A Changing Landscape: The Lawn

I've been looking through my photo collection documenting progress on the house and garden and was struck by the evolution and changes over the last few years. We moved into the house in February 07 with all the major construction completed but a bit of the finishing still to be done, an ongoing process attended to as time and money permit.

 Landscaping at that stage had not really been started, apart from some rough shaping of the block, a small veggie patch and lots of plants in pots. Although there was no formal plan for the garden we did have an idea of what was needed. The garden had to be water-wise first and foremost, provide a climate for the house, a habitat for the birds and bees and other creepy-crawlies, a bit of stuff for us to eat and look nice enough to keep us on-side with the tidy- town folk.

I have lots of pic's of the progress on the house and garden, way too many for one post so I thought I would start with the lawn.

Since we don't have a lot of spare water to throw round and I'm not to keen on pushing a lawn mower or spending the money on fuel we only have a small one (about 60sq metres). Small it may be but it is particularly nice as lawns go. ;-)

I'm proud of my lawn, but it did take some work, lot's of digging. The soil we have on our block is mostly clay, hard as rock when it's dry and sticky as toffee when wet. To get a workable soil I scrounged around the neighbourhood collecting leaves and lawn clippings from anyone who had some spare. This was all dug in along with trailer loads of horse manure from the local stables. I dug and rotary hoed that patch about five times before I was happy with it. The first attempt at a lawn was a native grass that I thought would be drought tolerant and hardy but it became infested with couch and ended up a total failure. So it got rounded up and dug over again, more horse poo and a mulch crop to finish it off.

After a bit of research I settled on buffalo as a good prospect for our area and purchased a few rolls of turf from a local supplier. This was chopped into small squares and planted out willie nilly over the levelled area, anyone who asked about the planting system was told I was setting up for lawn chess.

So far it has been a total success, thick enough to suppress any weed growth it requires virtually no more water than it gets from the rain we get from time to time over the summer. I try to time my mowing runs to just before we get a rain event and always use a high setting so it' stays around 75mm deep all the time. Worked like that it retains good moisture at it's base and is soft and cool to walk on. Any visiting kids love it and spend ages laying and rolling around on it.

It goes dormant in the winter and requires no mowing until spring. That's when I give it a good scalping and hit it with a bit of dynamic lifter, work it over with a fork for aeration so it's good to go for the summer. Although I'm not a great fan of lawns I am happy enough with this one and the neighbors are impressed enough to keep requesting the runners I cut off from the garden edges.

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Blogging has resumed

Well here we are, 2 o’clock in the morning and I can't sleep, so I thought I would have a go at a blog update. It's windy and raining outside so it looking like another miserable inside day for us today. There has been stuff happening since my last update, it's just that I've not been able to get motivated enough to write it up. Maybe it's the weird winter we have had this year that’s having a down in the dumps effect on us. There has been plenty of rain by the standards of last few years and everything is damp, damp, damp. This is due mainly to the lack of sunshine rather than the amount of rain. It's been unusually overcast this winter and as a result the garden has just been marking time, although, the last week has seen us with a bit of sunny weather that has perked everything up, and most of the fruit trees have suddenly burst into bud.

Anyhow on with the show.
The pay it forward vids have gone to their new homes with Nevyn and Ramsey, I hope they find them enjoyable and enlightening. A great idea, so thanks to Molly for getting me on to it.
The bubble wrap has been reasonably successful and even though its hard to tell how much difference it's made to heat retention overall (the house is well insulated anyway) its definitely helped with a major condensation problem we had with our large windows. The bathroom has really benefited from the extra insulation, being completely unheated it totally relies on heat from elsewhere in the house to keep it warm. The bubble wrap has helped there for sure, all in all it has been worth the effort. I'm thinking now that because it doesn’t look to bad or effect our views to much I will leave it in place through the summer to see if it has any effect on the cooling of the house.

The shed is still without a roof, another weather problem I'm afraid. I haven't been game to put it on until the rainwater tank is in place in case I end up with a flood, and I haven't been able to get the tank in place because the ground is to wet to do the landscaping required where it will be situated. The shed has been a bit of a marathon working by myself, I've had to find ways of doing two and three man jobs solo. I have a good neighbor who's been keen to help but since he is a mobile accident area I have tried to keep him away from anything sharp, heavy or high. Still he is handy for passing stuff to me when I'm up a ladder. The roller door was I major job to get in place solo but I managed that by walking it up a couple of planks bit by bit.  The decision to put eaves on the shed meant a bit of extra work but the appearance of the building has been improved I think, so worth the effort in my book.

