back in not so black...again!

Back towards the beginning of my bloggy happenings I moved away from blackness and into blackness with the blog layout...for a while I've been tired with the black, and even though it is less lit pixels, a pal pointed out to me that a difficult to read screen isn't very sustainable either!   So I've taken the plunge to start redesigning the blog page in line with some new directions I'm taking...it's a work in progress...watch this space!

As I mentioned in the previous post, the uni semester started last week which takes me away from all routine things, and this week has been about developing a new routine...which is kind of nice - means some jiggling of priorities and attending to the really important things.

I didn't touch the garden last week...it has been a very disappointing season with the lack of a real hot stretch and all of the pests (aphids and rats!) that have just caused almost everything to fail.  Even the last hope for apples is out the window as these late season sturmers have been munched away at (I think rats...again!)  When I went to take a pic I discovered european wasps sucking away at the flesh too!

But I did manage to pick one, the last with no rat chews...and looking at the woodbridge link, it's reassuring that my apple looks the same as theirs, even though it is insanely early compared to the june/july ripening time that they predict...

There are always some lovely things in the garden though, like this orb weaver on one of the rose arches....

And the zucchinis and cucumbers I planted to replace those pulled out during the dog vs rat debacle are doing well...even though they are late in the season, hopefully I'll get a crop...

I'm starting some experiments with making vegetables in the studio...not sure where it will go, but I'm doing some plastic crochet Marjorie Bligh style with a twist.  I'm doing some hyperbolic crochet to make some lettuce forms...in this case using glad wrap from a bunch of organic celery...


From sheet to form :o)

update...canis vs rattus

Gem and Hugs had a crazy hour tonight at a bushy park that we specially drive them to (for local peeps, darling park, malvern which gardiners creek runs through)...plenty of rats there which they flush out, and sometimes catch.  No success tonight though (don't worry, they're feral rats, we check for the long tail!)

When we got home, even though u might think their rat chasing desires have been fulfilled, they were straight to the veggie patch.  To prove what I was saying earlier, here they are...

Reiterate note to self: must get smaller gauge mesh!

have beans

Where have I been?  I hardly know myself...too many everyday things and holidays getting in the way!
We went down to P's families holiday house for "Oystralya Dai" (last Thursday, quote Pen!), and spent the weekend...I didn't get back till Monday night...

But we had lots of fun, and did more renos which are now nearly done, yippee!  But onto beans now...firstly a bean shaped Gemma pet on the bed at Rye (couldn't resist!)...

But what I really want to get to is the beans in the garden.  We had lots of broadbeans back in December...

Which were yum when I cooked them with my meatball dish

The purple king beans growing alongside the espaliered citrus trees on the back of the house were growing beautifully at the start...

And we were picking some lovely beans too...

But a few weeks back I noticed that not many more beans were coming and the leaves were looking poorly with some browning off.  On close inspection I discovered tiny aphids on the undersides of the leaves.  I've never seen these ones before, they were almost invisible and almost like a coating of sticky green.  I'm not into spraying at all, even with a soap spray and I'm glad I didn't because some ladybirds moved in and then a week later I could see their larvae, which are so small it's hard to take a pic of them!

These beans are pretty much a write off now, but there were a few flowers that are developing into beans now, so fingers crossed!

I have the next lot of beans planted out the front, and they are looking good, so it doesn't really matter so much.  I have the attitude (and this is true of the ratty issue and this seasons plum situation too), that I'll take what I can, or reasonably should, and if other creatures or plants in the system need to do this too, that's ok, it's a bit of give and take.  Having said that, it is just as well that I'm not relying on my garden for absolute subsistence!   But I'm learning from what does and doesn't work, conducting the garden activities in a more orderly manner now and documenting the process, which should all help as I trundle along.  Oh, and mentioning the rats again...the games continue as when I came back from Rye all of the half developed corn cobs had been stripped from the stalks.  When the dogs are away the rats will play....oh the woe of these before and after shots!

