Comments on: Anthony asks how can we Dig For Victory if the Council Inspectors get fussy?

By: kate

kate — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 05:54:45 +0000

Helen the problem for your fruit trees was probably the shock, humans and stone fruit can live in 47 degrees but you and your trees generally don’t, there wasn’t much water and there were really high winds. Try to make sure the shadecloth isn’t actually touching your plants though (tricky with trees) last year anything touching the shadecloth here got irredeemably burnt. You could also try hessian on hot days if you’ve got any, sort of surrounding small trees. Personally, I’d probably plant the shade tree and grow veggies under it. You might have lower productivity in a colder summer, but you’d have shade protection in the hotter summers. It’s not ideal, but you can still grow a lot of tomatoes in shadier spots.

emica the communitarian mellow probably takes a hit if you’re actually relying on the garden for dinner, or feel like you’ve contributed a lot of time and money and are getting ripped off. If you’re just there for fun it’s easier to ignore someone else taking more than their fair share of the tomatoes.

By: Zoe

Zoe — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 21:29:35 +0000

Fixed.

We created a big polypipe and shadecloth shelter for the veggies last summer, and will put it up again this year. Our west-facing veggie garden gets so hammered by day after day of 30+ plus we couldn’t manage otherwise.

By: Helen

Helen — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 20:21:26 +0000

Gah! Sorry, italics tag didn’t close!

By: Helen

Helen — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 20:20:45 +0000

And cover your fruit trees on the hottest days, even if it looks peculiar. Italian and Greek gardeners don’t seem to worry how unsightly things look, as long as the produce is protected.

Absolutely no worries about the appearance Librarygirl. We need protection from fruit bats and possums as well. It was more my slackness (and really, I haven’t had the experience of a heatwave literally burning all the leaves off entire trees at one fell swoop.)

The Almond olive and Feijoa survived OK – will plant another almond but not this spring because of El Nino. Good point about winter vegies!

By: librarygirl

librarygirl — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 04:17:31 +0000

Helen, our vegie garden and fruit trees are on the west side too and last summer for the first time ever in my gardening life I nearly gave it all up in despair given the weather we endured and lack of rain. This year I am starting to mulch everything in October while the ground is (hopefully) still wet. And I’m not planting summer vegies this year as we will be away for a month and back for the hot end of January – just not worth it. Having said that I’m a great supporter of winter vegie gardens, hardly needs watering, lettuce and spinach don’t bolt, coriander grows into bushes , rainbow silverbeet delicious and pretty etc.
And cover your fruit trees on the hottest days, even if it looks peculiar. Italian and Greek gardeners don’t seem to worry how unsightly things look, as long as the produce is protected.

By: Helen

Helen — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 22:25:43 +0000

About your paragraph 12 re. the allotments being separate – yes, but the gardeners still have the opportunity to meet each other, share tools / seeds/ bulbs, there will be much communal experience… but your comment #16 suggests this point has been addressed already.

The Italian/Greek culture of giving over most of your garden to food production has probably contributed a lot to the popularity of home vegie gardening in Melbourne, where this is very strong even now.

For me, I have a conflict with a backyard which suffers from harsh Western sunlight. We really need another large shade tree, but of course this conflicts with vegetable growing. My solution has been to focus on fruit trees instead of garden beds, but it’s not going well – the Feb heatwave killed two stone fruit trees (why? It’s so much hotter in Mildura / Swan hill where a lot of stone fruit trees are! WTF is going on?) and we’re in for another El Nino this summer – bleagh.

By: Anthony

Anthony — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 23:51:04 +0000

That was them Laura. They were selling pieces of a lovely banana and strawberry cake. When I asked the price they said I could pay whatever I felt like. Sheesh, were those kids messing with my head or what?

By: Zoe

Zoe — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 13:19:24 +0000

The guy from COGS – just to continue harshing the mellow here – talked about the continuing problem of vandalism and, worse, chook slaughtering. The gardens might have those lovely DIY fences inside, but in Canberra, there’s a whopping great steel mesh one on the perimeter.