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Old 12-03-2003, 03:35 AM
Fran Higham
 
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Default Silent as the tomb..........

Well I imagine that all the Australians have been busy working in the veg
garden since the drought has broken, but what is the excuse for the rest of
you?

How 'bout a sit rep from everyone? How did you/are you surviving the
drought Len? What are you up to Judeanne? How is the garden going JB now
that spring is on the way?

We have had good rain over the past few weeks. The dams are all full on
both places and the house and spare tanks are also full. People are
qactuallys miling again and talking and laughing again. I've even managed
to prepare a whole meal from the veg garden from the first lot of rain -
everything sprang up like it was just waiting (all the perennial veg that
is - the annuals are still a bit on the sad side and I think the tomaotes
will not recover - lots of piddling little ones but no decent sized ones for
bottling or saucing).

So.......... who's next?


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Old 12-03-2003, 03:59 AM
Geodyne
 
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Default Silent as the tomb..........

On Wed, 12 Mar 2003 13:22:07 +1100, "Fran Higham"
wrote:


How 'bout a sit rep from everyone?


Well, I've been back from the big deep briny for a couple of weeks
now, but I'm still too busy with work and thesis to get into the
garden. That's fine really, as the Qld blue pumpkin which self seeded
in December jsut before I left home has happily taken over all 100 sq.
m of my backyard and is merrily producing pumpkins. DH did very little
watering while I was away and I lost quite a few of the fruit trees I
planted in spring, so I'm now giving up on the idea of an intensive
veg garden in my backyard as too water wasteful for my area and I'm
going to concentrate on xenoscaping the area with drought-tolerant
species to make up for lost bushland in my area instead.

Good rain the last couple of days in Sydney, but most of it is going
straight out to sea. Very little is making the water catchment areas.
Fortunately I managed to miss the worst of summer and come back just
as Autumn started. I can't say having 40+ temps described to me in Jan
and Feb made me keen to come home!

Tara

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Old 13-03-2003, 01:47 AM
Janet Baraclough
 
Posts: n/a
Default Silent as the tomb..........

The message
from "Fran Higham" contains these words:

How 'bout a sit rep from everyone?


We've been in our new place for almost 4 months..it's overlooking the
sea on the island of Arran, off the west coast of Scotland. During a wet
winter we've removed 6 huge cypress trees, a large shed, a broken down
cold frame and a terrible wire fence, and re-fenced the boundary to the
sheep field next door. It's been a wet winter and we've just acquired
the pipes and gravel to renovate some bodged land drains; I want to get
that messy job done before I start planting. We've collected vast
amounts of seaweed from the beaches to dig into the veg garden, the
potato bed is ready and will be planted this weekend. I've built two
compost heaps and made a wormery (inspired by a talk on them) and
started making the paths in the veg garden.

Lowest temp on the outdoor thermometer for this winter, has been minus
3 C; but the few frosts have not lasted long and we had one small
snowfall in the garden, an inch, which melted off quickly. So this is a
milder garden than the last one on the mainland. Spring is here; today
was cloudless blue, still, sunny and warm all day. Yes, I know you get
those all the time in Oz :-)

Glad to hear you got rain at last , Fran.


Janet
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Old 13-03-2003, 02:46 AM
len brauer
 
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Default Silent as the tomb..........

g'day fran and all other friends,

i remember the days when we had many many chats going on this group it
was livley often with some comedy but always informative and a way to
get to chat to about the best group of people i could ever wish to
know. me and bev hope each and everyone of you are doing well.

we are great some earlier problems are on the back burner for various
reasons, we have had 423mm of rain since early feb, the dam is full to
bursting as are the 3 tanks and the creek the creek and the dam have
flowed 3 or 4 times now giving both a good flush out, there is a
profusion of wate plants growing in the dam.

the agistament (sort of) cattle are now gone (3 days before the rain
started), the owner just wouldn't feed them so they wher starting to
jump the compound fence and get into our area, can't blame them realy
but a situation that could not be tolerated, as once they get in and
get a taste of honey they want to do it all the time.

