If August was busy, then September at Greatrakes was absolutely frantic! Not only have we been gearing up towards our overseas holiday in October, but we’ve been making preparations for the change of seasons in the garden, and we’ve also been inundated with visitors.

La Nina 3.0

For the third year running it looks like we’re going to have a wetter than average spring and summer, thanks to the return of La Nina. Much of the ground in Northern Victoria is already saturated, and every new rain event brings fresh flooding. The Loddon and Murray catchments have been on flood-watch for most of the month, with weirs at Cairn Curran, Tullaroop and Laanecoorie reservoirs all spilling into the Loddon, and large water releases into the Murray from the Hume Weir at Albury.

Closer to home, the Coliban and Campase rivers have been steadily flowing into Lake Eppalock, which may also spill in coming weeks. It’s currently sitting at around 85%, and is visible from the McIvor Highway at Derrinal, where it has started to back up into Mount Ida Creek.

Our own Campase tributary, Axe Creek, has been steadily flowing all month and has flooded on several occasions, with the water at the O’Briens Lane road crossing reaching a hefty 1.4 metres above the road surface.

Thankfully we’re yet to see it burst its banks into our paddocks, although it has come mighty close to doing so twice now.

The minimal flows from off the paddocks into the dam have been enough to keep it stable at around 1/4 capacity – one of our long term projects over the next year or two will be to improve inflows and try to maximize water retention.

In the Glasshouse

We have ramped up our production of seedlings in the glasshouse this month as we start to head into warmer weather. The seeds that we germinated from the large red gum on the property have been potted up into tubes ready for planting out next March, and they are piling on the growth.

Our trays of marigolds and zinnias proved to be extremely bountiful, with an excellent germination rate on the marigolds in particular. Unfortunately, the zinnias were planted into trays of two different seed raising mixes, and the results in the Yates brand mix have been somewhat disappointing compared to those planted into my preferred Osmocote mix, which I sadly wasn’t able to purchase anywhere nearby at the time.

The marigolds will make up the first lot of hopefully many annual displays for our new circular annual bed in the centre of the driveway, whilst the green-flowered zinnias will complement them in two triangular garden beds opposite.

Also growing in the glasshouse during September were plenty of celery, celeriac, bronze fennel and French breakfast radishes that have since made it into the garden, along with several varieties of tomatoes.

The very first crop that we planted, the mixed lettuces that we have been growing in the glasshouse, have reached a stage of maturity where we can’t keep picking the leaves as quickly as they are being produced, and I fear it’s only a matter of time before they start going to seed. We’ll most likely pull them up soon and switch to the ones we’ve got growing in the outdoor beds. I plan to grow some herbs such as Dill and Basil in the raised garden bed instead over the warmer months.

New annual display

One project that we have been working towards for a while now is to replace a bit of an untidy planting of lavenders and Westringias with a bedding display of flowering annuals. The highlight of this garden is an ornamental urn water feature – currently there is no pump fitted to it, but our ultimate goal is to have it bubbling away within a bed of massed colour.

The original planting of this bed featured some nice plants, but we felt that the Westringias especially would eventually grow to a size where they would pretty much obscure the urn, which is visible from all of the front rooms of the house. We also had issues with the mulch on the bed washing onto the driveway every time it rained, and the thick planting of bushes making it difficult to control some pretty nasty infestations of clover and cape weed.

We have re-used a couple of the lavenders elsewhere in the garden, and we’ve offered the rest to a neighbour who is planting up a new garden, so hopefully they won’t go to waste. Unfortunately the Westringias had grown too large to be removed with any real chance of survival, but they’ll go into the compost and eventually return to the garden to feed a future display of annuals.

We raised most of the seedlings for the garden in our glasshouse, from seed purchased from The Seed Collection. Unfortunately due to the issues with sub-standard seed raising mix mentioned previously, the zinnias hadn’t developed to the standard I would have liked, so the rows that had been earmarked for them in the display were instead planted out with mixed colours of a 25cm dwarf African marigold variety, sourced from Bunnings.

