A veggie garden thread

Epic photos. You reckon snakes experience love as we know it for even a brief time? That full body wrap must send them nuts.

Strange to think that some religions preach animals not having souls….weird.

I’d be exercising a bit of caution around those buggers. If they don’t finish their ….meditation , they tend to get a little cranky

Fantastic mango trees. Really impressive.

"The greatest change we need to make is from consumption to production, even if on a small scale, in our own gardens."
Bill Mollison

Holy crap FreeRide, wandering down to the vegie patch in bare feet would be an adventure.
Surprising how many browns are in the dunes behind the beach. Down here they like to hang out below the surf viewing platforms.

Yeah, I had designs to get on top of a thicket of camphor saplings behind the house, but noticed one of those browns went straight in there.

They don't bother me, at all, but yeah, caution definitely required.

Especially this time of year.

Yeah those mango trees look awesome. mmmm

Not sure those 2 snakes are feeling any love for each other though. Looks like 2 males having a bit of a disagreement about who gets to bang the local female.
Fortunately for me, the local goannas (land crocs) around here have just re-emerged from their winter slumber and don't mind a feed of brown snakes. And a healthy population of kookaburras to keep the young snakes in check helps too.

I wish we had Kookaburras here. We only get to see crows, magpies, seagulls, pelicans, sea eagles, honey eaters,frog mouth owls and those small miniature magpie type birds that are confident as hell and test you with walking near your cars moving tyres etc.
Anyway, no birds that eat snakes from my knowledge but we get a lot of deadly snakes ,sometimes passing under the outside chairs as you're having smoke.A mates dog attacked a baby brown about 2 years ago it bit the dog and he raced it to Gero vets, just in time to save the dogs life.The dog spewed all over his backseat on the way there.

On topic to thread, anyone growing chilies or peppers, try to find Chilli Focus, best nutrient available for chillies and peppers.Can be used in soil based or soilless hydro mediums.

Faaarkn kookaburras.
Wake me up pretty much every morning. 45 mins before sun up.
You're talking about the cheeky Piping Shrike/Magpie Lark GS.
My favourite.
SA state emblem.

AKA the Murray Maggie, cheeky little beggars

Last week’s rain was almost to excess but it’s far better than a drought. Mangoes managed to survive the heavy Northerly which luckily petered out only a couple of kms from the ocean. First buster thunder storm for the season likewise came from jus5 the right direction to grant reprieve. Fingers crossed as it’s early days but optimism is up. Gave them a nice feed of organic citrus today.

Looking good mate

Heartbreak….looks like anthracnose getting into the mangoes. Black stems.

Heavy.

La Niña strikes again

mattlock wrote:

Faaarkn kookaburras.
Wake me up pretty much every morning. 45 mins before sun up.
You're talking about the cheeky Piping Shrike/Magpie Lark GS.
My favourite.
SA state emblem.

groundswell & mattlock. Magpie Lark. They make noise, but it’s two of them. They exhibit anti-phonal behaviour ( other examples are, night parrots, whipbirds, fairywrens and many other Australian birds), at the split second one of the sexes calls, the other calls instantaneously making it sound like it’s one bird calling. Magpie Larks look like they’d be related to magpies and are often near them, but it’s far from the truth, they are actually related to monarchs, birds in our north that are linked to monarchs in PNG and Indonesia. Ever wondered why magpie larks are always banging away at your car mirrors or similar, they think their reflection is the other component of their anti-phonal relationship,

groundswell wrote:

I wish we had Kookaburras here. We only get to see crows, magpies, seagulls, pelicans, sea eagles, honey eaters,frog mouth owls and those small miniature magpie type birds that are confident as hell and test you with walking near your cars moving tyres etc.
Anyway, no birds that eat snakes from my knowledge but we get a lot of deadly snakes ,sometimes passing under the outside chairs as you're having smoke.A mates dog attacked a baby brown about 2 years ago it bit the dog and he raced it to Gero vets, just in time to save the dogs life.The dog spewed all over his backseat on the way there.

