dilly dalley doolittle gardening

Stormy. Evening light in the garden

More stormy nights in the garden. I think this storm was deeply pounding South Canberra at about the time we were trying to finish up gardening. We got a bit of rain in West Belconnen but nothing like the 35mls that hit Duffy.

To find my garden in this view...middle of the photo...yellow metal drum next to two black compost bins... wall of asparagus behind the bins...that's me. Well not actually me. I'm taking this photo by standing over on the perimeter of the community garden looking across the garden, towards the tree line. Not a very common view on this blog.

Ah, so ... is this looking more familiar? Asparagus, tomatoes, husband - no particular order. All lovely.

They are unclipping drippers from the watering system...

A friendly, neighbourly gardener asks would we like some basil....

Verdict? Yes. Thanks. Would she like some strawberries? Then we beat a hasty retreat before the sprinkles turned to a pounding.

 

Rainy days: November & December in Canberra

We've been having weeks of rain and strangely cold nights as well. Yesterday was stormy - again. I grabbed a moment between the three heavy bursts of rain to rush down to the garden and get some more December planting done.

Our rain gauge was nearly full - can you see the level just below the black plastic holder? It has been wet.

According to the BOM (Bureau of Meterology) Canberra in November 2011: Wet end to Spring

Rainfall

Canberra Airport recorded 116.4 mm of rainfall during November, well above the historical average of 64.4 mm. This was the 8th wettest November on record for Canberra, but not as wet as November 2010 (121.4 mm). The rain fell on 11 days (average 10 days), with the largest daily fall of 45.0 mm on the 26th, associated with the passage of a broad low pressure trough. Tuggeranong recorded 91.6 mm on this day, which is the highest daily total recorded during the month, with the wettest conditions in the southwest of the ACT. Mount Ginini recorded a monthly total of 258.0 mm, which is the highest November total at this site since it commenced observations in 2004. It is also the second highest monthly total of any month in its record (behind October 2010, 275.2 mm).

Yesterday's storm saw hail and flash flooding in Canberra. I gather it has also done some damage to the cherry crops out west. Ginninderra Creek is overflowing its banks again. There are flood warnings in the rivers of NSW. I wonder how much rain is still to come? Last summer was very wet up North.

Canberra event - Green Savvy Sunday - Old Bus Depot Markets - 9th October 2011

I gather from the promotional material sent to me, that this specialist day at the Old Bus Depot Markets is in its second year. I didn't get along to it last year and probably wont make it this year, though if I wasn't already busy I'd certainly consider getting along. If all goes to plan, we'll be doing overnight bushwalk number 4, with the children. If you've been following along here for a long, long time, you'd know we did the Bingi Dreaming track 2007, then Namadji 2009, then Wilson's Prom 2010 and now we're heading down to Eden to do the light-to-light walk. On this year's walk, we're aiming for five days, four nights. As I write this, its raining and grey and cold. Hmm. Let's hope it improves. We were very fortunate with weather in the past, but I know it doesn't always work out that way - nature having its own ideas about such things.

However, if you are in Canberra on the 9th of October 2011, this Green Savvy Sunday sounds like a pretty interesting event. There will be lots of shopping opportunities (obviously) and it sounds like lots of opportunities to gather facts about solar technology, rain water tanks, carbon tax, organic products, organic gardening. Staff from Government departments will be available to talk about green programs. And it sounds like there are some pretty interesting speakers. I've heard Richard Denniss speak a few times and he's always good value. He's going to speak on "why we need a carbon tax, why it wont destroy the economy and why the polluters are so afraid".

DIARY DATE:

What:              Green Savvy Sunday

Where:            Old Bus Depot Markets

When:             Sunday 9 October 2011

Time:               10am – 4pm

Cost:                FREE entry

Web:               www.obdm.com.au

From the promotional material sent to me...

For those keen on learning more about greening your life, the markets will feature an all day speakers program called Green Savvy Speakers. Keynote speaker, Dr Richard Denniss, Executive Director of the Australia Institute, will present his views on why we need a carbon tax, why it won’t destroy the economy and why the polluters are so afraid.  Justin Ryan, Director of Armada Solar will discuss the future of solar in Canberra after the Feed In Law, and present a new environmental product that makes houses more energy neutral. David Hocking from One- Eco will present on sustainability in the garden, and Nick Mayo will also be sharing information about Canberra’s Sustainable House.

