Diary of a Volunteer Grower

I’ve got that sinking feeling, ohhh ahhh that sinking feeling (2010)

2010-12-09T22:24:00.001+10:30

NEWS FLASH: my blogs posts are currently 2-3 weeks behind when they actually occur but this one could not wait for it to be in sequence.

After the wettest December day in Adelaide for 90 years and the wettest December on record (and we are only up to the 8th) I woke to a nice sunny Wednesday morning to find my growing bench on a lean. It looked a bit like the leaning tower of Pisa. (Editor: except it is a table not a tower so it is not the right shape and much smaller than a multi story building, but you get the idea.)

Luckily (?) all six legs of my bench had sunk into the ground, however the south western end had sunk the most. The below picture (click image to view larger) shows the table leaning. The lean looked much worse in person but it gives you an idea of what was happening.

The leaning growing bench

The bench was on a definite lean. Looking at the bench, I decided that as the weather forecast was for no more rain for the rest of the day, it should be ok until I returned home from work. I was fairly confident that none of the boxes would slide off the bench.

When I returned home from work, I was pleased to find that all of my boxes were still on the table. I scoured the back yard looking for some old bricks and stuck some masking tape around the leg that was furthest in the ground. I then started lifting. Not a good move when there are boxes of heavy wet soil on the table. As the table was way too heavy to lift up, I decided to take the boxes off the table to lighten the load. (Editor: Duhh why did you not do that in the first place.)

I was then able to pick up one end of the table and kick the bricks under the legs. I then repeated the lift and kick at the other end. When I tried to place the bricks under the middle legs, the whole table fell off the bricks. So I started again. Now with the bricks securely under each of the legs of the table it was much sturdier. I then returned the boxes of tubes and other plants back onto the table.

Looking at the masking tape on the leg I was surprised it was quite high off the ground. When I got the tape measure, I was even more surprised. The leg had sunk 18.5cm into the ground. Yes you read correctly 18.5cm. wow I was shocked, no wonder my bench was on such a lean. I did not measure the other legs but I know the others were not buried so deep. The below picture (click image to view larger) shows the before and after for the leg with the tape on it.

Before and After

So here is another picture I did not think I was ever going to take. Under my bench showing the legs propped up by bricks.

The propped up legs

The legs are made from 25mm square tubing and they were sitting on the ground. Last year I remember at the end of the season it has sunk about 10mm in the ground from the weight of the boxes but this was ridiculous. The table had only been in its position for about a month. I think it was a combination of a few very very wet days and softer ground in this years bench location on the other side of the yard (see previous blog post Location, Location, Location and The Shade Structure Saga 2010).

Until next time. Happy Growing, Cheers Simon.

Location, Location, Location and The Shade Structure Saga 2010

2010-12-04T22:41:00.000+10:30

This post is about the positioning my growing bench and my shadecloth.

Location, Location, Location
Now that I have picked up my supplies I needed to work out where I was going to grow my plants this year. The Trees for Life instruction booklet says you need a location with at least 8 hours of sunlight. Last year I grew my plants on the western side of the backyard and they were partially shaded by the shed in the late afternoon. This year I will try growing my plants on the eastern side of the yard.

The new location will mean the plants will get more of the hot afternoon sun. Hopefully they will be ok. The average daily maximum temperature for Adelaide in January and February is around 29C degrees. When we get a heat wave it can be over 35C for over a week and still over 30C when the sun is setting. The afternoon sun can still have quite a bite. In the wild the plants grow in harsh conditions so they should be ok because the sides of the tubes are not exposed to the sun and the styrofoam boxes act as insulation.

As per last year I will be growing my plants on an old trestle table we had lying round the back yard. It is about 1m wide and 3m long. We had an old garden seat and table that I pulled apart a few years ago with the intention of sanding it back and applying a coat of varnish and then putting it back together again. The wooden slats (still in original condition) fit perfectly across the 1m width of the trestle table with a small overhang on each end. The table is also long enough so that I can set up one half with shade and the other half in the sun.

Grower Bench showing the north end in full sun and the south end with shade

Shade Structure Saga
My plants need to be in the shade (under 50% shadecloth) until they develop their second batch of leaves. Last year I just draped some shadecloth over some garden stakes but this year I thought I would get fancier.

Shade Structure attempt 1 - I attempted to make a shade structure out of 19mm plastic poly pipe (normally used for garden irrigation). We had spare poly pipe lying around, as well as some old T pieces and corners for the connections. I made a rectangle 1.5m by 1m (half the size of my table). I then attached the shadecloth to the poly pipe rectangle using twisty tie (the green plastic with thin wire in the middle). I then attached my structure to some upright poles. Unfortunately this was not as sturdy as I would have liked so the next day I pulled it apart.