On topic to thread, anyone growing chilies or peppers, try to find Chilli Focus, best nutrient available for chillies and peppers.Can be used in soil based or soilless hydro mediums.

groundswell. Hi mate, how’s that diet going ? I’m very happy you have observed all those birds, you’ve just scratched the surface, there’s a plethora of birds in and around your town and straight out front on the shoreline as well as in that wonderful red soil and rock National Park that’s on your doorstep. Enjoy them, we’ve got approximately 855 different bird species in Oz, many the envy of the world. Good pastime observing and counting the numbers of different species, before you know it, you’ll be fully immersed.

There's a Noisy Pitta living in the tuckeroo stand on the ridge.

He calls once, just on sunset, and then once, just before dawn.

freeride76 wrote:

There's a Noisy Pitta living in the tuckeroo stand on the ridge.

He calls once, just on sunset, and then once, just before dawn.

Freeride76 .Morning mate, how nice, I’m jealous hearing that, a beautiful bird with a beautiful call as you stated. In the wet season when breeding is full on, calling can be incessant from dawn to dusk. The natural worlds biological clocks, don’t we love them, kookaburras, magpies etc. most of it is just defining territory or linking vocally to kin. Here in Victoria, we are woken by White-backed Magpies, very early, followed closely by Superb Fairywrens pecking our windows looking at what they think is another bird but its not. Just another bird exhibiting actions related to anti-phonal behaviour.
Steve. What other great bird gems do you encounter or see regularly, from memory you are elevated in the hinterland maybe west of Byron ? Thanks, good to chat.

DudeSweetDudeSweet wrote:

Heartbreak….looks like anthracnose getting into the mangoes. Black stems.

Heavy.

DSDS. Looks like you better get the copper-oxychloride out and spray and mow as close to the ground as possible lessening the humid environment below the entire shoot system. If stems are going black, physical removal is the only way to go, remembering to disinfect your secateurs after each cut, you probably already know all of this. Good luck, that cheeky little girl La Niña shows her face, again.

Not really interested in spraying chemicals over the trees. Even less toxic alternatives are prohibitively expensive and time consuming on the scale of the place. If we lose a year so be it. Cycle of life. It’s not over yet though…not all trees are showing signs. Fingers crossed and try to be optimistic but then you see the weather forecast….

Yesterday’s haul. Still trying to clear out last season’s avocados to make way for the new growth.

AlfredWallace wrote:

freeride76 wrote:

There's a Noisy Pitta living in the tuckeroo stand on the ridge.

He calls once, just on sunset, and then once, just before dawn.

Freeride76 .Morning mate, how nice, I’m jealous hearing that, a beautiful bird with a beautiful call as you stated. In the wet season when breeding is full on, calling can be incessant from dawn to dusk. The natural worlds biological clocks, don’t we love them, kookaburras, magpies etc. most of it is just defining territory or linking vocally to kin. Here in Victoria, we are woken by White-backed Magpies, very early, followed closely by Superb Fairywrens pecking our windows looking at what they think is another bird but its not. Just another bird exhibiting actions related to anti-phonal behaviour.
Steve. What other great bird gems do you encounter or see regularly, from memory you are elevated in the hinterland maybe west of Byron ? Thanks, good to chat.

I'm actually on the coast right behind Lennox Point.

Beautiful buff banded rails living along the water-course that call constantly at the moment.
They seem to produce a littler of chicks every year around this time.

Pheasant coucals are also calling constantly. Very loudly.

Rainforest doves and pigeons.

Eastern Rosellas eating the grass seeds and scotch Thistle flowers are common.

A family of Pied Butcher-birds and a family of Grey Butcher Birds which do a lot of singing/warbling and seem to share the territory.

Magpie larks, magpies, kookaburras, noisy miners, fig birds, blue-eyed honeyeaters, Pacific Bazas, friar birds, Channel bill cuckoos in summer, Eastern whipbirds, Spangled drongos, Rainbow and Scaly Breasted lorikeets.
Yellow-tailed black cockatoos and sulphur crested cockatoos are regular visitors.