i have been taking pic's ready to update our page but need some sunny
days to get a couple more shots the place looks what could be desribed
as lush we have a family of kangaroostas (17) who are now domicile on
the flats getting nice and plump, be ready for xmas hey chuckle, the
wobblyknees are also spending a little more time here.

all trees are doing well with all the rain as are the food plants the
jap pumpkins are now giving around 4 or 5 female flowers a day, the
garden beds are all ready now for the winter crops.

at last contact ted and sheena were hard at it doing renovations the
the queenslander that is on their property they are still camping
underneath the house whilst the work goes on, their dams (3) are now
full to well stocked, so would assume that they have good grass growth
now as well. they have cattle of their own, 2 young ones and 2 or 3
older cows, the 1 younger one is a steer and looks likely to be
heading for the bbq plate if his behavior around fences doesn't
improve.

we hope to visit them again in the next few weeks, be good to see how
they are going.

i'm not quiet ready to call the drought broken yet i realy don't think
there has been anywhere near enough rain for that to have occured,
also the rain has been staggered around the areas it would need to be
general overall falls to end the drought. also the water table hasn't
risne yet another good inicator of how well a drought is or isn't
broken.

hoping that the cyclones will combine and increase in catagory and
cross the qld coast as it did in 1974 this then has a good cahnce of
dragging that monsoonal trough down into sth/east qld and feed lots of
rain down into nsw and vic'. that is how i see it would need to occur
for all drought areas.

anyway this is getting long wouldn't it be good if we could sit around
with a cuppa and just chin wag 4 hours hey?

has anyone heard form pete at all? hope he is ok.

any all take care

len n bev

snipped
--
happy gardening
'it works for me it could work for you,'

"in the end ya' gotta do what ya' gotta do" but consider others and the environment
http://hub.dataline.net.au/~gardnlen/
  #5   Report Post  
Old 13-03-2003, 11:21 PM
Fran Higham
 
Posts: n/a
Default Silent as the tomb..........

"Geodyne" wrote in message

Well, I've been back from the big deep briny for a couple of weeks
now,


So was that a big success?

the Qld blue pumpkin which self seeded
in December jsut before I left home has happily taken over all 100 sq.
m of my backyard and is merrily producing pumpkins.


And how many hundreds of ways can you prepare pumpkin? :-))


DH did very little
watering while I was away and I lost quite a few of the fruit trees I
planted in spring, so I'm now giving up on the idea of an intensive
veg garden in my backyard as too water wasteful for my area and I'm
going to concentrate on xenoscaping the area with drought-tolerant
species


There are some fruits which can still be included in a xeroscape garden.
Prickly pear (I can't find anyone round here who I know that has some - I've
taken to peering into those productive sorts of Italian owned gardens as I
drive by - one day I'll see someone gardening and will ask for a bit),
olive, grapevines (if you keep them contained a bit and on a dripper. Must
be others too but can'tdrag them to mind ATM.




  #6   Report Post  
Old 16-03-2003, 01:20 AM
Judanne
 
Posts: n/a
Default Silent as the tomb..........

I am SO envious of the rain that you others have had. Here in the Tamar
Valley (www.tamarvalley.com.au, by the way) we've had two spits of about 5
minutes each since the beginning of the year. There was a week of
threatening weather which was annoying as it just hovered around but didn't
produce. It did rain last Saturday week and I cheered and leapt about the
place in joy, but it only lasted long enough to wet the surface (really,
about 5 minutes) and then was gone again. My grass is brown. I don't
water. Things either survive or they arn't meant to be here is the way I
think about it, but I'm learning things.

Next time I plant trees, it will be in Autumn after the summer dry spell has
broken. Bought some natives last year and planted them in late spring.
They were meant to be a noise break as I live just a few metres from the
West Tamar Highway. In the pots in the back yard, none of the critters
touched them, but as soon as they went in the ground it was "Hey, look what
she's planted for us" and between being nibbled to death and no rain I have
6 left out of 14.

