[look honey, free plants]

I'm loving my little greenhouse as I have more room to experiment with striking cuttings and growing free plants - plus they're all in one place so easier to tend! Previously I would have pots scattered throughout the garden and watering them would be a major effort... or up to the rain, so a few of them didn't make it. I never used a striking powder either, so it really was a matter of survival of the fittest.

Last week I stumbled across a YouTube video where they used honey instead of rooting hormone, and as hubby had brought home a half kilo tub from someone at work who had their own hives, we had plenty of pure natural honey in the house.

Yesterday I struck 60 plants from cuttings of plants in my garden, and I'm quite pleased with my efforts, especially as this morning they are all looking happy and not drooping... so, so far, so good. :)

p.s. You'll also notice in one of the photos I have a half egg carton I'm using as a seedling tray ... it has Agapanthus seeds I collected, and one of them has finally sprouted. I'm persevering with this container for the moment, but it hasn't worked as well as I planned. Unfortunately the cardboard has tended to wick away the water from the soil, rather than keep everything moist. Oh well, never mind, the whole point of self-sufficient no cost recycling is exactly that, no cost, so even though it didn't work well - it WAS free!

[greenhouse mods]

South-east Queensland's climate and my new greenhouse didn't see eye-to-eye...it was just way too hot in there for my poor plants, so I had to quickly make some mods!

Firstly within a couple of days after building it I cut a back door in, and didn't zip up the front and kept it open. A few days later I could see the plants were still not happy despite being well watered. So mod 2 came into play ... I added some shade cloth inside (zip tied to the frame). A few days later I thought the plants would be happy again...but alas, no. Time for mod 3 - I installed a sunroof! (Basically I cut open the roof and folded it back.) The new ventilation lowered the overall temperature, and with a few rainy days about it also meant the universe watered both sides of the greenhouse where my plants were! Win win!

[my little greenhouse]

I'm a bit surprised how much I'm enjoying gardening ... I guess because it's exercise with the bonus of a nice garden ... I've always been a multi-tasking kinda girl.

Over the last couple of years I've been growing cuttings and collecting a few seeds after things have flowered - so far I've just been propagating plants for around my garden - and the challenge of seeing what grows and what doesn't has been rewarding. The added bonus is that it costs me next to nothing... there's nothing I hate more than buying a plant that goes and dies on me! To keep things nice and cheap I just kept recycling pots from the few plants I have bought over the years; but now I'm really getting into it, I've run out of pots! Not to be beaten, I started recycling our empty 2L milk bottles (my boys drink so much, if we had a paddock, I'd consider a house cow!). Every other day when we finish a bottle, I wash it out, cut the bottom off, drill a few drainage holes, and 'voila' a free pot!

I'm not a total scrooge though, and I did lash out last week when a special became available at an online store, and bought a little 1.5m square greenhouse. My little greenhouse arrived during the week and yesterday afternoon I played garden Mecchano and put all the bits together to build it. Today I've gone around my garden beds and collected all the little pots I had, including some orchids and other plants I'm babysitting while my Mum is away travelling. It's all looking a bit professional now, so my vague plan of putting up my excess plants for sale online for a bit of holiday pocket money is looking closer to becoming a reality!

[secret garden orchids]

I love orchids, and these little beauties are in full flower right now. What's especially good is that they last a few weeks. :)

[babysitting the bonsais]

My Mum and her new husband of 9 months (can't quite get used to saying step-Dad yet) are travelling around Australia at the moment in the motor home, and I'm charged with looking after his bonsais while they're away. Now as you know, I don't mind gardening, but certainly don't profess to having totally green thumbs, so it's a bit of a hit or miss affair...

I've been pretty much just watering them since Mum left mid-October, but just before Christmas I gave the bonsais a good prune and a few days ago (under the guidance of some YouTube videos) cut the roots back and repotted them. So far, so good, they seem to be happy, let's just hope they continue this trend, especially as I think a couple of the trees are over 15 years old!

(The only issues so far is that some wildlife was digging up the dirt, and yesterday we found a dirty old toad snuggled into the potting mix, so I suspect this is my digging culprit - hopefully a few more carefully placed pebbles will discourage this behaviour Mr Toad!)