With the recent death of Queen Elizabeth II leading to the declaration of a day of mourning on the Thursday preceding the Grand Final Friday public holiday in Victoria, we ended up with a four-day long weekend, and we were blessed with glorious sunshine in which to work. All the while we were under the watchful eye of our German Shorthair Pointer, Heide, who set up her office in the back of the car. Meanwhile, our other GSP, Reinhardt, sauntered off to find a shady spot on the veranda. Gardening is not really his game.

The new display features concentric circles of marigolds, starting in the centre with a 70cm high variety of African marigold called “Kee’s Orange”, followed by the aforementioned mixed dwarf variety and finished off with several rows of a 10cm pale yellow variety of French marigold called “Lemon Drops”.

After nearly a full day of working in the beautiful sunshine, we were completely exhausted, but thankfully we managed to get all of the marigolds planted and watered in well. Hopefully when we return from our holidays, this bed will be a mass of bright orange and yellow.

Elsewhere around the garden

With the arrival of spring, there also comes the arrival of blossoms, and none are more magnificent than the ornamental pears that line both sides of our driveway.

There are 22 in all, and since mid September they have been buzzing with hundreds of bees, attracted to the masses of snow white blooms. There is a slight downside to them though – they do have a peculiar smell. It isn’t too noticeable when they’re grown as an individual tree, but when they’re planted en masse, they can permeate the air with a fragrance somewhat akin to a very strong prawn vindaloo, which is definitely an acquired taste…

As previously mentioned, most of our tomato seedlings have been potted up to continue to grow in the glasshouse until after the threat of frosts has disappeared, but we have also experimented with a few plantings outdoors into straw bales that we’ve covered over with plastic sheeting to try to get an early start on the season – however this is purely for experimental purposes, and I won’t be too upset if none of these work out.

In the vegie garden we are starting to see a number of crops approaching harvest. Our cabbages and cauliflowers have been going gang-busters lately, enjoying the topsy-turvy mix of sun and rain.

Our potatoes have also started poking their heads up – little do they realise that they are about to be covered over again with layers of poo and straw, as we start to create our “tater lasagne” in a bid to maximise their production. The life of a vegetable in the Greatrakes garden is never an easy one.

We’ve now completely filled all of our available raised vegetable beds with crops. With our overseas trip coming up we’ve put a hold on adding any new ones, but once we’re back we’ll look at popping in a few more. We’ve also earmarked a couple of areas at the edge of our main lawn that are perfect for planting pumpkins, watermelons and other trailing crops, but these will have to wait until we’re back home as well.

The biggest concern now is whether we get any more severe frosts while we’re away. Most of the stuff that we currently have growing outdoors is frost hardy, but it’s always a gamble on getting your seeds in with enough time to get a decent growing season, versus waiting until you’re sure the threat of frosts is completely over.

Sad goodbyes

Sadly this month we have had to say goodbye to the three gorgeous (but very naughty) steers, De Vito, Arnie and Buttercup. As much as we loved them and loved watching their antics as they ran around the paddock chasing the sheep, we’ve come to the realisation that we just couldn’t keep them any longer.

A one-off fence escape is one thing, but when they were constantly breaking through fences and getting into the neighbouring properties, the expense of trying to electrify all of the boundary lines was just too prohibitive. Added to that was their tendency to charge and buck at people who entered the paddocks – all in play of course, but still highly confronting and quite dangerous when you’re talking about 1+ ton of cattle bearing down on you.

With the help of local agents McKean McGregor we managed to get them loaded onto a trailer and transported up to the Echuca saleyards. There were tears as the trailer left the property, and even Heide seemed a little upset – she chased after them out the front gate and down the road. After our break we’ll look at increasing the size of our flock of sheep, and possibly getting in some young alpacas (crias) to keep Rosie company.

Out and About

We’ve also had time this month to welcome several visitors, which has allowed us a bit of a chance to explore more of the local area. The highlight for the month no doubt has come right at the end, with a morning trip in glorious sunshine to Heathcote, where we visited the stunning Pink Cliffs Geological Reserve at Heathcote. This was followed by an excellent lunch at the Tooborac Hotel. We’ve also ventured out to check on Lake Eppalock this month, which is steadily filling up. With a bit of luck, before we head off overseas we may even get to see it spill over into the Campaspe River for the first time in 11 years.