Weekend gardening jobs, Weekend 2nd & 3rd November 2019

The title of this post is actually somewhat misleading: I have been going out to the garden every morning for an hour or so, even on weekdays. I made the decision to do this after I spent half an hour in bed trying to convince myself to get on the treadmill. I realised I could have spent that half an hour happily in the garden getting some exercise. With that thought, I jumped out of bed, and did spend an hour happily in the garden getting some exercise. Turns out, gardening is what I want to be doing. Walking to nowhere while watching the morning news is my idea of hell.

Garden experimentation

I have been planting tomatoes, eggplant, and squash, and prepping the zucchini I have been raising from seed for the garden. Usually, I sow zucchini seed directly where I want them to grow, but this year I still had snow peas and brassicas in the garden. To give myself a head start, I started raising zucchini seedlings. I don’t know if this will work out better, but I figure it is worth the experiment. I raised a mix of different zucchini seeds I already had: golden, striped, pale green, dark green (can you tell zucchini is my favourite vegetable?). Unfortunately I was in a bit of a rush, and I didn’t label any of them, so it will be a pleasant surprise to see what I have when they finally start producing. This was about a month ago, so this week I potted them on into larger pots to help them develop a stronger root system before I plant them in the ground. I already have the mounds ready for them to go in.

I was taught by some Italian gardeners I once gardened with at a community garden to plant zucchini, squash and pumpkins in raised mounds so that they are more protected from water droplets and powdery mildew, the curse of zucchini plants. I think this might be generally true, except that the gardeners I learned this from almost twenty years ago were not grappling with the extremes of climate change. I have observed over the past couple of weeks that the ruffled squash plants I have already planted in mounds are not progressing as well as the tomatoes and eggplant I planted in deep troughs at the same time. The soil around the squash plants is extremely dry. This appears to be because the water collects in the troughs and is retained by the plant roots, whereas the water in the mounds is not retained by the squash plants (in fact, the tomatoes get most of it as the water runs off). I am considering replanting most of the squash in troughs, and leaving one on a mound as an experiment. I will plant the rest of the zucchini in troughs as well, and see at the end of the season which of the squash and zucchini fell prey to powdery mildew. Obviously, mulching will help offset some of the moisture loss, but this will be the case for however I plant them.

Speaking of mulching, this is my next big task. I am again experimenting with different mulches. I am trying to reduce the plastic waste created from gardening. While generally, gardening is a sustainable hobby, it still generates quite a lot of plastic waste that I am uncomfortable with. I can offset it by reusing plastic pots and creating tags out of old milk jugs, etc, but one of the main offenders is bags used to hold mulches and manures. I have been experimenting with coir as a potting medium and mulch, because it comes in a compressed block that is reconstituted with water. Because it is compressed, it is smaller, and is wrapped in less plastic.

Coir mulch is quite chunky. I have found it very good for mulching pots, but it is not a patch on sugar cane mulch for the general garden. I may have to go back to sugar cane for the garden, and go to coir for pots only. Both sugar cane and coir are agricultural waste products, so are a sustainable product compared to other mulches.

Tomato plant in a concrete pot, mulched with coir

I am also experimenting with different staking methods for tomatoes. I have built a trellis for some tomatoes, using 2 metre stakes and wires. The tomatoes will be able to use the trellis for support, and I will also grow Scarlet Runner beans in between each tomato plant. For the rest of the tomatoes, I am using the traditional single stake and tie method.

Pie Corner

The left hand corner of the garden, near the collapsed water tank (that is another job for the future), has been dubbed Pie Corner, because everything in it can be used to bake a delicious pie: strawberries, boysenberries, rhubarb, apples, and raspberries. We were so excited this week to discover a bumper crop of boysenberries developing.

Last season I built a better trellis than the dodgy job I had strung up last year, and I pruned the boysenberry plants and trained them up in a fan style. The vines looked pretty sad for most of the Winter and Spring months until suddenly they burst into new growth and flowers! Truthfully, I doubt very much there will be any berries left for a pie. I think we will be eating them all fresh with cream. Boysenberries are really delicious, and you can’t easily buy them in shops because they are so delicate – they don’t transport or keep well, making them a bit of a poor bet for supermarkets. For farmers they are probably not much fun either. They are spiny buggers, not much fun to pick or prune. I have damaged myself on more than one occasion.