Usually around this time of year we get visited by spectacular aerial displays of White-throated Needle-tails.

I've seen one or two Wedge-tailed eagles flying over and I can see White-bellied sea eagles sometimes pass over.
Black-shouldered kites hover from time to time looking for mice and lizards.

I'm very grateful to have all this bird life close by.

freeride76 wrote:

AlfredWallace wrote:

freeride76 wrote:

There's a Noisy Pitta living in the tuckeroo stand on the ridge.

He calls once, just on sunset, and then once, just before dawn.

Freeride76 .Morning mate, how nice, I’m jealous hearing that, a beautiful bird with a beautiful call as you stated. In the wet season when breeding is full on, calling can be incessant from dawn to dusk. The natural worlds biological clocks, don’t we love them, kookaburras, magpies etc. most of it is just defining territory or linking vocally to kin. Here in Victoria, we are woken by White-backed Magpies, very early, followed closely by Superb Fairywrens pecking our windows looking at what they think is another bird but its not. Just another bird exhibiting actions related to anti-phonal behaviour.
Steve. What other great bird gems do you encounter or see regularly, from memory you are elevated in the hinterland maybe west of Byron ? Thanks, good to chat.

I'm actually on the coast right behind Lennox Point.

Beautiful buff banded rails living along the water-course that call constantly at the moment.
They seem to produce a littler of chicks every year around this time.

Pheasant coucals are also calling constantly. Very loudly.

Rainforest doves and pigeons.

Eastern Rosellas eating the grass seeds and scotch Thistle flowers are common.

A family of Pied Butcher-birds and a family of Grey Butcher Birds which do a lot of singing/warbling and seem to share the territory.

Magpie larks, magpies, kookaburras, noisy miners, fig birds, blue-eyed honeyeaters, Pacific Bazas, friar birds, Channel bill cuckoos in summer, Eastern whipbirds, Spangled drongos, Rainbow and Scaly Breasted lorikeets.
Yellow-tailed black cockatoos and sulphur crested cockatoos are regular visitors.

Usually around this time of year we get visited by spectacular aerial displays of White-throated Needle-tails.

I've seen one or two Wedge-tailed eagles flying over and I can see White-bellied sea eagles sometimes pass over.
Black-shouldered kites hover from time to time looking for mice and lizards.

Steve. Nice, you are obviously very observant, especially when you’ve identified White-throated Needle-tails. How good are Buff- banded rails.
Is there much remnant vegetation on your property or have you or others before you planted most species ? Apologies for getting a bit off topic, after all it was a ‘veggie garden thread’ discussion. We’ve got quite a veggie garden production here at present, we often plant some flowers near all our raised beds to encourage insect visits, to be honest at present there’s a shitload of Opium poppies (Papaver somniferum) with their large pink flowers with crimson centres flowering their heads off, looks spectacular.

Nice ,,
I've got a yard with several Grevilleas in full bloom at the moment, and from dawn to dusk all I can hear is a bunchy of rowdy, screeching Lorikeets competing with a mob of Noisy Miners, to see who wins the most annoying bird contest.
The only peace I'm getting lately is when the Sea Eagles do a fly over.

It's not mine but I'm on 5 acres of quite steep land with a mix of degraded pastures, and remnant and regrowth veg including quite a few rainforest trees.
I've planted out quite a few trees and some Butterfly vines to attract Richmond Birdwings which have visited here on a handful of occasions.

I'd love to turn the whole thing back into littoral rainforest, which would be the original ecosystem.

The more I learn about growing the more I realise the bizarre conflux of good conditions and fortune which need to go your way in order to succeed. Consistent success

Crazy to consider the expertise required in setting up a commercial crop from scratch. Choosing a product and timing it’s growth rate to market cycles, finding the right land, knowledge of the trees themselves. Just learning about the flowering types of avocados and the way they have such short, specific windows of pollination and the conditions required makes it seem like the chance of successfully growing an avocado sound near impossible on paper. Even the way some people need to introduce bees into their crops and the way new hives are preferable as the bees develop strict routines so rapidly that trees may be un pollinated if they are not in the bee’s preferred feeding pattern once it’s established. And how you’ve got to avoid flowering plants which outcompete the avocados on bee preference due to sweetness of nectar. Go to the trouble of growing an orchard , importing bee hives and watch as the bees turn left towards the wattle instead of right towards the avocados on the couple of days good for viable pollination.

