I have a new blog

In order to try to get myself blogging again, I decided that I wanted to create a blog for the things I am doing in my backyard - http://mybackyardadventure.blogspot.com/ This will contain just about everything I do in my backyard from my vegie patch through to whatever else I end up doing.

Vegie Beds are in place and full of soil

Yesterday I finished building my vegie garden beds and I dragged them into spot - then I realised that the soil wasn't level and I just knew that that would really P me off so then I set about trying to level them out which first involved trying to find my meter long spirit level! After a 20 minute hunt I couldn't find it so I called my brother - he said he'd bring one around in 30 minutes. In typical fashion I then found it! With my spirit level in hand I then went about measuring where to put them and the spaces for pathways etc and then I dug up the soil to level the ground.

Today I moved 3/4 m3 of soil, 90 minutes later and I finally had the beds full of soil!! Ignore all the weeds, they are slowly keeling over.

I will also wait a few days before planting anything to let the soil settle a bit - so possibly this weekend! ::smile::

In place and ready for the soil




Trailer load of soil - a mix of 50% Premium Soil, 25% Cow Manure, 25% Certified Organic Compost




All full! The bed's are a great heigh in that I could just dump the soil from the wheel barrow


Distance between the fence and the beds


Distance between the beds


Distance between the house and the beds - a good sized pathway

Front Yard - 95% done!

I am 95% done on my front yard now! (well the main part of it anyway!) All that's left to do now is the pathway to the utilities and that can wait a while longer...

Today I spent about 3 hrs planting 7 new plants and spreading out 1m3 of mulch - my arms and shoulders already hurt, I hate to imagine how much pain I'm going to be in tomorrow! I also originally only got 0.5m3 of mulch and had to go back for another load, good thing it's only around the corner!

Also, another helpful tip - if you aren't used to doing this kind of thing - shovelling stuff out of a trailer is a LOT easier than off the ground, so hire a trailer and help your back!!

Ok onto the photo's

My double branched weeping silver birch tree and the garden before mulching




3 new plants - Banksia Stumpy Gold


Closeup


My other 3 new plants Isopogon 'Candy Cones'


Closeup - these flowers are a mauve pink which should be very pretty


After the mulch:

A front yard update

I finally have a pictorial update on my front yard!! Today I pretty much weeded the entire garden and then turned the soil over - It was a LOT of hard work!!

I've also got to say that my soil is AWESOME and I owe most of it to Fu from H1!! Although I did the hard work, he gave me the knowledge to make it what it is - so rich and easy to dig over!! There isn't any clay at all in sight anymore and we have had that much rain that I haven't had to water my plants since planting them at Easter and when you step on the soil you sink but it's not a muddy clay mess, it's GREAT!

Most of the weeds I threw onto my front nature strip as I need to start doing something there and I figure the nutrients from the weeds would help.

I will also be mulching it all in the next week or two

Before weeding:




After weeding:

Front yard has plants!

I finally have some plants in the front yard!!
Over the last few months I've spent about 3-4 hours digging through the old soil with the new soil and adding in extra goodies for the soil. I had to be careful while doing it to not hurt my back again so I restricted my self to mostly 30-45 minute sessions.

Yesterday I spent about 3 hours planting the plants and I reckon almost an hour of it was spent just looking at where I had placed the pots to work out if they were going to work where I had put them and then re-arranging them etc - I'm pretty happy with the results!

I haven't as yet planted the tree's I want to put but I am thinking I will wait until June when I can get bare rooted stock.
I'm also thinking about getting some banksia's to go around the letterbox.

Once in I gave them a good watering with some powerfeed and seasol and then mulched them, I've mulched with pea straw as I had an almost full bag of it and I am going to buy more to cover all the soil this weekend.

Here is a pictorial of the journey that my front yard has taken

When I moved in


After the driveway had been done


After I rotary hoe'ed the existing soil


After bringing in more top soil


Over a few weeks I dug through the new soil with the existing soil and added some goodies like Olsens Green Bio and Zeolite and powerfeed


Blank canvas


Rocks I acquired ;)


Ta da! I will mulch the rest of the soil this weekend but I ran out




5 Gaura plants along the driveway, or as I call them springy butterfly plants :)


5 Blue Fescue plants along the footpath


5 Kangaroo Paws they are all bush gems and the back row has (L-R) Bush Spark, Bush Pizazz and Bush Sundown and the front are both Bush Pearl


4 daphne plants - infront of these will go a Japanese Maple


3 Purple Fountain Grass plants - in front of these will be some silver birch trees


3 Grevillia's - 2 Australian Beauty's which are a nice yellow colour and in the middle is a Bonfire which is bright red
I will put in a gravel type path to the electricity and gas meter's to the left of these




From the back corner


Blue Fescue


Purple Fountain Grass


Blue Fescue, Kangaroo Paws, Gaura on the top left and Daphne on the top right of pic


Daphne


I planted sunflower seeds in my backyard over Christmas and this is the first sunflower flower :D

Front yard

Gee I'm tired tonight, but it's a good tired! This morning I spent an hour digging up the last part of my front yard with a garden form to mix the souls together and dig through some goodies to improve the soil - bloody hard work! I had that much sweat dripping off my head (my head sweats a lot) that it was not only running into my eyes and stinging but dropping onto my glasses!

Then after lunch/brekky and an impromptu nap in the arm chair I decided to go and collect some rocks for my front yard and then my wheelbarrow died but I may have been able to fix it so will give it another go tomorrow to collect some more.


This morning I also went ot the market and bought some more plant for the big planting session to happen over Easter

Plant Shopping

I've finally gotten around to spending my Christmas present from my Dad and his wife - a gift voucher to Sertels a local nursery!

It's only a start as I have quite a few more plants to get. I'm still on the look out for some apricot or pink bush roses and I need to get some kangaroo paws and maybe some low growing bottle brush. Then I also need to get some trees, I'm going to get 3 Silver Birch Tree's and most likely a Japanese Maple but I will get them on the day or weekend that I plan to plant them

Here's what I bought:

All of them together


4 Daphne - these will go in front of my portico as a bit of a hedge or something maybe - I love the smell of Daphne


Blue Fescue


2 bush roses, Golden Bunny


3 Purple Fountain Grass


3 Grevillia's 2 Australian Beauty which are yellow and 1 Bonfire which is red



Gaura - I got these before Christmas