Shade Structure attempt 2 – after seeing a shade structure on Scarecrow’s blog. I decided to try my version of her shade structures. She uses star droppers and 50mm plastic pipe to create large arches to attach shadecloth to. I however attempted to make mine out of my used 19mm pipe. I made my arches and attached my shadecloth. It looked good for the first day then it started to fall over as the skinny pipe I used was not rigid enough (the strong wind overnight did not help). By day 3 it was falling over so, it too was pulled apart.

Shade Structure attempt 3 – Ok so I have reverted back to what I did last year. 4 wooden tomato stakes attached to the trestle table legs with wire and the shade cloth draped over the top. I have added a few screws to the tops of the stakes and used twisty tie wire to attach the shadecloth. Winding the twisty wire between the holes in the shadecloth and the screws. The shadecloth hangs down on the North and West sides of the structure to try to keep some of the hot midday and afternoon sun off the boxes near the edge.

Grower bench showing the shade structure

So as usual the K.I.S.S. principle applies again. Keep It Simple Stupid. Try not to get too fancy and you should be ok.
Cheers Simon

Pickup Trees for Life Supplies 2010

2010-11-24T22:14:00.002+10:30

This post contains details about picking up my growing supplies, and details of the species of plants I will be growing this year.

The Pickup
On a nice sunny (but not too warm) Sunday morning I headed over to the Trees for Life depot near Adelaide airport to pick up my supplies for the new growing season. I was very excited find out what I will be growing this year.
The pickup process went very smoothly like last year.

Drive to the Trees for Life depot. I did arrive at the depot approximately ½ hour before the end of the allocated time and I actually received a reminder phone call about 10 minutes before getting to the depot, checking that I had not forgotten.
Open boot of car.
While getting name checked off the grower register list, some nice volunteers stack the supplies in the car boot. Having a station wagon there was plenty of room in the boot for the 6 boxes of soil and the other growing supplies. It was also nice to meet Jennifer the TFL Volunteer Grower Coordinator.
Get back in car and drive home
Unpack supplies onto growing bench (my next blog post might have some details of my growing bench)

Who, What, When
This year I am growing for the Million Trees Program in Onkaparinga. I will be growing:

3 boxes of Allocasurina Verticillata – Drooping Sheoak (5-10m high x 4-6m wide tree) - to be planted around 24 November 2010
1 box of Acacia Rupicola – Rock Wattle (1-3m high x 1-3m wide tree/shrub) - to be planted around 24 November 2010
1 box of Acacia Myrtifolia – Myrtle Wattle (1-3m high x 1-3m wide tree/shrub) - to be planted around 8 December 2010
1 box of Acacia Pycnantha – Golden Wattle (4-6m high x 2-6m wide tree) (Australia’s floral emblem) to be planted around 15 December 2010

The Seeds I will be sowing this year (Acacia on the left and Allocasurina on the right)

The following paragraph was taken from the Million Trees Program website:
The SA Urban Forests – Million Trees Program is an initiative of the State Government to support a greener, more sustainable city. The program is dedicated to planting three million local native trees and associated understorey species across the Adelaide Metropolitan Area by 2014, which will help off-set carbon emissions, provide habitat for wildlife and improve air and water quality. With the support of local government, industry and the community the program aims to restore approximately 2,000 hectares of native vegetation using suitable areas of our public open space, including parks, reserves, transport corridors, water courses, coastline and council land. Involving the community in planting events, creating information displays at major events, giving workshops and talks and getting involved in school projects are important activities that build on the important revegetation work that is being done.

My supplies
As usual Trees for Life supply all the required items for the growing season. In the pictures below you can see:

Boxes of soil – to fill the tubes with
Tubes – for the soil
Grower pack – (see below)
Bag of fertiliser for each box of soil (to be mixed with the soil in the tubes)
Bag of gravel for each box – to go on top of the seeds when they are sown (like mulch)

Growing supplies for the year

Close-up of the supplies

The grower pack contains:

Tree Scheme Growers Handbook - Instruction booklet – A MUST READ. Very important
Bags of seeds
Face mask – To help reduce the risk of catching any bugs from the soil (if you remember to wear it)
Blank plastic labels – to write the plant species and other details (these will be explained in my post about planting)
Pencil – to write on the labels
Trees for Life sticker
Some papers including my “Growing Order” with the project and plant details

Grower Pack

So this year will be very different to last year:

This year I will be using the hard plastic forestry tubes compared to the regular soft plastic tubes. Million Trees program requires the use of hard forestry tubes.
Even though I am growing 6 boxes again (same as last year) I will actually be growing less plants. With soft tubes you grow 60 per box but with the hard tubes it is only 50 per box. So only 300 plants this year compared to my 360 from last year.
The trees I will be raising are completely different. This year I am growing Wattle and Sheoak. Last year I grew Melaleuca and Eucalyptus.
This year all my seeds will be sown before Christmas. Last year only 1 of my 6 boxes was sown before Christmas.
This year 3 of my packets of seed require “pre treatment” of the seed prior to sowing. The Acacia/Wattle seeds need to be soaked in boiled hot water for 12 hours to soften the outer shell. Last year none of the seeds I planted required pre-treatment. This year I need to plan my sowing date/time in advance.
This year I picked up my supplies from the the Trees for Life depot near Adelaide airport. Last year my pickup location was a temporary TFL depot in the suburb next to where I live.

