Category Archives: Neighbourhood pleasures

July 19, 2016 · 4:30 pm

Winter wardrobe: from white to wow!

Before I went to Mansfield (… a year ago!) I cut out a long sleeved knit top.  The last one I made, a few years back, was nibbled by moths before I even sewed it together, so this one has been safely in a ziplock bag for its quiet year in pieces.IMAG2026

In the end, it took me only an evening to sew it together.  Why did I wait so long? Last time, I had a lot of trouble with this top and hand finished a lot of it, hand inserting the zipper and hand sewing the hems. I think I was a bit intimidated by the job, sorry to admit.  This time it all came together on the machine although the zipper is not lying terribly flat.

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Next morning, I was out in search of dye plants and visited one of my favourites (E Scoparia). The whole time I was collecting leaves I could hear clicking and popping sounds.  Eventually I realised there was a rosella (maybe more than one) very high up–more than 10 metres up) in the sugar gums on the other side of the street, nibbling on the gumnuts and then letting them fall onto the surface of the road (so that was beak clicking and the popping sound of gumnuts dropping on the hard surface)!

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There has been so much wind and rain I hardly needed to cut anything from this tree.  I have learned enough to be able to pick the leaves of this tree out from all the others in the gutter (which I could not always do dependably in the past–I have learned some things!)IMAG2039

Deciding how to fold and wrap is always intriguing…

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In the end I decided to dye a woven wool scarf at the same time. I spent time with a friend I don’t see very often recently and thought I might send her a gift. This will be part of it if it turns out well enough! I tucked some more leaves from my stash of dried leaves into the dye bath.

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I love the transformation… and wish I could be more patient…

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And I love the outcome!  Here is the front…

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Here is the back… (the zipper looks pallid now but it was what I had, recycled and saved).

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This has motivated me to make another, as my stock of winter warm work clothes is becoming pilled and threadbare, and I’ve had some lovely encouragement from friends lately.  Sometimes I think it is a shame I can’t get away with just wearing the same thing every day, as my tendency is clearly to make the same thing over and over again…

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July 15, 2016 · 3:21 pm

Winter planting

Once I got started on the rushes, I wanted to keep planting and there have been some breaks in the rain.  Today I noticed a leak from one of our rainwater tanks.  It was near the top, from the overflow pipe, suggesting there is water up above the overflow outlet in that tank which is struggling to escape.  That has never happened before, and is evidence of HOW MUCH RAIN we have had.  You know what I’m saying: planting time is upon us.

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Here is my bike trailer load of plants bound for a bed alongside the tram stop on the nearby main road.  When I got there, there was another woman already at work cleaning up, who said she picks rubbish up there twice a week (she also cleared the paving and all manner of improvements).  She was impressed that I was doing my own planting and propagating and suggested I might want to join the adopt a station programme, which apparently provides plants.  Clearly she works up and down the pubic transport corridor, because she knew the best planted stations, where work for the dole are active and where the lavender is growing so well anyone could pick it. It was fun speaking with another close observer of these often unloved spaces.  She had noticed the reduction in rubbish and weeds from my efforts!

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This time I had rhagodias from my generous friend (this is a sandy site where I hope they will do well), creeping boobialla that has come on strong since the cuttings went in months back; some little wattles and yet more ruby saltbush.

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I put them up into the bed and climbed up after them.

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In they went!

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There are previous plantings that look dead in these beds, but perhaps they will come back… and in among them, there were some struggling knobby club rushes and…

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Can you tell?  In the foreground, a small patch of the Ngarrindjeri weaving rushes!

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In the meantime, I finished all my grey handspun in an airport a few days back and I am now creating more so I can finish! More soon… it would be so good if this jumper could be complete before the cold weather passes!

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July 13, 2016 · 6:32 pm

Green grow the rushes…

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Remember my tiny sedge plants? They have more than doubled in size now.  So at last, out they go into the wintry weather.

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My first attempt to propagate correas from cuttings seems to have mostly succeeded (that is a correa with the almost round leaves).

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Here are some more in with saltbush, hop bush and boobialla plants.

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I have even had some success with dianellas this time!  I think it must be time to get some of these plants out into the ground…

 

 

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June 3, 2016 · 4:46 pm

Hand spun, hand knit socks

Remember this hand spun sock yarn?