It’s all interesting though. Hats off to the crew who pull it off professionally. Must be a heartbreaking industry. You finally do everything right from start to finish, seasonal luck goes your way, you have an abundant harvest….and then the product falls out of fashion or there’s a glut which puts a ceiling on prices. Boom or bust.

Perfect career for masochists.

Hell yes.

DudeSweetDudeSweet wrote:

The more I learn about growing the more I realise the bizarre conflux of good conditions and fortune which need to go your way in order to succeed. Consistent success

Crazy to consider the expertise required in setting up a commercial crop from scratch. Choosing a product and timing it’s growth rate to market cycles, finding the right land, knowledge of the trees themselves. Just learning about the flowering types of avocados and the way they have such short, specific windows of pollination and the conditions required makes it seem like the chance of successfully growing an avocado sound near impossible on paper. Even the way some people need to introduce bees into their crops and the way new hives are preferable as the bees develop strict routines so rapidly that trees may be un pollinated if they are not in the bee’s preferred feeding pattern once it’s established. And how you’ve got to avoid flowering plants which outcompete the avocados on bee preference due to sweetness of nectar. Go to the trouble of growing an orchard , importing bee hives and watch as the bees turn left towards the wattle instead of right towards the avocados on the couple of days good for viable pollination.

It’s all interesting though. Hats off to the crew who pull it off professionally. Must be a heartbreaking industry. You finally do everything right from start to finish, seasonal luck goes your way, you have an abundant harvest….and then the product falls out of fashion or there’s a glut which puts a ceiling on prices. Boom or bust.

Perfect career for masochists.

DSDS. I dip my lid to you, also applaud you for taking on such an enterprise, you’ll get there with perseverance, stick at it. Having a botanical, entomological or horticultural background would help immensely, but many folk start with none of that, ultimately having success through trial and error (unfortunately can become quite costly). I’m sure you are reading and seeking input from anyone in the know. As you correctly state, other mitigating factors come into play, i.e. Smashed avocado with egg on toast was all the rave in most capital cities, especially Sydney and Melbourne, last i heard it was no longer. Avocado farms on the Atherton tableland where my wife works and resides for half the year, were throwing tonnes away and even pulling up trees as the market completely fell away. Buy a bag of 8 avos for $2 on roadside stalls when i was there a few weeks ago. Supermarket wholesale buyers especially in the southern states, still screwing growers down from an already totally deflated market. Stick at it mate, I’m sure you and your lovely will eventually succeed. We are Australian, we don’t give up easily.

freeride76 wrote:

It's not mine but I'm on 5 acres of quite steep land with a mix of degraded pastures, and remnant and regrowth veg including quite a few rainforest trees.
I've planted out quite a few trees and some Butterfly vines to attract Richmond Birdwings which have visited here on a handful of occasions.

I'd love to turn the whole thing back into littoral rainforest, which would be the original ecosystem.

If you ever got the opportunity to do that, id love to join in. Outcome could be a great exemplar for others to take a peek at. Good to chat, now back to the paint roller (boring).

We aren’t a commercial enterprise. Just doing it for food, fun and satisfaction. Maybe self sufficiency one day …..geez, so many variables though.

The systems are holistically complex beyond comprehension. Surfboard shapers get labeled* geniuses if they can isolate and weight the various factors into a surfboard which performs as expected, yet most non-executive farmers are dismissed as hayseed yocals when they’re expected to balance the requirements of microbial soil organisms, Nature gifted climactic conditions, species variety and particulars with the minerals and elements needed to get a living floral entity to produce at its peak. So much involved just to put a viable food stuff to the punter’s table.