We also have our first ever crop of mulberries developing, and a real crop of apricots coming on. Last year we managed a respectable 30 or so apricots, but this year the tree is laden. If we can beat the birds to both, I envision some mulberry jam and apricot pie in our future (apricot pie beats apple pie any day of the week, in my opinion).

In Winter, I gave all the fruit trees a blanket feed of aged sheep manure to slowly feed the tree and to keep the roots warm. The eighty bucks spent on sheep manure has been some of the best money I have spent. It is still breaking down (I can still see it on the top of the soil under each tree), and the trees look magnificent and are fruiting prolifically for the first time since we planted them four years ago.

Free Garden Goodies

On Sunday, we went to the Uraidla Show. Uraidla is a country town about 40 minutes drive from our place. The Show was fantastic – everything you want a Country Show to be (baking and flower arranging competitions, show chooks, hot donuts, sustainability fair, etc). For me the highlight was a stall run by local gardeners who were giving away free produce, seeds, and worm wee fertiliser. I picked out Teddy Bear Sunflower seeds, Lunar White carrot seeds, and Aquilegia (also known as Columbines, or Granny’s Bonnet) seeds. I also received a one litre bottle of worm wee fertiliser, aka liquid gold. This was truly the highlight of the event for me. My husband thought it was some new variety of kombucha and nearly drank it. Although that would have been hysterical, thankfully he did not do that, because I want that for my garden (check my priorities). I don’t keep worms, except in my compost bin, because it gets too hot in the Summer here, and they will die (in the compost bin, they can easily burrow down to the cooler soil if they want). Thanks to the bounty of generous gardeners, I can still feed it to my plants without having to keep worms myself.

My friends and family are surely heartily tired of hearing me boast about the worm wee already.

Gardeners be crazy, y’all.

The wall

The wall continueth. By this point, it’s not just a wall building project. It’s a Wagnerian song cycle.

Top 10 Most Useful Gardening Tools

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a list of my least most useful gardening tools and gadgets, gleaned from my gardening purchases over the years.

But never fear! It has not all been tales of wasted cash and broken dreams. There have been some purchases that not only did what they promised on the packet, but exceeded my expectations. Here’s my top 10:

10. The trowel. Cost: about $15. This trowel is already going on about four years, and has yet to show a speck of rust or any signs of weakness in the handle. This, after my last trowel bought the biscuit when the handle snapped off where it joined the metal head. We still use it to shovel bits of potting mix and gravel, but it really is a sad looking thing. Meanwhile, the $15 trowel keeps on putting the hard yards every weekend.

9. A single plastic chopstick. Price unknown. You can purchase fancy seed dibbers and other tools to prick out seedlings, but honestly nothing beats a chopstick for this job. My handy chopstick has been used for years and is still a lovely shiny red. And if I ran it through the dishwasher I am sure I could still eat my sushi with it.

I, er, won’t though.

8. The spade. Cost: about $15 many years ago. Our spade looks a sorry sight. The plastic handle fell off many years ago, so it does look quite dodge. I have considered replacing it with a fancy schmancy new spade, but the fact is that this spade is a workhorse that is still nice and comfortable to use. The wooden shaft shows no sign of breaking, and the head is still strong. It’s also not too heavy, which is important for me – I’m not a big person and I have problems with my wrists and hands. Heavy tools are difficult for me to manage. I’ll keep this one, minus the handle, for as long as I can.

7. Shovel. Cost: $20. When once receives a gift card for the Big Green Shed, you can buy plants, or you can make an investment in a tool. We did not have a shovel, most necessary of tools for the shoveling of compost. A spade just doesn’t do the job – it’s too shallow. A shovel allows for the collection of a nice full load. Anyway, I looked at what was available, and I think this one was the best deal for the price.

6. Hedge Trimmers. Can’t recall the price because we have owned them as long as I can remember. This shows what a good set of tools they are. I do not recall ever sharpening them or paying them much attention either way – we just use them and toss them back in the shed. Bit rude, really. But they just keep on going, used for trimming vines, lavender plants, herbs, and whatever else around here needs a good chop. I used them last weekend in fact. And then I tossed them back in the shed.

5. Rosette sprinkler. Cost: $3. These were once considered akin to a tool of Satan, but nowadays you can get lo-flo versions that do not waste water like the old versions. Also in a garden like mine, I like to be able to direct water to certain sections for a single deep soaking once a week in the Summer, instead of small amounts of water daily. We have found this to be an efficient way of irrigating a very large garden in the absence of an irrigation system (on the very long to-do list).