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It had a long journey toward becoming a pair of socks.  Here we are early on, on the train…

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On my way to a meeting at work.  Five minutes early, enjoying the sunshine and shrubs… knitting down the heel.

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Visiting a friend in hospital (and past the heel flap on sock 1)…

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Here we are on our way to Newcastle to blockade a coal port–second sock started.  I got a lot of knitting done during train travel and nonviolence training (for an entire day–some climate change activists don’t muck about!) and there was another knitter in the training, too!

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Then I noticed late in the life of sock 2 that sock 1 and sock 2 were a bit different.  I made some adjustments.  Finally, I went over to my friend’s house for a try on. Turns out that the stretchy factor in knitting sorts out a multitude of small spinning and knitting crimes. It’s common ground between us that if he doesn’t care, I don’t either.  Usually he goes further than not caring and is pretty pleased about the whole woollen sock thing. Fantastic attitude.

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Here he is showing customary forbearance as a sock model.  Note hand knit sock on other foot.  Come to think of it, note hand spun, hand knit jumper in use years after being dyed with eucalypt. This is the attitude to hand knits that gets you another pair of socks in my circle of beloveds!

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June 1, 2016 · 11:43 am

Last of the autumn guerilla plantings

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I got home from a work a little early thanks to a lift from a friend, and decided to get out into the neighbourhood while it was still light.

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Saltbush going in beside the tram bridge and bike path.

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Wattles and more saltbush going in on the other side of the tram bridge in a particularly desolate patch as the light fades.

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I came home with one bucket full of empty pots, gloves and rubbish, and the other full of fallen leaves.

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Just enough time to plant beetroot in the back garden and admire the lemon scented gum over the back fence.

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May 28, 2016 · 6:34 pm

#MenditMay Guerilla gardening

Continuing the mending theme, I’ve been out doing a little earth repair in the way of guerilla gardening. This time I planted rhagodia (seaberry saltbush), and an olearia gifted by a friend.  These plants are native to the area she lives in, and as well as having them in her garden and the nearby scrub, she has them coming up in inconvenient places in her garden.  When that happens she pots them up for me!  Bless her heart.

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Here they are ready to go out into the wider world… in which masses of fungi had sprung up very recently. They are so pretty and delicate and so numerous!

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As I planted the shrubs, a cyclist pulled over and hailed me by name.  She turned out to be a friend of the woman who gave me these plants.  I had to love that sweet coincidence!  These plants have gone in beside the train tracks where a couple of dead trees have recently been removed and the gaps are creating openings for weeds and for travellers who don’t care for tender little plants the way I do.

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Hopefully, being planted in cool damp weather, they will grow up in time for summer heat.

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Later the same week I went out with more plants and added them into areas where plants died in summer or gaps look like they might need filling. Out they went to be planted beside fences…

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These three were pulled out by the roots next day!  Perhaps someone thought they were weeds?  Happily their neighbours were all left intact.

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Some of those planted a year ago are really large now!  It’s exciting to see these plants thriving round the neighbourhood, while I’m propagating more for the future.

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May 2, 2016 · 3:47 pm

Propagating

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It is time to get cuttings in or miss the season completely… so I was out again before work looking for likely prospects.  As I mentioned last time I was writing about guerilla gardening, there is some severe pruning when plants try to take over roads in my neighbourhood, and here is myoporum parvifolium trimmed back off the kerb to prove the point.

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I collected seed while I was out.  This bluebush is still fruiting but not ripe.  I collected from one near the tram where the seeds have turned black (indicating ripeness), much to the interest of one commuter.  The rest seemed blessedly uninterested and one was sleeping while almost upright.

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I collected seed from the bladder saltbush.

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I admired the spread of some myoporum I planted at least a year ago.

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This one was so big I took cuttings from it! So far, it has been overlooked in the pruning regime and is happily out onto the road.

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So, now I have all manner of cuttings hopefully sending out roots as I write…

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As well as seedlings still waiting their turn to go out into the big wide world now it has started to rain.  Ah, blessed rain.

