My garden is different to most Queensland gardens due to the altitude of the Granite Belt. Most Queensland gardens are located in tropical or subtropical climates, but the Granite Belt of Queensland is the only region of this State with a temperate climate. The majority of the gardens in Queensland only know two seasons, the ‘WET’ and the ‘DRY’ whereas here on the Granite Belt we have four distinct seasons as in the Northern Hemisphere.

Usually our winters are dry so we seldom get snow and for the same reason we frequently experience more winter frosts than Victoria. Brisbane and Melbourne are the capital cities of Queensland and Victoria. Coastal Brisbane has a subtropical climate but the altitude of Das Helwig Haus (about 850metres above sea level) and our position on the western side of the Great Dividing Range create our much cooler climate.

State capital cities

As my readers know I have a fascination with trees and one of the significant registers of our climatic conditions here are the eucalyptus trees commonly known as a Peppermint Gums. These trees grow along the mountains of the Great Dividing Range from Melbourne to the Granite Belt.

Peppermint eucalyptus

Significantly they have tightly formed bark, which they don’t shed in strips like the other forms of eucalyptus trees growing on our land. It is almost as though they use their bark to keep warm.

Cool mountain climate

The darkly shaded area I have marked in black on this map shows the coldest portion of Australia which experiences four distinct seasons each  year.

If you look again at the map of the State capital cities you will note that Perth in Western Australia is at a similar latitude to Brisbane,  Queensland. There are no cold mountain districts in WA.

When planting seed of frost tender plants I note that most packets have a map on the back showing with differing colours the recommended growing seasons for flowers and vegetables. That is not to say though, that our soil here in Queensland will be as cold as in some of the southern states. It is always the early or late frosts which concern me. While it might be possible for me to germinate cucumber seed in September, it is probable that the seedlings will be frosted. Therefore I seldom plant my summer vegetable seeds before mid-October. Generally we expect autumn frosts by the third week of April, but in 2009 we had a cutting frost on 30th March.

I mention these dates as reason why I am now harvesting the last of my summer vegetables and bedding down my garden in preparation for winter.

Colouring grape leaves

The grape leaves have begun to colour but our garden is not without flowers. Presently the mauve deciduous hibiscus, which is the National flower of South Korea, is in full bloom.

Deciduous hibiscus

Note that I have already thickly mulched the ground around these shrubs to prevent weed growth. The Rose garden is scented with the fragrance of the repeat blooming rose varieties.

March is the month to harvest vegetables, savour the taste of the last fruits of the season like figs and persimmons, enjoy the roses and lay down mulch as a ground cover.

Mr. Lincoln

Pink Iceberg

Double Delight

Book cover

Das Helwig Haus B&B owned by Eberhard and Fay Helwig is situated at Glen Aplin, near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland, Australia.

This is a region noted for Australian wildflowers, four wilderness National Parks and sixty wineries. In 1997 Eberhard and Fay established the Remembrance Field of red Flanders poppies, a European wildflower.

To obtain Fay’s book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine send an email to helwig@halenet.com.au The price is $33.00 posted to destinations within AustraIia.

Internationally it is available on

http://stores.lulu.com/strictlyliterary

http://books.google.co.uk/

Technorati Tags: Australia, Das Helwig Haus B&B, eucalyptus, Glen Aplin, Great Dividing Range, Queensland, roses, seasons, the granite belt, Wildflowers wilderness and wine

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Golden ripple cherry tomatoesTo see a former post called Mulching Matters go to the Organic Gardening category in the November archives. I use several methods of mulching but they are all intended to serve these purposes.

• To stifle weed growth
• To prevent evaporation of moisture
• To keep the ground cool
• To prevent erosion

In that post I showed how I had used clippings from a fallen wisteria vine to mulch an area around self-sown Golden Ripple cherry tomato seedlings. I bought the first packet of seed from the Diggers Garden Club about 1994 and ever since then these tomatoes have volunteered to grow each year in my garden. All the fruit eating birds feast on them and then spread the seed throughout my entire garden. Mostly, I weed them out, but I always leave some plants to bear fruit each summer.

Wisteria mulch

Eight weeks after this green wisteria mulch was laid around the tomato seedlings we could begin harvesting these little cherry tomatoes for salads or for my favourite Lemon & Tomato Marmalade.

Today I once again turned my attention to mulching. It was time to harvest the pumpkins and I had a Korean girl wwoofer, Kerry, to assist me.

Kerry gathering pumpkins

I explained to Kerry that she must cut the pumpkins free from the vines, because if she pulled them she might break the stem away from the flesh, thus creating a wound where rot could enter. I then showed her how to stack the pumpkins on their sides, to allow air to circulate around them. In this way pumpkins may be stored for months and will usually keep throughout the winter. Pumpkins are a staple vegetable in Australian diets, peeled, boiled and mashed or baked in the same manner as potatoes.

Stacked pumpkins

As you will see from the above photograph I have grown several types of pumpkins, but the striped ones would be crossbred seedlings which volunteered in my garden compost. Probably they are a cross between striped Jap Pumpkins and the orange coloured heirloom Butter Pumpkin.

I told Kerry there would be no need to remove the dried pumpkin vines. We would cover them with sheets of newspaper and then add a thick layer of loose mulch.

Firstly, we had to remove Patches from her comfortable bed in a box of saved newspapers.

Patches

I had been busily cutting back wisteria vines and lemon balm which became the first layer of mulch to be laid over the newspapers.

Then I cut away a lot of the lower, loose foliage hanging from the Isabella grape vines.

Grape foliage

As I trimmed the vines, I cut them into short lengths for easy management. Kerry loaded them into the barrow and pushed them to the former pumpkin patch.

Kerry

We spread the mulch thickly over the newspaper. As I trim back various woody shrubs and vines around the garden they will be used this year to form such mulch, but lush growth, grass with seeds and weed plants will still be composted.

Compost bin

Mulch over newspaper

When mulching in this manner the newspaper blacks out the light and prevents the germination of any unwanted plants. Rain will penetrate the loose leaves and soak the papers, which by the spring will be well rotted. The woody stems prevent the leaves packing down to form an impervious sheath against rain. They also hold the leaves in place as they dry, preventing them from blowing all over the garden. Thus it is better to gather some such deciduous leaves while still green, rather than rake them up after they have fallen and are blowing in the wind. But, I never prune back my vines and shrubs severely. That is a winter job after the fruiting buds have set for the next season. A hard pruning at the end of summer would trigger fresh growth in the autumn, not the spring.