4. Secateurs. Cost: $39.99 about 15 years ago. Why do I remember the price so vividly? Because at that time I was pretty darn broke, and $39.99 was a lot of money for a tool. But – 100% worth it. I use that same set of secateurs every single weekend. My husband sharpens them now and then, and I give them a little clean with metho between jobs (when I remember – honestly, I’m not meticulous with it). That’s as much care as they get. For an amortized cost of $2.66 AUD so far, I think I got my money’s worth.

3. Wheelbarrow. Cost: $109. We only recently upgraded our wheelbarrow. The house we live in now came with a wheelbarrow (how convenient!), but the poor old gal has been getting progressively decrepit over the years until finally she was only good for holding our firewood. In advance of the retaining wall project, we made an investment in a new wheelbarrow.

Jeezum crow, those things are expensive! $109 was the cheapest we could find for a steel wheelbarrow. When I die, just load me up on that thing to send me to Valhalla. It’s almost the most expensive vehicle I own.

2. Garden Fork. Cost: $54. Yep, I forked out $54 for a garden fork, and I don’t regret it. It’s a smallish sized fork with a lovely comfortable wooden handle, purchased from the Digger’s Club for my birthday two years ago. It’s almost my most used garden tool, and with its small size and light weight, it is perfect for my use. When you load me on my wheelbarrow to Valhalla, the garden fork will be by my side for my trip to the after life.

And the number one most useful garden tool I currently own: Ho-Mi. Cost: $21. The Ho-Mi is a Asian garden cultivator with a wooden handle and a pointed head that is deadly sharp. Much of our weekend garden conversation relates to the Ho-Mi: “Where did you put the Ho-Mi!” “Watch out for the Ho-Mi!” “Hell, why’d you leave it right there!” etc – you catch my drift. The sharp tip is perfect for hand weeding, cutting furrows for planting, digging a quick hole to plant a seedling, or for getting into paving cracks to remove annoying moss or little weeds. We love the Ho-Mi. We bought ours from the Diggers Club, but you can probably buy them elsewhere. I’ll always have one in my shed, for gardening and self-defence.

Honourable mentions:

Kneel-os (cost to me, free. Actual cost, about $30). These strap on doo-hickeys tie onto your knees and make kneeling in the garden to weed and plant much more comfortable and less messy. I got these free for renewing my membership to the Digger’s Club this year. Would I buy a pair? Now that I know how comfy and useful they are, yes. But I’m pretty chuffed I didn’t have to.
Sloggers garden clogs. I long coveted a pair of these admittedly expensive gardening shoes ($54!). Finally I broke down and bought a pair, and I have to say, I do love them and wear them all the time. A slight issue with them is that they can flick general garden crud into your feet. However, generally they are comfortable and easy to kick on and off when heading in and out of your house to make the necessary cups of tea while gardening.
Cultivator and hoe (about $10 each). These are VITs (Very Important Tools) for weeding horrid oxalis and other annoying little weeds. However, they have been somewhat superseded by the Ho-Mi.

Gardening jobs, Weekend 22 & 23 June 2019

What an age we live in…when you can order sheep poo online, and it comes straight to your door.

I can find all the free horse poo I want, thanks to several riding clubs in my area, but at this time of year it takes a long time to compost. You shouldn’t generally use horse manure without composting it first, unless you want a lot of new weedy visitors to your garden. I will get some of the free poo to add to my compost bins, where it will take a few months to break down in time for Spring.

Sheep poo is the best manure for fruit trees, but it is not that easy to find in my neck of suburbia. You can buy it from some garden supply places, but I have found that it tends to be a “blend” (blended with compost or soil) rather than a pure product. I ended up finding it through a local company online, for just slightly more than the blended brands, and delivered to my house for free.

Sheep manure is good for trees because it helps to build strong root systems. For dormant fruit trees in Winter (think stone fruits, pomes, and mulberries), a nice cover of sheep poo over the roots acts like a warm blanket and feeds the tree until it wakes up in Spring.

Look at my happy mulberry tree. Doesn’t she look nice and cozy?

Why yes, I am slightly batty, thank you for asking.

