Salvia plants add wonderful colour to a summer garden. They require only moderate watering, they can handle extreme heat, and they flower for months. Summer in Australia tends to be very hot and dry. Where we live temperatures close to (and sometimes over) 40 °C (104 °F) are not uncommon during the summer months. This extreme heat can be hard on our garden so we try to choose plants that can tolerate these conditions. Plants that require lots of water don’t tend to last too long in our … [Read more...]
Rabbits in My Garden (What They Will and Won’t Eat!)
We live in a semi-rural area where the houses are on big blocks and there’s plenty of native bushland. The upside to that is we enjoy seeing plenty of native birds and animals. The downside is that we also have to deal with pests such as rabbits. They don’t live on our property, they have they’re burrows in a bush block behind ours, but they like to venture into our garden to eat and dig! I love animals but I’m not a big fan of rabbits at the moment. The damage they do to our garden, … [Read more...]
4 Easy Ways of Preserving Plums So You Can Enjoy Them All Year!
Backyard plum trees often produce more plums than their owners can use. Here are 4 simple methods of preserving plums that I use to get the most from my plum harvest! We have a blood plum tree in our backyard that provides us with delicious plums each summer. It is not a huge tree but it can hold lots of fruit. This year we have had a particularly good plum harvest. The plums are nice and big thanks to some good spring rains we had last year! Even though we love eating plums and I love … [Read more...]
Using a Soaker Hose to Water Your Vegetable Garden
Watering the vegetable garden can be quite a time consuming job in the middle of summer. You can however save lots of time just by using a soaker hose! I have always preferred to water my vegetable garden underneath rather than spraying the leaves of the plants. I learned from my parents and grandparent that this gives the plants a much deeper watering. This in turn enables them to cope better with the hot summer days. It also saves water because it is delivers the water directly to where the … [Read more...]
How to Grow Cat Grass from a Surprisingly Simple Source of Seeds!
We adopted our two cats (Maddy and Wally) almost five year ago now and they have always been fond of eating some grass. Initially we didn’t have actual cat grass. Instead the cats would eat some of the grassy weeds that would inevitably pop up here and there. They also liked to munch on some of the longer buffalo grass in the lawn. A couple of years ago we purchased a pot of cat grass to give them another source of grass to munch on. But to say that it wasn’t very popular would be an … [Read more...]
My To-Do List of Spring Gardening Jobs
Spring is nearly upon us so it’s time to start planning for what spring gardening jobs we need to do. As the weather warms it’s a great time to get out in the garden and prepare for summer! It is not quite spring yet but there are already plenty of signs that the garden is starting to come to life again. Most noticeable is the blossom on the fruit trees. The almond tree as usual has been the first to burst into flower but our other fruit trees aren’t too far behind. Our ornamental pear trees … [Read more...]
Dainty Swallowtail Butterfly Update
It has been almost a year since I first learnt about the dainty swallowtail butterfly. Last summer this beautiful butterfly could be seen fluttering around our vegetable garden where we had planted some zinnias. The butterflies laid their eggs on our citrus trees and we were lucky enough to find several growing caterpillars. In an attempt to ensure their survival they were collected and kept in a large storage contain that I had set up to house them. You can read about it … [Read more...]
My To-Do List of Winter Gardening Jobs
Now that the cold weather is upon us I have been planning the list of winter gardening jobs that I need to complete! It’s a bit harder to get motivated to get out into the garden these days. Some days the wind is so icy that the last thing you feel like doing is digging around in the dirt – even with gloves on! We’ve planted lots of vegetables which helps draw us out into the garden. There is nothing better than checking the garden every day to see if your seeds have sprouted/grown! This … [Read more...]