A Weekend in the Country

OK, so technically it's not the weekend, but since DH works every second weekend, and has Monday and Tuesday off instead, it was a weekend for us. For many city folks, a weekend is a time to relax, to pick some entertainment out of the many on offer, or maybe just stay home with a video. For us, it means a chance to catch up on all those jobs that have been building up during the week.

Black Sapote

First order of business was planting. This poor Black Sapote (chocolate fruit!) that has been sitting out the front of the shed for nearly a month now, finally rests in it's new home in the orchard.

Bowen Mango

I finally managed to find a Bowen Mango at the markets this week. I've checked the mangoes each week, but they're always names I can't pronounce, so I leave them. This week I got lucky though. This one is a seedling, not a grafted one, so we'll see how it goes. It's right up in the back left hand corner of our place, where we discovered what looks like sandstone! OK, not really, but it's sandy, and as hard as a rock! We dug a whole MUCH larger than the pot, and filled it with compost and broken up soil, so hopefully by the time it hits that solid sand stuff, it will be strong enough to break through! I'm going to have to keep the water up to it though, which means carrying watering cans about 50 metres back and forth!

Paw paw

I also bought three paw paw trees for $6. These are the old style variety, where you need male and female trees to get fruit. With three, I stand a good chance of getting one of each.

Blueberry

And finally, my blueberry bush. I'm not sure that I've every tasted a blueberry, they're usually about $6 a punnet in the stores, so I'm looking forward to this one getting big enough to try our own.

Combine these 6 new fruit trees/bushes with the ones we already had: Washington Navel Orange, Valencia Orange, Mandarin, Lemon, Persimmon, Black Fig, Black Mulberry, Tropical Peach and Tropical Nectarine, and we now have 15 fruit trees! Of course, I think I still have a list that long, if not longer, of ones I still want to get!

Bambusa Textills (var Gracilis)

On top of the fruit trees, I also planted out one of the two bamboo plants I bought at Bamboo Land while visiting my mum. I've been considering bamboo for a while, and a visit to this beautiful nursery convinced me that I really needed some. They have a beautiful garden of mature bamboo that you can walk through, and pick out your varieties from. Then you go back to the nursery to take your pots home. This particular species grows up to 8 metres tall! You can find pics of the mature plant here. And before anyone asks, yes, it is clumping. It's planted up the back, where it will give us shade from the western afternoon sun, and not be in the way. I also have a smaller bamboo plant that we have yet to plant, that I can't remember the name of right now.

All the new plantings were watered in well, and fertilised with some 'Rooster Booster' (aka chook manure pellets). I didn't have a scoop, so I made this handy one with a cut down milk bottle. We have a similar one in our bag of chook pellets for feeding the chooks. Waste not want not!

DD thought it was great that we were fertilising the garden with rooster poo, and went around talking about it all afternoon! "When I make my garden, I'm going to plant my flowers, and put rooster poo all around them!" Aren't kids cute?

You would think that all that planting was enough for one weekend, wouldn't you? But no, I also ended up putting up 50 metres of chicken wire on our fence to stop our chickens from wandering into the neighbour's yard where their dogs are. (And to keep their dogs and chooks out of our yard!) So far, it seems to be working, although there is still a lot left unfenced.