violet and planted a variety of succulents. I chose succulents because whatever is in that garden must survive on rainfall and cosseting isn't on. I also planted some red pelargoniums (from cuttings, as were the succulents) and mulched the agapanthas. I planted those about two years ago and they are thriving.

My broad beans are vigorous and I fear they will topple under their own weight once they heavy with beans. I miscalculated when planting them and placed them near small pyramid supports. I have had to tie to the support with string and the plants now tower above the pyramids. I should have known better.

Whenever I visit a good friends place, I take a few cuttings. The succulents I planted today are cuttings from three different gardens and whenever I look at them I think of my friends.

On our walk today I found some beautiful grass seed-heads. I have also posted two photos of two very different coloured broad bean flowers.

Daffodils and fitness

2/9/10

Here are some photos of my daffodils. Today I planted a groundcover, Iberis sempervirens-candytuft, which is described as an evergreen, spreading, herbaceous perennial. It is supposed to be a v. good edging plant. Should be pruned back by 1/3 after flowering to maintain its compact habit and it should be fed annually. I also planted Argyranthemum marguerite daisy 'rum and raisins', which is a lovely dark pink.

Instant hedge

26/8/10

I wish I could remember to take before and after shots-yesterday I transformed a blob of sea-side daisies into a hedge and I am v. happy with the result. I planted hydrangeas grown from cuttings on one side and begonias grown from seed on the other.

Tonight we had chicken seasoned with chilli, kaffir lime leaves, lemon grass and coriander all from our garden.

Post-holiday

24/8/10

Since my last post I have passed two Bar exams and failed one. We also went on a driving holiday to Adelaide. The Hay Plain was green and studded with ponds-an unusual sight.

I have neglected the garden due to studying and travelling, however on Sunday night we harvested some broccoli and cavalo nero, which I cooked and tossed in a little olive oil and lemon juice. Here are some photos.

Rain

6/6/10

Weeks of heavy rain and the garden is happy. In my garden, there is a thin layer of top soil covering red clay, so when gardening yesterday my Sloggers were big globs of clay within minutes. Sunny yesterday and today, so I did some weeding, pulling out winter grass and oxalis and bastard grass out of the front garden beds. My strawberries arrived and I planted all ten of them. They have already started getting leaves.

The broccoli is still being eaten by bright green, very pretty caterpillars, but I am reluctant to spray more Confidor, so I am inspecting periodically and squashing them by hand. The frangipani has shed almost all its leaves, as have the maples.

I had placed pots of pineapple salvia, hydrangeas and mint beside the front steps of the verandah, but the salvia was becoming very leggy and the hydrangea leaves yellow, so I removed and pruned them back.

More beasties

30/5/10

I didn't get around to finishing my last post about all the lovely plants I got for my birthday and the tags are still sitting on the coffee table in the living room, covered in dirt. The last plant is an argyranthemum aka pink daisy. The first daisy so far.

I haven't been gardening as much lately because I have decided, on T's suggestion, to go to the Bar. So I have spent some days sitting in the Bar Association Library, reading Ritchie's Practice and Procedure in NSW or at home reading ethics and evidence.

My lovely mother-in-law was very generous on my birthday as well and I have ordered more plants from Digger's Club:

BLACK KNIGHT BUTTERFLY BUSH BUTTERFLY BUSH WHITE CLOUD WHITE LADY CHERRY PIE BLUEBERRY 'NORTHLAND' STRAWBERRY 'HOKOWASE' 10 STRAWBERRY FRAISES DES BOIS CLARY SAGE 'VATICAN WHITE' Kath gave me a lovely orange tree. I planted it next to the Kaffir Lime tree, maybe a bit too close, we'll see. This morning was the first day of no rain for ages, so I weeded for half an hour and planted out more broccoli, lots of leeks, chives and some curly parsley. The broccoli already in the garden is being eaten by caterpillars, so I sprayed with confidor, but I am going to get a cheap blender so I can make up some chilli and soap spray and use that instead. That way I can hopefully lessen the impact on good bugs. Here are some photos I took this morning.

Tired but happy

9/5/10

Big day in the garden today. It's my birthday next week and yesterday T and I went to Swanes and T bought me lots of beautiful plants. It was a perfect autumn day today and I wandered out to the garden, gardening basket in hand, to plant the first of my presents, a blushing pink iceberg standard. The growers notes say, 'Blooms best size and colour when formed in cool weather...flowers have an exquisite pink blush, painted as if by hand. Occasional flushes of white blooms during the summer or when flowers are forming in hot weather'.