 

 

Update on our Bridge Walk - Climate Change - Local Action in Canberra - Sunday 5th June

It was a dark and cold and blustery day. We were dressed in woolens, beanies, jackets and still cold. There were all age groups, lots of children in prams, children and adults on bikes, grey beards were de rigeur, as were dogs on leashes, out for the afternoon of walking down the main road of Canberra.

You can almost feel the cold as we head up past the stark winter trees, the flags flapping in the wind, up onto the bridge to cross the lake.

The coldest part of the walk was actually crossing Commonwealth Ave bridge as the winds whipped over the lake, licking the lake up into a choppy, brown surface. We had lost touch with Nick, who, as it turned out, had met up with friends from high school. Instead we walked with our youngest and a couple of friends we bumped into and then met some of their friends as well.

As we hit the hill, the sun came out and the world began to make more sense, until we noticed the two lone anti-carbon tax protestors on the side of the road - shouting slogan at us. Earlier in the walk, as we walked towards our Parliament house, we had discussed the latest news reports of scientists threatened and needing protection from vitriolic and clearly, disturbingly angry people. How much of that terrible behaviour was a result of the fear and anger stirred up by the people we put into our Parliament house?

We got to the hill around 2:30pm and given the cold and blustery day, we only managed to listen to John Hewson and Lin Hatfield-Dodds before we called it a day and wandered back down the hill, across the bridge and back to our carbon spewing car, and then back to our gas-warmed house. At least we have solar panels on our roof. We have to do something - walk on the streets in the cold, buy 100% green energy from ACTEW and put solar panels on our roof. We should do more. John Hewson suggested that the realistic target for the health and wellbeing of our planet is a 40% reduction by 2020. I'm with him on that one.

One of the placards said "There is no planet B".

Climate Change - Local Action in Canberra - Bridge Walk - Sunday 5th June

Walk begins at 1.30 pm on Sunday, 5 June at Regatta Point, near the bridge.
Live music and Children’s activities.
Hear from: John Hewson, Richard Denniss, Bishop Pat Power, Linsey Cole, Gosta Lynga, Lin Hatfield Dodds and Phoebe Howe.

 

Climate experts are telling us that we must act now to avoid extreme weather events and catastrophic climate change, but our federal parliament is treating the subject as simply another political contest.
WE MUST GET SERIOUS ABOUT RENEWABLE ENERGY
A carbon price is essential but Australia must also embark urgently on creating base load power using renewable energy, new land management practices to draw down carbon and a phase out of fossil fuel as our source of energy. This will create thousands of new jobs.
Come rain or shine on Sunday June 5 to join a huge crowd walk across Commonwealth Bridge to Parliament House, to tell our parliamentarians to:

Say ‘Yes’ to Real Climate Action Now!

 

Details taken from here.

Frozen water - Autumn in the community garden

It has been a cold May here in Canberra - the ski fields are open after all. Usually the June Queen's birthday weekend comes and goes without any snow but, no, this year there's tons of the stuff up there. We have snow depth charts up in our house that go back thirty years and you can see that thirty years ago June often had snow, but over the last 10 years or so, no snow in June - until this year, when there's snow in May. None of which changes my thinking on climate change - as one of the predictors of climate change, so the scientists tell us, is climate variability. All I can say is bring on the price on carbon. The sooner we face it, the better chance we have.

So what is happening here? Frozen water in my water gauge, broken plastic hose attachments, and despite it being a very dry month of May, I haven't been able to water in the mornings. The water in the hoses is frozen and so, until that thaws out, I can't water and by the time I leave the garden in the morning it hasn't thawed enough. There isn't a lot to water at present - but the winter vegies would like some water and I'd like to make sure I get the green manure in and watered pretty soon.

You can see the frost on the cabbages below. Those little white grains that make the cabbages look sandy are in fact, frozen beads of moisture. You'll also notice the bug damage I'm getting from the cabbage moth caterpillars. I was fascinated to discover that they freeze stiff into a tiny little green stick. But when the sun comes out and warms the leaves, and melts the frozen drops of water it also allows the caterpillar to thaw. Imagine being able to survive being frozen overnight, only to be removed by the gardener?

