RED OR ORANGE BERRIES

Cotoneasters (pronounced co-tony-asters) or Firethorn. These two shrubs are spectacular in cooler climates during the winter months when their bright bunches of red and orange berries catch the eye. These bushes are unnoticed other than as green hedges until the cooler months arrive. Suddenly their berries ripen and bring colour to our winter views here in the cool mountain highlands of the Granite Belt of southern Queensland.

I was unfamiliar with these plants until November 1979 when I visited friends on the east coast of the USA. Al and Martha Lager owned a home at Saratoga in the hills overlooking Silicon Valley south of San Francisco. What an eye-opener that visit was for me as their region was in full flush with deciduous trees showing the glory of autumn colour. Their home was set into a hillside and the whole steep slope at the rear of their home was covered by Pyracantha – the Firethorn plant.

Californian firethorn

I was so impressed by the sight of this colourful, sprawling plant totally covering the hillside that I decided to grow two plants in my then garden at Dalby. The shrubs thrived, but I quickly realized they were thorny monsters unsuitable for a home where children might hit a cricket ball under their foliage. I dug them out!

In 1987 when Eberhard and I were living in Toowoomba and he was manager of the Club Restaurant at the University of Southern Queensland, we often went walking on the outskirts of the city and again I discovered some beautiful specimens of Pyracantha. Read the rest of this entry »

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INTRODUCED GRASSES

These grasses are hardly wildflowers but I found them in the booklet Wildflowers of the Granite Belt under the section of introduced weeds.

Wildflowers of the Granite Belt

When you look at a photograph like this, what do you see?

Storm brewing on the Granite Belt

Do you see a storm brewing?

Do you see a restless horse pacing the fence?

Do you see the thick blanket of eucalyptus trees on the hills.

Do you see the grass and recognise the variety?

Or do you just see a tranquil country view?

I can look at a view like this and see many things. In particular I see that there are no cattle grazing on this green grass and I ask myself the question, “Why?Why do people grow grass if not to feed it to grazing animals. Is it possible that this particular grass is a variety that animals will not eat?”

Did you ever think that grazing animals my be choosy about what grasses they are willing to eat? Read the rest of this entry »

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WEED SHRUBS WITH BERRY SEEDS

During these autumn and winter months many of the introduced shrubs growing wild along the banks of the Severn River provide berries now for Australian birds who have multiplied largely due to the weedy nature of these shrubs. Birds like the Satin Bower birds now have a winter source of food.

May view of the Severn River

It is only possible for me to access the river bank at this one place where we cleared the rubbish many years ago to allow family, guests and friends to go fishing. Now farmers are prevented from clearing trees on their river frontages by the Queensland Native Vegetation Act. What this means is that plants like blackberries, Willow trees, honeysuckle, brier roses and and Privets now flourish in these regions providing cover for wild pigs, foxes and rabbits. No one manages these areas to prevent their degradation. Read the rest of this entry »

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COREOPSIS – WEED OR WILDFLOWER?

Golden Coreopsis

It was largely due to the spread of this perennial plant, a native of the prairie grasslands of the USA, that farmers feared the introduction of the Flanders poppy into the Granite Belt district and opposed my proposal for a Memorial Drive linking Amiens, Messines, Bapaume, Passchendaele, Bullecourt, Pozieres and Fleurbaix where people along this route could grow the poppies to bloom for 11th November.

The farmers said, “We have enough flowering weeds in this district!” They pressured the Stanthorpe Shire Council  to veto my proposal. I took the heat out of the issue by establishing a field of Flanders poppies on our land as a Remembrance Field to prove that the poppies were unlikely to spread in the same manner as the Coreopsis.

I knew that the Eastern Rosella parrots ate the seed of these flowers and then via their droppings, spread that seed across the district. I knew that the Coreopsis was a perennial plant of the prairie grasslands of the USA and was therefore adapted to grow in grass country.

Farmers can easily cultivate out Coreopsis seedlings from any agricultural field, but the Coreopsis is a perennial plant that has adapted to grassland. Therefore the roots will remain alive after the leaves have been eaten by livestock or burned during annual burning of grassland. Read the rest of this entry »

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WILDFLOWERS OR WEEDS

Extract from my book WILDFLOWERS, WILDERNESS AND WINE.

In 1993 I had asked Eberhard to plough the field in front of our house to allow me to establish a wildflower meadow like I had seen in Europe during our holiday there in 1990. I had realised that in the cool mountain climate of the Granite Belt I would be able to grow many of the Northern Hemisphere flowers I had so greatly admired in Europe.

Amongst the flowers I sowed in the field were the red Flanders Poppies. My powers of observation came into play and I noted that it took sixteen weeks from when the poppy seed was sown for the plant to reach flowering. I recognised that it would be possible to germinate the poppy seedlings to time the flowering to begin mid October and continue on to the end of November.

Flanders poppies

This was an important discovery, for it led me to the startling conclusion that no where else in the Southern Hemisphere was there such a grouping of Flanders battlefield place names as the Granite Belt possessed and a cool mountain climate that would allow the poppies to bloom for 11^th November, Armistice Day.

In a report I wrote for the Southern Down Tourist Association I proposed the creation of a memorial drive where  people along the route could grow poppies in their gardens or fields to create a tourist attraction. This route already existed as a road linking the soldier settlements of Amiens, Messines, Bapaume, Passchendaele, Bullecourt, Pozieres and Fleurbaix. I envisaged motorists and school groups touring the area each November.

