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| The citrus trees in the small Ecobeds have just been given a mid season feed. They were both sprayed with aerated compost tea to control pests and foliar feed them, and then the soil was top dressed with 60mm of homemade compost. They should be OK till next spring, but they will get a foliar feed once a month when all my edibles are sprayed. Both trees were potted up into these new beds in late winter this year, and the dwarf Mayer lemon (at the back) has recovered well after looking very sad earlier in the season. It had been repotted twice in the last 2 seasons, and was nearly drowned last year when the primitive overflow system I was using, failed in heavy rain. The new system has been working faultlessly on one of my Ecobeds for 30 months, and I now have it installed in all of them. |
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| Although Whitefly have been a nuisance this year (slowly sucking the goodness out of my peach tree's leaves), I expect to get a bumper harvest from my 3 year old tree. Soon after taking this photo, I covered it with netting to keep the birds out. Thank goodness we don't have possums in our garden. They are always keen to add fruit to their diet, and in some Melbourne suburbs they are significant pests and ingenious fruit thieves. |
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| Winter/Spring legumes were harvested some time ago, and after careful soil preparation its time for Climbing beans, Butternut pumpkin and Lebanese cucumbers. I cant wait to harvest them later this summer. The relocatable climbing frames are working well, but I wonder whether they will bear the weight of the pumpkins when they mature. The netting is molded plastic, and may soften and fail in our hot summer sun. I think the bean's climbing frame will be OK though. If any of the nets fail, I will have to replace them with galvanised steel aviary netting. I may get away with it by tying the mature pumpkins to the top rail to carry their weight. Meanwhile I will increase the ties to the top rails to help distribute the load. |
