Garden Log: 17 Feb 08

As I said last week the temps are on the rise...
...around 35C all weekend
and until Wednesday this week.
We also have the best chance for rain this week,
that we have had for 8 weeks now.
Fingers crossed.

Doc has had enough of the birds (including the pretty Ring Necked Parrots) stealing his fruit so one night we spent wrapping fruit trees up in net curtains. Only to have the wind pick up over the following few days and blow all the curtains off!
They are being replaced now and more securely attached.

Fruit harvesting is coming along well...early apples are being tested...sometimes a little too early! Figs under the curtains are nearly there, and buckets of Almonds have been collected from under the big tree, smaller than normal this year but plentiful.

The Wicking Boxes are looking good but the surface is very dry...this is ok but some of the plants I put in still have shallow roots systems so these I have minimally watered from the surface. I shouldn't need to do this once their roots have grown further into the growing mix.

Last weeks planting of Lucerne Sequel has germinated well and I've begun preparations of the bed (8) to plant this out soon. I've replaced the in-line dripper hose to the bed and moved the surviving 3 cherry trees (still small) onto this bed.

I intend to keep this bed fenced, from the chooks and grow Lucerne under the Cherry trees which hopefully will survive long enough to be grafted next spring and then trained as per the Spanish Bush method.

The Lucerne can be cut for chicken feeding or for mulching around the garden. Once established it only requires light watering hopefully from rainfall!

This is part of a major re-organisation of the main vegetable garden area.

More about this later...