Beginnings – first new-cut beds and the edge of the established veggie garden. It’s been a busy first ten days, unpacking boxes and getting to know the house and the neighbourhood. In among all the essential first things like seeing to the floors, deck and railings, which were a bit weathered, I’ve dug a few new beds. As you can see from the photo, the land around the house is mainly pasture, with an established veggie garden right in front of the house. The established patch, with…
Read MoreAuthor: Stephen Carlin
Moved in to Uki
We have finally settled and moved into our new place in Uki. It’s been a busy week but we are both very happy with the new place. There are still a lot of things to get organised, like a good internet connection, after which I will be able to start posting with pictures. We were lucky to be left a small fenced vegetable garden, a little overgrown but with some useful starters like tuscan kale, basil, mint, tomatoes, parsley, and strawberries. The last couple of days I’ve been digging over…
Read MoreMoved!
It’s been more than four years in the planning, but we have finally left Sydney and moved to the Northern Rivers region of NSW, so no more balcony blogs. And after a slightly impatient few months of finding and buying the right place we are now set to move to the town of Uki in a month. Exciting! The property is largely undeveloped, a mix of mainly subtropical rainforest and some cleared land, and pretty much an empty canvas for us, although the house is great just as it is. …
Read MoreCitrus on balconies
I read an article that struck a chord recently, which said that architects should get real about these green skyscrapers that we see drawn so often, that in fact few trees can withstand the strong wind that accompanies elevation. It made me think that citrus are probably just not suited to an exposed balcony either. I have a Tahitian lime (above), a Eureka lemon (below), a kumquat (bottom), and a Kaffir lime. Really only the kumquat does well, and the Kaffir lime does very poorly. Kaffir limes always grew easily…
Read MoreStrelitzia
For toughness and presence, Strelitzias are hard to beat. Mine is in a harsh spot, up against a glass wall in full north sun and lots of wind, but it does well and flowers from late summer. A bonus is that every year it has a couple more flowers so it’s nice to watch it grow. I remember as a kid I used to think that they are messy flowers, and didn’t see the attraction (they are very common in Perth, reflecting their resilience to hot dry weather and wind).…
Read MoreRye sourdough
Restriction is a great stimulus for change, and lately I’ve been shaking up my usual sourdough, partly because I ran out of wholemeal flour. That led to a couple of white loaves, a few with semolina (very nice), and then, since I was on a roll, so to speak, I sourced some rye flour. For some reason it’s been hard to find here for a year or so, but getting it reminded me of the advantages of sourdough. My first loaf was 1/4 rye flour with a heaped teaspoon of…
Read MoreNative bees
There are usually bees around whatever is flowering on the balconies, and I had never had a close look until the other day, when a conspicuous large brown and hairy bee was hanging around the rosemary. A quick search got me to the excellent Aussie Bee website and I found it was probably a brown carpenter bee. Then I realized that the rest of the bees that feed from the rosemary weren’t plain old honey bees, but blue barred bees. Right here in the middle of Sydney! It’s good to…
Read MoreBonsai
They’re undoubtably lovely, but bonsai are hard to keep on a balcony in Sydney. The problem is you just can’t leave them. I always lose them over the summer holidays, when a dry spell will combine with a breakdown of the automatic watering system. This is a maple that was a present a year ago. Deciduous bonsai are the worst. They are bare for a good 6 months, and if you have remembered to water the sticks over Winter and they come good in Spring, then you have to step…
Read MoreMiltonia
I asked the back yard orchid guy if he had any Miltonias, and he rather too keenly sold me this one. It is, to be sure, the real Miltonia, but what is usually called Miltonia, and what I was expecting, is the much more showy Miltoniopsis. Still, this one has been an interesting addition to my collection, and fills a flowering gap in later Summer. It is not right for an indoor display though. The colour is not particularly showy, and the flowers are somehow unspectacular. It also has a…
Read MorePitcher plants
These Sarracenia pitcher plants sit in a window planter that otherwise would hold only white stones. The location is good as they catch insects that might otherwise fly in to the living room (like most eastern Sydney housing we don’t have screens and the doors are open most of the time while we are home). They are also interesting to look over, with their form and red veining. Potting is crucial for all the carnivorous plants. Sarracenias like to have cool wet roots, and fertilizer or salt buildup is certain…
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