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Gardening with Bob – The lockdown is a pain and a blessing


Sorry that I missed an issue or two of “The Western Herald”, as I was of the belief that it was in recess until the pandemic lockdown was over.

Apparently not! The Western Herald is an essential service that has carried on though wars, depression, droughts, floods, fires, and pandemics! And so it is today!

The current lockdown is both a pain and a blessing. It has severely cramped the style of those who aren’t hermits but has created time for doing those jobs that forever get relegated down the “To Do” list, particularly in the garden. It is times like this that you appreciate living in the bush, in a house, where you can get out in the garden. I can’t imagine what it would be like cramped up in a home unit and not being able to go out.

We have been using the last two weeks to lay some black plastic sheeting under our race meeting potted rose nursery, hopefully to keep the forever emerging weeds at bay. An expected negative is that the heat generated by the plastic may be too much for the potted petunias that I keep as spares, to replace those at 17 Mitchell Street. Another thing we have anticipated is the sun super heating the water laying in the dripper pipe, so watering has been scheduled to occur when the 13mm dripper pipe is not hot.

I have spread about two and a half bags of CK88 fertilizer on the lawn and it appears to be getting greener, but that might be wishful thinking. I will give it a week or two and give it a follow up dose and eventually some “Scott’s” ‘Lawn Builder’ before summer. It is a pity that we couldn’t somehow keep some of the fantastic flow presently in the Darling River.

We have a garden bed surrounded by old railway sleepers which looks quite rustic, but time, rot and white ants have them not performing well in separating lawn from garden although they do look the part. New, old sleepers are going into their place and will be more effective but not so rustic. Melba is intending to attempt twenty to rid the garden bed of weeds.


Garden trespassers

We have had some trespassers at home. Initially, I observed round dips in the leaves under the gum trees. Melba thought that it might be a porcupine, and a few days later, I saw this thing scurry away and thought that it was a rat. Several sightings later, and we have a pair of quails making our place their home for a short time. They are getting tamer but are still wary.


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