My Productive Backyard
Turn your backyard into a productive food-growing paradise
Maintaining your backyard chicken’s housing.
I am a great believer that prevention is better than trying to remedy something once it has happened. This is very true for maintaining the health of a backyard chicken flock. So to prevent infestations of lice and mite, the build-up of deep litter that can become...
Freezing beans-A series of picture instructions on how to freeze your excess beans.
Do you have a glut of Beans at your place too? Share your harvest with the community on either Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+ or Twitter! Happy Gardening,...
Why Thunderstorms and Lightning are good for the garden.
This summer has been extraordinary in the garden, it is lushest and greenest I have ever seen it in mid-summer. I usually spend January trying to supplementary irrigating everything because it is so hot and dry. Not this year. I cannot seem to keep the lawn under...
The joys of a containerised living Christmas tree.
I love a live Christmas tree; in fact I absolutely refuse to have a plastic one in the house. But I do find the hassle of either picking up a pre-cut, or going and cutting a live tree in those weeks leading up to Christmas a hassle I could do without. Then there is...
Maintaining the rage- Plant NOW for a continual harvest into late Summer and early Autumn
Things always get a bit hectic around my place at this time of the year and what usually suffers is my successive planting in the vegetable garden. Then in January and February I have no lettuce, rocket or coriander and in late summer as all of my earlier plantings...
Hail to Summer – What to do when Hail hits the Garden.
Continuing on with how to prepare your garden for extreme weather events, the next few blogs will cover thunderstorms. Thunder storms usually bring lighting, heavy rain and/or hail and strong winds. This week has been a shocker for thunder storms in NSW and here in...
Gifts from the Garden – Tarragon Vinegar
Each year when the tarragon puts out its first flush of new growth after hibernating all winter I make tarragon vinegar. This is not hard to do and the resulting product is, I think, superior to the expensive, hard to find store bought alternative. Tarragon is one of...
Saving the Apple crop!
This morning I went for my normal weekly stroll around the garden to formulate my “To Do “ list for the weekend. Fortunately the first thing I found was a couple of issues with my espalier apples. So if I am to save the crop I needed to spend today doing a few...
Preparing your garden for extended dry periods and drought.
Following on from my blog about preparing your garden for extremely hot days, and as we head into summer, I thought a bit of advice of preparing your garden for extended dry periods would be appropriate. The 1997-2009 drought in eastern Australia was one of the...
Preparing your garden for extreme weather events.
It is not your imagination, according to www.climate commission.gov.au , there are more extreme weather events occurring. The hottest day, the worst frosts, strongest winds etc So over the next few weeks I would like to share with you some of the ways I prepare...
Guest Blogger: Kathy Finigan shares her thoughts on the role of community gardens
A special thanks to Connect to your Community Garden for having me write on her blog this week. A topic that I'm so passionate about, and would love to work with more.
Planting Basil
For me, the middle of October is basil planting time. Although I have experimented with lots of different basils I still seem to prefer the annual sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum). Fresh Basil is a must in Thai beef salad, with fresh tomato on bruschetta, on pizza, in a...