I must post more……
Yes I have been slack. But in my defense it has been winter here in Sydney and not much has been going on. Half of my lawn is dead, my over wintering broadbeans are still in flower and are 6 ft tall and I just git my tomatos in the ground. I will try and post about these exciting things this week.
I have also received soem scion wood for my orchard so there will be an orchard update coming in a couple of weeks showing some of the grafting work. Stay tuned!
A Month in the Fast Lane
Ok, so it’s been a while since I last blogged. A lot has happened and I’m chronically lazy when it comes to getting things out here.
Where to start? Here is the bullet point run down.
1. I got promoted at work, this was a nice surprise and a decent compensation increase but also a nice big whack on top of my existing heavy workload. Good bye social life.
2. I poisoned all the invasive kikuyu grass in my lawn which has resulted in about 20% of my lawn being now dead and shriveled up. Fingers crossed it will come back strong in spring with a hefty dose of fertilizer and a good top dressing to level it all up.
3. I had a brief holiday to the USA – San Francisco to be precise. Ducked out for a week and a bit just to have a look around. Gotta love cashing in those frequent flyer points.
4. I successfully identified the citrus tree in my garden as a lemonade tree.
5. Broad Beans are going nuts in the veggie patch, but so are the weeds as I have been slack and have not done much.
6. Kitchen scraps of spring onions and leeks are growing successfully after sticking the rooty end bits in the ground. Nice new green stuff growing.
7. Compost bin has shrunken down a bit an is awaiting more stuff to break down. I also now own a worm farm although there is nothing in it yet. I’ll sort that out this weekend.
Overall pretty busy hey! I have some other news but I have to keep it under wraps for another couple of weeks to see if it is going to come off. I’ll also try and write up some of the events from my US trip when I get the time. Most exciting of all is the possibility that I will get to spend a whole weekend sorting out my orchard in a couple of weeks. I’ll be able to get some photos up to show you guys where I’m at and what all the fuss is all about.
Till then.
Hass Appeal
The image to the left is a lonely Hass Avacado tree in my garden. This plant is really struggling since a possum has had a go at the bark and nibbled it pretty much through the cambium layer and into the wood. It’s effectively been ring barked. I only posted it here just in case for some fluke reason it survives.
On the subject of possums, my yard seems to attract them although I rarely see them. Usually I just see the ring tail scurrying up the paperbark tree in the background of the photo. Possums are not only an warm adjective used by Dame Edna, but are a marsupial commonly found on Sydney backyards. Normally they live in close quarters to humanity and the only sign of them is if you see them electrocuted on a powerline or the remnants of your tomatoes after they eat them all!
In New Zealand, that Scottish colony across the Tasman the Possum is an introduced species and is generally considered a pest. To help the eradication of the pest a cottage industry has arisen which uses possum fur for clothing. I am thankful of this industry for helping me keep my hands warm in the form of possum fur gloves whilst watching the Bledisloe Cup at Jade Stadium in Christchurch, New Zealand in 2002.
Anyhow, I will report back on the fate of this particular tree in the future.
For those too lazy to consult the 