What surprises me is how well the established trees are doing. It seems
that its just the plants with surface roots that are having a hard time.
Hopefully I'll have the land fenced to keep critters out before too long and
I'll put in some deep mulch beds to help with drought proofing for next
summer.

Tassie at least, is getting warmer and dryer. There was a time when you
could never count on a sunny weekend, but it has been the opposite this
season. Roll on autumn and winter. I have a temperature comparison on my
home page between Coffs Harbour, Melbourne, Hobart and Launceston. This
year we have usually been on a par with Coffs, warmer than Hobart, and as
for Melb, warmer that its cool days and cooler than its hot days (but thats
a place of extremes). Amazing what the geography can produce in a
difference of 300+ ks (Bass Strait).

Judanne


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Old 18-03-2003, 08:32 AM
Fran Higham
 
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Default Silent as the tomb..........

"Judanne" wrote in message

I am SO envious of the rain that you others have had.


Never mind Judanne, it has to come to you eventually.

Here in the Tamar
Valley (www.tamarvalley.com.au, by the way) we've had two spits of about 5
minutes each since the beginning of the year. There was a week of
threatening weather which was annoying as it just hovered around but

didn't
produce. It did rain last Saturday week and I cheered and leapt about the
place in joy, but it only lasted long enough to wet the surface (really,
about 5 minutes) and then was gone again.


Has the weather pattern changed a bit lately? What we noticed beofre we go
the good rains, was a change to increasing cloud and more threatening
looking skies. this went on in the afternoons for aobut a month before it
finally decided to drop anything of value.

My grass is brown. I don't
water. Things either survive or they arn't meant to be here is the way I
think about it, but I'm learning things.

Next time I plant trees, it will be in Autumn after the summer dry spell

has
broken. Bought some natives last year and planted them in late spring.
They were meant to be a noise break as I live just a few metres from the
West Tamar Highway. In the pots in the back yard, none of the critters
touched them, but as soon as they went in the ground it was "Hey, look

what
she's planted for us" and between being nibbled to death and no rain I

have
6 left out of 14.


((. don't take thenm out yet. they might still come good and sprout back
from the lignotubers. My rule is never to pull anything out until it's been
totally dead for 2 full years. I learned this from someone who can kill
astroturf. She was such a lousy gardener but she did know that natives
often came back if she left them (sheer laziness was how she learned that
trick!).

What surprises me is how well the established trees are doing. It seems
that its just the plants with surface roots that are having a hard time.


Here a lot of big old trees have died - not in our place but then we've
watered very deeply when we've seen signs of real stress - I'm not prepared
to lose 25+ year old trees if I can help it.

Hopefully I'll have the land fenced to keep critters out before too long

and
I'll put in some deep mulch beds to help with drought proofing for next
summer.


I've found I can't deep mulch as I have to pull all the mulch off to water
again. I've found thin layers of mulch that can have droplets penetrate the
mulch is best for me.

Tassie at least, is getting warmer and dryer. There was a time when you
could never count on a sunny weekend, but it has been the opposite this
season. Roll on autumn and winter. I have a temperature comparison on my
home page


????? Is that the site you mentioned above? If so I din't notice a
temperature comparison.

between Coffs Harbour, Melbourne, Hobart and Launceston. This
year we have usually been on a par with Coffs, warmer than Hobart, and as
for Melb, warmer that its cool days and cooler than its hot days (but

thats
a place of extremes). Amazing what the geography can produce in a
difference of 300+ ks (Bass Strait).


Hang in there - surely it can't be too much longer now.


  #8   Report Post  
Old 18-03-2003, 08:44 AM
Fran Higham
 
Posts: n/a
Default Silent as the tomb..........

"Janet Baraclough" wrote in

We've been in our new place for almost 4 months..


Boy hasn't that time flown!

it's overlooking the
sea on the island of Arran, off the west coast of Scotland. During a wet
winter we've removed 6 huge cypress trees, a large shed, a broken down
cold frame and a terrible wire fence, and re-fenced the boundary to the
sheep field next door. It's been a wet winter and we've just acquired
the pipes and gravel to renovate some bodged land drains; I want to get
that messy job done before I start planting.