Book cover

Das Helwig Haus B&B owned by Eberhard and Fay Helwig is situated at Glen Aplin, near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland, Australia.

This is a region noted for Australian wildflowers, four wilderness National Parks and sixty wineries. In 1997 Eberhard and Fay established the Remembrance Field of red Flanders poppies, a European wildflower.

To obtain Fay’s book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine send an email to helwig@halenet.com.au The price is $33.00 posted to destinations within AustraIia.

Internationally it is available on

http://stores.lulu.com/strictlyliterary

http://books.google.co.uk/

Technorati Tags: Australian, compost, Glen Aplin, mulch, mulching, Patches, pumpkin, Wildflowers wilderness and wine, WWOOF

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Recently, when reading Peter Andrew’s book Back From the Brink, it made me take a good look at my upright willow trees and ask myself if I was utilizing them to full advantage. I planted these trees in 1998 at the end of a drainage system to serve three purposes.

• To soak up excess water
• To create a green view  behind our vegetable garden
• To provide a wind break

I quickly became disenchanted with these trees, as they spread their roots out into the area where I had previously planted pumpkins. It was a space where the pumpkins could spread. But, with the willow trees stealing all the moisture from the ground, my pumpkin crops began to fail. We ripped the ground and pulled up the roots, but within 6 months the roots had again colonized the area. The past couple of years this ground has remained bare. The trees were serving their intended purpose, but they had restricted my use of this portion of my garden.

Pruning willow

The willow trees had grown too tall. In August 2008 while they were deciduous, I hired men to reduce the height of the trees by cutting them back with a chainsaw. I used the solid wood for the fires and the twiggy branches for support structures for climbing beans and sweet-peas. When they grew again they had a bushier shape. I have seen trees like these repeatedly cut back to fence height to create a dense hedge.

Willows are fast growing trees and within 15 months these three had bushed out and once more towered over the garden.

Green willows

I asked myself, “How can I best utilize this shade and this space?”

We have experienced a particularly hot November this year with heatwave conditions normally associated with the months of January and February. By noon each day I’ve had to place shade cloth loosely over the top of the lettuce in my raised garden beds to stop them scorching off.

Shaded letttuce

To germinate fresh lettuce seed I planted a row of mignonette lettuce seed at the edge of this bed and laid a length of shade cloth over it.

Germinating lettuce

In less than a week the seed had germinated and I then raised the shade cloth to stand on the western side to provide shade from the hot afternoon sun. Once they have hardened off, I will remove the shade cloth. Again when I transplant them I will shade them for a few days. As a child at my Grandmothers side, she taught me how to transplant seedling, water them down and then shade them with sprigs cut from green shrubs. By the time the sprigs had wilted and dropped their leaves the seedlings had recovered from any transplanting shock.

To utilize the shade of the willow trees I decided to create more compost bins which by next summer will become raised garden beds. I believe in recycling. As on most farms one acquires over a period of time piles of used materials too good to throw away. I had just enough sheets of rusty roofing iron and sufficient steel posts to create three new compost bins. Plus, I had the willing labour of my Japanese WWOOF members, Daiji Kuwano and Madoka Uchiyama. I taught Daiji how to line up the steel pegs by closing one eye and sighting down the line. He got it right down the line, but due to different positioning against the iron, could not do so across the bins. I also taught him how to use a pair of fencing pliers to twist wire.

New compost bins

This will have to be an ongoing job for my Willing Workers on Organic Farms. Firstly I will introduce composting tiger worms into each bin to assist with the breaking down of the organic matter. My Wwoofers will harvest all composting material into the first of three bins. When the first bin is filled, my Wwoofers will have to turn it over into the second bin and again begin filling the first bin. They will do this until all three bins are full. When Autumn comes the willow trees will drop many of their golden leaves over the filled bins. At the end of winter 2010 my Wwoofers will once more have to turn over the contents of each bin, cutting off any willow tree roots which have grown up into the compost. I will then have three raised garden beds into which I may plant my vegetables. I will place afternoon shade loving lettuce at  the rear, climbing beans may be encouraged to grow up wires strung across and around the bins through the steel posts, and pumpkins will be allowed to drop over the iron to run across the vacant space. At the end of the 2011 harvest the bins will have more composting material added, and once more the following spring my Wwoofers will find themselves turning the soil, the depth of the bins to remove willow roots, so that I may continue each summer to use these as shaded, raised garden beds. Only by completely turning the contents of these bins every year will we be able to eradicate the willow roots to use this ground.

Every year as I take visitors through my garden they wave their arms to encompass the view and ask, “How do you find the time to do all this?”

My answer is always the same, “Wwoofers!” I then tell them that they can read about the construction of my garden and the role wwoofers have played in my book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine.

Book cover

Das Helwig Haus B&B owned by Eberhard and Fay Helwig is situated at Glen Aplin, near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland, Australia.

This is a region noted for Australian wildflowers, four wilderness National Parks and sixty wineries. In 1997 Eberhard and Fay established the Remembrance Field of red Flanders poppies, a European wildflower.

To obtain my book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine email me at helwig@halenet.com.au The price is $33.00 posted to destinations within AustraIia. You may phone me on 07-4683 4227 if you wish to pay by credit card.

Internationally it is available on

http://stores.lulu.com/strictlyliterary

http://books.google.co.uk/

Technorati Tags: Australia, Australian, compost, composting, Das Helwig Haus B&B, lettuce, Queensland, shade, stanthorpe, trees, Wildflowers wilderness and wine, willows, WWOOF, wwoofers

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As a child I was only allowed to drink milk or water until the age of twelve, with a soft drink as a special treat during an occasional visit to town. My parents drank Bushell’s tea with their meals.

Nowadays there are multiple drink choices available for adults and children alike. One has only to walk into a supermarket to see rows of bottles and cans stacked high containing cordials, fruit juices and carbonated drinks. At the dairy counter there will be different sized containers of milk, in plastic or cardboard, offering a variety of flavours.

Move to the racks of tea and coffee and you will have a choice of roast coffee beans from all over the world. You can buy beans or ground coffee, some of it decaf. Usually in the same aisle it is possible to select dried teas in surgical dressings, as one of my friends once described the sachets commonly called tea bags. You will be confronted with brands and varieties from many countries.

It was on a trip to the USA in 1981 that I first encountered the powdered concoctions mixed with water which the local people called iced tea. Later, when I visited my German in-laws in 1990 I was offered a choice of herbal teas with the evening meal. These were always served as a hot tea.