Pointless garden tools and gadgets

If you’re a gardener or a cook, you most probably love a tool or a gadget. I can spend a long time at a kitchenware store staring at baking gear, or in a garden shop just looking at gardening tools. Many is the time I have convinced myself I must have a certain tool or gadget, only to find it is either useless (hello, fertiliser spreader) or I just don’t get the use out of it I thought I would (hi there, newspaper pot maker). I have learned over time to just cool my jets and consider whether:

I really need it;
It will really do what it says it will do on the box (I’m looking at you again, fertiliser spreader);
It’s worth the cash I am about to part with; and
I have something else that could do some or most of the job of the coveted new tool. I have to remind myself that buying something is the least sustainable option and does add to future landfill.

Here is a list of truly useless items I have purchased, in no particular order:

A fertiliser spreader, $14.99. This thing is supposed to make spreading fertiliser like blood and bone easier by evenly distributing the fertiliser via a nifty handle that you turn. I thought that for a person like myself that has bursitis and carpal tunnel syndrome, this would be easier on my hands and wrists. Epic fail, my friends. The handle is stiff and really hard to turn, and the fertiliser gets stuck in the funnel very frequently. It does not ‘spread’ the fertiliser, but rather dumps it in a clump. Frankly, I have the skills to do that myself without paying $14.99 for the privilege. The fertiliser spreader is now a glorified bucket. I fill it with fertiliser and shake it around. I could have bought a bucket for a dollar, or I could use one of the many recycled pots I have in my garden shed, which is what I was doing to spread fertiliser around my garden before I was suckered into this con.
Seedling pot maker, $34.99. That’s right, gentle readers, I paid $34.99 for a tool that would supposedly save me money on pots. Let me tell you that in my shed currently, I already have about 100 pots that I paid not a single cent for. And yet, for some reason I still thought it was a great idea to pay the equivalent of the hourly rate of a mid-level public servant for a tool that I used about three times. So those little newspaper pots cost me about twelve bucks each. Good deal.
Jiffy pellets, $5 for 12. Jiffy pellets are tiny compressed pellets of coir, that you soak and then plant a seed in. Each pellet costs 41 cents, depending on when you buy them. A coir brick that reconstitutes to ten times its volume costs about $2. For that you will be able to plant probably fifty times the number of seeds. I spent maybe $20 on jiffy pellets before I learned to do simple arithmetic.
El cheapo gardening gloves, $2 a pair. El cheapo gardening gloves are the worst. They never fit properly, the water soaks into them, and they fall apart quickly. I have thrown out more pairs of these darn things than I care to count, until I wised up and realised that instead of six pairs of crappy gloves, I could buy one pair of good gloves, and have them last a very long time.
El cheapo tools, $2-$5. Ditto cheap trowels and cultivators. Cheap trowels inevitably rust, handles break, and the tools lose their edge.
Underground Worm Farm, $15. I wanted worms for my garden, but I wasn’t sure I could commit to a full worm farm. So I went halfway, partly committed, and ended up in an “it’s complicated” status with the underground worm farm: a plastic structure that you dig into the ground, and dump worms in. This from a woman who spends a great deal of gardening time digging plastic out of her garden. Then you feed the worms and they will supposedly create their lovely castings that you then dig out. Wellllll…..every other critter in the ground decided they liked apartment living with daily breakfast, and moved on in. The worms moved on out, which they could do very easily because the underground worm farm is in the ground, and my worm farm is now home to slugs, slaters, and every other creepy crawly under the earth. Except worms. Happily, I have found many of them living in my compost bin, where they seem very content. The farm-o-slugs remains in the ground, because I really buried that sucker in there.

I am sure there are many other things that I have wasted my cash on over the years, but these are just a few of the items I can recall. Next time I will post a top ten of the most useful, value for money tools that I believe every gardener should keep in their shed.

Reducing plastic in the garden

I’ve whinged about this multiple times, but I’m doing it again: weed matting in the garden does nothing. The people that landscaped our garden originally laid black plastic and weed matting before laying topsoil, and I’ve been either hitting the tough weed matting when trying to dig a hole, or pulling out chunks of black plastic ever since we bought this place and started building our garden.

Meanwhile, the weeds continue on their merry way.

Look at this bloody nuisance:

Pointless black plastic ruining my garden

I pull this junk out of my soil every time I try to plant anything. Not only does it achieve nothing at all, it pollutes the soil, and will be stuck on the planet for thousands of years.