Until next time. Cheers Simon

Lets do it again (2010)

2010-11-12T11:50:00.001+10:30

I have registered to grow another 6 boxes of seedlings for Trees for Life this year. It is almost time to pick up my supplies and I am getting excited. I have no idea what sort of plants I will be growing or when I will need to do my planting. Depending on the species of seeds that I get given to grow, I might be sowing seeds any time from late November to late January.

This time I booked in for a propagation workshop. It was good to go along and meet some other growers. About half of the people at the workshop were first time growers but a few attendees have been growing for years and came along to get some extra tips. The most important tips I picked up were;

Make sure the tubes are filled correctly and the soil goes all the way to the bottom of the tubes. When filling the tubes the soil needs to be damp (not wet but not dry). The tubes need to be filled firmly with a cylindrical shape and a flat bottom. Also check that the small drainage holes at the bottom of the tubes are not folded over.
With dry hands it is quite easy to pick up the seeds to sow them in the tubes. Last season I spread out the seeds on a small plate and pushed the seed off with a rubber baby spoon. My process worked but this year I will try picking up the seed and sprinkling it by hand. It will make it easier to spread the seed around the whole tube.
Transplanting takes time. Last year I pulled out the small seedlings and put them in the new holes. When pulling our the small trees I literally just pulled them out by the leaves. At the workshop we learnt to dig out the seedlings and try to keep most of the roots with soil attached to the fine root hairs. The roots can be pruned back to make it easier to get them into their new tubes. Last year I was careful and most did survive but this year I will try to dig them out carefully.

After the workshop I was a little surprised that my plants were such a success last year as I did not do everything perfectly. With over 1000 volunteers growing seedlings each year for Trees for Life not everyone will do everything perfectly and some will still grow successful seedlings. As long as you follow the instructions as closely as possible and give it your best shot you should be ok.

Here are a few more photos from the trees I grew last season

Melaleuca Lanceolata

"Among the Gum Trees" Eucalyptus close up

Boxes of trees on growing bench

More Boxes of trees on growing bench

Cheers Simon

My First Time

2010-11-11T20:56:00.000+10:30

Before the new Trees for Life growing season kicks in I thought it would be nice to share some details from my first season. Keep reading for a brief overview of the season and some of the lessons I learnt.

Brief summary of the 2009/2010 growing season

September 2009 - Register as a grower with Trees for Life. Checked out the website to see what is involved.
November 2009 - Pick up supplies. 6 boxes fit in the car boot (glad our car is a station wagon). Read instruction booklet. Watch grower videos on you tube.
Grower video 1 - Filling the tubes and sowing the seed
Grower Video 2 - Transplanting, thinning, grading and quality control

December 2009 - Plant first batch of seeds. Took a bit longer than I was expecting to fill the tubes. 3-4 weeks after planting the seedlings emerge. I got excited when I saw what I thought was the first shoots, later I discovered they were some weeds.
January 2010 - Plant second two batches of plants.
February 2010 - Keep raising the seedlings. Watering, thinning out, transplanting.
March 2010 - Take plants to Trees for Life Depot near Adelaide Airport.

What did I grow and who for

Project: TFL upper south east

Plants Grown:

1 box of Melaleuca Lanceolata (planted approximately 24 Nov)

Melaleuca Lanceolata

2 boxes of Eucalyptus Fasciculosa (planted approximately 29 December)

Eucalyptus Fasciculosa

3 boxes of Eucalyptus Camaldulensis (planted approximately 26 January)

Eucalyptus Camaldulensis

Lessons I learnt from my fist time

I can do it. It was not as hard as I thought it might be.
It was fun. I would like to do it again.
Filling the tubes is the hard part. Not difficult, just time consuming. Take a break and don’t try to fill all the boxes in one day/night. Allow about 90 minutes per box including mixing the fertiliser with the soil and filling the tubes. Allow even more time if you are sowing the seeds at the same time.
Watering 6 boxes of tubes (360 plants) takes some time each morning. Need to get up a bit earlier to allow enough time to not get to work late in the morning.
If you go away for Christmas or other holidays you can take your plants with you. Especially if like I had, you only have 1 box of plants that were planted prior to Christmas. Not sure what I would have done if all 6 boxes were planted before going away.
Transplanting the small seedlings is tricky. Not hard but a bit fiddly. Not all the seedlings will transplant successfully. I transplanted about 3 into each tube hoping that at least one would take. Often all took then I had to thin them out again a few weeks later.
Get yourself a garden trowel (small hand spade) that is the right size. I found one at a hardware store and it is just the correct width to fit into a propagation tube. Plus the handle end is a nice size for compacting the soil down. And as a bonus it was cheap.