In 1992 we moved to the Granite Belt to establish Das Helwig Haus B&B. Amongst our first visitors were Meg and Peter Stevenson with their children Darren and Belinda. During an excursion they discovered a herb farm and returned with several pots for my garden. One of these little plants grew into a Lemon Verbena bush.

Lemon verbena

The botanical name for this shrub is Alysia triphylla syn. Lippia citriodora from the family Verbenaceae. It has multiple uses, adding a delicious flavour to fresh fruit salads, summer drinks or punches. I’ve laid leaves to form an decorative base in an aspic jelly mold.  Commercially, its essential oil is used in eau de colognes. Leaves may be dried for drinking as tea in the winter or included in pot-pourri mixtures as a scented room freshener or placed in sachets amongst stored clothes.

Lemon Verbena tea

A few sprigs of fresh leaves may be steeped in hot water for a calming hot tea. For a jug of refreshing cold tea, place leaves in a large container and pour over boiling water. Drain off the resultant tea into a jug, tasting and diluting with added water if the tea is stronger than preferred. My husband ‘gilds the lily’ by placing a couple of slices of fresh lemon in his glass, adds ice blocks and pours the lemon verbena tea over his ice and lemon.

Cold lemon verbena tea

Lemon Verbena is a deciduous shrub, so I always try to dry some leaves for teas throughout the winter months.  The plant is propagated from cuttings, not seed.

Another lemon flavoured tea that I grow is Lemon Balm Melissa Officinalis. You may take cuttings or a rooted piece from an established clump. It has very fine seed and I find that plants appear voluntarily in my garden each spring. Again the leaves of this plant may be dried for pot-pourri.  I’ve also used them in salad dressings and chicken stuffing. A tea made from the leaves of Lemon Balm is supposedly good for cases of depression and anxiety.

Lemon balm

The Lemon Balm plant forms a tight clump about knee high and can make a most attractive edging to a vegetable garden.

Most people wouldn’t be without a mint plant or two in their gardens. I grow the Peppermint favoured in Germany for tea. Like all mints it grows from underground runners and spreads rapidly. I cut portions of my mint back to the ground regularly to keep the plant producing fresh shoots.

Peppermint

Peppermint tea aids digestion. I have read that after a rich meal like a Christmas Dinner one should combine equal quantities of peppermint, lemon balm and lemon verbena teas to settle the tummy.  As we celebrate Christmas in mid-summer when my herbs are fresh, this remedy for over-eating is at hand.

One tea in my garden that self-seeds profusely is the annual German Chamomile. It likes a friable sandy loam, seeds profusely each year and comes up like a weed towards the end of winter.

Chamomile daisies

Chamomile seedlings transplant easily and I often use them as edging for paths throughout my vegetable garden. The flowers are best plucked from the plant and dried. A small amount of this dried matter may be steeped in hot water to make a soothing bedtime drink as it is a mild sedative.  Because it has a slightly bitter taste I add a teaspoon of honey. The other thing I do is strain the tea through a fine cloth, as some of the seed material tends to irritate my throat

Das Helwig Haus B&B owned by Eberhard and Fay Helwig is situated at Glen Aplin, near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland, Australia.

This is a region noted for Australian wildflowers, four wilderness National Parks and sixty wineries. In 1997 Eberhard and Fay established the Remembrance Field of red Flanders poppies, a European wildflower.

Book cover

To obtain my book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine email me at helwig@halenet.com.au The price is $33.00 posted to destinations within AustraIia. You may phone me on 07-4683 4227 if you wish to pay by credit card.

Internationally it is available on

http://stores.lulu.com/strictlyliterary

http://books.google.co.uk/

Technorati Tags: Australia, Australian, book, camomile, Christmas, Das Helwig Haus B&B, German, Germany, herb, herbal teas, lemon balm, lemon verbena, peppermint, stanthorpe, tea, the granite belt, Wildflowers wilderness and wine

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During the past weekend when we opened our garden at Das Helwig Haus B&B for the Australian Open Garden Scheme, I was frequently asked about my mulching methods. I use several methods of mulching but they are all intended to serve these purposes.

• To stifle weed growth
• To prevent evaporation of moisture
• To keep the ground cool
• To prevent erosion

Most green ground covers serve the same purpose, provided they have sufficient water to encourage their continual growth.

Ivy as a ground cover

I planted this ivy in 1993 to grow over an old tree stump situated in the garden at the rear of the house. This is the western side and after soil and rocks had been moved to build the guest wing of our house this spot looked like a dessert with white dusty soil and raw boulders. I hired Frank and his bobcat to create a rocky upper terrace above this portion of the garden. My priority was then to green my summer view by planting deciduous fruit trees and to cover a couple of old tree stumps with vines.

Beside the second stump I planted a wisteria vine. As it grew I twirled it around the stump and over the years pruned back the top to form a bushy tree. One of my friends described it as looking like an ancient wisteria treated as a Bonsai specimen. Every spring this wisteria blossomed, bring perfume to my garden and joy to my heart.

Wisteria - spring 2008

Then a week ago, during a heavy storm, the top heavy vine blew over breaking off the old, rotted wooden stump at the ground. Half down, it remained supported on one of the raised garden beds I had created this year from recycled sheets of a rusty iron water tank.

Fallen wisteria

This morning, with the aid of a Korean WWOOF girl, I set to with secateurs and saw to reduce the vine to mulch. After I have removed the rotten stump, I will find another support for the vine.

On the opposite side of this path, I had already established tomato and Italian parsley seedlings. To protect them from being buried by fresh wisteria leaves, which will create considerable heat as they rot down, I placed empty pots around the seedlings. I had firstly removed the base from each pot to form a protective tube.

Tomato seedling

The next step was to snip all the twiggy, leafy portions from the vine and toss them loosely around the pots. This is rule number one with mulch. Mulch must be kept loose. My ground was already well soaked from the rain, but future rain must be able to penetrate the wisteria leaves as they decompose. They can’t be allowed to stick together like sheets of paper. Allowing some wood to remain with the leaves will create a support structure through which the water may trickle down.

The worst mistake gardeners make with mulch is dumping grass clippings so thickly that they form a carpet and like thatch allow no penetration of water through to the soil below.