It has taken me five years to refine how I plant. The soil in my garden is clay-very dense and usually I have to dig the clay out completely and replace it with potting mix. I used to dump the clay in a pile absent mindedly and then have to put it in a bucket and take it to the compost. Now when planting I have two big flexible buckets, one empty, which I fill with dug out clay or poor soil and another, full of potting mix. I also soak the plants in another bucket or weak seaweed solution before planting as this is encourages strong root formation. I keep a bale of sugar cane mulch near my compost heap and once I have dumped the clay, I fill the bucket with mulch and mulch all around the newly placed and well watered in plant.

T bought me three David Austin roses, 'The Prince', 'Sharifa Asma' and St Cecilia.' 'The Prince' is described as a short, bushy plant with 'rich, royal-purple, full rosette flowers and a strong and delicious Old Rose fragrance'. 'Sharifa Asma' is medium size with upright growth. It has 'Delicate, blush pink flowers with a delicious fruity fragrance'. 'St Cecilia' is a medium, bushy shrub with 'Beautiful, slightly open, rounded flowers of pale apricot pink. Very strong and delicious myrrh fragrance'.

I planted 'The Prince' in the front garden, beside the rosemary and the burgundy/white iceberg standard. I planted the other two in the back garden. I pulled out 'Othello' because it has never flowered, I put it in a pot. If it doesn't flower in spring I'll chuck it. I planted the two new David Austins in a bed with a pomegranate and 'Marie Rose', which is a lovely, tall bright pink rose with a strong, musky scent.

T also gave me a daphne, which I planted under the Japanese maple, with the blueberry bush on one side and an azalea on the other. They like free-draining, acidic shade, warmth in winter and protection from strong sunlight in summer. I am hoping I have planted it in the perfect spot.

I will continue later, dinner is on the table.

Globalisation

1/5/10

In 2007 we visited Istanbul. I ventured to the Grand Bazaar twice, it was so big and the spruikers so insistent that I navigated perhaps 1/10th of it before slinking away, defeated. Even so I found the most beautiful ceramics, the colour of jewels, glossy as melted chocolate. I carted them back to Sydney, feeling smugly that they would be unique here. Today I ventured to Orange Grove Markets in Rozelle and what do you know? My dazzlingly coloured exotic ceramics were displayed for all to buy. That's globalisation.

I also bought a chilli plant and some punnets of Cos lettuce, which I planted this afternoon. I went to the markets with a dear friend and on the way home took some cuttings from succulents in her courtyard. I love looking at plants in my garden knowing they come from a friends house, it's like having a little piece of them. However, plants, unlike animals, often are not a reflection of their owners. My friend grows the hardiest of plants that withstand complete human neglect, but she is the most delicate of exotics, requiring tender love and gentle handling. Everyone deserves tender love, however some are more robust than others. I wish those that were more robust would be more empathetic towards those that are not. I am reminding myself of this as well.

Flowers

23/4/10

Cosmos

21/4/10

I am looking out of the window of my study. It is twilight and some cosmos that self-seeded this year is waving gently in the breeze. It is very peaceful here, despite the fact one of the busiest roads in Australia is at the end of my street. Lane Cove National Park is at the other end.

Today I meditated in the garden. As usual my thoughts scattered in all directions and I had to reel my concentration back time and time again, but by the end of half an hour I felt serene and just sat, looking at a cloud passing and listening to the lorikeets. On the way home from visiting a sick friend last night, T suggested I need not read Buddhist literature, rather, I should simply live life thoughtfully, think of others and do something for someone every day. 'Simple'. He said. I do question Buddhism and see that one can easily stray into narcissistic introspection if one is not careful. The reason I started meditating was as a preventative strategy for depression. The concept of mindfulness, of being aware of what one is doing all the time and awareness of the moment is a practical skill that is bound to assist in decreasing the tendency to ruminate, which occurs when depressed. The capacity for gloomy reflection is lessened if one does not place the mind elsewhere when brushing one's teeth or eating or cooking....

Lunch with the girls

On Friday, after arriving home from Bowral, I planted lots of lettuce, some celery, mint and more thyme. The garden bed near the front gate is shaping up to be a scented garden, with lemon geranium, cherry pie (heliotrope) and thyme. The aim is for people to be able to brush against the plant when they come in the front gate and release delicious scents.