You've done a lot of work for only 4 months. did you do it all yourselves
or did you get in contractors (other than for the trees, of course).

We've collected vast
amounts of seaweed from the beaches to dig into the veg garden, the
potato bed is ready and will be planted this weekend. I've built two
compost heaps and made a wormery (inspired by a talk on them) and
started making the paths in the veg garden.

Lowest temp on the outdoor thermometer for this winter, has been minus
3 C; but the few frosts have not lasted long and we had one small
snowfall in the garden, an inch, which melted off quickly. So this is a
milder garden than the last one on the mainland. Spring is here; today
was cloudless blue, still, sunny and warm all day.


So a lot milder than your old garden, I take it?

Yes, I know you get
those all the time in Oz :-)


Too bloody many!!!!!

Glad to hear you got rain at last , Fran.


Thank you (but not before time - it was simply dire!)




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Old 18-03-2003, 11:32 AM
Graham Burnett
 
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Default Silent as the tomb..........


How 'bout a sit rep from everyone?



Still popping in from time to time, though mainly in lurk mode...

Have sorted out my back garden which had become too conjested and dark for
much to suceed in the way of useful veggies, have replaced all the bed
edging, restored my pond (I forgot how big it was! Not that it was ever
really big, but soil & silt had crept in to make it about a thjird of it's
real size), lots of tree pruning done, put a new front on the wooden
greenhouse (made from the roof of a shed we took off at work!), so now the
garden is getting back to it's glory days as at the online pics
http://pages.unisonfree.net/gburnett...ayleighave.htm hopefully atbthe
end of this year I'll have some up to date pics to add...

Have put in more fruit trees at the forest garden allotment (still no online
pics alas)

Then last friday I f*****d my back up working down the other allotment
(digging- oh dear- not very permacultural...). So I've been taking it easy,
trying to do a bit of gentle exercise to ease it a bit, and getting
frustrated at the amount of work I'd just about gotten on top of that still
needs doing

Never mind.... Have also been doing some course planning, including one at
Dial House, which, if Mark & Heather still lurk here, was once better known
as the home of anarcho-punks Crass

http://www.gb0063551.pwp.blueyonder....urse/index.htm

Cheers Graham


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Old 18-03-2003, 02:20 PM
Judanne
 
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Default Silent as the tomb..........


"Fran Higham" wrote in message
????? Is that the site you mentioned above? If so I din't notice a
temperature comparison.

No, the home page I have is www.optusnet.com.au and there is a section on
the left side of the screen that has weather there and you can choose the
comparisons that you want. So for instance, for Wednesday 19 March, I have
Coffs Harbour at 18, Hobart at 18, Launceston at 17 and Melbourne at 24.
You can click on "edit" and make it any comparison that you want. I just
chose them because I used to live in Melb, I live in Launceston, I fantasise
about Coffs and the State forecast is always for Hobart (which is usually
much colder and wetter than Lonnie).

Judanne




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Old 18-03-2003, 02:32 PM
Judanne
 
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Default Silent as the tomb..........

OOPS

Its after midnight and I read those figures incorrectly. They were all the
MINIMUMS, the maximums a Coffs 26, Hobart 24, Lonnie 24, Melb. 29.
Interestingly the forecast is for rain for Hobart, Lonnie and Melb. I have
the back door open at the moment and it smells like it could rain, but I've
been disappointed before.

Judanne

"Judanne" wrote in message
u...

"Fran Higham" wrote in message
????? Is that the site you mentioned above? If so I din't notice a
temperature comparison.

No, the home page I have is www.optusnet.com.au and there is a section on
the left side of the screen that has weather there and you can choose the
comparisons that you want. So for instance, for Wednesday 19 March, I

have
Coffs Harbour at 18, Hobart at 18, Launceston at 17 and Melbourne at 24.
You can click on "edit" and make it any comparison that you want. I just
chose them because I used to live in Melb, I live in Launceston, I

fantasise
about Coffs and the State forecast is always for Hobart (which is usually
much colder and wetter than Lonnie).

Judanne




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