Dry grass mulch

Such grass clippings are best mixed with rough leaves and placed in a compost bin. When available, I use Lucerne (alfalfa) hay throughout my garden, because it is a legume and enriches the soil as it breaks down, which it does rapidly. Thus, it is an expensive mulch as it needs to be replaced yearly. I also find it difficult to persuade my WWOOF workers to break it up roughly and place it thickly around my plants. The easiest way to prevent them damaging my seedlings and to indicate how deep the mulch should be, I use hollow pots like these I have placed around cosmos plants.

Cosmos seedlings

Very shortly the fern like foliage of the tall growing cosmos will shade the mulch to keep it cool and damp.

Deep wisteria mulch

The black pots protecting the seedlings can barely be seen amongst the fresh wisteria leaves, but by tomorrow the leaves will have wilted and the top of the pots will be clearly visible. The black hose on this path carries away the gray water from our bio-cycle system, to be recycled on to plants further down the garden.

Although future rain will penetrate this loose cover of wisteria leaves and soak the whole garden bed, it will not be necessary for me to water all this soil during dry periods, only the portion reached by the roots of the tomatoes and parsley plants.

Cow pats

If you can obtain cow pats, they make a superb garden mulch. I do not break dry patties up, but place them loosely to cover the ground around seedlings. Here they are enriching the ground for healthy tomato specimens planted early in the spring. These hard pats shed water off their surface in the same manner as rocks. After the water has soaked into the ground they shade the soil and prevent evaporation. Earthworms and other soil dwellers break down the pats from underneath, adding their fertility to the soil. The only problem with this form of mulch is that seed of weeds and grasses eaten by the cattle will be included in their manure. Thus, beside my tomatoes and lemon balm in this plot have appeared kikuyu grass and a wild turnip weed.

Roma tomatoes

Again with this form of mulching, if hand watering, only water the roots of the plant.

This morning, I was discussing using rocks as a ground cover, with a visiting gardener. He told me of a friend in a fire prone district, who had been advised to remove any flammable mulch and replace it with stones. Good advice. I have used rocks throughout my garden and in two places planted mondo grass between them. In my lawn area the slabs of granite keep the earth cool and provide additional run-off water to the grass. In the same manner grass growing beside a sealed road is often green in times of drought, attracting kangaroos to feed on road verges.

Mondo grass and granite

All mulches protect the soil from erosion, by breaking the energy of a downpour. I built a dry creek bed to take the overflow from my rain-water tanks. Once the tanks are filled during storm rains, the water falls with force down the overflow pipe and gushes forth in a quick flowing stream. My downpipes are placed so that the energy of the water is broken by hitting rocks forcing it to spread widely, before flowing away amongst other rocks and mondo grass.

Overflow

If you have any questions concerning mulches, please ask.

Book Cover

Das Helwig Haus B&B owned by Eberhard and Fay Helwig is situated at Glen Aplin, near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland, Australia.

This is a region noted for Australian wildflowers, four wilderness National Parks and sixty wineries. In 1997 Eberhard and Fay established the Remembrance Field of red Flanders poppies, a European wildflower.

To obtain Fay’s book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine email Fay on helwig@halenet.com.au

Internationally it is available on the Amazon.com website.  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002ACXQ0M/sr=8-1/qid=1244294755/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&qid=1244294755&sr=8-1&seller=

http://stores.lulu.com/strictlyliterary

http://books.google.co.uk/

Technorati Tags: Australian, compost, Das Helwig Haus B&B, erosion, Glen Aplin, mulch, mulching, rocks, Wildflowers wilderness and wine, wisteria, WWOOF

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It takes faith to persevere with the establishment of an organic garden environment. The first year that you establish your plants is bliss as they are going into fresh soil. The next year every pest imaginable seems to have discovered your garden and be gratefully chomping their way through your vegetables. By the third year the predators, like the lady beetles who eat the aphids, will arrive. By the fourth your garden should be coming into balance. You will still see some pests, but if your plants are not stressed they will thrive. To keep a garden thriving not only does it require good soil, it needs thick mulch to keep that soil moist and to allow the earthworms to prosper.  My compost bins have been worked over by generations of compost worms since I introduced them to this garden in 1992. As they convert each bin of waste to compost it is spread out on my gardens. The ground is covered with hay and they continue their work under this layer, aiming to break the hay down and incorporate it into the soil. Thus the hay must be replaced over my gardens each year. One of my flower garden beds is permanently planted with deciduous shrubs. Every year self-sown Californian poppies emerge from the hay mulch to bloom amongst the shrubs. Peter Andrews would like these poppies, which I have seen flowering wild over the hills of California, as they are tap-rooted plants. They will be bringing up nutrients from deep within the soil to finally rot down again as mulch and they will be preventing a build up of salt in the soil.

Californian poppies

These mulched shrubs and Californian poppies are part of the hill forest segment of the farm adding nutrients to the soil.

Take a look at this photo of green shrubbery in my front garden. Again, most of the soil beneath these plants has been mulched. Some of the shrubs are evergreen, but other deciduous shrubs drop their leaves to add nutrients to the soil. Peter Andrews advocates plant diversity.

Green Garden

I bought those three rather slow growing conifers from a nursery, but then struck five cuttings from them which are now half the size of these three bushes. See if you can count the five in the photo below.

Hidden amongst annuals

The high growing larkspurs and cornflowers are just coming into bloom. This is an area of the flower garden where I haven’t yet covered the ground with mulch. If plants are thick they will shade their own roots and prevent evaporation from the soil while denying weeds a foothold. Again, there is diversity of plants.

Shade and mulch both help to maintain a productive garden during the heat of summer. Each year visitors are amazed by the size of my rhubarb plants. The secret is that the rhubarb likes lots of manure and water, plus a position where it is protected from the heat of the afternoon sun. Mine grows on the eastern side of the apartment building, thus gets no afternoon sun. The huge leaves also assist at providing their own shade over the root area. As I was about to remove these flowers from my rhubarb plant I noticed a green tree frog on the stem. This is an adult size tree frog and there must be hundreds of them in my garden judging by the amount of chirping I hear every time a cloud passes in front of the sun and they announce their hope that rain is coming.

Rhubarb with frog

The presence of these frogs is evidence that I use no chemical sprays on my garden plants. Plant biodiversity means that I now have a dynamic chain of predators working within my garden to assist with the health of my plants. Many birds, large and small, come into my garden to hunt for insects or forage for food and provide many services. The Babblers and gray Apostlebirds travel in flocks, scratching over fallen leaves and hay mulch searching for grubs, thus turning and loosening the mulch for me.