My favourite tree is the one with the really wide base trunk. This is also my youngest son's favourite, as he says it reminds him of the trees in Pamela Allen's books. The one with the little bridge is my teenage son's favourite ... typical, the one with 'accessories'...lol

[home-grown tomatoes]

Have a look at these little beauties! After a rocky start (my first couple of tomatoes were partially attacked by a caterpillar, and the third one was ripped off by a possum who took a bite, scratched it and then threw it on the ground – I wouldn't mind if he ate it all, but it irks me when it's wasted), nevertheless, I have finally harvested two beautiful ripe shiny tomatoes. 

Having sampled what the caterpillar didn't eat of the first two tomatoes I am looking forward to eating these two in their entirety. They are full and rich in flavour so taste delicious and best of all are not acidic, which just adds to the enjoyment – YUM YUM.

I also have some Cherry Tomatoes coming along nicely too, just hope the visitors to my garden can resist, so the entire handful on this stem can ripen on the vine. I thought it might be nice to bake them in the oven while still attached to the vine. 

They've come along well since I first showed you the fruit developing here. 

Not bad for a few plants that just popped up in the garden from the compost I spread around hey?

(The photos taken with my new camera aren't half bad either!)

[pretty in pink]

It may not be well manicured, and the weeds a bit out of hand in some places, but I'm lovin' some of flowers in my garden at the moment.

[watch me grow]

I'm sure I willed it to rain again yesterday as I sprayed the lawn for weeds. 

Fortunately, the rain has been useful for other things – look how much my tomatoes have grown in 11 days!

Today

11 March

 

[compost tomatoes]

I've had some tomatoes spring up in strange places in the garden (and lawn) courtesy of lots of rain and the compost that's been spread around, so I replanted them in a few strategic places around the garden, and now have close to 10 plants waiting to bear fruit. 

 

I love it when I get plants for free. :)

[timber for the woodcarvers]

With the heat in Brisbane earlier this week, I was beginning to think my tree pruning crusade was a really bad idea...we'd really miss the shade in the backyard...but as it's been 11 years since our mango and macadamia nut trees had been pruned properly, their towering canopies were just getting out of hand, and disasters waiting to happen in the next big storm. 

My Mum and her partner are members of a woodcrafting group, and do woodcarving and pyrography, so rather than all the timber go to the tip, we saved the bigger limbs for them. The mango timber is a lighter colour like pine, but the macadamia is a lovely red, can't wait to see how the timber looks once it's carved and polished.

This should keep them out of mischief for a while...

[set and forget orchids]

I don't have much of a green thumb, but I absolutely love orchids and was so pleased to see one of the three orchid plants I own in flower for the second time. 

This orchid used to be stuck on a tree in my front yard and always looked sad and bedraggled, and it never got flowers. When we cut the tree down a few years ago (it was invading the pipes with tree roots) I made sure the treelopper kept the section for me with the orchid attached. The plant was unceremoniously ripped off the tree and then put in a fork of the mango tree in our backyard. I obviously found the right place for it, as the falling mango leaves that it catches must feed it, and to my surprise, last year it flowered for the first time ever! Until then I had no idea what colour the blooms were! 

I don't know what particular species is it, and one day I might try and identify it, but for the moment I'm happy with the fact it's an orchid and when it flowers the large sprays of dainty yellow flowers look spectacular against the light green foliage of the leaves. :)

p.s. I must make some time to do a painting of these pretty little flowers before they're gone for another year.

[the avocado experiment]

A few months ago my 6-year-old and I were having avocado on toast for brekky, and he casually asked, "Mummy, will a tree grow from this seed?" After checking out a couple of YouTube videos, our kitchen window sill experiment began.

Suspended by toothpicks in a old jam jar, our seed slowly (and I mean SLOOOWLY) grew roots into the water. A couple of months later a shoot started to grow sky-ward, with the tiniest of leaves on it. I was thinking this was going to be one of those 'we gave it a go, but didn't quite succeed' projects. 

In September we had a week's holiday, and it was a lovely surprise to come home and find these large green leaves atop our little avocado tree. I guess now it's time to plant this tiny tree into a pot, and see how many years before we get an avocado. About seven I reckon. :)