Planting natives on the earth bank below the widened car park

Now the earth bank below the widened car park area has had 3 weeks to settle, I decided it was time to plant some natives to help stabilise it and provide a little privacy once they grow up.
red bottle brushes were planted to help attract native birds and I just love them. Easy to hedge/ prune once they get to the height/size I want. Native just love to be pruned, they LOVE it. With the idea of eventually putting up a double bay garage/work shop/shed it will provide shelter/shade for it as well.

Trees in guards to help them settle in and grow

Planted in amongst the rocks. It will look
great once they have grown up and bushed
out a bit.

Insect Home to Attract the Good Guys!!!

Bamboo in top 'frame', Straw behind
slats in enclosed bottom section.

Well I finally got around to building a beneficial Insect Home to hopefully attract lady birds, lace wings, spiders and solitary wasps. These are all good insects to have in the orchard and garden in general to deal with various kinds of aphids, moths and other insects that cause grief in the orchard and veggie gardens.
I first heard and saw insect homes in England in community veggie garden. They looked good and I liked the idea of them, so thought I would try them here in OZ and see if they work.

Tin roof added. Even insects need
protection from the rain!!!

The home is in two parts an open frame up top jam packed with short lengths of bamboo canes. These are hollow creating lots of holes for insects & spiders to make homes in. The gaps around the bamboo also make ideal homes. then below is basically a box fully enclosed except at the front where strips of wood create openings. Inside this box is filled with loose straw, apparently this makes ideal homes for lady bugs and lace wings.

I have now screwed the insect home to a trellis post in the middle of my garden orchard. Hopefully it attracts the insects I'm hoping it to!!!  To aid this I will plant some lavender at the end of each row, bees and insects LOVE lavender! It will help pollinate fruit and veggies too!

Installed in the orchard.Screwed to trellis post
in between apple trees.

The 5 Gold Fish are In!

Can you see the orange fish! They love it in there!

About 6 months ago a client of mine asked me to chainsaw up some old timber furniture and a wine barrel in to fire wood for them. The wine barrel had a hole chopped in one end and had been used as a dog kennel. Other than the hole the barrel was in excellent condition. far to good to be used as fire wood. I chopped the top third off using a chainsaw. The end with the hole in it I took up the back garden, sat it on the ground and filled it up with good soil. This will be planted with strawberries.

The finished wine barrel fish pond!

The good bit of the barrel I sat up on bricks in a garden bed which can be seen from in our living room. I filled it up and over the next week it swelled up and no leaks at all perfect for a water feature come fish pond.  I let it sit for another week then bought some native water plants a small native water lilly and a native rush type plant. They have been planted in terracotta pots filled with dirt, then I used gravel to cover the dirt so the dirt doesn't much up the water. I then left the wine barrel with plants for another month so everything could settle and algea, water bugs, insects, etc create a proper aquatic environment.  Now algea, bugs, plants, etc are thriving which means fish will thrive and have something to eat!  SO today I went and bought me some gold fish. Five in all, 3 yellow/gold 2 normal orange gold fish. They are in and loving it. Time will tell if I need to put mesh over the top of the barrel. Kookaburra's may be a problem!

Fig Trees Planted

2 Fig Trees planted with swales &
tree guards installed

Well I finally decided on where the two Fig Trees will be planted and with a beautiful sunny warm winters day another day pottering was in order.  Because Fig Trees get so SOOO BIG if left to them selves I will be training and pruning my two figs Espalier Style.  Two holes were dug, half filled with water, some Dynamic Lifter pellets and blood and bone fertilizer was added, then the trees planted and the hole back filled with soil mixed with Blood & Bone and more Dynamic Lifter pellets.  Chook protection was added to protect the trees while growing. A few bits of aviary mesh were made into a few tree guards with a few wooden stakes used to hold in place.  I then made a couple of earth swales to help capture water following the contour of the land. I used rocks laying around to retain the swales and protect them from the chooks scratching!!!  The end result is great. Grow you little fig trees GROW!
I want to start training them into Espalier. I've never trained fruit trees to Espalier.  I'm excited!!!!  

Close up of rocked earth swale & tree guards in

New garden bed built! Now what to plant.

Chooks always love it when I did in the garden!
Lots of goodies to eat.

I had some daylight left after planting the Avocado trees so I built a new garden bed ( I think I will plant strawberries in it). I used rocks as a border and to retain the soil. As you can see in the photo's as usual the chooks were keen to help! eating anything that was edible as I dug.

This has defined the pathway up to the chook shed a lot better. I will mulch this path with pine mulch
(i have a huge pile of mulch from the Pine trees I removed up the side of our driveway). This will make it a lot less slippery in the wet.   

