From last summer...

From last summer...I'm missing the green & the fruit.

I froze the berries and am still eating them in the middle of winter. It's been a while since I last posted. I have some catching up to do.

Digging for Victory

These ones are my talks at the Floriade Victory Garden:
Australian Women's Land Army Learn about the invaluable role played by the Australian Women’s Land Army fighting the war on the Food Front during the Second World War. 1, 15 October

Digging for Victory During the Second World War, as part of the 'Grow your own' campaign, Australian families had to cope with rationing, food shortages and price rises. Find out how they answered the call to produce food, formed Garden Armies and created Victory Gardens. 17 September, 7 October

http://www.floriadeaustralia.com/war-memorial

My Victory Garden is coming along!

http://www.awm.gov.au/blog/2011/08/16/digging-for-victory-for-floriade/

Digging for Victory

For those who are interested in wartime gardening and food production on the Australian homefront during the Second World War. The Australian War Memorial will be creating a Victory Garden out at Floriade this year. The talks on Digging for Victory and Australian Women's Land Army are mine. Check out the Floriade wartime program.
http://www.awm.gov.au/events/floriade/

Autumn garden shots 2011

Hydrangeas & uranium

The hydrangeas are just about finished – they were beautiful this year and kept flowering for months.

I've been looking into creating a Second World War era "Victory Garden" for Floriade this Sept/Oct - in the course of my work yesterday I came across an interesting gardening tip that I read in the Australian Women's Weekly 1943 - to bring back colour to your washed out hydrangeas "if you can get hold of it" use uranium – it "works wonders". Chemicals were a whole new wonder back then and if people could get hold of them over those war years they would use them - luckily for that generation (and the next) such things were in short supply.

Everything looks a bit hot and bothered at present in my garden – it’s a full sun garden and could do with a bit more shade. On the fruit front one of my black grape vines is ripening and my pears won’t be too much longer.

I don't know how I managed to do it but I’ve used more than 10,000 litres of water on the garden in the last month - I emptied my tank which was completely full twice - that doesn't include all the emptying that I did when we had all that rain. I'm using town water now and am much more conservative.

Landscaping the driveway

When the driveway was completed the little brick wall looked out of place. It was taken down and the whole space area under the citrus trees were mulched with lucern.

The area around the urn was extended with thyme plants. Mostly purchased at the local farmers markets and a school fete.

The neightbour's side of the driveway near the road was badly churned. This area was on the neighbour's land and to repair it I layered the area with topsoil and sowed some grass seed.

The left hand side of the driveway was topsoiled and sewed with grass.