Clearing the jungle

Over many years the back of the garden has become a jungle, ivy overgrew bamboo and something like a tulip tree. Several layers of bamboo roots have grown on top of each other, in between concrete slaps from an old shed. Branches often too thick for the tree saw. Entangled parasites unhappy about letting go. 5m high jungle had to go!

Again we needed a lot of elbow grease and Jules got stuck right into it whereas my job was the carrying of materials to the front where a council verge collection will hopefully take it all away after 21 November. We made a great start today. More than half is gone and space made for fruit trees and another garden bed.

I became intrigued by a garden workshop http://www.greatgardens.info/ that I attended last week with my boyfriend. Sponsored by the local council and the WA Watercorporation the workshop shared plenty of good tips on waterwise food growing. The workshop was definitely worth while and they even gave us a decent snack half time through the three hours.

One of the presenters was Peter Coppin. His website holds great information about fruit and veggie gardens http://www.petercoppin.com/ We got good hints for the composte and he reinforrced the general rule that the sad sandy soils dramatically improve by adding organic matter again and again.

Fruit trees are well placed to be grown in espalier gardens, along wires between poles. The website even has a great diagram on this subject for download. http://www.petercoppin.com/factsheets/fruit/Espalier.pdf

Last week we had 8mm of rain. The watertank is replenished which brought a big smile on my face. I love watering our plants in the morning and evening, to give them a good start. As there is plenty of straw mulch around each plant I only tip quite a small amount directly onto the plants root system. I need around three watering cans each time. This uses about 60l of water per day, but probably up to 100l when the temperatures are higher. 3100l only will last about 30 to 50 days! Definitely not enough for the whole summer. Last year we did not get any rain between October and March. Whether this year will be better is not known, but I hope for a few thunderstorms that bring us a wet roof and water into the tank.

First plans ripen for more watertanks and more clearing of jungle in the next days and weeks to come. 
If we only had a shredder.