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April 22, 2016 · 2:17 pm

Walnut, weld and purple fountain grass

I went out to help with the local organic food co-op recently and came home with walnuts from the local food forest produce swap, with the nuts soon ready for eating and the hulls ready for dyeing:

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In the bucket, ready for their three week soak/fermentation:

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Post soaking and ready for the heat:

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With the application of heat, the dye bath grew darker still.  So in went my remaining suffolk fleece. It was with deep relief that I assessed the (acceptable though not delectable) smell of the dye bath.  It was a walnut dye bath that almost had me excommunicated from my Guild for cooking it up in the dye room when the Little Glory Gallery was open.  Ahem!

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Here is weld growing in the vegie patch:

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One of my plants wilted and fell over for no obvious reason, so I cut it out and set it to dry. I wondered if something has nibbled on its roots from below ground. Some days later I went out and found that the rest of the plant had died.  This time it is obvious that the main root has been chewed on or rotted away.  Curious.  I followed Jenny Dean’s instructions (more or less…) and due to lack of time, left the dye bath to sit for some days.

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Mum saved me her purple fountain grass–a whole wheelbarrow load.  I saw a post on Ravelry where a lovely green came from this plant just about when she was planning to cut hers back.  This was exciting!  For me, however–it gave only a fawn colour.  Sadly!

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Here is the walnut dye on the left and the fountain grass on the right.  It is a little more yellow-brown in life, but nothing exciting.  It went into the walnut exhaust.

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I now have two shades of brown Suffolk and some weld-yellow crossbred fleece ready to join a future colour knitting project.  May the rinsing begin!

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April 11, 2016 · 2:39 pm

Tram stop plantings

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This time, I went out ready to plant seaberry saltbush (rhagodia candolleana) as well as ruby saltbush (enchylaena tomentosa).  I decided to take the benefit of a long weekend and go further afield than usual.  There is a local tram stop where most of the understorey plantings that might ever have gone in have died.  And, there is a plan afoot to upgrade the tram fencing which might well result in plantings along the tram line being dug out.  The evidence that digging is imminent was parked by the tram stop, actually!

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Here is the best part of the site.  Some things are holding on for dear life.

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There are some trees still here too.  And plenty of empty space where native plants could be growing.  I planted the larger seaberry saltbush toward the platform.  Some of the soil is very sandy so this plant might be happy here!

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I weeded, collected rubbish, and had a chat with a few passersby, one of whom is clearly a regular tram user who said he’d keep his eye on the plantings, bless him!  He wanted to know where the water I was using had come from and was clearly very surprised to think I had brought it with me. But needs must, and I have a bike trailer.

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You can see all the little disturbed and damp spots where new plants have gone in, about 20 in all.  Homeward bound, I collected all this from the site itself and then, since I had gloves on and a receptacle to hand, I picked up all I could manage or stow in a nearby bin on my way home .  To care for land is a special thing, I’ve decided.

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April 4, 2016 · 12:16 pm

Harvest

There is a very large patch of dyers’ chamomile beside the Torrens River in a public park in the city.  I was going that way recently and decided I would deadhead the chamomile.  So I packed my secateurs and bags when I was headed that way again (en route to a day at WOMAD with friends) and took a detour. The summer has not been kind to this patch and some of it has turned black.  But there is so much of it, there was no way I could cut all the dead flowers.

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I had a lot of company.  Regular ducks and maned wood ducks and a coot and a top knot pigeon and some moor hens came to chat.  Most departed when I didn’t offer any morning tea.

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This young one was persistent, chatting on to me as I worked away.  Eventually quite a few of its relatives came along to make sure everything was OK and watch carefully from the other side of the path.

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I kept snipping out dead flowers as passersby stared or ignored me or hurried past in case my strangeness was contagious, and maintained a bit of a conversation with the young moorhen. Next day I had this to set out to dry in the heat.

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I can feel future dye baths coming on.  It has been a great summer of harvest.  We have had so many cucumbers!

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The rhubarb kept coming even though the summer has been hard on it.

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I have been out in the neighbourhood collecting saltbush seed.

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I even found a new kind of saltbush that the council has planted a little way away from my house.

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Friends had an open garden where they sold plants for an excellent cause.  I donated my collection of divided succulents, and they all sold.

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In March, we continued to enjoy local strawberries and bought the big box of seconds for the sheer delight of them.

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And now autumn has begun, the quince harvest has come in too, lest the possums eat them all… and the new season’s harvest is begun already.

 

 

 

 

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