Today two friends came for lunch. I baked some bread and made vegetable soup with pistou. Kath bought over a lovely raspberry cheesecake and I poached pears in red wine spiced with cinnamon, allspice, cloves and peppercorns. We sliced the pears and ate them with blue cheese. The combination worked really well together.

Mini-break

16/4/10

Yesterday I took one of my nephews to visit my brother in Burradoo, near Bowral in the Southern Highlands. I spent the afternoon hacking away at jasmine that was smothering a cherry tree and encroaching on a number of camellias and other trees and shrubs. Blackberry was also flourishing. I cut about 3 skips worth of green waste and hardly made a dent. Sometimes I become dispirited, knowing it will be difficult to convince the family to have a working bee to try and tame a bit of the 1 and a bit acres of garden at the family home, then I become immersed again and it's ok.

Today I bought two punnets of cut and come again lettuce, some lovely dark green thyme, mint and some celery. I planted the mint near the parsley, so it will be easy to pick for tabbouli. I will plant the spring onions, when they are ready to plant out, nearby for the same reason.

Reading Delores Claiborne by Stephen King as well as Living Meditation, Living Insight by Dr Thynn Thynn and Barnaby Rudge. I have been meditating each day but become distracted very easily, even by wondering whether I should be practising different types of meditation. Next week I want to go down the the national park at the end of our street and sit.

Broccoli and Buddha

14/4/10 If you look closely to the right of the broad bean tripods you can see some green leaves-that is broccoli. I hope in a few months time I can post an after shot with sinuous beans twining around the tripods and bushy plants heavy with heads of broccoli. The other picture is of about to go basil and miniscule carrot seedlings, which I thinned out today.

I have been meditating twice a day with varying results and reading a lot of literature obtained from Buddhanet. The day before yesterday I was sitting in the sun and my mind was troubled and distracted. I continually had to drag my thoughts back to my breath, the all of a sudden, after about half an hour, I felt very calm and my mind was quiet. It was as though my mind was a lake's surface ruffled by breeze, then still as a mirror as the breeze died.

Yesterday and today I have had less success, with thoughts continually straying to planning, remembering, worrying etc etc. Meditation is hard! I was nearly put off completely when I read an essay by a psychologist who was a Buddhist monk for some years. He went on a retreat and became obsessively irritated by two noisy practitioners. He fantasised about shoving a meditation cushion up one guy's nose. This went on for 3 days! And this was a man who has been practicing for years and years! Anyway, I have been trying to generate metta and not get irritated and live in the moment and I blew it all in 15 minutes of a tirade this morning, complete with shouting. And the person I shouted at was my nephew, who I am trying to help with school work. Nice.

Obviously I have a long way to go.

The Last Station

11/4/10

Saw The Last Station today, about the end of Tolstoy's life. Enmity between he and his wife and his wife and his acolytes marred his last days. Tolstoy was portrayed as being an unselfish and self-effacing individual, which contradicts other accounts I have read of him, particularly Paul Johnson's in Intellectuals. Johnson describes him as a narcissist with a God complex. I liked the film, I thought the portrayal of the deteriorating marriage convincing and nuanced.

This afternoon I potted on some broccoli 'Shogun' and planted out broccoli 'Waltham', as well as potting on some silverbeet and replacing the parsley that had been devoured by beasties. Carrots have germinated and some are showing their true leaves.

Dabbling in cow poo

7/4/10

On Easter Monday Trevor and I visited friends in Blackheath, who kindly gave us two laurel trees. I am going to use them to screen the watertank. I also took cuttings of artemesia, hydrangea and two succulents. I carry secateurs in my car. 'Snip snip, Barry, it's an Australian tradition'. If you don't know where that paraphrase comes from you're a mug. Spellcheck seems to think I should be carrying provocateurs around in my car, which would be a good conversation starter but no good for cuttings.

Today I sowed lots of poppies, cornflowers, nigella and phalecia in the hope that a tiny meadow garden will bloom this spring. I noticed Digger's Club doesn't even give a germination count for poppies and I have never had any luck with them before, so I am not holding my breath. I planted out the Honesty seedlings next to the Souvenir de la Malmaison rose, spread cow manure over the veggie garden and weeded the old veggie garden under the dining room windows.