Growing isn’t usually an overnight thrill a minute but it’s never dull.

*Then there’s the self proclaimed genius shapers…

It does make you realise why subsistence small-holders also keep animals.

Crops fail and when they do you need the eggs, meat, milk etc etc to survive.

Hard to beat a set of goggles, a pair of flippers and a speargun for consistently putting food on the table.

For most places.
Around here, you'll get more fish linefishing- just not enough vis to consistently spear.

You could count on fingers and toes and have change the number of spearing days this year.

For sure. Seasonal variation makes you realise that the concept of indigenous Australians having it too easy to survive could be well wide of the mark at times I reckon. Large groups of people can consume ready resources pretty rapidly when times take a turn towards difficult. It wouldn’t have all been lazing on the sand under the sun with a belly full of fat-flapped stingray. Some of the tribes inland would have probably done it hard during drought etc. Then the available food sources would get tapped hard. Probably why you end up with situations like the indigenous eating the South West koalas into extinction. Something has to give. Imagine if you were tasked with keeping your family fed with seafood during a weeks long flood event where you might be stranded somewhere for a prolonged period, surrounded by muddy barren water.. Memories of big feeds in days past don’t keep you alive for too long.

Totally.

I feel for you Dude re the mangoes - damn anthracnose ravages my crop each year. I've only really half-heartedly tried to get in top of it organically. It's like you've said, you nailed it, the difficulties, and I tend to think for some things it gets a bit harder each year, as more pests/diseases seem to find your crop. And all that theory about pests going for sickly trees, and not so much interested in the more vigorous healthy ones, doesnt hold true for me.
I'm in the process of trying to master organic macadamia production. The trees are super healthy, vigorous, robust - I work hard on constantly building soil health around them (compost, manures, beneficial microbes etc.). The trees had incredible bursts of flowering recently, literally dripping with flowers, and masses of native and exotic bees and other pollinator insects getting stuck into them, you'd expect an absolute bumper crop, but then come the pests. Flower grub first, wipes out at least half of the pollinated flower stems, then comes nut borer, and the new one which first emerged here last year is fruit spotting bug (big problem for avos too). I've just the other week tried a biological control for the fruit spotting bug called Anastatus parasitic wasps (look like little ants with wings when they hatch). We'll see how that goes...
anyway, I went through the nervousness of all this last year, and with around 40 trees that had some nuts, I yielded 28kg of good to very high quality nuts. Delicious. Stoked. I love maccas! I was hoping for incremental increases in yield from hereon, but looking at the trees right now with all this latest pest activity, I'm not too confident I'll better the 28kg. I'd like to think that eventually once I get a well organised pest/disease control regime worked out and applied on time each year, 60 trees should get me at least 200 kg, we'll see...

and all the bird talk again, love that - coolest thing here recently has been the quail family, seem to follow me around a bit. Was watching them cruise through the veggie patch the other arvo, thinking they are like my native chook flock, scratching around constantly eating insects I guess, but no damage like bigger chooks would do. Ecosystem services in action!

and freeride - I'm also a massive fan of the littoral rainforest, anywhere, but particularly down your way. When I lived in Lennox the patches around Broken Head were a favourite.

you are probably onto it already, but a friend sent me a link to a cool app the other day - a 'trees near me app'. search and you'll find it.
a nsw government thing. You can zoom in on a map of your area and it'll give you all the details on the original and remaining veg communities, links to species lists and species details. Heaps of good info there, just for interest, but would also assist with any reveg planning. Good luck

Looks like animal farmers in N.Z may have more to worry about than the weather and market prices etc soon.
Might want to reduce the legumes in the feed when they bring the emissions testing tent around.

NZ produces food for over 40mio people (there are only 5mio of us). Just for the record.