Garden trowel for filling the tubes

Seeds are light. If it is windy when you sow the seeds be very careful or they can blow away.
Thinning out the plants is (emotionally) hard to do. After raising the plants from seed to then thin them out and throw them on the ground is hard to do.
Eucalyptus grow quickly. River red gums that start as a tiny little spec, end up as a massive 30m (or bigger) tree. In under 10 weeks they went from a tiny seed to 15cm tall.

All up I think I had a successful year and learnt a lot. It was fun and I am keen to grow some more seedlings this coming summer.

Plants in the car boot ready to go to the TFL depot at the end of the season

Cheers Simon

About This Blog and About Me

2010-11-09T21:04:00.005+10:30

I thought that I should start this blog with a little bit of information about me and why I chose to volunteer to grow trees for Trees for Life.

EDITOR: Why are you writing this blog?
SIMON: Before my first season of growing for Trees for Life I did some research online. There was quite a lot of information on the Trees for Life website but I was only able to find a bit of information about the actual growing experience. I have since come across some blogs where the authors occasionally mention Trees for Life but I have not come across a blog that is dedicated to a volunteer grower and follows through the whole growing season. I am writing this blog as an online diary of my growing season. The idea is for me to update the blog every couple of weeks during the growing season with details of what is happening to the plants and some photos.

EDITOR: Have you ever blogged before?
SIMON: No. This is my first time.

EDITOR: What will be on this blog?
SIMON: Details of my volunteer growing experiences, perhaps a bad joke or two. The plan is to restrict this blog to my volunteer growing experiences, nothing more, nothing less.

EDITOR: What will not be on this blog?
SIMON: Anything that is not related to my volunteer seedling growing. So no politics, social comment, details of what my cat or dog gets up to on the weekend, good jokes.

EDITOR: Have you been interested in Australian Native plants for long?
SIMON: I think I have always liked Australian native plants. I have become more passionate about them in the past few years. Adelaide being in a drought and having water restrictions for the past 5 or so years encouraged us to plant more native plants in the backyard to save on watering. Recently I have been sourcing plants indigenous to my area. If the plants grew naturally in our area then they are well suited to the climate and the rainfall (or lack there of). Once they are established they should be relatively low maintenance (If only I could get rid of the weeds).

EDITOR: Where do you do your online research of indigenous plants?
SIMON: Most council websites contain lists of plants that are indigenous to their areas. They are a good place to start if you want to re-establish the natural biodiversity of your area/yard/property. Another good place to research is the Backyards for Wildlife website. They are a great source of information on native biodiversity for metropolitan Adelaide. You can even enter your suburb in their online database and it will list many of the indigenous plants to your suburb.

EDITOR: Why did you initially volunteer to grow trees for Trees for Life?
SIMON: I like gardening (not the weeding part, but seriously does anyone like weeding?) and I have an interest in Australian native plants. Trees for Life are an organisation that have been around for a while and have played a role in re-establishing native plants back into the wild. It is my way of helping re-establishing the indigenous biodiversity of our state.

EDITOR: Tell me a little about yourself?
SIMON: Here is a brief description (Details correct as of November 2010)

Age: 30-40
Work: in an office
Family: Yes
Pets: Yes. Cat, Dog, Budgie (small parrot/bird), Chooks (Chickens)
Location: Adelaide suburbs (EDITOR: hmm not really a surprise given Trees for Life is a South Australian organisation based in Adelaide)
House: yep a house with a back and front yard.

EDITOR: Any last comments?
SIMON: I don’t know if anyone will ever read this blog, but I am committed to blogging for at least 1 growing season. It would be a nice feeling if someone reads my blog and decides they would like to become a volunteer grower for Trees for Life.

Cheers Simon

Why Hello World and 42

2010-10-21T20:48:00.002+10:30

For anyone wondering why my first blog post was titled Hello World and contained the text of 42, it was to pay homage to two classics.

Hello World (thanks to Wikipedia) is a traditional phrase used when learning computer programming. And so seemed appropriate for my first Blog title.

42 is (again thanks to Wikipedia) as anyone who has read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams would know, the Ultimate Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything.

Hello World

2010-10-20T22:18:00.000+10:30