The Dead Roo

Comment from Ken Lovell
Time: April 18, 2007, 10:44 pm

LOL I’m humbled by the power of the net to spread inspiration.

You probably know this already but check out Eden Seeds at http://www.edenseeds.com.au/content/default.asp. If you’re like me you’ll have the best fun growing things you never see in shops.

Comment from David Bath
Time: April 19, 2007, 3:36 pm

(a) Given a food-source in your yard is VERY green (no transport costs), is there a dispensation in watering restriction by-laws for domestic food supplies?

(b) The Geelong Botanical Gardens has a relatively new “21st Century Garden” that is designed to show people “pretty” plants that are salt-tolerant and need almost no water, encouraging smarter choices for “decorative” gardens. It was featured recently on the ABC.

Comment from Kieran
Time: April 19, 2007, 5:36 pm

Unfortunately there’s no dispensation for Vegi gardens. Wodonga is on stage four. But I don’t need water at the present, I’m just turning the ground over, putting a mass of compost underneath the turned soil, and eventually some mulch on the top. When it rains I should have amazing beds to plant into.

Comment from Kate
Time: April 20, 2007, 9:06 am

Ken ~ That has got to be one of the best van sites I’ve seen. I used to regularly buy through the Eden seed catalogue when I still lived on a farm. Thanks for the reminder.

David ~ Wodonga stayed on stage 1 restrictions until a couple of weeks ago, so it isn’t hard to have a 10×6 msq lawn. Especially if it’s drought proofed (fertilised and weeded in early spring to promote the thick matting Kikuyu, watered deeply once a month and cut to a height 2- 3 times higher than usual).

Wodonga also had enough rain during March that I dug over my vegie beds that had been fallow for 2 years. And the digging was easy.

Now we haven’t had rain for more than a month, stage 4 has been introduced and the ground is rock hard. The entire garden is relying solely on manually recycled grey water.

This is the point where most folks around here are either breaching the regs or abandon the garden.

I like to see it as a challenge.

We live in a very low income housing area where the front yards are all open to the street and consist of lawn with the odd shrub or decorative border, or more currently, dirt. In over the last 5 years (4 in drought) I have steadily planted a mixture of most drought tolerant wattle species in the central areas of the spaces and placed more water needy plants along the side fences to passively capitalise on the neighbours excess water.

As the wattles grow I will gradually fill in an understorey of natives and maybe some of the Mediterranean and South African flowering species.

Fortunately we don’t have a salt problem, but turning layers of builders rubble and clay fill into garden beds producing food has it’s own challenges.

I best go mulch something now.

Comment from fred
Time: April 20, 2007, 10:14 am

We retired to our property on the Murray 3 years ago and got stuck into gardenening in our enclosed ‘orchard’ in a big way.
We have a tonne of first rate mature chicken manure, 10 tonnes of donated for free mulch, and a pump on the lagoon to supply water.
Beautifully set up.
Started growing a wide range of crops, all organically fertilised by compost and chicken stuff.
Zucchini, tomatoes, onions [3 kinds], carrots, garlic, corn, spinach, potatoes, radishes, parsnip, horseradish, various herbs and a few other things.
Came home from the city late one night to find that the roos were inside and had had a big late night snack.
And the next night and the next until all was gone.
So we built a new area right next to the house cos they don’t come that close.
Started again with the crops.
Came back home late on night from the big smoke [we visit once a fortnight or so] and….

So we built an enclosed garden area with a 2 metre high fence near the house and mulched it and composted it and planted a whole range of crops.
Started growing beautifully.
Roos left it alone.
So the score was …roos 2, humans 1.
Then the lagoon went dry and now we have no water for a garden.
We keep our lemon grass, lemon tree, kaffir lime and mandarin alive from recycled wash and laundry water but that’s all we can manage until the Murray returns to ‘normal’.
If ever.
Oh well such is life.

Comment from Kate
Time: May 2, 2007, 2:18 pm

Ah yes, kangaroos and wombats, they aren’t so much of a problem here, but possums, Wonga pigeons, and parrots of all sorts, regularly ravage the gardens of Wodonga.

One of the blessings of gardening in town is that cows don’t clean up the vegie garden when you forget to shut a gate.

I had to acquire a roll of light weight chicken wire because I back onto parklands and have lots of birdlife. Now I call my seed beds ‘Guantanamo Bed’ and ‘Guantanamo Junior’. Before the chicken wire, the birds would descend on my baby lettuces and spinach like something out of the old Hitchcock movie.

Drought is a challenge, but the recent rains have warmed my heart to further backyard anarchy. We will soon have chickens and homing pigeons. Home grown nitrogen and phosphorus - yum.

Now to sort out a non commercial source of mulch.

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