If you are planning a new garden, I beg of you: do not lay this stuff. You will not have fewer weeds by laying weed mat. Most weeds are opportunistic, shallow rooted freeloaders. Their seeds float along in the wind or are spread by birds, and will root very easily in your topsoil. They do not care at all about a layer of weed matting.

In general, gardening can create quite a bit of plastic waste. Here are some ways to make it more sustainable and reduce single use and other plastics.

1. Consider packaging. Many common garden products come in plastic. For example, potting mix, manures, and fertilisers are all packaged in big plastic bags. I have recently switched from traditional potting and seed raising mix to coir bricks, which come in 9 and 15 litre compressed bricks in mulch, seed raising, and potting mix varieties. These are cheaper and much smaller in size (less than a tenth of the size) than potting mix bags, but when reconstituted in water, expand to similar volume as a 25 litre potting mix bag. Although they are still wrapped in plastic, it is a thinner clear plastic rather than the heavy thick plastic of the traditional products. Coir is also a sustainable product, as it is a by-product of coconut production. The plants are just as happy growing in coir as in potting mix, and I’m happier knowing I have created far less waste.

2. Plant seeds instead of seedlings. I try to raise seeds as often as possible, partly because it’s fun, but also because a paper packet of seeds has a lower carbon footprint than a plastic punnet of seedlings. I reuse my seedling trays over and over, whereas most punnets are single use only, as black plastic can’t be recycled. A single packet of seeds has potentially a thousand plants, while a punnet typically has four or six plants. Therefore a packet of seeds makes more sense financially, as well as environmentally.

3. Reuse as much as possible. If I do buy seedlings, I reuse the seedling punnets for my own seedlings. I reuse all plastic pots. I cut up old milk bottles to make seed labels. I use old stockings and tights to tie up plants. To transport seedlings to friends, I use old pots or even recycled yoghurt containers. I save seeds in recycled jars.

4. Recycle wherever you can. While chemicals should not be thrown in recycling or the bin for obvious reasons, well washed containers can be (for example, seaweed extract bottles or other non-toxic products).

Gardening in extreme conditions

The temperature in our State hit record highs in the lead up to Christmas. Across the country, bushfires have been raging, some of them for several months. While I personally like hot weather, and manage the hot weather well (acknowledging that I have the privilege of working indoors and have a roof over my head), of course all gardens and wildlife across the State struggled. A State of Emergency has been declared in one state, while as I write this, we are waiting for a severe storm here after several days of plus-40 degree temperatures and high humidity.

I thought it would be worth writing about how those of us that love to garden manage to do so in regions where the weather or terrain can be extreme.

The climate in our region is sometimes described as ‘mediterranean’ but it would be more accurate to describe it as ‘arid.’ The arrival of Europeans and other non-Aboriginal people to this region after colonisation has forced a different approach to land management, most of it not suited to the very dry conditions. While this year has been drier and hotter than usual, in most years we have a relatively dry Winter, with the highest average rainfall 71 mm in June. This year the rainfall was lower, with only 54.6mm falling in June.

Our Summers are extremely hot, with an average temperature of 29 degrees centigrade and very little rainfall. In late January, we can generally expect at least a week of temperatures in the high 30s or low 40s. In the past couple of years, this has changed. We had a week of mid-40s temperatures in December, and are experienced another late last year. It is likely that the rest of Summer will give us some periods of temperatures in the high 40s (it already has).

Our warm Springs and warm Autumn periods make our region perfect for growing a wide array of Summer vegetables and fruits, particularly tomatoes, zucchini, chillies, and eggplant. However, for the home gardener, the extreme Summer conditions and low rainfall can present some unique challenges.

Some gardeners I know are giving up altogether in regions with strict water restrictions and very low rainfall. In our region we have water restrictions, but they are not as strict: we can water with sprinklers before 10am and after 5pm. In many parts of Australia, there are level 2 water restrictions in place, allowing only use of a bucket or watering can at those times, or drip irrigation for 15 minutes. In weather of 40 degrees plus, this will not be enough to keep most vegetable gardens going.

Drought tolerant gardening

When we moved in here, the previous owners had tried to address the water issue by planting a mix of succulents (agaves and aloes), along with some ground covers and trees. Unfortunately, the trees they had planted were inappropriate for the block and the succulents they had planted, while drought tolerant, were planted too close to other plantings. Everything was crowded in together.

We removed everything and started again. We wanted a productive garden and a sensory garden, where everything could either be eaten or enjoyed by our children and niece and nephews as a sensory experience. We also wanted plantings that could act as a natural mulch or ground cover to protect the soil from the heat, and that did not require too much water once established.

