# Garden update - 11 June 2023 --- rawtext.club:70/~xiu 2023-06-11 Boorloo/Perth, Western Australia --- I'm failing a bit at keeping a dedicated garden log. I guess it's just easier to update a single phlog, even if it means everything goes into one mish-mash 'stream' of updates. At some point, I'll probably move everything time-based from there to here and keep the garden "log" as a collection of random gardening notes. It is wintery here, but in that Perth kind of way. In the last week or so, we've had rain, hail, chilly wind, and just wet chilliness all round. My garden is loving the water, but I am freezing my bloody arse off. # Sqft catchup: summer and autumn (Birak, Bunuru, Djeran) Our brown onions were a fail. The nasturtium looks like it wants to take over the world, and we're not sure anymore that we want to make pesto from it. Maybe it'll bloom at some point and we can hold out for nasturtium capers? We have not harvested much garlic chive, as we have no idea what to do with it. Strawberries still have not fruited. We are done with tomatoes, and I'm not sure I want to grow them again -- although I would consider a native bush tomato if we can get our hands on a plant. We are also done with the chillies, but instead of uprooting and composting the plant, we've stuck it elsewhere in the garden to see how it fares. Same with both our basil plants -- one ended up getting buried under a new compost pile. The other seems to have taken root behind the square foot garden and has not yet succumbed to the cold. # The compost pile Shortly after taking over this space, we set up a compost pile in a spot the size of a picnic blanket, which I'll call the North Wing. I was surprised at how quickly stuff broke down. We had lots of browns (lupin mulch, cardboard, some newspaper) and a fair whack of greens (fruit & veg scraps) going in at a steady rate. We'd water it a little every time we watered the Sqft bed and turn it every couple of weeks, finding the undersides nicely blackened and rich. It had that lovely smell of damp earthiness, and not the stink I feared would upset the neighbours. We spread it out across the surface of the North Wing in early April. Lots of little weeds and the occasional mushroom have come up since the rains started in earnest, which means our "forest floor" is off to a good start. I'll expand on this another time. For now, we're letting the weeds do their thing. I don't know what the majority weed is (but I'll have to look it up), but there's also some Sow Thistle and a few scattered blades of something that looks like our garlic chive but doesn't have a smell. We also planted a dichondra (a native ground cover sometimes used as lawn replacement), which we're hoping will become a dominant species across the whole garden bed. But slowly and all in good time. # A second compost pile There's a second compost pile in a smaller section I'll call the East Wing. It's a sandier spot that's a bit less stable, but I think we can build it up over time. Without the scumbag summer sun to bake our kitchen scraps, I expect it'll take longer for this compost pile to ripen. Overall, I think the East Wing will need more care to make it come good, but I have fantasies of growing a midyim berry (native shrub with white speckled berries that taste a little like gingerbread) and possibly some muntries (native groundcover with currant-like berries) there. # Misc... That's it for now. Tbh, I haven't felt very motivated in the garden because of the cold, even though these wet months are the best time to plant things in Perth. Maybe the drive will return once we're into the new financial year, old tasks have been closed off, etc. etc. For the time being, I'll just fantasise about all the lovely plants we might be able to squeeze into that space one day, once this first preparatory stage is done.