The rain overnight filled the swales and attracted this visitor, it's a Buff-banded Rail, although common to this area of NSW it's the first we have seen in the garden.
With all the moisture in the soil it's looking like we will have a good spring this year.  In the garden we have broad beans ready to produce and the tomato plants I nursed through the winter are ready to start giving us some early tomatoes. Silver beet, swedes, cabbage and cauliflower are all powering on and we have pea bushes in flower. Garlic, onion and leeks are doing great and I've got some new beds ready for corn and more tomato plants.

The sharp eyed  will have noticed that although its says 2 am at the top I didn't actually post until midday. That because I'm a slow writer and it takes me a while to knock stuff into shape, and I did have to have a nanny nap about halfway.;-)

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Stuff's happening but the blogger's been slack

Despite the winter chill things are moving along out here in the boonies, the gardens doing well with the bit of rain we had and the shed is nearing completion despite it. The frame is up and wind braced ready for the cladding, which should be done in the next week or so. I have made a few alterations to the standard plan so we are waiting for the extra materials to turn up. I have put a few extra roof girts in to take the weight of the solar panels I intend putting up there. I have also extended the eaves a bit rather than cut off at the wall, the standard with these sheds. I want to be sure there will be no water getting into the building.

In the garden we have broad-beans powering along, winter lettuce, cabbage, and Bok Choy. I've planted garlic, onion, peas, leek, and swede. A bug excluder has been constructed to keep the white butterfly from destroying my cauliflower and so far we're winning there.

The Laurence/Jones mansion has been bubble wrapped, we've taken a leaf out of Margo and Jerry's book and installed bubble glazing.

Simple, cheap and effective, well worth the effort, it has made a noticeable difference to the warmth retained over night. The bathroom especially has benefited, it's nice in there now and since I still wear the same PJ's I was born with (they're a bit threadbare now) the early morning dash is not such a chore (I'm happy with that). ;-)

Not totally kosher I know, we did buy a roll of the bubble wrap but will share it with any of our neighbors interested in installing it. We have used double sided tape to stick it to the glass, this allows a full seal and no problem with condensation getting between the glass and the bubble. We have covered all of the solid panes apart from one set of sliders that provide our main view and the Louvre windows in the bedrooms and office. I will make up some removable panels for the louvers as time permits, the main view window we can live with as is. More information on bubble glazing is available here

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Shed update

Finally, six weeks late we have our shed kit on site.

After suffering weeks of BS from the agent I finally lost patience and rang head office a couple of times. The second of those calls produced the desired result. The agent rang yesterday with a tale of woe that went on for about ten minutes and almost had me on the floor splitting my sides with laughter. Anyway, the upshot was that the shed was to arrive on site crack of dawn today, and, I was to get one of his men to help with construction free of charge.
Crack of dawn turned out to be after lunch (mid afternoon actually) and the offer of free help was turned down because I really don't want any more dealings with this guy, enough is enough.

My fearless leader is looking brighter now that the new sewing room is in sight and come Monday morning we will be cracking on. I think we should be able to handle it ourselves.

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Back in harness

I'm back! Blue-eyed and bushy tailed. The last few weeks have been full-on for sure. First off, I spent a couple of weeks digging footings and prepping the slab for my workshop, finishing up with a twelve cubic meter concrete pour. Turns out that that was just a bit to much for an old bloke who's way over weight. I blew a gasket and ended up with a 3 hour ambulance ride and a week checking out the hospitals and the ICU unit in Albury and Wodonga.

Anyway things are looking up again and I'm back in harness, but on light duties for a few weeks. Still we have a sewing room floor and the shed should be on site and under way in the next few weeks.

While I have been out of circulation the garden has managed wonderfully well by itself and is producing an abundance of fresh veg. The second lot of corn produced well and we got a few meals off that. We have beans by the truck load, capsicum and pumpkin on the vine. The rain that held things up on the shed worked wonders for the garden.

