Frog Pond

Original fibre glass pond

Now with plants fully grown

A couple of years ago we visited an open house permaculture garden in Port Kemba.  This was where we got the inspiration to replace the lawn with woodchips.  The people who lived here were modern day hippies.  It was a lovely garden.  Chickens in a huge run.  Garden beds everywhere and a frog pond which was a huge garden urn filled with the run off from a water tank.  The urn had fish to eat mosquitoes, tadpoles and water lilys.  The house up from theirs was the same with no fence between them.  This no boundary between the two houses made for more possibilities to garden and share resources.  An idea which would be totally foreign where we lived.

We went home and decided that the fibre glass in ground fish pond which was left by the previous owners would be perfect to put in the ground to make a frog pond.  This in ground pond was previously in a shed up the back which we fixed up for the chickens.  What its purpose was in the shed was a mystery to us.  We had seen a couple of frogs around the garden but they were a rare sighting.  As rare as our sightings of the blue tongue lizard are.  We see this lovely creature every now and then and wouldn't have a clue where it resides.  Every time we think it has disappeared for good it makes a brief appearance.

Back to the frog pond.  We dug a hole deep enough for it to be level when filled with water.  We surrounded the fibre glass edges with sandstone rocks.  Planted native grasses around it.  Filled it with rainwater and put in white cloud minnows which we purchased from the local indoor fish man.  [When I can work out how to put up photos on this blog I will put before and after pictures.] 

Then we waited, and waited and waited.  No frog noises.  We kept on waiting as we could do nothing else.  It is not advisable to bring in frog spawn from anywhere else as only the local frogs native to the area are recommended.

One night, many months later, we heard the frog.

One morning there was frog spawn in the pond.

Then tadpoles.

The tadpoles grew and grew and we sighted a couple of small frogs around the pond.

The white cloud minnows were multiplying and the frogs kept mating.  All was rosy in the frog pond until this year.

There has been plenty of spawn but not a tadpole in sight.  I have even taken the spawn out of the pond and waited for the tadpoles to hatch and grow some before I put them back in the pond only to disappear also.  I don't know what is wrong.  I have taken half the minnows out and given them to my son in case they were eating them.  I asked the aquarium man if he had heard of the minnows eating spawn and tadpoles and he said in the 20 years he has been selling fish it is new to him.

I have searched the net to no avail.  Once more I have a problem on my hand.  The good news is that the minnows are very happy and the pond is looking really beautiful now the grasses have matured and hang over the pond giving the necessary shade in summer.

Misanthrope Encounters Facebook

Well I have done it.  I have joined the facebook brigade.  I resisted as long as I could but was overwhelmed by my frustration to contact a wonderful alpine strawberry site and its owner Michael Wellik.

For those who want to read heaps about these wonderful fruit go to www.fraisesdesbois.com/. 

I have been having problems with germination of the seeds.  They germinate and grow one true leaf and then stop.  You need at least 3 true leaves to up-pot.  Just another catch 22 in the life of a strawberry grower.  I don't know if it's the weather or just "white soul" the strawberry in question, or the seed raising mixture or what? 

Awaiting Michael's comments on the matter.  Will let you know of any further developments.

Concrete and Grass

There they go.  The high whine of the mower, the scream of the whipper snipper and the howl of the leaf blower.

I live in a community of lawn and concrete obsessed neighbours.  No gardens just huge lawns or lawn with pool with another noisy pool pump to contend with.  I don't want to complain as I came from the inner city which is supposed to be the epitome of the concrete jungle to a coastal town with houses on large blocks.  All I wanted was a garden to grow vegetables and flowers and try to do my bit for the planet.  No such luck.
This isn't to say that all the people who live here are like the obsessed above but a huge majority are.

My husband and I have practically removed all the lawn from our place.  We replaced it with newspapers covered with woodchips.  It is so much easier.  I leave the front verge - quite frankly I don't care if it gets mowed or not.  It amazes me how the people all get out there and not only mow but they also marshall the edges into straight lines.  Like buses they all seem to do the lawn at the same time.  If one mower starts it seems to signal a reaction in all the other lawn obsessed people.  One then another.  You may as well retire to your bedroom for some peace for the rest of the day.  When my front verge has reached about 7 centimeters in height my dear neighbour comes out and mows his and mine at the same time.  He then thoughtfully dumps the cut grass under my lime tree.  We feel bad about his generosity and give him a couple of beers for his trouble but if he didn't do it I would ignore the verge altogether.

The house on the other side of our house is a rental property.  It used to have a beautiful Tibouchina tree on the side of the house hiding a pretty ugly fibro wall.  The house had just become vacant again and the Tibouchina along with a few other shrubs were hacked down.  I cannot even fathom the reasoning behind this.  The tree was only of medium height and had the most beautiful purple flowers.  There is now only a bare wall of no particular distinction.  It was a barbaric act from people who don't understand their place in the universe (at least, as far as I'm concerned).

Oh well I have now got all that off my chest and honestly it doesn't make me feel better.  No one will ever care until the sky falls in.

Persimmon and Parrots

When we bought this house there were two redeeming features in the backyard.  These were two trees.  One large tree which shades the chook house and the shed.  To date I do not know what species this is.  It drops its leaves in autumn and it growns this strange fruit which forms a hard nut like feature.  These drop all over the backyard and into the frog pond we set up.  The other tree was an astringent persimmon.

So far the persimmon has flowered and produced fruit every year but one.  Every year, except this year, the fruit is sweet and juicy.  The rains this year waterlogged the fruit and took away a lot of the sweetness.