Living flow form - biodynamic water stirrer

I dabble in biodynamics for my garden - both at the community garden patch and the home garden. I did a one day course with the biodynamic education centre in Queanbeyan and since then have joined the BAA so that I can order the 500 and 501. My mother-in-law has actually been to a few horn burying events. I'd like to do that one day. In the meantime, I do my dabbling and a bit of reading, and use a moon calendar to plant vegetables and seeds - when I can. As in, when I'm in the mode to be dedicated to this practice. I have convinced myself of it's worth but as with all dedicated practices they take - well - dedication. So, instead, I dabble. Given that stirring the 500 and 501 is done twice a year, in a large bucket, continously for 1hr, I was enticed when I saw these flow forms. As with all things expensive and whacky (I make it sound like I do a lot of this), I looked at it on the internet many times, did some reading, talked about it around home a bit, prepared the ground - the mental ground that is. Then, when I heard that BAA were going to have a stall at the Melbourne Garden show last year in October, I got quietly excited. I'm not quite sure how I found out they would have flow forms with them - but I did. And I can't quite say I organised our entire family holiday around making sure we were in Melbourne for that weekend because there was plenty of serendipity at play. The show just happened to overlap one of the weekends of the ACT school holidays so it was easy enough to select that week and then just tell everyone (Melbournian husband, his friends and family) that these were our dates.

The Melbourne Gardening Australia garden show was fabulous. The location was great, fairly close to where we were staying (St Kilda), lots of nice historic outside areas and the requisite big shed for indoor stuff. I got to wander around by myself because the others were not keen and really wanted to settle in to the accommodation. Yup. I got them to drop me off at the show on the day we arrived and before we'd even found the flat we were staying in. Later in the day they stopped back and picked me up. In the meantime, I'd chatted with Hamish and his colleague at the BAA stall, told them I was interested in purchasing one of their flow forms but needed to think about it and would I be able to collect it at the end of the show, a few days later. The BAA was trialling being present at the big, mainstream gardening events. Hamish was also giving some courses at the Diggers Club in Dromana while he was in Melbourne. I think they are keen to reach a wider audience, which is kind of interesting. I gather from the little bit I understand about biodynamics in Australia that there are those who do not want the practices to be diluted or misunderstood, while others think the more who use/understand biodynamics all the better for the world. There are already two groups who represent biodynamics in Australia - due to a kind of schism (as I understand it). Given how small biodynamics is in Australia, there's a sense that we shouldn't really need two national organisations.

Anyway, as you can see from the photos, my very kind and tall husband, in the way of these things, called back to the show on the last day, paid over the ridiculous sum of money, collected an enormous box and somehow managed to squeeze it in the car for the trip home to Canberra. It was a very big box because this pottery stirrer would be totally useless if it wasn't wrapped in swathes of bubble wrap for transportation.  It has a small pump in the bottom bowl and the brown water is rainwater and 500. The top part of the stirrer is designed to cause the water to whoosh back and forwards in a figure eight motion before dropping waterfall-like into the bowl below. It is then pumped back up to the top part again to begin its journey. You leave it on for an hour, the cat plays with the water, we all watch is mesmerized, thus freeing me up for four hours a year, and no sore arm. Beauty. I love it. And it's pretty.

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Green Thumb Sunday #10 - Winning and losing

Well, the government of Australia has changed. We all went to the polling booths yesterday Saturday 24 November, and resoundingly and all across the country people decided that 11.5 years of the Liberal National Party Coalition was enough. Bring on some changes. I like to think the issues were education, health, industrial relations and climate change. I like to think people are sick of being told that the economy is the most important thing in life. Certainly in the past 20 years the Australian economy has seen enormous growth in personal and national income. We are so much more affluent than our parent's generation. We have so much more stuff, so much more comfort, so many economic choices. But what does that matter if the environment or our social wellbeing suffers?

In our little corner of Canberra we tried to do our bit to get a Greens candidate, Kerrie Tucker, elected to the Senate. And she got so close! It was fantastic how well she polled but it seems she didn't manage to get quite enough of the primary vote to get a quota. There are two senate seats in Canberra and Canberra for as along as I can remember has been a Labor town (at least at the Federal level). So, Kate Lundy the Labor Senate candidate had no trouble getting into parliament. The race was to unseat Garry Humphries, the Liberal candidate. He needed to get 33.3% of the vote to give him enough of a quota to have the preferences flow to him. He just managed to get 33.9%.  So close.