Broad-beans are leaping out of the ground and the mixed seeds I threw out on a bare patch have fired up. I have now got a heap of curly leaf spinach and beetroot seedlings ready to go. The spring onions are ready for thinning and lettuce will need the same in a week or so. Right now things are getting back to normal and it's all good out here in the long paddock.

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Cruising the blogs

I've been cruising the blogs again and getting a bit depressed looking at all the great produce everyone seems to be getting. Out here the harvest has been pitiful to say the least. Below is the tomato haul for the week, barely enough for a sandwich. But at least we have had a few. My neighbour though, has ripped his plants out in disgust and he's a gardener that could give Peter Cundall a run for his money.

This time of year four years ago we where swimming in tomatoes, we had tomatoes for drying, sauces and bottling. We had tomato's coming out our ears.

OK, that's the whinge out of the way now on to the good stuff. We had truckloads of rain late last week, around 65mm in fact. As well as giving us a heap of catheads it perked the garden up no end and, it looks like we will get a bit more before this week's done. The last couple of days have been pretty steamy, downright tropical in fact. And just like the tropics, today around noon the cumulus started building, so with a bit of luck we will get a bit of a storm that will wet us down again.

 

In other news from the boonies the washing machine is back in action after a couple of weeks resting up. It started making quite a bit of racket, and initial thoughts where it was bad news, it's long out of warranty and a three hour round trip to the nearest repairer. On closer inspection it turned out to be the pump, no big deal at all really, a job I could tackle myself. Our machine is a Fisher & Paykel, Smart Drive GW612 and the pump is a simple bayonet mount unit. The pump and other parts for most machines on the market are here if anyone is looking for them. I ordered my pump from here and received reasonably good service.

If anyone needs to tackle this job it is fairly straightforward. The procedure is as follows. First disconnect the machine from the wall (very important, both power and water) and pull it out so that it can be tipped back or, lift it on to a couple of saw horses. You need to access the pump from underneath (the only practical way in). Disconnect the two wires from the pump, flip the retaining clip back and twist the unit so that it can drop free. Put the new pump in and connect the wires again, now you're good to go. The bayonet mount pump seems to be a standard unit in the Fisher & Paykel top loaders so this repair is a reasonably easy home job .

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Another scorcher

Ten in the morning and it's already past 35, one of my crazy neighbours is out mowing his lawn down to the dirt. Tonight it will be water everywhere trying to make it grow again, some people just can't get their head around drought. Anyway, as it's forecast to reach 43 today I made an early start, (4.30am) I've finished all my outside chores and have retired to the computer to get on with a bit of blogging. Since it is going to be another hot one I thought today's blog may as well be about our keeping cool strategy.

When I designed the house it was passive solar all the way, but of course for us passive solar is as much about cooling as keeping warm, it's quite a mild winter climate out here. We have a wide verandah around three sides of the house that keeps the sun off the windows for most of the day. To the east my neighbour has some decent trees that keep the summer morning sun from frying us and I have supplemented that with a shade cloth awning. On the western side there's a grape trellis, a carport and now a pergola. To the south I have a shade garden that supplies cool air into the house through louvre windows. House pages here and here, you may also notice that I weakened and put in aircon, but, hey I'm a senior citizen now and I melt in high temperatures.

The house is fully insulated, walls, roof and under floor so it maintains temperature quite well. At night we open the place up to the cooler night air. In the morning as soon as the temp starts rising it's batten down the hatches. Most hot days we can get away without turning the cooler on until late in the day. Some days though, like the last few and when the nights are hot that baby gets cranked up early I can tell you. The system we run is evaporative, not too hard on power but it can get through a bit of water, so we like to use it as little as possible. It's a bit of a dilemma though, water shortages and evaporative systems, but we do manage to keep our water use under 250 litres a day average for the year. Next year I hope to have it running on tank water, we'll see how it goes.

One other trick we use is quilt insulation on the windows. My fearless leader is a keen quilter so she knocked up some that fit snug in the window frames (they're not snug in these pics because I needed light for the camera work). They work a treat hot or cold. I made up some permanent rod holders and they are simply hung as the need arises.

Working hours around here when it's hot are, early start 4 - 4.30 am, weeding or watering by the light of the moon or the street lights on the nature strip. Any other quiet work until 8 am then as much noise as possible until midday. Lunch, then a nanny nap until it cools down enough for the evening shift. In this neck of the woods it's Mediterranean lifestyle all the way.

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