Herbs are a great choice. Even some varieties of mint, which people think requires a lot of water, is drought tolerant once established. We have found spearmint and apple mint to be the most drought tolerant. We planted the following herbs and have found they require almost no water once established:

Greek oregano
Common thyme
Lemon thyme
Golden creeping thyme
Sage
Pineapple sage
Spearmint
Apple mint
Lemon balm (Melissa)
Garlic chives
Parsley (Curly and Continental)
Lavender (English, Italian, French)
Rosemary

These plants have self-seeded around the garden and created swathes of living mulch, protecting the soil from the baking sun. We rarely water these; they are watered by the rain and pick up some incidental water when we water the fruit trees and roses.

Roses are also quite drought tolerant. We have three climbing roses. One is admittedly struggling, but it is picking up. The others, planted at the same time, are happy and healthy and are watered about once a month in the Summer, and not at all the rest of the year. They seem quite happy.

Our front yard faces west and is on a hillside, which means that it receives full sun in the afternoon and evening. In Summer, this is very hot and bakes the garden. We have planted deciduous fruit trees that provide shade for the rest of the garden, and mulch the areas that are not ‘self-mulched’ by the ground cover herbs. The trees are now well-established and we water these about once a week in Summer and Autumn until the rains begin (this period is stretching out longer and longer, unfortunately). In Winter and Spring we don’t water the trees unless it is particularly dry. We have a mulberry, apricot, pomegranate, lemon, and passionfruit vine in the front.

Vegetables

Last year, we lost most of the vegetables to extreme heat, and gave up until Autumn. This is because I was busy with work until late December and did not plant until late. The plants were not strong enough to cope with a 47 degree day. This year, I knew I would likely be busy again in November/December (I was), so I established the garden earlier. I hardened off the tomatoes, capsicums, chillies, eggplants and zucchini seedlings in smaller pots outside so they would be tough as nuts before they went into the ground. This meant that they were well-acclimatised to the micro-climate of our garden. We water them, but not daily, so they receive a deep early soak on very hot days instead of daily short waterings. We fed everything with extra compost and pelletised chicken manure, and mulched the heck out of everything.

The vegetable plants sailed through the first lot of 40-plus days in December with no worries – in fact, they put on growth. We had another 40 degree day yesterday, and all the plants look happy.

Water

Our rainwater tank collapsed during a storm and we have not yet replaced it. It was one of those old galvo jobs, with no pump and about a 2 litre capacity. I think it knew it was useless and collapsed from the shame. It is on our list of things to replace this year, before Winter. As such, we are on mains water only to keep our garden alive. This makes gardening pretty expensive, so for environmental and cost reasons we have to consider our water usage carefully.

I think about the plants I choose to grow. If we had to give up some part of the garden to save the rest due to extreme drought conditions, it would be the vegetable garden, as much as it breaks my heart to say it. Vegetable gardening is the most fun but it is also the most water-dependent. Certain vegetables require more water, so they are not worth growing when water is expensive and scarce. If we had Level 2 water restrictions, I would not grow vegetables at all, except a few in pots, like chillies.

We water only during the water restriction times. We get up early to water or water late after the heat has reduced, to prevent evaporation, and we set a timer. We don’t water the ‘lawn’ (such as it is) ever. We don’t water everyday except in extreme heat. We mulch the soil with compost and sugarcane or pea straw to prevent water loss. We also mulch our pots.

Mulch

You cannot garden in Australia, particularly the arid areas, without mulching. Mulching prevents evaporation and soil erosion. Mulching is both an environmental and economic choice – it reduces the amount of water used in the garden, and saves your precious soil from blowing away.

I use a combination of homemade compost, well-rotted sheep manure, coir, and sugarcane to mulch the garden. I use sheep manure around the fruit trees, applied in a thick layer in Winter. Coir is used on pots and raised beds. The rest of the garden receives a mix of compost and sugarcane mulch. This is a continual process, as the mulch breaks down over time. Other people prefer pea or lucerne straw to sugarcane, but I like the loose texture of sugarcane, and the fact that it is utilising a waste product from sugarcane production. Some people use bark chips as a loose mulch, but our pest control specialist has told us that this could encourage termites, which is the last thing I need around my place (I don’t know if this is true or not, but I am not taking chances on that).