GreenJam wrote:

I feel for you Dude re the mangoes - damn anthracnose ravages my crop each year. I've only really half-heartedly tried to get in top of it organically. It's like you've said, you nailed it, the difficulties, and I tend to think for some things it gets a bit harder each year, as more pests/diseases seem to find your crop. And all that theory about pests going for sickly trees, and not so much interested in the more vigorous healthy ones, doesnt hold true for me.
I'm in the process of trying to master organic macadamia production. The trees are super healthy, vigorous, robust - I work hard on constantly building soil health around them (compost, manures, beneficial microbes etc.). The trees had incredible bursts of flowering recently, literally dripping with flowers, and masses of native and exotic bees and other pollinator insects getting stuck into them, you'd expect an absolute bumper crop, but then come the pests. Flower grub first, wipes out at least half of the pollinated flower stems, then comes nut borer, and the new one which first emerged here last year is fruit spotting bug (big problem for avos too). I've just the other week tried a biological control for the fruit spotting bug called Anastatus parasitic wasps (look like little ants with wings when they hatch). We'll see how that goes...
anyway, I went through the nervousness of all this last year, and with around 40 trees that had some nuts, I yielded 28kg of good to very high quality nuts. Delicious. Stoked. I love maccas! I was hoping for incremental increases in yield from hereon, but looking at the trees right now with all this latest pest activity, I'm not too confident I'll better the 28kg. I'd like to think that eventually once I get a well organised pest/disease control regime worked out and applied on time each year, 60 trees should get me at least 200 kg, we'll see...

and all the bird talk again, love that - coolest thing here recently has been the quail family, seem to follow me around a bit. Was watching them cruise through the veggie patch the other arvo, thinking they are like my native chook flock, scratching around constantly eating insects I guess, but no damage like bigger chooks would do. Ecosystem services in action!

Greenjam. How’s things ? I’d like to put my two bobs worth in.
Proteaceous plant. Have you ever checked or dug a test hole to check the health status of one of the most unique root modifications known-Cluster/Proteoid Roots ?
These specialised roots (Proteaceae family) evolved tens of millions of years ago as a response to plants growing in very low nitrogen and phosphorus soils (atypical of the majority of Australian soil). Our continent is extremely flat, lacks major oregeny (mountain building), has very high rates of solar insolation (incoming solar radiation resulting in heating and drying) and a lack of any resultant erosion leading to soil replenishment. We have had very little glaciation with only scant evidence of ice sheet movements but no truly renowned glaciers. Essentially our soils never get a good top up of nutrients. Proteaceous plants have counteracted those issues and still grow in these types of low nutrients soils today and have everything they need, after all a plant is only growing where conditions are favourable.
My point being, sometimes we try way to hard to construct or ameliorate soils to our liking (anthropomorphic mentality that it has to look, smell and feel good to us ) but in fact not necessarily to the plants liking. I’m wondering if your plants are suffering from too much care, overloading with high nutrient organic matter and other nutrient input.
I’ve noticed over decades if i tinker too close or put organic matter near many of our Proteaceous species in our garden, they fail, they simply have evolved this great mechanism to extract all they need from what’s underneath them. The roots exude citrate type chemicals that dissolve even the tiniest amounts of organic matter/nutrient for absorptive uptake.
Humans are often guilty of treating plants soil health with kid gloves.
Across the continent in SW, West. Australia, loads of Proteaceous plants are growing in pure white or light grey sands, ( sand grains away from the shoreline have an invisible coating of organic matter thus we have all seen water repellent soils, well thats the waxy organic coating) very windy locales with extremely hot Summer weather and little rainfall. Thriving as good as ever.AW.

Cheers GreenJam I'll search it out.

This is about the rarest tree in Aus and it was my mate, a bush regenerator who was responsible for propagating it in a few sites- all top secret and fenced off.
I've been there and seen the original tree.

https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/threatenedspeciesapp/profile.aspx?id=...

