hard yakka
Australian rural slang for hard work.
Dervied from the very tough yakka wood.
Hard Yakka and no tucker left me flat out like a lizard drinkin - Urban Dictionary

Nothing like being flat on the couch all week with COVID then making up for it by shovelling mulch, compost, leaves and the like all over the garden. I ache like anything as I write this but damn it was satisfying. When in the worst of the illness I couldn't bear going outside as it was too cold - now it's lovely being out in the winter sunshine.

I've been weeding the polytunnel of onion weed which is really annoying. The worst though is that I discovered pine roots in my bed on the left hand side - du'oh. Just didn't occur to us when we put it up. I don't know what to do - dig it up and put weed matting down or put wicking beds in. Jamie said he'd dig a prophylatic trench on the right hand side on the outside to stop the roots travelling in. Anyway it's right royally annoyed me. Still, some things don't seem to mind it, probably coz of their shallow roots, like the jalapeno.

I dug up the turmeric roots and have replanted them into tubs. HOpefully they'll do better that way.

I've been going around and collecting piles of leaves for the compost and pruning shrubs so that the rabbits don't get places to hide. Also made a lepista nuda mushroom patch - one simply tears up the mushroom, adds compost and leaf litter, and hopes for the best. It's a shady spot near the tap so hopefully conducive to mycellium running, and I've put some cage across it to stop the blackbirds and chickens interfering. I won't show you that, but I'll show you the statue next to it - because - look at the little mushrooms! I swear these guys don't stop.

I've also started thinking about planting seeds toward the end of July, so have got some supplies ready for my own seed raising mix, which should help them along a lot better - worm poo, coir, vermicilite and compost - .5/2/1/2 ratio. At the very least it'll be more water retentive and nutrition rich to give my seedlings a good start. I wasn't overly impressed with the ready made stuff I used last year.

Sorted out the pots ready to plant things in, particularly tomatoes and capsicum and jalapeno. It's a lot of tidying up that's for sure, but it's quite warm around and in the polytunnel which is nice.

I've prepared a couple of cages for potato straw mounds - it keeps them out of the veggie patch where I'd prefer growing other things. This way it also stops rabbits and chooks getting in there too and I just keep laying straw and spare dirt and compost and leaves on top. After the potatoes I'll think about perhaps putting a couple of raised beds in this area. A proper food forest is a bit hard due to the rabbits and chooks so I'm just doing what happens organically.

These two big wicking containers have been here with gravel in them for a while, and I haven't had compost or soil to fill them. What I decided to do was build them up compost/hugelculture style - so that means the gravel at the bottom, a layer of shadecloth, and then layered branches, chicken straw, compost, leaves, grass clippings, worms etc. That should all break down nicely and I can either plant stuff in pockets of compost or wait til the end of summer for it to break down a bit better. Ideally I'd like to have a row of six on either side and cover it all with a hoop of shadecloth or even greenhouse plastic at some point. We've had a few years of wet but eventually we'll hit drought again so I'm kinda thinking ahead. Either way it's not hard to layer growing medium in this way and uses up a lot of green waste in the garden rather than buying in compost that's pretty crap anyway.

Okay, I have more mulch to lay, leaves to rake and other hard yakka to get on with - hope you're all enjoying your gardens out there - I'm sure enjoying your updates!

Stay well, stay safe, much love.

There's still a couple of days to enter the #gardenjournal challenge - I'll probably wrap it up Sunday night my time. @minismallholding, waiting for a #gardenjournal update from you - I harvested my maui chilli you gave me and got some in my eye, so the least you can do is a garden update bahahahahahahah...plus I wonder what @samstonehill is up to in his garden as well...oh and @traisto - so many Hive gardeners!

With Love,

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