Arch Gully

23/03/2024

Finally getting in to tame the jungle that my garden has become. No before pictures but imagine a sprawling cassava and plenty of 2m+ tall cobblers pegs 😅 my long term goal with this part of the garden is to have it as my perennial/herb section and to terrace steps into the slope. The round garden bed is the middle feature with external garden beds surrounding the footpath.

I'm making garden bed edging using pigeon pea both growing on the outside of the bed as the pegs to tether the branches that have also come from the pigeon peas. This should help provide places for fungi to grow on the edge border as well as provide a source of nitrogen for the herbs within. I also use the leaves as a chop and drop mulch.

Also the cassava is currently host to a cute little bird nest. Not sure of the species as the bird as I spooked it when I tried to get a photo but that did give me a chance to see they are nesting currently 🥰

11/02/2024

Stumbled across this beautiful click beetle in my garden the other day 🌞 🪲

09/02/2024

When you find a scientific basis on why the chickens are smashing through the Bidens pilosa (Cobblers pegs/Farmers friend) currently 😂 lucky I've been cultivating 2m tall plants then hey... 😅

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4939967/

15/12/2023

I've managed to spot a few of these guys this season 🎉 the colour and sheen on this one was 😘👌🏻

It's been uploaded to iNaturalist to help researchers track their numbers.

25/11/2023

These guys are apparently cute in macro... But pains in the ass if they're visiting your garden with all their billion mates...

Flea beetles are skeletonising leaf beetles that tend to leave big holes all over plants. They leap long distances when under threat, hence the common name of flea beetle (lookit those back legs, they don't skip leg day!)

25/11/2023

22/11/2023

Austrogomphus amphiclitus aka pale hunter dragonfly

Loving the geometric shapes and intricacies on this one's wings 😍

05/11/2023

Pigeon peas theif (and crony who didn't nab any but wanted to be in on the photo action too)

I love watching the king parrots when they come visit. They're such a curious bird who has no issue getting up and close with people.

16/10/2023

In January I realised we were missing a lot of our bugs on our windows at night and I made an effort to start reducing the invasive Asian house gecko species. They all disappeared over winter and have slowly been coming back, but definitely in smaller numbers than at the peak of summer - however this evening I stumbled across this magnificent beauty 😍 this is a native velvet gecko. This is only the 2nd I've spotted in 4 years of us being here 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻 fingers crossed to finding a much more natural balance in the future

27/09/2023

Well uh, safe to say snake season is upon us 😅

In 2 hours between 2.30 and 4.30 I stumbled across 4 snakes today!

2x green tree snakes (one I only saw briefly and didn't photograph because I was checking it wasn't the one I had photographed that had moved elsewhere, nope, definitely 2!)

1x yellow faced whipsnake, it moved on quickly

And more concerning, 1x red belly black snake right near the entrance of my garden. I walked straight past it before hearing that there was a snake and confirming what it was. I stomped the ground a bit and noped out of the garden for a little while and gave the kids a bit of a run down on what to do around snakes and not to run around the garden at the moment barefoot/without long pants.

I suspect it was on the hunt for water as the container it was in has a bit of water in it.

Snakes deserve respect but also understanding.

22/09/2023

Spring is here and the flowers are beginning to bloom 🪷💐🏵️

2 flower jars are currently in the stall for $7 each.

Each jar comes with a plant that has the potential to root to become a forever plant (red flower has rosemary, the yellow has variegated mother of herbs)

19/09/2023

V1 trial of a 3 tier $31 worm farm.

There is never enough worm farms around this place, so I've been scouting for 2nd hand ones on marketplace, only to see they're being sold at $70+ (brand new is only $90) so, time to DIY it.

I got 4x stackable crates for $6.50 each and 1x mismatching but fit for purpose lid for $5. 5 minutes of drilling a few holes later (drainage in the very bottom one) and time to see how it goes 😀👍 🪱