Finch nest

Small birds like the Superb Blue Wren hide their grass nests deep within a shrub, but the Double Bar Finches build grass nests in the thorny branches of climbing roses. No cat could climb this branch and should the mother bird be temporarily disturbed she will seek shelter in the nearby fig tree. Note again the use of rocks and evergreen ground covers surrounding the deciduous fig tree. The leafy fig tree shades them during the hot summer months. This biodiversity of plants within my garden, all growing organically,  are adding desired nutrients to the soil. The deep rooted plants are recycling nutrients and preventing a build up of salt in the soil. Ground covers, rocks, plants or mulch are shading the soil, retaining moisture and allowing the earth worms to flourish while birds add their droppings or provide other service. Small Eastern Spinebill Honeyeaters enjoy the blue flowers of the perennial salvia and are the only pollinator of the Fijoa fruit trees, sometimes called the fruit salad guava, as bees show no interest in these red flowers. I have identified about 300 different birds passing through seasonally, or living as permanent residents on our land. It is the biodiversity of our organic garden which attracts so many visiting birds.

Book Cover

Das Helwig Haus B&B owned by Eberhard and Fay Helwig is situated at Glen Aplin, near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland, Australia.

This is a region noted for Australian wildflowers, four wilderness National Parks and sixty wineries. In 1997 Eberhard and Fay established the Remembrance Field of red Flanders poppies, a European wildflower.

To obtain Fay’s book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine email Fay on helwig@halenet.com.au

Internationally it is available on the Amazon.com website.  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002ACXQ0M/sr=8-1/qid=1244294755/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&qid=1244294755&sr=8-1&seller=

http://stores.lulu.com/strictlyliterary

http://books.google.co.uk/

Technorati Tags: Australia, Australian, biodiversity, bird, book, Californian, compost, Das Helwig Haus B&B, mulch, mulching, poppies, Queensland, the granite belt, Wildflowers wilderness and wine

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In My Spring Garden 7 post I explained what I had learned from reading Back from the Brink by Peter Andrews about how water sinks in soil to the clay or rock level below the surface of the ground. There the salt in the water, being heavier than fresh water, makes the bottom layer of underground water saltier than the water above it. I learned that even fresh rainwater contains salt at 60 parts per million, but after this salt becomes concentrated below the surface the ground water will be at least 5 times saltier by the time it reaches our dams and rivers. I also showed Peter’s preferred farming plan of dividing land into three complementary segments of hilltop forest, agricultural land and flood plain.

In My Spring Garden 8 post I illustrated with flood and drought photographs how we have endeavoured to control and manage flood flows across our land in front of Das Helwig Haus B&B to avoid soil erosion.

This post will be about how to retain more water in streams and dams to how to reduce evaporation.  Peter writes: Even in a pristine landscape, water running into a lake would probably have contained 150 to 200 parts per million of salt. Then, once it was sitting in the lake, the water would start to evaporate. Throughout much of Australia, water evaporates at the rate of around 2.5metres a year – more than the depth of most of our naturally formed lakes.

The book cover

The views of Peter Andrews are controversial because they are opposite to many Australian farming practices of the past two centuries. They are also contrary to the views of Landcare organizations and the purists who do not like to see the introduction of Northern Hemisphere deciduous trees into the Australian landscape.

According to Peter, I am doing the correct thing by planting willow trees and other deciduous trees along my water channels. These bind the soil with their roots, keep the ground or water shaded and cool during the heat of summer and then drop their leaves to create a fertile mulch in autumn. During the usually dry winter months they are dormant, not drawing water from the ground. He maintains that they save more water than they use in transpiration.

Trees for shade

In contrast the eucalyptus trees give poor shade, drop no useful mulch and their roots dry out all surrounding ground preventing the growth of grass. After four dry months the photo below shows green grass beneath the new spring leaves of the Spanish oaks, while the ground under the eucalyptus trees is bare and arid.

Eucalyptus trees dry the ground

In my previous post I wrote that our water channel became eroded by flood water before we could get it grassed and created a headwall. To stop such erosion Peter suggests rocks or other impediments should be placed in the hole under the drop to break up the energy of the water. This would be reasonably easy to do, as our farm has no shortage of rocks.

Keeping the land grassed in this manner also prevents erosion in times of flood. Within my home garden I constructed what is normally a dry watercourse to take the overflow from our rainwater tanks in times of heavy rain. With bigger rocks at the side, I created a broad and shallow drain before planting Mondo grass between smaller stones spread over the base to prevent erosion.

Garden watercourse

This drain not only breaks up the turbulence of any running water, it slows the progress so the water soaks into the ground. The grass cover and small stones mulch the soil to keep it moist by preventing evaporation.

When we constructed this apartment block at the rear of our Das Helwig Haus B&B garden in 1998 I was aware that we possessed an area of underground, water-bearing sand immediately behind them.

I immediately planted this area with deciduous trees and conifers to give a partial windbreak during the winter months and to provide shade on our western side in the summer afternoons. The three upright willow trees were lopped back in August 2008 as they had become too tall. They now shade the Mondo grass in the drain during the hottest part of the day.

Upright willows

When I bought the conifers from a local nursery and commented that I was going to plant them over water, I was warned that they didn’t like wet feet. True, but my underground water was moving and these trees grow in the same manner as hydroponic plants.

Willow, conifer, swamp cypress and evergreen poplar

When I selected the three swamp cypress a bystander remarked that they were slow growing as they needed a lot of water. My three trees have flourished. I established the upright willows, the tortured willows and the evergreen poplars from cuttings. Now these trees are extracting salt and dropping a carpet of leaf mulch every autumn to add fertility to this shallow stream of underground water.

What more should I have done? I planted the deciduous Spanish oaks behind the larger dam. Farmers warned me they would put their roots through the dam wall and steal the water. It became obvious that the ones at the lower corner of this triangle shaped dam were thriving whereas the ones near the two ends were stunted. I wondered why?

Spanish Oaks

In reading Back from the Brink I learned about the pressure a deep volume of water exerts on surrounding soil. The water was moving to the trees, not the trees putting their roots into the dam. The big mistake I made was not to plant weeping willows around the inside of the dam wall. This would have been so easy to accomplish. All I would have needed to do was take cuttings from a mature weeping willow tree and push them into the wet ground just above the water line. They would have struck roots and thrived, shading the water and preventing evaporation.

