melbrennan.com» Garden

Rosella’s in the Garden

Melinda — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 12:25:37 +0000

These lovely guys have been visiting us recently in the mornings. I’m not sure if they’re Eastern Rosella’s or Crimson Rosella’s, whatever they are, they’re gorgeous! They come into the back yard and eat the seed that the chickens have missed.

Another lovely visitor to my garden!

Melinda — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 10:09:29 +0000

This was almost heart attack material! I went into the garden this morning to stake a tomato plant that didn’t hold up too well in our recent wild weather. Then I looked down and the first thing I saw was brown scales under the mulch! Of course my first thought was “SNAKE”, and it was right where I was about to step, and then I realised that it had legs. It’s an Eastern Blue Tongue Lizard. He’s about a foot long, so definately an adult. Lovely!

He’s lost his tail, and you can tell it was fairly recently as it hasn’t grown back yet, and I’m really, really hoping that it wasn’t my cat who did that to it! So until I can get a fence around the vegie gardens, which I need to do before the chooks arrive anyway, she will be an inside cat, or very closely supervised outside.

After Dian arrived home from school I showed her the lizard and then we fed him/her some banana and apple. Obviously it liked them, ate them all up! He’s a most welcome visitor in our garden as Blue Tongues eat snails and slugs.

Isn’t he beautiful!

Visitors in my garden!

Melinda — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 23:59:00 +0000

I have a garden!!! It’s even growing things, which is pretty amazing when I think about it, as we’ve only been here six weeks! I’ll post more details and pics later. There’s bushland over behind our back fence and we have an abundance of wildlife here! Last week there were four kookaburra’s like these one’s http://www.mareebaheritagecentre.com.au/images/kookaburra-large.jpg in the gum trees, laughing away for about an hour!

On the weekend Dian and I were watching butterflies dancing around the garden. I haven’t seen butterflies for ages, and these were beautiful! This morning I followed a bee, so laden with pollen it was falling off her! She buzzed around the pumpkin patch, hovered near the garlic, stopped off at a few dandelions that I deliberately let flower, before buzzing off again.

A magpie http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Australian_Magpie_-_by_frank_wouters.jpg hopped almost right up to the back door! I took out a piece of ham and cheese pizza and fed him. It was so friendly! Obviously used to humans, although he did go and jump on the back fence when the cat decided to play.

I really love the area here. There’s so much greenery and plant life, it’s just wonderful! I don’t enjoy that we’re so far from shops (20 minute drive for a major shopping centre) Dian’s school, church etc, but the area is lovely.

Chookies!!!!

Melinda — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 09:59:00 +0000

We brought home our two temporary chooks today! They’re on loan from my sister in law, and we take them back at Christmas. I can’t imagine an interstate move with chooks!

The larger brown one is named Betty, and the smaller black/brown one is named Boo. Betty Boo…. Dian named them. The pic was taken about fifteen minutes after being put into their run, they have since totally denuded the grass and stripped all the leaves off the weeds. Insatiable eating machines these things… The run they are in is a narrow strip up between the garage and the fence. They’ll be locked in there for a few days to a week, to get used to roosting in the shelter there, and after that we’ll start letting them out into the backyard during the day.

Dian’s first driving experience

Melinda — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 10:19:00 +0000

We were all at the in-laws last weekend for Eddie’s 40th birthday (Happy birthday honey!!!). They’re on a property with lots of machinery, big boy’s heaven! And little girl heaven as well, Eddie took Dian for a drive on the huge mower, and she even managed to cut the grass!

A strange avocado plant

Melinda — Tue, 22 May 2007 03:55:00 +0000

This avocado seed sprouted in the compost/worm bin so when I found it I planted it in an old milk container. One avocado seed…. and it has four stems sprouting from it! Now, avocado seeds are pretty huge, it’s not like I could have accidently planted more than one! I don’t know if this is normal for avocado’s or not since I haven’t grown them before. Weird…..
I have a large pot here that I have to repot it into this week, and at some point I need to decide what I’m going to do with it. Apparently they grow up to 15 metres tall, this is/will be a decent sized tree! Won’t last in a pot forever….

An unexpected harvest

Melinda — Tue, 22 May 2007 03:42:00 +0000

When we first moved here in january the back yard had three very sad looking young saplings planted here. There’s no actual soil here, it’s just gravel on top of yellow and red clay…. Like every other plant here the Landscapers (and I use the term very loosely) just dug a hole, dumped the plant in, tossed a handful of water over it and that was it planted. These plants had been put in a week before we moved in, in the middle of a very hot summer with no-one to water them.
I mulched them with pea straw (cheaper than lucerne hay!) and watered them with the washing machine water every day or so. They ended up dying (surprise surprise!) but the pea straw grew! They’re only fodder peas, so not that wonderful for eating, but as long as we picked them young they were great! This was Dian’s first time for growing and eating fresh peas and she loved them! Took them to school for recess in the pods still!