Welcome to the Melbourne Community Daily Discussion Thread.

  • Baku@aussie.zone
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    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Update on my gardening journey

    We went to Bunnings today and had a look at some plants. I decided to go with herbs to start off with, since I don't really know what I'm doing, and herbs seem somewhat happier. Ended up getting a few and a large raised garden bed, as well as 2 mint plants and 2 rosemary plants (as well as 2 completely seperate pots for those). So I settled on Oregano, pizza thyme (I've never had thyme before but pizza thyme sounded funny), sweet basil, Italian parsley, mint, and rosemary. Now that I write all that out, it sounds like a lot, but we got a fairly large garden bed and the potting mix we got said it could support all of those, so that's the main reason we chose them

    Not really looking for any advice, Bunnings seem to have decently in depth articles written up on them and the people in the store were very helpful suggesting the right pots, potting mix, and garden bed to choose. I'm just very excited! I don't actually know what any of those really taste like fresh, I think I've had fresh parsley and that's it.

    Pic:

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    Things probably aren't planted properly (is the term sowed?), but I'm very proud of the fact everything is actually in a pot/bed, even if not perfectly

    Edit: oh, and despite being the least handy person I know, Bunnings put that curse thing on me and now on the weekend I'm going to learn how to change a shower head and install a tv mount

    • Rusty Raven @aussie.zoneM
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      1 year ago

      Herbs are a good choice. Fresh herbs are great to have for cooking and tend to be the best value for money as plants go.

      Planted is the correct term - sowing is for seeds, planting for plants. If you get really into gardening you might also get to use "pricking out" which is moving very tiny sprouted seedlings into pots.

      • Baku@aussie.zone
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        1 year ago

        Yeah herbs did seen like the best thing to start with, and you don't usually need a lot of them when you're cooking either, so everything I got should satisfy my herb needs for a while!

    • melbaboutown@aussie.zone
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      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Looks good! They’ll settle their roots in and grow happily.

      If you find the parsley doesn’t perk up, that’s normal, just keep picking leaves from the outside and new ones will grow upright from the centre.

      It should be fine. Only mention it because I once had to do that with a supermarket rescue parsley. When I took the supporting cellophane off the pot the whole thing looked like it had fainted and drooped outward.

    • Taleya@aussie.zone
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      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Looking good!

      One thing to bear in mind, planters lose water faster than in the ground. You want to be careful on high sunlight days, as water can magnify sun rays (so leaves with water droplets on them will scald), so try and get the ground around them. Mulch is your friend, will stop evaporation from the top layers.

      If it's a REALLY hot day, no matter how much water you give them they may look wilty - this is normal. Plants will pull water out of their leaves in high heat so they don't boil. Check how they look when the sun goes down, you should see them starting to plump back up as the plant sees the boiling danger has passed.

      • Baku@aussie.zone
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        1 year ago

        Thanks for the warning Taleya! I would 100% have thought they'd died lol. I also didn't realise water would do that, well I mean, I knew it could do that, just not that it'd affect the plants too much

        • Taleya@aussie.zone
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          1 year ago

          no worries, had to talk His Lordship out of a tree more than once when that's happened! particularly leafy greens are a bugger for it, they have hundreds of fine capillaries all through the leaf that carry water. Generally check on them when the suns at the level it is now - plenty of light left, no heat, no blaze. If still wilty then, water. And don't be afraid to stick a finger in the soil! up to about the middle knuckle - the top end of your finger should have lovely damp soil sticking to it, if not, water deeply