Burners' Backyards: Veggies, Gardening, Landscape & Design

cokeonspecialtwodollars

Fartes of Portingale
Newie pump track series, $10 in - winner takes all..
build it and they will come
This won't be the worst defeat I've suffered...
I'm warming to the idea of a social pump track series as there is also a small public track not too far away that could be used to mix it up a bit... is there a Rotorburn sealed section where such details could be arranged away from the prying monitors of the general internet riff-raff or would this be easier done via Zuckerbook?
 

Elbo

pesky scooter kids git off ma lawn
All right @Elbo that is an easy yard to work with, lucky you!

  • Is there any boggy spots that hold water? Lucky there was rain last night.
  • I can see a bit of a slope around the paved area, is that continued down the yard?

You need to get that citrus tree on the left thinned out and trimmed back before spring if you want a good harvest next season. Have you started a piss bank? You'll want to collect and store all your piss for that tree and any others you have.

That is a pretty sweet Christmas tree down in the back. It looks like a spruce? They are very pretty. Hopefully you don't have significant pipe work down there?

My last house was on a pretty much flat block with terrible soil over really shitty rubble fill. I wanted to build up a garden around the square(ish) fence line but didn't have much in the way of coins for an elaborate edging system. I made a few trips to the local tyre shop to collect old shit tyres. I used these to build up a bit of a terrace system that was mostly 2 tyres high, with a few 3 or 4 stacks to break up the monotony. I then just purchased a lot of cheap potting mix and filled them. I also had a good compost heap that produced some really fertile additional material. Lastly I brought a lot of used coffee grinds home from work. There are arguments for and against the coffee in the garden. It worked out really well for me and was part of converting my shitty soil into a reasonably fertile garden border. I was aboy to grow an assortment of decorative plants and fruit/vegetables in there as well. I had a pretty relaxed approach to what grew, the food items were a result of going through the compost and me then forgetting to harvest them. Everything else low was cuttings I cultivated. Then I put on some small citrus trees and a frangipani, these grew up to around 1-2m. I was really pleased with how well this worked out. Fuck all work (I'm pretty lazy about yard care), pretty cheap (garden was the bottom of my list for things to spend money on), and pleasant to look at. By the time I sold the house you couldn't tell there was tyres holding it together, I had to point it out to the buyers.

Aside from wanting to out do @cokeonspecialtwodollars pump track, do you have a dream out come yet?
Great work thinking outside the box with the tyres on the old joint!

Yep, the backyard is gently sloping all the way down to the west. I haven't noticed any boggy spots as yet, but it's quite damp and shady in a lot of spots, except on the southern boundary which gets sun all day. The grass is sparse and mixed with that sort of mossy stuff that only grows in shady spots. The dogs are tearing it up pretty quickly.

I borrowed a total station from work this weekend and surveyed the house and yard to produce a plan of the block. That should give me a good idea of what I'm working with and allow me to plan things to scale.

Ideally I want a productive garden with native plants and a greenhouse. We only have a carport, no big shed, just the little garden one. Long term I'd like to build a bigger shed for storage and woodworking, metalwork, dogs to hang out, etc, with space for a couch and fireplace. It doesn't necessarily have to house the cars as I'd rather dedicate space to projects and bikes.
 

Elbo

pesky scooter kids git off ma lawn
Did a little bit of pruning of the orange trees in the backyard this weekend. I noticed that the shadier side of one tree looks different to the sunnier side with better airflow.

Does anyone know what this is on the leaves of this orange tree?
 

pink poodle

気が狂っている男
Any chance it is just dirt/dust stuck to the leaves after all the rain? Though I'd wager the rain wouldve cleaned them up...


Take a few leaves into your local nursery and see what they recommend. Well that used to be how things were done when those kinds of places existed and staff knew what they were doing. I'm not sure what bunnings will say...
 

Kerplunk

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Did a little bit of pruning of the orange trees in the backyard this weekend. I noticed that the shadier side of one tree looks different to the sunnier side with better airflow.

Does anyone know what this is on the leaves of this orange tree?
Looks like black sooty mould from a sap sucking insect. Could be scale, aphids, whitefly etc.
 

Kerplunk

Likes Bikes and Dirt
White oil sure does work fine by itself, just gets tiresome having to spray under and over every leaf and stem repeatedly. Success kills on contact and sits on the leaf till it rains next so anything that you miss with the oil can still be taken out. And it’s certified organic.
 

Freediver

I can go full Karen
White oil sure does work fine by itself, just gets tiresome having to spray under and over every leaf and stem repeatedly. Success kills on contact and sits on the leaf till it rains next so anything that you miss with the oil can still be taken out. And it’s certified organic.
I don't like the risk to bees, spiders etc with poisons. It might take a bit more effort with white oil but is non toxic and dead easy to make.
 

Elbo

pesky scooter kids git off ma lawn
With the current craziness surrounding COVID-19, the fragility of our globalised systems and the impending recession that will likely follow, what measures are people taking to become more self-sufficient and community-sufficient? Have you become more interested in supplying your own food or engaging in alternative economies, like trade and bartering? Are you thinking of converting an ornamental part of the garden into productive growing space?

What is your long-term response to what we have seen with COVID-19 and how it has exposed weaknesses in our systems?

We have been applying permaculture principles to whatever we can in our house and garden. We converted our front yard into a Zucchini and Pumpkin patch and have harvested 18kg of Zucchini's from a 4x4m bed alone in the last 4 weeks. We've also harvested beans, eggplant and lettuce and traded excess with friends for things we don't have in the garden.

We also found a wood heater at a salvage yard and recently took out our huge gas heater to replace it with the wood heater. The gas heater was fantastic, but we decided we wanted to get away from fossil fuels from an ethical standpoint as much as possible, and have friends and family with farms who are happy to give us wood in exchange for helping them cut their own.

Next part of our plan is to build a wood storage area and a greenhouse before winter.

I've also been reading some good books, which I would definitely recommend if you are interested in taking responsibility for your own production and consumption, homesteading and working with the land, rather than against it:
  • Call of the Reed Warbler - Charles Massey
  • Retrosuburbia - David Holmgren
  • Radical Homemakers - Shannon Hayes
 

creaky

XMAS Plumper
Have you become more interested in supplying your own food or engaging in alternative economies, like trade and bartering
I've always found that is cost me more per kg to grow my own anything than buy it at the supermarket. I assume we won't run out of produce, after the crazies finish stockpiling their doomsday bunkers.

I have informed by chicken industry and agricultural industry clients that I will be visiting if I can't get any decent food. Plus my boss owns a cattle feedlot so beef is sorted.
 
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