Well it's Saturday morning and while cleaning out the chook shed this morning and replacing all the old straw with nice new stuff I noticed lots of gum leaves and small twigs covering the lawns. They had built up over the months and needed raking up. Now in the past I would have burnt them, but i decided to pile them up and run my mulching mower over them and use that as mulch on the path instead of wheel barrowing loads of mulch up the hill all the way to the back of our property.  So not only have i got rid of the leaf build up problem they have made a perfect bush mulch for the path up to the chook shed which was getting slippery when wet!  Awesome, this will be continued in the future. No burning leaves any more!!!

The newly finished garden bed. I'm thinking strawberries
will be good here!

The piles of leaves and twigs turned into
great mulch path. Perfect!

Avocado Trees in and a New Garden Bed too!

Logs around tree to stop chooks digging around tree

Many weeks ago I ordered 2 Avocado Trees & 2 Fig Trees. Now I've never bought plants through the mail but they came this week!  and all plants were well when they arrived, Woo Hoo!
I got 1 Bacon Avocado 'B' type & 1 Hass Avocado 'A' type. Avocado's are self fertile but if you plant 'A' & 'B' types you will have the best possible pollination possible. Since ordering these trees I have discovered Wurtz 'A' type which is a dwarf avocardo tree. These can be grown in pots, half wine barrels are perfect size. If I had my time again I would have bought this so prunning wasn't needed.

Today I finished work earlier than I thought I would, so I had some time to relax and loose myself in the rear garden. Oh the bliss.
Now it was a revelation that you could grow Avocado trees in Kallista, i thought they were tropical fruit and never dreamt I could grow them here. Now they are large trees growing 4-8m high and wide. but as with all fruit trees you can prune to size with in reason. The first few years they need to be looked after a bit. They are susceptible to frosts, gladly we have never had a frost here, they also need protection from hot summer winds. I didn't even think about how big they grew when i ordered two. BUT after some walking around the garden over the last few days I 'found' the perfect place to put them!  The only problem I needed to move some of the wood pile behind the shed to make room for them. This position is sheltered from winds and snow (if/when we get it).

Double height tree guard with long bamboo stakes

The trees in pots were submerged in a bucket of water to saturate soil.  Holes where dug for each tree, blood and bone added to the soil then the trees were planted and tree guards put around trees. I decided to put logs around the tree guards so the chooks don't scratch and dig around tree. Two tree guards where taped together to get the height needed to protect the whole tree.
The placement of the avocado trees will provide shade to the chook house and pens when they grow bigger. The wood pile will be gone by the time the trees have grown.
I am enjoying the anticipation of all these fruit trees coming into production over the next two to three years. I really think I'm proving with time, planning and some hard work it is possible a third of an acre can be a productive, sustainable "farm". I love my back garden.
Oh I also planted my 10 Raspberry canes. I had them sitting in a bucket of straw bare rooted, but noticed the buds starting to burst. So I planted them out into a garden bed which last summer had veggies in it. I will build a trellis for them soon with a poly pipe frame to support bird netting. Yes I want the raspberries not the birds!!!  I will post photo's of the canes and trellis system soon.  

Rosella, Sugar Glider or Micro Bat Log Home

Log panel attached to plywood box

Log panel finished with entrance hole
and perch in place 

Well I've been itching to make my first animal Log Home/Box to put up in the garden. My wish is to attract a sugar glider or feather tail glider into a Log Home I've built.  I used the chainsaw to cut a front panel for the box off a log from a Black Wood tree. A very hard wood with good textured bark. So with this front panel cut into shape approx 250mm wide 490mm high I used a 65mm hole drill to cut the entrance hole into the wood panel. The first problem encountered the drill wasn't deep enough to go right through the wood panel. So out with a small chisel and hammer to cut a hole 65mm right through. I had some external 21mm form plywood left over from building my chook house which I used to make the 2 sides, base and lid for the box.  I painted each cut with a wood sealer to help seal the plywood so it's more weather proof. a hole was drilled a little smaller than the diameter of the perch/branch. I filed the end of branch/perch to a taper and then hammered the perch into the hole. It's a tight fit and will support the largest of birds or possums. I drilled and screwed the plywood base, sides and back together. I then screwed the log panel to the front box i applied liquid nails to the panel and front of the box for added strength. Care was taken no sharp screw points are exposed.  A lid was then attached using a couple of stainless steel hinges. It's important to have access to the nest in case feral animals take up residence and you need to remove it. 50mm of saw dust and wood shavings have been put in the base of the nest this imitates how a natural log hollow would be. Now my first box is complete I need to let it rest until the paint and glue is dry and the fumes are no longer smell. 3 drain holes have been drilled in the base, a hole drilled up the top of each side which will be used to hang the box in the tree. I will use plastic coated clothes line steel cord threaded through the box with garden hose over the cord where it comes in contact with the tree branch supporting the box.

The finished home with hinged lid

I will post a photo when the box is installed in the tree. I'm very happy with the finished nest box. Just hope the birds or bats or gliders are happy with it and something makes it their home!