What On Earth is a Pomelo?

Ten years ago we moved from a country property to a town block and I was keen to explore ideas for gardening in a smaller area. Multi-grafted fruit trees seemed like a great space-saving strategy and one of the trees I bought was a four-grafted citrus: orange, pomelo, lime and mandarin (I think). The latter has never produced any fruit so I'm sure I've lost it. The orange is very productive and the fruit is beautifully sweet. The lime is less productive, but worth having. The pomelo is super vigorous and productive and would take over completely if I didn't keep snipping branches off. The photo below shows the unusual shape of the fruit.

Unfortunately, we don't like the fruit. It is stringy, full of pips, thick-skinned, and I had written it off as bland in taste. Neither the limes nor the oranges have thick skins so I know it is not caused by environmental conditions. This year, faced with another bumper harvest of unwelcome pomelos. I decided to juice some. They are quite difficult to extract juice from because of the thick skin and stringy flesh, but, once you have enough to make a decent drink, it  is not at all bad. A bit like a cross between an orange and a grapefruit, with a twist of lemon. It's not my favourite juice, but it is free, fresh, quite drinkable once you make the effort, and I'm sure it is loaded with vitamin C.

Can one of the hundreds (600+) of readers of this blog, please tell me what the particular attraction is? Do you love pomelos? Why this blog when I think most of my other posts are much more interesting?

Gardening With Freebies and Leftovers

It is amazing what you can achieve in a garden for little cost. Most of my gardens have incorporated freebies, leftovers and found items. When we lived on 40 rocky acres I used lots of free rocks, tree stumps and branches from around the property. In the development of our town garden I used leftover building material as edging for some garden beds, large rocks that we bartered professional skills for and a truckload of mulch that we bartered a slab of beer for. Many plants were grown from cuttings given to us by friends. Even most of the garden art we did purchase (as birthday gifts) was made from re-used agricultural implements and other leftover bits and pieces.

 A recent garden addition stays with the freebies and leftovers theme. In a disused corner was an ugly pile of road screenings left over from a previous job. Fortunately, we had had the foresight to place heavy-duty black plastic under the screenings to prevent weed growth. I had long wanted to transform this corner into something more attractive; recently, the urge, the energy and the inspiration all coincided to produce what you see in the photo below. The screenings were roughly piled into a more pleasing shape. Old pots filled with a mixture of some screenings, gravelly sand and garden soil excavated from another project (a story for another day) had succulent cuttings planted in them. The large 'pot' at the back is the lid of a rusted out barbecue. The pots were then inserted into holes scraped in the screenings. The protruding black plastic was tucked under some relocated rocks and a length of branch that had fallen from one of the redgums. The decorative bird houses you see were made by Rodney some time ago and had not been used. The lattice at the back and the red roofing iron were also leftovers.

I do plan to spend a little bit on some decorative elements that will amuse my granddaughters and to put down some weed mat between the new bed and an existing one to eliminate a fiddly mowing job and give said granddaughters a sitting spot. For the present, though, I have transformed an ugly pile of stones into an interesting garden bed for no cost at all. It only took me a couple of hours and will look much better once the succulents take root and spread to conceal the pots and screenings. Yay! Creating something from 'nothing' is one of the joys of the garden.

Holiday at Home

Years ago, when we were developing our present garden, we chose to plant palm trees beside the deck to create a relaxed tropical holiday feel. For a while now we have been enjoying this holiday atmosphere every time we eat on the deck. Today we ate lunch in the glorious winter sunshine with blue-faced honeyeaters fossicking in the palm fronds overhead. The Sunshine Coast it definitely is not, but there are times when our little patch of garden in Euroa is a pretty fair facsimile.

Adding to the satisfaction, our lunchtime salad included young silverbeet leaves, celery, nasturtium leaves, parsley and baby beet leaves picked from the garden. We are between lettuce crops at the moment, so the supermarket mesclun mix was enlivened by these homegrown ingredients. Is it just me, or has the commercial mesclun mix become bland and boring? It seemed so tasty and adventurous when it was first available, now it is very ordinary. Thank goodness for homegrown goodies to add some zing.

What is your favourite holiday spot? It can be fun to tweak your garden planting and design to create a feeling of holidaying at home. Enjoy.

Try A Little Touchy Feely

Pattern and texture surround us in the natural world, but how often do we even notice them? Sometimes it takes a change of scenery to re-awaken our senses to the infinite variations that we usually take for granted. On our recent holiday, I often found myself stopping to stroke a tree trunk, run my fingers over a leaf, or admire the pattern of a fungus. Since being home, I am looking at my familiar environment with refreshed eyes, and fingers.

Stopping to touch a tree, flower, leaf or rock puts us back in contact with the real world and adds a new dimension of enjoyment to our lives. Try it. Stroke those camellia petals, soft as a baby's skin, see the pattern made by the way they overlap, the contrast of the stamens in the centre of the flower. Texture and pattern are everywhere, they're free and they are amazing. Enjoy.

Going Troppo In Noosa

You have to love Noosa. It had been many years since our last visit and we were impressed with how well the environment seems to be looked after, amidst all the commercialism. I know, there are probably locals who could set me straight about any number of problem areas, but, from an outsider's perspective, it looks wonderful.

I've always loved Hastings St because of the way the vegetation meanders along the street, spreads leafy shade to pedestrians, and makes business facades look green and welcoming. If anything, it looks better now than it used to. But it is not just this iconic shopping street that blends so well with the surrounding vegetation, just about any street you wander along is similar, with tropical gardens looking lush and well maintained and merging into the surrounding bush/national park areas. Tourist operations too seem to get into the spirit and most have gardens in their entries and surrounds. Why can't businesses everywhere see the value of this?

It is not just vegetation that is prolific. There were brush turkeys everywhere, including wandering along Hastings St and around outdoor dining areas. I don't remember them from previous visits. Blue-faced  honeyeaters, wattlebirds and lorikeets were common, as well as numerous smaller birds. 

Going Troppo

The first thing you notice when you exit the plane at Sunshine Coast Airport, having left chilly Victoria a couple of hours ago, is that the air feels different; softer, gentle on the skin, and, of course, a little warmer. The next thing you notice, if you have any interest at all in plants, is the vegetation. There is so much of it, even in the airport carpark. The greens are deep greens, but vibrant foliage colour is everywhere. It is an excess, an exuberance of leaves, from understorey through to treetops.

Though there are familiar species in abundance, you are struck by the differences: the numerous palms, the pandanus, a banksia with large leaves and russet flowers, shrubs with multi-coloured leaves and numerous other tropical/subtropical species we don't see in Victoria, or see only as cosseted house plants.

It had been many years since we holidayed in Queensland and we found ourselves wondering why we had left it so long, and why this area we have never lived in, only holidayed for a few weeks a year some time ago, immediately feels as welcoming as home. Yes, we have gone troppo and agreed to return soon for another holiday.