Book Cover

Das Helwig Haus B&B owned by Eberhard and Fay Helwig is situated at Glen Aplin, near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland, Australia.

This is a region noted for Australian wildflowers, four wilderness National Parks and sixty wineries. In 1997 Eberhard and Fay established the Remembrance Field of red Flanders poppies, a European wildflower.

To obtain Fay’s book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine email Fay on helwig@halenet.com.au

Internationally it is available on the Amazon.com website.  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002ACXQ0M/sr=8-1/qid=1244294755/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&qid=1244294755&sr=8-1&seller=

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Technorati Tags: Australia, Das Helwig Haus B&B, poplars, Queensland, Spanish oaks, swamp cyprus, water, Wildflowers wilderness and wine, willows

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Our farm at Glen Aplin is blessed with both a river frontage and an area which was a swampy flood plain when we bought the property in 1992. That swampy area had an eroded gully, was over grown with tussock grass and thistles, and also dotted with deep holes.  It was infested with blackberry brambles, riddled with rabbit warrens and I hardly ventured to enter the area for fear of snakes. When I saw my little Jack Russell Terrier dog fall into one of the steep sided holes filled with water and that he couldn’t get out without assistance, I decided something must be done. Eberhard, is almost pedantic about tidiness, so the sight of this wild area affronted him and neither of us thought it gave a pleasant outlook for our Das Helwig Haus B&B guests.

With the assistance of neighbours we burned off the tussock grass and brambles. We employed a contractor with a grader to level the region, filling in all the holes, but still leaving the eroded gully. Then we went to the Queensland Department of Primary Industries and paid for a water engineer to design two dams with a connecting water course and an overflow towards the river. In 1996 contractors were hired to undertake this work. No sooner were the earthworks completed and before they could move their machinery off our land a week of steady summer rain filled our dams and river to overflowing. To illustrate what happened I will used photographs taken in 2008.

Flood entry

The Stanthorpe Shire Council built three of these culverts which channel flood water under Mt. Stirling Road and into our first dam.

By 2008 the trees that I had planted along the channels and behind the largest dams were well established. The channels from the road carried the flood water into our first small dam, constructed as a horseshoe shaped pond.

Overflowing dam

When the dam was full the water flowed out in a broad shallow channel. The next photo shows this channel as it now is, in a period of drought.

Spillway

The water then rushed down the shallow watercourse we had created to replace the eroded gully, carrying the flow to the larger dam.

Flood in channel

Note the drop in this photo. Because that first flood came immediately after the shallow channel was constructed and before we could get grass planted to hold the soil, erosion occurred cutting the channel once more into a gully configuration. It eroded back creating what Peter Andrews calls a headwall. I quote from Back from the Brink. Water dropping over a low rise will start to create a hole below. As more water falls, the hole grows deeper, which means that water falls further and has more energy, which in turn means that the growth of the hole accelerates. A headwall erosion of a creek bed always begins this way.

Headwall drop

The flood water rushes down this channel until the channel turns left where the water begins to spill over between willow trees onto the grassed flood plain on the right.

Flooding over the banks

The entry to the dam is shallow and narrow, as the water engineers wanted most of the water to pass by the dam. Any farmer would wonder why they are constructing a dam only to have most of the water bypass it.

Dam entrance

We discovered that following heavy rain there was such a torrent of water rushing down off the hard high country of Mt. Stirling and beyond, the engineers were wise in designing a flood plain immediately behind the wall of the dam. As this was already grassed at the time the dam was constructed no erosion occurred as the water sheeted across this area.

Broad overflow

This is the richest soil now on our land as the grass catches silt and other nutrients as the water flows across the wide space between our land and boundary fence. The cultivated fields beyond the boundary fence are portion of the farm owned by our Cannavo neighbours.

Geese feed on green grass

Even when apparently dry, this land will have water moving slowly beneath the surface. It stays green twelve months of the year.

Another channel

Just below this flat area two small eroded gullies cut into our land under the boundary fence drain water from the Cannavo farm and create another headwall into which our sheeting water spills. I’ve prevented further erosion of this area by allowing tall rushes to grow and dissipate the energy of the rushing water on its final journey to the river. Should the river be in flood prior to our land flooding, the river water will back-flow up this channel maintaining the same level as the flooded river.

Although the engineers had planned to have a large volume of water flow past the dam, we found that so much water entered the dam that it rose above what had been planned as the high-water mark and spilled over at the far corner. This spilling water then found its way behind the end wall of the dam and over a grassy meadow before reaching the main water channel. Running down this steep bank, it started to erode cuttings into the edge. I tell the tale in my book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine of how I had another wide and shallow spillway created at that end of the dam to carry excess water in a separate stream to the river.

Last spillway

We broadcast grass seed into the dry dust of this spillway and were able to establish a grass cover before the next flood.

Full and overflowing dam

Geese enjoy floodwater

The above photo shows the new, grassed spillway carrying off excess water from the overfilled dam during a flood. When the flood ends and the water in the stream steadies to a normal pace, the level of water in the dam drops to the planned high-water mark and stays at that level until the stream no longer flows. This flow in a good wet season may continue for six months continuing to spread out across the grassed flood plain behind the dam. In my next post I will explain how Peter Andrews believes such flows can be sustained and erosion corrected. As the subtitle of Back from the Brink says, Australia’s landscape can be saved.  See www.sustainableinsight.com.au

Book cover

Das Helwig Haus B&B owned by Eberhard and Fay Helwig is situated at Glen Aplin, near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland, Australia.

This is a region noted for Australian wildflowers, four wilderness National Parks and sixty wineries. In 1997 Eberhard and Fay established the Remembrance Field of red Flanders poppies, a European wildflower.

To obtain Fay’s book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine email Fay on helwig@halenet.com.au

Internationally it is available on the Amazon.com website.  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002ACXQ0M/sr=8-1/qid=1244294755/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&qid=1244294755&sr=8-1&seller=

http://stores.lulu.com/strictlyliterary

http://books.google.co.uk/

Technorati Tags: Australia, Das Helwig Haus B&B, erode, eroded, erosion, flood, Queensland, stanthorpe, water, Wildflowers wilderness and wine

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I spent some time this week reading a book by a fellow Australian, Peter Andrews. The book is called Back from the Brink and in subtitle How Australia’s landscape can be saved. He writes of the natural geography of Australia, and to my surprise, describes how the rivers previously ran in a series of shallow ponds across high country like arteries feeding the water into capillaries that spread the water down over many terrace like flood plains. With the coming of white settlers the country was quickly changed so that all the rivers now run deeply in eroded channels through the countryside, with tributaries draining water, often salty water, into them.