So on this day after the nation voted I fell both pleased and disappointed. Winning and losing - that's life. Not such a bad thing. For Green Thumb Sunday I'll share with you our magnificent street tree - the Eucalyptus Mannifera  and our attempt to have the importance of the environment recognised. Judging by the commentary last night on the television, it seems that Nationally there will be 4 or 5 Greens in the Senate. In my view, this is a good thing for the health of Australia's democracy and for decision making into the future.

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Green thumb Sunday #6 The Tree with no leaves

Well, the colour is finally over. It's been a beauty but now the Manchurian Pear in the driveway is a reminder that autumn is coming to an end and winter is just around the corner. Speaking of winter, our skiing trip is booked and seven weeks away, but...it's still fairly warm...last week we were having days of 21 degrees. We've all been wearing short sleeves and the children are so overdressed in their winter school uniforms that at the end of the day their little bodies are hot and bothered. This week the forecast is for some 18s, maybe some 16s. It's going to need to get mighty cold and mighty wet to make it a good ski season. Last year there was no snow - trust me - no snow. We had to walk in and out of the lodge instead of skiing in and out. Overnight the resorts made snow by shooting fine water vapour up into the sky. So, it was technically cold enough to make snow. It's just that last year we were in the grips of the severe drought so there was nothing falling from the sky.

As mentioned here, the El Nino is over but there still hasn't been much rain and in Canberra we are now facing stage 4 water restrictions (no outside watering at all). Generally, Australian cities use only a 5 stage water restriction system. For all of the spring and summer 2006-07 Canberra has been on stage 3 water restrictions. These new harder restrictions are due in June if the rains don't come. So far we've had below average rainfall for April and only one day of rain in May. Hopefully, it will get so cold we wont feel like watering anything and then the restrictions wont matter. At least wont matter for those of us trying to grow things in the city. Life in the bush has not had the luxury of the tap and I'm sure they feel we can't even begin to understand water restrictions.

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Water

It was a hard summer. We applied the stage 3 water restrictions to our life - watering between 7am-10am and 7pm-10pm on the odds and evens schedule - and managed to create a harvest, and a surplus of most summer vegetables. It wasn't easy and given we worked and had children to feed, bathe and assist through the nightly routine, we often found ourselves standing in the kitchen discussing how we'd get down to the garden on this particular watering day. Tim sometimes took the car into the garden to shine the headlights on the sleeping pumpkins and tomatoes so that an opportunity was not missed.

We'd been through it before, of course. The 2004-05 summer also had stage 3 water restrictions. That season was easier though because at least there was some supplemental rain provided by the clouds. This time through there was virtually none. ACTEW have a graph of the past six years of rainfall into the catchment. You'll notice on the graph that the long term average since 1871 is around 190 gigalitres a year. The current 5 year average is for 70gl a year, and 2006 was around 30gl. It is pretty hard to mimic nature with a hose. It is hard to keep the soil moist enough. And given the baking heat we experience in Canberra and amount of evaporation this causes, it is a bit forlorn to stand there, one human with hose against the elements. Still, the water supply is actually generous and we are spoiled in our urban environment compared to an hour's drive away into the rural areas that surround us. There are no taps hooked up to urban water supplies for them.

At the beginning of summer I feared that stage 4 may come. That would have meant almost certain death to my community vegetable garden. I think we all breathed a sigh of relief when BOM commented that El Nino was over. The report from early March was cautiously optimistic that we'd get more rain and possibly even a La Nina event. I understand that to be an above average wet period through Autumn and winter. Here is our own little talisman of the potential for this event.

I realise that it is difficult to see the water line in this image. Believe it or not it's 32mls. This rain is from last weekend, 17th-19th of March. It was the Canberra long weekend to celebrate the "birthday of Canberra". Usually we go down to the lake in the early hours of the morning, just before dawn, to watch the hot air balloons take off across the city. There are often 30 or so balloons, many with themes such as frogs, houses, koalas, bees. Last year there were two bee balloons and they were attached by their hands until just over our heads and then the velcro (or whatever held them) separated. All intentionally, I'm sure kiddies. Anyway, there was none of that this year. It was rain, rain, rain. Singing in the rain - twofortaffa, twofortaffa (a song Tess learned at preschool last year, complete with arm movements and funny gestures).