The Blue Cane Palm project (Dypsis Cabadae)

The backyard is mostly composed of plants that produce food, but in the front yard there's palms for their tropical aesthetic. Rather than plant an all too common Golden Cane Palm (Dypsis Lutescens), I've decided to go for something different. Related to the Golden Cane Palm, but not as often seen, is the Blue Cane Palm (Dypsis Cabadae). As you'd expect, it's canes are a blue colour. It clumps like the Golden Cane Palm, but grows taller and slower. It's also less dense. This one was planted today from a 250ml container.






 



Joe's also giving it a go in his backyard. On the left are a couple of smaller plants from a 140ml container. It's great living in sub-tropical Brisbane because you can grow so many varieties of tropical palms. If we get a storm this afternoon, it'll water them in nicely.

Chillies like it hot

Or chillis, chilies or chilis - depending on where you're from and how you're inclined to spell them. Whichever your preference, they like it hot and you probably do too if you're growing them.

I planted these seedlings in a mini-greenhouse (a small plastic hotbox with seed trays inside) back in late July. Pictured here with the lid off, you can see the seedlings are starting to come up. I wasn't sure if they were ever going to germinate and thought I might have to give up on them because I planted them when the nights were still cool. It seems chillies don't like to chill. Now that it's getting warmer, they're starting to take off.

Here are some seedlings that grew from seed last Autumn. They remained very small through Winter and didn't do much. With the warmer weather, they're getting larger.

These Jalapenos have been looking quite sad through Winter and have more or less been dormant. Now there's new growth and flowers.

And when there's flowers, the chillies aren't too far away.

Enter the Dragon

Dragonfruit are like a cross between a kiwi fruit and an alien melon. I hadn't tasted one before a friend at work brought some in to lunch from his backyard. Very very tasty and apparently very good for you. Also very expensive if you buy from the supermarket. Recently my work colleague was kind enough to give me some cuttings so I'm having a go at propagating them. When the cactus gets big, it produces exotic flowers.

The other dwarf apple has flowers

The other dwarf apple is a Golden Dorset which also has flowers now. It should cross-pollinate with the other tropical variety that flowered earlier (see earlier post - Dwarf apple has flowers). I've seen the bees in the garden around the big lime tree in the backyard.

Building a Raised Garden Bed (or The Story of the Salad Garden) Part 2

Back in June we assembled the garden bed and planted the seedlings for a leafy green salad garden. Ever since then it's been very productive. Taking a few steps out of the kitchen, snipping a few leaves here and there and returning with fresh produce beats the supermarket any day. Suprisingly, nothing has attacked the garden and it hasn't required any maintenance as long as the irrigation system provides a little water regularly.

Here it is just a few weeks after planting and already we were able to start picking leaves.

One month later and even though there's been regular harvesting, there's still plenty growing.

It's a rainy day in Brisbane, but just a few steps from the kitchen and just a few months since planting, the salad garden just keeps giving. Even with regular snipping, there's more than enough leafy greens for any meal that requires it. Fresh local produce? It doesn't get much fresher than this. A successful project that requires practically no maintenance, I give it two thumbs up.

Building a Raised Garden Bed (or The Story of the Salad Garden) Part 1

All about how to build a raised garden bed for veggies and the like. Or at least my experience of it. I managed to acquire the small garden bed which looks like it's made from rainwater tank offcuts above from the local markets back in early June.

  Lined with thick cardboard and then a layer of weed matting. Then I threw in two bags of Cypress mulch. It's a thick foundation to absorb the nutrients that will leach through from above.

After that, a layer of dirt, palm fronds and more dirt, which should be slightly springy due to the palm fronds creating pockets of air in the bed which is apparently good for the microbes.

And a layer of compost and potting mix.

And then finally a layer of sugar cane mulch. Where the bed was installed, there was an existing line running from the irrigation system connected to our rainwater tank. More on that in a future post, but suffice to say it was easy to attach some sprayer emitters so the bed can get watered.

The area of the garden where the bed is located doesn't get full sun, otherwise I would've been more adventurous with the choice of vegetables to plant. But as it gets some partial sun and some shade, it's good enough to grow herbs and some leafy greens. In here, we've put Thyme, Spinach, Rocket, Cos Lettuce, Mignonette Lettuce and Shallots. I was impatient after building the bed so I got the seedlings from a local gardening store. It's easy enough to grow some things from seed, and cheaper, and you'd probably end up with more seedlings than you know what to do with, but it does take time.

The idea of layering the garden bed into a so-called "lasagne" bed came from a segment on ABC's Gardening Australia by Leonie Norrington earlier this year (except she was doing it on a bigger scale in Darwin), so I should probably reference that as an inspiration here.

In part 2, I'll post the progress since we started in June.

Dwarf apple has flowers

These are flowers from a tropical variety of apple on dwarf rootstock in a large pot. It was repotted during the recent colder months and is now blossoming.