I am the same age as Peter Andrews, who has worked farms in South Australia and New South Wales, while I have spent much of my life on farms in Queensland. Just as people on the land learn to read cloud formations and understand rainfall patterns, they also learn to read their land. I believe I have these skills, but in reading Peter’s book I came to better understand two things. Salinity and how water moves underground. Peter does not believe in applied irrigation or the way water is stored in many farm dams, but espouses storage of water, moving water, within the ground.

Garden poppies

This morning I photographed these red Flanders poppies in my home garden. Note that they are waist high.

Field poppies

The red Flanders poppies in the field are only knee high. Why is there a difference in growth? Before this post finishes I will explain the reason.I suggest my readers turn back now and re-read my post under TRAVEL TALES, in a series called Australian Countryside 3 where I wrote about eucalyptus trees.

I stated my belief that young eucalyptus trees on the hillside of the the valleys containing city reservoirs were preventing rainwater runoff reaching the reservoirs. Am I a voice crying in the wilderness? Does no one else see these problems caused by the proliferation of eucalyptus trees?

After reading Back from the Brink I now know that Peter Andrews shares much of my concern about the proliferation of eucalyptus trees as woody weeds, thriving on the underground movement of water. I’ve noted some of the things that I have done correctly in my garden and on our farm. I’ve become aware of mistakes that I have made, which could quickly be corrected. I took my dog, Trixie, for a walk this morning to photograph farm views to illustrate Peter’s message.

House on the hill

Peter believes that hill tops should be used for forestry and grazing, the forestry preferably being introduced species that will usefully mulch the ground with their deciduous leaves or needles. Wildlife and birds feed and drop their faeces in such forests adding fertility to the soil. Grass does not grow between or under eucalyptus trees.  Queensland is losing two percent of grass land every year because of the proliferation of eucalyptus trees. It would appear that when I removed most of the eucalyptus trees in front of our house that I should have eliminated all of them. I only removed these trees after I had established Radiata pine trees.

Clearing trees in winter 2006

In this winter view of ducks and geese on our farm dam taken three years ago, you can see the yellow bulldozer down towards the river, leaving in its wake the pushed over eucalyptus trees. In the previous view you see the trees I allowed to remain. These trees included the Radiata pines which have appreciated the reduced competition for ground water.

Radiata pine trees

Nonetheless, after four months of drought these trees are now stressed, shedding brown pine needles to mulch the ground below them. Peter’s belief is that in this way such trees restore fertility to the ground and with the assistance of birds and animal droppings enrich water slowly moving downhill. Our house garden, the Remembrance Field and these trees are on the hilltop section of our farm.

Below the forested hill in Peter’s plan is the farmland which should be mulched to prevent evaporation of soil moisture. The shallow roots of grass do not reach much of the underground water as it moves to the flood plain. However, once the eucalyptus trees are removed the grass will grow in the good seasons. Peter espouses allowing weeds, like thistles, to flourish amongst the grass as these tap rooted plants will draw on water deeper in the soil, bring up nutrients to be stored in their foliage. Only when the weeds have reached maturity should they be fed off to livestock, or slashed as mulch, which will rot down and increase the fertility of the soil.

Young Scotch thistle

In earlier years when Eberhard took care of our grassland he would hunt down all these thistles and hoe them out, considering them an untidy weed. Such is the attitude of most farmers when Peter tells them to let their weeds flourish. No wonder his views are controversial, yet he has proved time and time again that his methods achieve results. His pasture land will remain green in droughts due to the increased fertility of his soil and the underground water moving slowly down hill beneath the surface of the ground. He states that once the weeds have restored the fertility of the soil the grass will flourish and choke out the thistles and other weeds.

Eventually this slow moving water will emerge on the low ground – the flood plain. We had two dams and a watercourse constructed on this flood plain in 1996. In my next post I will write about this surface water flow and storage of water on our flood plain, but clearly as is shown by the green grass beside this dam the underground fertile water that seeps away from my garden on the hill and down the slope drains to this area. Salty water is heavier than fresh water, so any salt in this water seeps at a slightly lower level until it enters the dam.

The flood plain

Note in the above photo that the roots of the three eucalyptus trees beside the dam have drawn all the moisture from the ground above them on this slope, yet beyond the reach of their roots on the flood plain the grass is still green.

Now I must answer the question I posed about the different heights of my red Flanders poppy plants. The garden bed was rebuilt with fresh composted soil in March after the bobcat brought in the sand for the raised vegetable gardens, shown in a previous post called SALAD DAYS.  I planted this bed with daffodil bulbs and mulched it heavily with hay.  As the daffodils finished blooming the poppy plants established themselves over the bulbs. Obviously their seed had been added with the compost. Although these plants have received no more irrigation water or rainwater than the field during their growing period, they are much healthier.

Peter Andrews deplores cultivation of ground. He gives too many reasons for me to name them all here. He considers that crop seed should be directly tilled into mulched soil, but land could be systematically and lightly ripped over a period to time if it has become compacted by heavy machines or hard footed livestock. We do slash our poppies at the end of the season.

Slashing the poppies

When the mulch has rotted we plough it into the soil to add humus. We may cultivate it again a couple of times to eliminate weeds. We give the Remembrance Field a final cultivation at the end of June to germinate the poppy seed. We do this because it ensures the poppies will be flowering for 11th November. In other years I have been happy with the results, but this year the poppies are stunted. Why? Reading Back from the Brink I discovered the answer. Salinity! It had not occurred to me that salt was the problem. Peter explains that salt arrives in the rain at 60 parts per million. If there are no deep rooted weeds or trees to take up the salt in the soil it eventually passes into the slow moving, unseen underground water moving down the slope. To keep my poppies alive in the hot bare ground I have added more water than they could use, increasing the salt content of the soil. If fresh water is put on any ground the salt in that water has increased five fold by the time it drains into creeks and rivers. This means that the irrigation water I’ve been using on the field throughout July, August, September and October is five times saltier than rainwater. No wonder every farmer says, “Nothing makes things grow like rain!” With a bit of luck we could get storm rain in the next couple of weeks to flush this excess of salt from the soil of the Remembrance Field. Where will that salt go? Eventually it will reach our dam and river.