I have been meditating twice a day for about 15-20 minutes each time. I have read quite a few different authors about the purpose of process of meditation but still find articulating the purpose a bit elusive and sometimes I wonder if it is self-indulgent. Overall I think not, if it will promote calm, lovingkindness and selflessness it is a worthy activity. When I am gardening I sometimes get into a state of 'flow' that is much like meditation. I become completely absorbed by the activity-be it pulling out weeds or spreading cow poo or planting seedlings. I suppose that is a version of 'mindfulness', although I am not detaching myself from the situation, I am immersed in it.

The parsley lives!

Purple space plant.

An inspection of the newly planted parsley confirms the snailbait has done its job. I mindfully looked at the soon to be scarified corpses of a number of slugs this morning. I read somewhere that there is a famous and very senior Thai Buddhist monk who believes it is acceptable to kill Communists. I think that puts my slug murder in perspective.

Say yes to snail bait

2/4/10

Good Friday. Slugs ate my cavalo nero and baby beans. Decided I have to use snail bait until there are enough veggies to share around. At the moment the slugs are just too greedy, so they must be destroyed.

Which brings me to the subject of hypocrisy! I have started reading a lot about Buddhism and sitting (meditating) daily, for 15-20 minutes. Meditating is difficult. I have to bring myself back to concentrating on my breath probably hundreds of times but I do believe it calms me eventually. Of course after a few days I began to feel smug, wandering around with a painful little loving-kindness smile on my face, then bang! some trivial annoyance occurs and my temper flares.

The internet has many, many useful resources for meditating, including downloadable audio guided meditation. Buddhanet is a wonderful resource.

Anyway, the first precept of Buddhism is not to take the life of any living thing and I have just killed about five slugs. Hmmm. And I eat meat. The Dalai Lama, in his excellent book How to Practice, advises that Buddhist monks are not necessarily vegetarian, as they will eat whatever is given to them. Interesting.

Last week I spent three mornings doing some one on one teaching with a Year 10 student, which was very satisfying. I haven't written much more of my story, my motivation just kind of petered out, unfortunately. I got bored with the story. I will finish it, though.

Sowed lots of carrots, which have just germinated and prepared some soil to transplant three roses. Weeded the driveway, cut back the ficus and secretly dead-headed the neighbour's roses, my version of guerrilla gardening.

My goal for the week is to keep sitting and reading Buddhist literature, prepare the veg garden for planting, make bread every four days or so and try and be mindful.

Later

I planted the roses. Planted out the lurid purple plant grown from a cutting taken from Mum's nursing home, some nasturtiums and lots of parsley. The latter is smothered in snail bait.

What wondrous life in this I lead!

Ripe apples drop about my head;

The luscious clusters of the vine

Upon my mouth do crush their wine;

The nectarine and curious peach

Into my hands themselves do reach;

Stumbling on melons, as I pass,

Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass.

Extract from Andrew Marvell's Thoughts in a Garden

I would love, one day, to be able say of Marvell's words, 'that is my garden', a delight for all the senses.

I have been at home now, not working, for a couple of months. So far I have spent many hours in the garden, baked five loaves of bread, written 18,000 words of fiction and just sat. That doesn't sound right, grammatically, it reminds me of the the Northern English expression, 'I was just sat there'. Anyway, for the first time ever I have just been sitting and listening to the suburban sounds-dogs barking, lawnmowers, children laughing and crying, bees buzzing, traffic droning. It is a liberating experience to have that time, not to read or plan or even think, just to sit.

The garden was completely neglected last year because I spent every minute of my spare time studying. However, most plants survived and weeds thrived. I have spent many hours removing tenacious runners of buffalo grass and some other grass I call bastard grass. The roses were looking a bit forlorn and the Red Pierre was on the verge of death. However, I fertilised them and sprayed them and now they are into a magnificent autumn flush.

I planted out 20 parsley seedlings which the snails ate the first night. I have sowed some carrots and am preparing a plot to plant seedling of cavalo nero, silverbeet and two kinds of broccoli. I am trying to avoid using snail bait, but the destruction at the moment is so complete I think I have no choice, unfortunately. Perhaps when the garden full of plants we can share.

After countless hours of pulling out lawn, I read Jackie French's book on self-sufficiency and realised I can just dump grass clippings on the lawn, then some hay and compost, and plant seedlings in that. What a relief! She reckons the fertilisers and lawn clippings will kill the lawn underneath. I am a bit skeptical about that but we shall see.