April Monthly Meeting

Jackie & Doug greeted us with a nice warm fire on a cold & wet April day – thank you for such comfort before our hurried walks around your beautiful gardens in between showers of rain.

Our beautiful hosts, Jackie & Doug

Doug has made afirepit from old machinery, surrounded by garden seats, one of which is completely covered with thick lichen. Such a rustic garden corner and their garden of cosmos & roses is stunning.

Irene & Lloyd said they’ve had no zucchinis, squash or marrow due to flocks of birds attacking them (the veggies that is, not themselves). They have now netted their veggie garden from rosellas and the climbing beans are growing well. Jude &Wazza have produced some large pumpkins & huge zucchinis.

Liz-Ann stops to smell the roses

We welcomed Kevin and Margaret from Windellama, who said that their roses are finally beautiful after too much wind & hot sun nearly ruined them. They have had heaps of squash, zucchinis, a proliferation of beans and a bumper crop of figs.
They are hoping for a good crop of lemons with lots of them on the tree.
Katie’s family are still feasting on their crop of giant watermelons (one of which won at Tarago Show).

A bit of rain didn't dampen spirits

Caroline & John have just had to dig 200 large curl grubs out of a small trailer load of damp mulch (they fed them to the neighbour’s chooks) – almost more grubs than mulch. They’ve had heaps of beans, small green capsicums & huge zucchinis, but tomatoes have not been good this season.

Peter H said his main garden problem is that all of the many clumps of sparaxis bulbs in the backyard grass at home in the Blue Mountains have been dug out and eaten by what we believe are bandicoots – hard to believe our (very) old house is classified as being in a “wildlife corridor” between the highway at the front & the railway line at the back with a road between it and the bush.

Jack the horse

These pesky little critters have had to scurry across the road & the railway line to feast on the treasures in our backyard, leaving large holes and husks of bulbs everywhere. (Then to top it off, the very night we returned home a possum crashed through a skylight and we spent the rest of the night trying to get him out of the house!)

Now to Jackie & Doug – last month it was the Olympic athlete kangaroo jumping over their 6’ high fence and this month it’s Jack the Killer Horse. Jack was seen (from a distance) to kill a rabbit that was eating his feed – by holding it up in his mouth and shaking it up & down wildly. Jack put the now dead rabbit down when ordered to but then picked it up & repeated the shaking. Now as much as this does not sound too good, at least it was a faster death than baiting.

Jackie & Doug also have problems with magpies destroying their lawn – the maggies are creating large holes digging it up searching for curl grubs.

Hmmm....

In another garden area Doug has made a firepit from old machinery (see photo) and put some garden benches around it – one completely covered in fuzzy lichen – very rustic. They have had lots of tomatoes with more green good sized ones still hanging in there under cover of the shadehouse.

Ni &Alan had a good crop of apples – they picked them before the birds realized, haha. Shirley said wombats are enjoying her grass and stripping her roses – she’s now put them in the greenhouse to recover. Even the tops of her not very tall ballerina apple have been eaten.

Peter S said that following their “world-wide success at the Tarago Show” with their tomatoes, they are now left with lots of odd shaped tomatoes, but they still taste OK. He’s had to dig out some trees to make way for their utilities room, which is essential towards the completion of their house. Irene suggested moving planting locations for tomatoes each year or change the soil in pots, to ensure tomato problems do not continue in the same location.

Some of us had been to the funeral of Tarago’s Marianne Ronayne the previous day and we remember her fondly. Caroline had dug out irises & salvias for us to share and Irene brought us ‘evergrowing’ onions & hollyhock bulbs. Thank you for your generosity and for sending us back out into the cold wet weather to plant them.

Our next meeting will be Tuesday 2 nd May at the National Arboretum in Canberra, Forest Drive off Tuggeranong Parkway, Weston (parking fees apply). We will meet there at 10am for morning tea before exploring and maybe bring a picnic lunch or buy lunch at the café. Our garden club is all about friendships and everyone is welcome to join us whenever you can.