Previously I have devised a fool proof method of harvesting the persimmon before the parrots and fruit fly can attack them.  I pick them just as they begin to colour.  These fruit ripen indoors quite nicely.  For anyone who doesn't know, the astringent variety has to be eaten when it is fully ripe and soft.  The hard variety of persimmon are eaten hard like an apple.  This year as the fruit ripened indoors it became slushy and I put this down to the rains.  Be this as it may it does not stop the parrots loving them.  The bite out huge chunks and leave the rest on the tree.  Eventually these drop to the ground and other birds come and eat the leftovers.

We have many parrots around here.  The Rosellas and another plain species of parrot seem to like the persimmon best.  The Rainbow Lorikeets love the plums in spring and ignore the persimmon and the beautiful Sulpur Crested Cockatoos just sit majestically in the gum tree surveying all below them until they decide to fly in a great formation making a tremendous squawking noise which drowns out all other sounds.

The Chickens

When we first moved down to Wollongong I was mad keen to have chickens, water tanks and solar power.  I did heaps of research on the chickens and decided in my snobbishness not to have Asa Browns but to get a much more exotic breed.  I decided on bantam Langshams.  These are a beautiful black bird with feathery feet.  I bought four of them from someone up the coast through the internet.  We had to drive miles down the coast to Gerringong pick them up from the breeders friends.  Well this was the easy part.

I had a lovely large pen for them which could be locked and then another outside area fenced around the pen.  Being the champion of free range I decided that the chickens could roam around the yard all day.  They loved it of course.  Especially, digging up all my garden beds.  To protect these I went to all the trouble and expense of buying netting and netting each bed.  After a time it became a nightmare.  They would get under the netting and dig huge holes to have sand baths in.  Nothing abnormal about that all good natural chicken behavior.  I used to get lovely eggs from them as a reward for all this damage.  Beautiful small delicious eggs.

One day one of the chickens was found dead in the pen.  It was one of the best producers so no known reason why - just life.  Another got very sick and I couldn't bear to kill her and eventually she died too.  Both are buried in the garden next to the paw paw tree where I hope they may be of some use.

I also took them to the vets twice for mites in the feet.  All in all I had the most expensive free range eggs in the world.  I wouldn't swap them though for the barn laid variety.

I now have two bantams locked in their enclosed area.  They don't seem unhappy they just won't talk to me.  Won't come near me with a barge pole.  They are fed and watered like royalty all to no avail.  At the moment we haven't had an egg in yonks.  One of the gels got broody, therefore no eggs for weeks and weeks and the other stopped laying also to moult.  It is supposedly biologically impossible to lay whilst moulting.  Everyday I talk to them, feed them and water them, and everyday they treat me like a chicken's worst nightmare.

I also cannot get any new chickens.  My son bought down some Asa Browns for my other son living down here near me.  I put these in the pen with the Langshams  and all hell broke loose.  The Asa Browns are twice the size of my chickens but the dominant Langsham had them all corralled in the cardboard box they came down in.

I thought I would try to keep one of the Asa's but the poor creature was hen pecked and humiliated all day long.  I caught her and took her to the other three hens at my son's place.  Well if people think chickens don't talk to each other then they have another think coming.  The other three chickens surrounded her and they cooed and cawed at each other.  I swear the Asa from my place was telling the other three what a dreadful time she had just experienced and the others were commiserating with her.

Well I have to get my eggs from the Asa Browns whilst my chickens are on strike.

Getting started

2nd Stage Seedlings

In larger pot and now flowering

A few years ago I moved from Newtown to Wollongong.  One of the main motivations was to be near my grandchildren the other was to start an organic garden.  Of course, as you gardeners out there know, nothing is as simple as it sounds.  For one, the soil was a heavy clay.  To solve this I put in raised beds made of an old round water tank cut into three.  I swapped this with a man who took away fencing on my property.  I think he got the better deal.  The tanks had very sharp edges so I had to pay someone to round off all the edges to make them safe.  Suffice to say I now have a number of raised beds.  The only bed I didn't have in a raised device was a straw bale bed right up the back.  I filled this with dirt and after one season of growing weird stuff and good stuff like cucumbers I decided it would be my strawberry patch.

This patch has been going for a few years now.  I got the original plants from Diggers.

The sweetest strawberry I have tasted so far in my life is the Hokowase.  This is an everbearer which puts out runners.  It is wonderful because you can pick it when it just starts to turn red before the skinks, birds and other creatures sample it's delicousness before you can get to it.  I don't mind sharing and will often pick a fruit with a chunk out of it and cut this section off and eat it anyway.  The reason I talk about the Hokowase is because I am now going on a different strawberry adventure.  I haven't abandoned it I am just deviating onto a different path.

The path I am taking is the Fraise des Bois or Alpine Strawberry.  I have heard it is sweeter than the Hokowase but this wont be known until I get my first fruit.

I love this adventure because I am growing all these plants from seed.  It is quite a challenge as germination is often difficult.  So far I have been successful with Yates' alpine strawberry which doesn't seem to have an intriguing name as others I have germinated.   My first Yates strawberries have been germinated, repotted to a larger pot and repotted on to an even larger receptacle.  My first flowers have appeared but as yet no fruit.  I have planted these in an acid environment as this is recommended by those much wiser than me.  I use a gardenia and azalea potting mix.  So far this is working a treat.

The other Alpines I am experimenting with are Ali Baba (second stage potting), White Soul still in germination tray and Baron Solemacher which has proven a dismal failure so far.  I have been buying this seed on Ebay.  Will let you know of my progress with these.