Garden update

APPLES
Back on the 1st of August we planted 5 apple trees from Woodbridge Fruit Trees (Tas).

They started out looking like this:

And now 1 month later we have real progress!

Each node on the single upright branch (that I bent sideways) now has leaves

And on one tree we even have flowers! The Granny Smith is flowering first - I'm surprised at this since it will be the last fruit to ripen. We've got small buds coming up on the others as well.

I have seen bees in the garden - so I have my fingers crossed they'll find the apple tree flowers and get busy pollinating.

GOT CLAY?

Our border garden beds will eventually be planted out with "no irrigation" natives - however, like all building sites in Western Sydney - the soil is totally clay. There are a few options to improve the quality of the soil

1. Spend about $600 and buy a lot of soil to put on top

2. Spend about $70 on green manure

Option 1 is great if you want a garden right now. However, a litle on the pricey side. Given we're still decorating inside, I went with Option 2. The only drawback is the time it takes - probably 6 months until your soil is ready.

I purchased some fenugreek and fava beans from Green Harvest and planted them before the winter. After some rain and now warmer weather - the green manure is really taking off.

Fenugreek

Fava beans

Both green crops are specialists at breaking up clay soil and adding nitrogen and other nutrients. We'll let them grow until the beans get to about 75cm-1m and then slash it all at the base. It then gets covered in some lucerne or pea straw mulch, manure, blood and bone and left to decompose for 6 weeks. Then - work all of the organic material into the soil (by hand with a maddock or hoe, or use a petrol driven rotary hoe).

FRONT GARDEN

I was excited to find our first flower on our Alyogne Hugelii (I hope that's the right spelling!) - a native hibiscus that originates from WA - but also grows well here in the east.

This was a difficult plant to find - I ended up driving 1 and a quarter hours to a specialist wildflower nursery in Engadine to pick one up. The Exterior landscape mob (who did our front landscaping) couldn't manage to source one and instead gave us a Magnolia Little Gem. I promptly ripped it out and replaced it!