A meeting of tourist operators and business people from the northern – soldier settlement end of the district met to discuss the proposal and the Stanthorpe Border Post carried the story as a front-page feature. The enthusiasm was contagious. The RSL suggested placing seven memorial crosses on the drive to mark each district, with each cross to carry a plaque detailing the history of that particular battle. Furthermore it was suggested that the school children at Amiens and Pozieres might undertake the planting and management of poppies growing in garden beds under the crosses. The President of the Lion’s Club announced that the club would consider beautifying a public picnic ground with the poppies. Tony Evans, of Evan’s Seedlings at Amiens offered to purchase bulk poppy seed for distribution and to plant an acre of ground at the front of their business with the poppies. His father had served in France and been one of the original diggers to receive land at Amiens. I was photographed for the newspaper story standing with Mr. and Mrs. Evans. I came home from that meeting on a high!

Then the protesters, like storm clouds, gathered! Read the rest of this entry »

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TREASURES

There is something in my psyche that makes me enjoy the life of  hunting and foraging, not only for food but for items that I can reuse. As a child on farms our family never had access to garbage disposal services so we had to compost, burn or bury our rubbish. Today I still live on a farm and I don’t have the luxury of wheeling a garbage bin out to the kerbside for collection. Instead as part of the service we pay for via council taxes, our Shire Council provides bins on a site near Glen Aplin where we are allowed to dump household refuse. There is no recycling service for paper, aluminium cans or bottles. Further away near Stanthorpe there is a dump where people can dispose of old household furniture, white goods, car tyres, rusty wire etc. But, to travel that far is seen as a nuisance, so instead of taking these items to the official spot people not only fill the bins but leave any item that they can not fit into the bins lying on the ground nearby. Eberhard says Australian’s are a rebellious lot and won’t heed the voice of authority. I say that the Shire Councillors should consider solving the problem rather than complaining about the untidiness of rate payers. After all – they are elected  to meet the needs of shire residents.

This is a rural area into which many ‘tree change’ people have moved in recent years. During their former urban life they have never had difficulty disposing of their rubbish so they expect the Council to service their needs. Thus instead of shredding and composting garden rubbish, or even burning such piles, loads of shrubbery and even tree branches are thrown into the bins. Everything from kitchen utensils to paint buckets are cluttered beside mattresses and TV consoles until the Council eventually sends out a truck and a team of men to clear the area.

I am a law abiding soul who only deposits what garbage I can not recycle on my own property, but each trip I make to the refuse dump reminds me of the saying, “One man’s rubbish is another man’s treasure.” There are times when I will bring home a greater load than I have taken away. Not for personal use, but to recycle in the garden.

Such treasures include geranium cuttings, insect screen doors and a baby’s bath tub.

Water is a valuable garden resource. These two recycled former 44 gallon fuel drums now stand below the roof of a shed where the runoff rain water can drip down into the first drum. Warning – if you store water in such open containers be aware of the dangers. I check my drums regularly to look for wrigglers – mosquito larvae. A thin film of kerosene applied to the surface of the water will quickly suffocate them. Also, once the level has dropped, birds who have been coming to bath in this water may not be able to fly out. I insert a stick into these drums to allow birds to stand on it while they shake their feathers dry and thus prevent them drowning. Of course, if I was a rich woman I could have another covered rainwater tank placed on this site, but I have grown up ‘making do’ with what was available for me to use. I find these drums exceedingly useful when filling buckets of water to carry to my poultry each evening. Again if I was a rich woman I would have pipes reticulating water to the poultry pens. In this instance I could easily fill one drum, but had no way of flowing excess water to the second drum until I saw the baby’s bath tub thrown away at the refuse dump. Now once one drum has filled, I can place the tub slanted across the top to flow water to the second drum.

Read the rest of this entry »

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AN ABUNDANCE OF MUSHROOMS

March has brought a pleasant start to the autumn months. Small falls of rain dampened the ground followed by days of cool, misty weather providing the ideal temperature for field mushrooms to grow naturally on our farm land.

My earliest memories of gathering field mushrooms began when as a young child I accompanied my grandmother across the grass flats beside the Myall Creek flowing down from the Bunya Moutains. It was Gran who taught me how to gather the mushrooms and tell the difference between them and other forms of fungi. Then with our 2 gallon stainless steel milking bucket filled with mushrooms we would proudly carry them home. A few of the large flat mushrooms would be sprinkled with salt and placed on the hot iron top of the wood fired kitchen stove  where they would sizzle and turn black before we popped this treat into our mouths. That night the family enjoyed a thick mushroom soup for dinner.

Those were the days when factory farmed mushrooms were not available in our shops and tinned mushrooms were tasteless small champignons.

Walking out one morning this week I spotted wild field mushrooms growing in the grass beside our home Das Helwig Haus B&B.

Wild mushrooms

In this post I will tell you how to gather such mushrooms, explain the differences between them an other poisonous varieties of fungi and then how to prepare wild field mushrooms for meals. Read the rest of this entry »

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CLIMATIC DIFFERENCE

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

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AN ABUNDANCE OF APPLES

All my readers who have down loaded the free E-book The Summer of the Morning Star will know that I turn my home Das Helwig Haus B&B into a ‘home away from home’ for Korean backpackers in the summer and autumn months. 2010 is the fifth year that I have done so. As these young people are all on Work/Travel visas and are allowed to work for two years in Australia some return to my home for a second year. Usually they are university graduates aged between 25 and 30 years who have had difficulty getting a job in South Korea. Not only do they earn and save money while in Australia they also study to improve their spoken English.  Some believe the added maturity, proven work ability and additional language skills will enable them to find a job when they return to South Korea.  Others plan to return to Australia for a third year on an educational visa with their saved money to undertake training within Australia to fill gaps amongst our skilled workers.

Korean Backpackers

The above photo shows a group of Koreans enjoying a barbecue meal in out gazebo in 2007. Read the rest of this entry »

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MORE ABOUT MULCHING.

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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