The doggles have been going nuts trying to get into the fenced garden now...my bet, clever rat knows it's the only place in the garden they can't get to!   Gems and Hugs can get their heads quite a way through this mesh if they want to and are now destroying whatever plant matter within reach in the effort to get to rattus.  Note to self...need smaller gauge mesh!

rats!

We have some resident rats here...I'm was never worried about them as we've never had any (or mice) in the house and they keep the dogs endlessly amused as they run along the fence railings.  That was until now!  I came home from the beach with the doggles as it was getting dark last week and there was the little blighter (well, no so little actually!) up on the apple arch.

I had been wondering for a while what had been causing this kind of damage to the apples.  Definitely not birds who peck bits here and there...this was consistent nibbling to one apple at a time until the last bit would disappear.  I was suspecting rats and that was well and truly confirmed.  I called the dogs and they went nuts once they saw the rat up there...they were jumping and yelping, the rat didn't know which way to go and finally launched itself off one side of the arch and unfortunately doggles were not quick enough.  There were two repeats of the same, one in the early hours of Sunday morning (aarrgh, followed by a very drooby Sunday).  Although the apples are being saved from rat nibbling, the kerfuffles have caused most of the still very green apples to be knocked off the tree.  I've saved these couple...the bigger one was looking beautiful too :o(....with the hope that they might ripen off the tree.

Besides the failures in the garden (there have been more too - grrrr!), I've gotten back to making with some leather and have been finding that as I make I'm sorting the remnant pieces into streams suitable for their use.

This piece goes into the unusual/unique/interesting stream where anything might go!  More to come on this next adventure...

plum update and a christmas giveaway!

The lorikeets of a week or so ago have moved on and gemma has been finishing off anything that was left of the plums...

You might not have believed that I have a plum eating dog...but not only that, she's a plum picking dog!

Be patient with me re the dog pics...I just find gemma so darn cute when she does this (as you can see hugo is none too interested!)...and it's the only plummy amusement I'm going to have this year.  I'm wistfully thinking back to previous plum abundance...this next piccy was the low down branch that gemma was picking off after she was finished yesterday...

And that's about all I can see on the tree, so this years harvest is a total of three plums!

I'm not going to have any jam to give away this year...so for fun I'm offering a giveaway to blog readers...if you would like one of my plum jam recipes which I was folding up yesterday for christmas cards, send me your snail mail details to remnantgleaning@gmail.com and I'll post one out to you - anywhere in the world!  Hopefully you have more fruit in your neck of the woods than I do right now :o)

p.s. this final pic is last years jam :o(

damson in distress

My poor damson plum hasn't been doing so well since the end of blossom time.  The bumper crop that seemed to be developing here, unfortunately didn't come about when the last of the blossom just didn't set fruit in late September and withered away...

 I think it may have been because we had a very dry august here in Melbourne...something was not right at that time because the pluot tree (plum cross apricot) had blossom at that time and it didn't set fruit at all.

Now that the plums that are there are just beginning to ripen, the lorikeets have moved in!

They've been having a good peck...and this is the result!  Even the plums on lower down branches are being pecked...in previous years they ate all those at the top which I couldn't reach anyhow, and there were so many plums that there were enough for everyone.  I don't mind really...I do love watching them waddling about and hearing their gentle cooing then their raucous squabbles...and it's nice to see them enjoying a feed.

At least Gemma is getting to eat some too...she nosies around the bushes (a bit of dog gleaning) and finds those that have fallen from too much pecking but still palatable...at least for her!

So there will be no plum preserving party this year...it's amazing thinking back to the absolute fecundity of this tree considering how it is going this year.  It's probably quite anthropocentric of me to say that it is the plum tree in distress when it probably is actually me.  I do think I took the plum bearing powers of damson for granted at least a teensy bit.  I thought it would be there every year, providing me with the means to make lots of christmas jam pressies.  Maybe damson isn't in distress at all...maybe she needed a break this year!