Great work freeride. More power to you and your mate.

thanks Alfred, very good points, and I'm with you in that you've got to be cautious with the Proteaceae. And I do try to be - not applying any chemical fertilisers or anything high in phosphorus. They've possibly had a bit too much nitrogen, but again I am cautious, mainly just keeping it simple with straw, grass clippings, tree prunings, aged manures. And the microbes that I mentioned. I hope to eventually go full biodynamic and get those preparations going and applied all over the property. I hope they might strengthen tree resilience to pests and disease...

re the hole digging for root checking - I havent done myself, but often the echidnas or bandicoots I suspect dig some decent holes around the trees and the fine root system you note is very evident. It tells me the roots are quite healthy, they seem to migrate upwards and consume all that 'compost layering' material I spread around the trunks.

anyway, it will always be a learning curve trying to optimise tree growth, health and yields. I'm starting to also talk to other local organic macca growers (there arent that many) and formulating an annual maintenance regime

thanks for your feedback

that's great to hear about the coastal Fontainea work Freeride - I hope it is succeeding.

I have a friend and other colleagues that research other Fontainea species, also endangered, including some work to isolate compounds for medical/pharmaceutical applications. It is an interesting genus of plants.

and the other impressive area of littoral rainforest that you are no doubt aware of is at Iluka, World Heritage that area. Good to wander through and observe for insights into reveg work. Are there still emus there?

Not sure about Iluka, I know there is a population of coastal Emus around Brooms Head.

I love that rainforest at Iluka.

This rain probably spells the end of my tomato dreams.
Been trying for years to get a decent crop and always get beaten by bugs or disease.

150mm of rain over the weekend will likely turn the fruit to mush.

I'd factored in a harvest by mid-late Oct before La Niña summer moisture signal set in.

Beaten by early onset low pressure.

Feels like it's gonna be a similar predicament here, though a touch later.

Nothing has grown well the last two years, even the old faithfuls have struggled through high rainfall and low sunlight. About a month ago I'd gotten two vege beds ready - I usually have seelings in early October - however this latest deluge has put paid to that.

Not sure how I'm gonna play it; just stick em in and hope for the best, or maybe experiment with leafier vegetables that would usually do better in winter.

freeride76 wrote:

There's a Noisy Pitta living in the tuckeroo stand on the ridge.

He calls once, just on sunset, and then once, just before dawn.

They are a very beautiful bird with a great call sometimes described phonetically as “Walk to work”. First one I ever saw was walking across the Mt Warning track, lighting up the gloom.
Is yours present all year FreeRide? The ones on the coast here are generally winter visitors, then head back up into the hinterland for summer.

Just a winter visitor Distracted, although he stayed right through until mid October this year.

Normally hear him from May-Sep.

Haven't seen this one, but when I lived at Broken Head used to see one scratching around in the leaf litter.

They are incredibly beautiful.

freeride76 wrote:

This rain probably spells the end of my tomato dreams.
Been trying for years to get a decent crop and always get beaten by bugs or disease.

150mm of rain over the weekend will likely turn the fruit to mush.

I'd factored in a harvest by mid-late Oct before La Niña summer moisture signal set in.

Beaten by early onset low pressure.

Freeride, i've had great crops the last couple of years growing in pots with top quality well drained soil in full sun.

Elevate them off the ground. Im looking at my veg garden now and everything is powering along (tomatoes, capsicum, eggplant, strawberries and a variety of chilli)

Grabbed a few Tommys before.

The big beefsteak varieties were fat, but already full of grubs.

Had a great crop of kale, lettuce, rocket and peas with a more minor success with cauliflower and red cabbage.

Herbs are still going good in pots on the v-dah.

Despite the last two summer crops falling prey to excess water and low sunlight, I planted my seeds and seedlings in mid-October despite la Nina still kicking by way of excess water and low sunlight.

Got surprised by the sudden change in weather and the days (weeks) of dry wind and full sunlight have been a boon. Everything's established.

Got zucchinis (the first flowers came through today), capsicum, toms, melons water and rock, lots of cucumbers to climb and spread, and a few types of chillis - including Carolina Reapers.

To cool down I'm also growing Rosella, which I haven't done for a few years, but I like the look and taste of. Just hoping we don't suddenly revert back to classic little girl weather,

Garlic of all shapes and sizes. I pulled it a bit early as some were starting to rot from all the rain we had during the second half of last year.