The poppies in my garden grew in fresh compost that had not accumulated salt. Because this ground was mulched with hay and later with the decomposing leaves of the daffodils they were not watered with river water as often as the poppies in the field. This is also why my salad vegetables in the raised garden beds are thriving – fresh fertile soil and mulch means they are not contending with an excess of salt.

In my next post I will write about the water which flows over our ground and into our dams and the Severn River. I will explain the mistakes I have made and how Peter Andrews believes such mistakes could be corrected. As the subtitle of Back from the Brink says, Australia’s landscape can be saved.

See www.sustainableinsight.com.au

Book Cover

Das Helwig Haus B&B owned by Eberhard and Fay Helwig is situated at Glen Aplin, near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland, Australia.

This is a region noted for Australian wildflowers, four wilderness National Parks and sixty wineries. In 1997 Eberhard and Fay established the Remembrance Field of red Flanders poppies, a European wildflower.

To obtain Fay’s book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine email Fay on helwig@halenet.com.au

Internationally it is available on the Amazon.com website.  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002ACXQ0M/sr=8-1/qid=1244294755/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&qid=1244294755&sr=8-1&seller=

http://stores.lulu.com/strictlyliterary

http://books.google.co.uk/

Technorati Tags: Australia, Australian, book, compost, Das Helwig Haus B&B, eucalyptus, Flanders fields, Glen Aplin, poppies, red flanders poppy, salinity, salt, severn river, the granite belt, vegetable, Wildflowers wilderness and wine

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The sun rises now about 5.30am and I didn’t stir from my bed until 6.30am so I never witnessed the white sheet of frost that others say they saw this morning. Frost is always one of the big problems faced by gardeners who live in areas where sub-zero temperatures are experienced. Here in the cool mountain climate of the Granite Belt we can usually expect our winter frosts to begin by the end of April and finish by mid-September, but great variability is shown when comparing the seasons of different years. In 2008 we had our first frost on 30th March and our last frost in mid-August.

My photos will tell the story.

Hang down your head frosted poppy and cry.

It is a well known fact that many plants only become susceptible to frost damage as they begin to bloom and their hormones change from growth to flowering. Although all the Flanders poppies blooming in the field this morning were cut by the frost, and several leaves will show burnt tips, the field will quickly recover, as the poppies are a weed of the wheat fields of Europe and like all weeds are hardier than most garden flowering plants. They germinate in the freezing cold weather of winter and begin blooming by mid-spring.

I felt great dismay when I saw the state of my potato plants. I knew when I planted them in August that I would have to prevent frost damage for a few weeks by heaping straw mulch to cover them. However, as the frost danger period appeared to be past and they grew ever higher I had discontinued covering them.

Black leaves on potatoes

I phoned a former potato farmer and asked his advice.

“Are the stems still green?” Glen asked.

“Yes.”

“Throw some urea over them and apply lots of water. They’ll grow new leaves.”

I am an organic gardener and I use natural fertilizers like my homemade compost. I recognized that this form of nitrogen would be too slow working to stimulate growth, so having asked for advice, I decided to take a pragmatic approach this time. I obtained a small bag of urea and broadcast it over my potatoes, went to the river, fueled and primed the pump, and began irrigating my whole garden and Remembrance Field.

Now my real concern is for the vineyards and orchards of the Granite Belt.  The frost cut my grape vine shoots. I wonder will I lose my crop of cherries, already set on the tree.

Grape vines at fence height

These fence height grapes are the same height as the trellised wine grapes in the vineyards. It is never easy to be a farmer but the climate in this part of Australia often seems to be vindictive. When they come, the summer rains sweep down from the north and the winter rains sweep up from the south. Some years we get both summer and winter rains. Some years we get neither. In the weather rainfall map released for the week ending 13th October the Granite Belt of southern Queensland was coloured yellow. Yes, we had received 10mm rain that week, not that it did much good as it was followed by strong Westerly winds and more dust.

Australian rainfall map

Drought or floods

I’ve drawn two lines through the section of Australia where I’ve lived all my life. The region extends south from the the Bunya Mountain range of Queensland down to about Glen Innes in northern New South Wales – straddling the border of two states.

Much of western New South Wales and Victoria have been in the grip of drought for almost ten years. Here we have had patchy rain during these years, including a flood in May  2009 which filled our dams and Severn River catchment. Although the winter and spring months have been dry the farmers of the Granite Belt had irrigation water to plant their crops of cucumbers, zucchini, tomatoes and capsicum. After this frost so many of these crops will be lost. The farmers will be obliged to replant their fields at considerable cost.

My climbing beans, tomatoes and four cucumber plants I bought in a punnet have been destroyed. I’m grateful that more climbing beans, butter beans, cucumbers, melons and sweet-corn seed I planted last week had not yet germinated.

Iceland poppy and Cosmos plants

When looking at photo like the one above it is easy to see that the Iceland poppies are much more frost hardy than the Cosmos which have shriveled to nothing.  I had begun planting out cosmos seedlings to fill spaces in my flower beds, as they are a fast growing summer flower. The tomatoes and other summer vegetable crops of the district will have met the same fate as my cosmos.

I’ve lost my grapes, mulberries, Kiwi fruit and pecan nuts. The fig trees will lose their first leaves, but will recover to grow more leaves and bear an autumn crop of fruit, as will the persimmon tree. Many of the deciduous shrubs which had just produced green spring leaves and the perennials in the garden are frost tipped, but they too will recover.

Trixie beside frost tipped salvia.

The show will go on. The garden at Das Helwig Haus B&B will open for the Australian Open Garden Scheme on 7/8 November. Fay will sign her book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine in which she details some of the other seasonal difficulties she has encountered during the establishment of this remarkable garden.

Book Cover

Das Helwig Haus B&B owned by Eberhard and Fay Helwig is situated at Glen Aplin, near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland, Australia.

This is a region noted for Australian wildflowers, four wilderness National Parks and sixty wineries. In 1997 Eberhard and Fay established the Remembrance Field of red Flanders poppies, a European wildflower.

To obtain Fay’s book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine email Fay on helwig@halenet.com.au

Internationally it is available on the Amazon.com website.  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002ACXQ0M/sr=8-1/qid=1244294755/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&qid=1244294755&sr=8-1&seller=

http://stores.lulu.com/strictlyliterary

http://books.google.co.uk/

Technorati Tags: Australia, Australian, cool mountain climate, Das Helwig Haus B&B, flanders poppy, frost, Glen Aplin, Queensland, remembrance field, the granite belt, Wildflowers wilderness and wine

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