Discuss.

I’m trying hard NOT to use any form of chemical in my gardens.


ATM I’m looking at metre tall tomato plants growing in huge pots everywhere on our raised patios. I have more to plant though and these are about 30 cm tall but I’ve run out of huge pots. I’m too scared to plant them in the ground in case they get attacked.

I’m thinking I might just have to bite the bullet and choose the sunniest position and cover the plants (like we do with our fig trees against possums and cockatoos).

I do not want to apply tomato dust this year. I’m not sure that I can avoid it though.

I’ve got so many beautiful baby tomatoes growing atm (they’re green and are the size of walnuts).

I hate losing crops. I find it totally devastates me emotionally and reinforces a sense of failure (esp in trying to follow in my mum’s footsteps as gardening is what we used to do together as mother and daughter and that link btwn us is very precious)

I know about the virtues of digging up the ground regularly and allowing fresh air and sun to reach its depths and turning the soil over with fresh sugar cane mulch and slow release fertiliser.

I grow lazy stuff easily like potatoes/sweet potatoes/chokos/broadbeans/a myriad of herbs/garlic/onions/spinach/beetroot/amaranth and pumpkin. These veges have proven to be great for lifting my spirits because of the success rate (which boosts my confidence). Grapevines (and grapes) are easy too and yesterday I picked so many lovely tender grape vine leaves and made around 200 dolmathes with my eldest daughter to celebrate/in memory of my mum who made the best dolmathes ever. The cooking session was special as it reminded me of when I was a uni student sitting down with mum and helping her make dolmathes.

I don’t know if people on OzPol realise the importance of European culture and just how it impacts successive generations of Australians. The stuff we learned from migrant parents as 1st Gen Aussies has stayed with us and we celebrate the skills and knowledge we’ve gleaned by passing that onto our 2nd Gen Aussie kids who look nothing like us and who have very Aussie names but still speak a number of European languages and understand the culture their 1st Gen Aussie parents belong to.

Many Anglo Celtic Saxon Aussies don’t seem to get that a 1st Gen Aussie who was born n bred here is also a full blooded something else.

In time I’ve no doubt that my kids will have kids who’ll make up their own mind about how they identify and that’s their choice to make. But what matters right now to me is my relationship with my family - my kids, my nieces, my nephews and together we’re currently discovering something amazing - the hobbies of our migrant parents/grandparents have taught us so much about being healthy, resourceful and being clever/smart with how we treat/use our environment. So much knowledge is lost when a generation passes. Oral traditions are so important. Unfortunately oral traditions also require a very scarce resource - time. So many are time poor. This is going to prove detrimental to the children and grandchildren of the future IMO. The conversations we ought to be having aren’t taking place. Such conversations DID take place once ... and it usually took place whilst gardening and whilst harvesting and whilst cooking as we helped our parents in these activities.

How do we honour such blessed memories? By holding onto them and bringing them to life by carrying them forward and blessing those around us today.

Apologies for the long post but I guess I’m missing mum right now and there’s this : I can no longer pick up the phone and ask her questions about anything. Including gardening. 🥺😔😩

We grow our tomatoes, potatoes, silver beet and
other stuff in these 50 litre wheeled garden buckets,
and move them around according to their sun or
shade or frost needs.  Fill them each with two bags of
quality potting mix.

You need to drill half a dozen 12mm holes around
the sides, just above the bottom, for drainage though.
   
         

(We're old and decrepit, hence the need for wheels LOL)