Wipe-Out

A sort of ripping and tearing sound woke me in the dark hours of the early morning. It was a hot night. We’re in the midst of summers last hurrah of a heatwave. The windows were open letting in the warm night air. The hot wind was blowing from the centre of this arid continent. Ah-roo-gah the wind would call, telling tales of sun baked rocks where even hardy reptiles hide from the dreaded midday sun. Uncomfortable. And then there was that sound. What was it?

Groggily, I got up out of bed to have a look around in the dark. Didn’t seem to be anything to immediately worry about. Went back to bed and tried to sleep. The heat kept sleep at bay, sort of. In and then out again, I drowsed. The alarm was a shock. The dogs barked for joy at the thought of breakfast. Settle down, need coffee…

Fortified by coffee (or two). The ripping and tearing sound reoccurred, this time louder and for longer. Then came the solid thud. Breakfast of fresh plums, toasted muesli and yoghurt (both home made), was rudely interrupted. The dogs barked an alert call. Better go and have a look and see what had just happened.

Breakfast was pushed to the side. At least the coffee had kicked in. Ollie and I ventured out of the house. We walked up the driveway. There was no need for any hurry. By that time, I had a fair idea as to what may have happened. The head of a large tree had just fallen to the ground.

Ollie and I investigate a very large chunk of fallen tree

The chunk of tree head was not quite enough to squoosh a house, but any car hit by that monster would be permanently smooshed, never to be driven again. Certainly, it would have killed anything unlucky enough to be underneath at the time. The big old tree it fell from appears to have survived. You can see the large tree in the above image.

Just like western civilisation, even the biggest of trees eventually fall. What I’m guessing happened with the tree, was that the heavy and continuous rainfall earlier in the season had seeped into a join high up in the canopy. The growth in the tree had always looked a bit forked to me, almost as if the tree had lost it’s head long ago. Once there is an avenue of attack, termites and wood borers munch away on the moist timber. Very large black and yellow tailed Cockatoos (a native bird), also open up the timber hunting for the large wood boring insects. Then, after enough of those insults, the tree head lets go and falls to the ground. The tree has rid itself of a nuisance, but will continue to grow. At a guess, the tree is only half way through it’s long life.

The tree sure would have seen some changes over the years. It was probably already quite large when the first timber getters arrived in the mountain range during the 1850’s. The gold rush era had begun then, a mere 16 years after the arrival of the first Europeans in this part of the continent. The growing and suddenly prosperous young city of Melbourne had an insatiable appetite for timber, and at the time, this mountain range had plenty of tall trees.

By World War II, a local history mentioned that this part of the mountain range had been mostly emptied of people. I’ve heard anecdotal accounts that a bit of timber harvesting took place around here after the 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfires. That probably explains a lot of the loggers mess we find and clean up. Given the Eucalyptus Obliqua trees can live for hundreds of years, most of the trees growing around here are relative youngsters.

However, not all the trees are youngsters. Some large old trees were left untouched by the loggers. Maybe the damage to the tree heads of the oldest trees reduced the quality of the timber? Maybe access was too difficult? It’s possible that being near to the Cobb and Co coach track heading up the mountain to the Victorian era health resort way up near the ridge line, meant that the area was somehow protected. Dunno.

In a few weeks time, I’ll clean up the mess from the fallen branch. Most of it will become firewood. There will be very little waste. The area surrounding the tree will be cleaned up and restored. Life will go on.

In the midst of changing seasons though, being thrown right back into high summer, does give the sensitive person pause for thought. Bigger change feels like it is in the very air itself. Not much I can do about that, better to focus on what I can do. Given the weather is a bit extreme at the moment, it’s interesting to compare the longest established orchard to the newer plantings.

The next image shows the shady orchard. You can see signs of heat and water stress. Some of the trees are beginning to turn deciduous. The canopy is pretty solid, and the shade has meant that the grass is still quite green.

The shadier orchard is coping well with the hot and dry weather

The sunnier orchard in the next image has about five or maybe six years less growth. The young fruit trees mean that the canopy is quite open to the sun, and wow in only a few days of heat, the grass died right back. Despite that, the trees there have survived on rainfall alone this summer. There’s only one tree that I’m aware of which is having troubles.

The sunny orchard has dried off in the past few days of heat

Below the greenhouse (the white shed in the above image) there is a new citrus orchard. Those trees are less than two years old, and they alone have been receiving plenty of water during the past few days. Water is a precious and limited resource here.

It’s funny how conditions which you thought were stable, can change suddenly. Fortunately, the rains and more usual cooler weather are meant to be returning Wednesday. Plenty of things are out of our control. All we can ever do is adapt, then clean up the mess left behind.

Earlier in the week when the conditions were cooler, we continued excavations for the new firewood shed. We’re now ready to install another steel rock gabion cage, which we’re yet to make.

A site for the last steel rock gabion cage at that level has now been prepared

All of the excavated clay / soil was hauled away and used as fill on the low gradient path project.

The excavated soil was used as fill on the low gradient path project

The path project still needs more large rocks, and so on the next day of work we did a massive rock scrounge about the property, and have now sadly exhausted our supply of large rocks. Peak rocks is very real! The large rocks identified in the scrounge were all brought back up the hill, then installed on the path. They’re being used to retain soil on the downhill side of the path.

Bringing large rocks back up the hill

There’s about 2.7m / 9ft of large rocks still required to complete the rock wall on the downhill side of the path project. We’ll just have to break apart another boulder, but that’s a job for cooler weather.

The rock wall on the low gradient path is coming along nicely

Observant readers will note that in the above image, a bit of extra soil was added as fill. The path is a genuinely massive job.

Some of the tomato vines in the greenhouse were nearing the end of their life, yet they still had plenty of unripe fruit. In order to ripen the fruit, the vines are removed from the soil. All the leaves and excess vines get stripped away. The soil from the root system is washed off. And then vines are hung upside down from a steel cable in the greenhouse. The fruit slowly ripens over the next couple of months, and still retains its taste and texture. Last year we were able to continue enjoying fresh sun ripened tomatoes well into August with this method.

The massive solar panel array in the paddock provided an excellent frame to do this work. The leaves and excess vines could simply be chucked into the paddock where they will be mowed up (once the weather cools).

The solar panel racking is a good place to clean up the old tomato vines

Working in the greenhouse during hot weather was a special form of torture.

A greenhouse on a hot day is a special form of torture

All of the raised garden beds in the greenhouse were turned over using a shovel. It was hot work, which thankfully only took a few minutes. Over the next week, we’ll fertilise all of the soil in there, add compost, and then bang in some seeds: Radishes; Kale; and Green Mustard. They’ll provide fresh greens through the winter months and well into early spring. We also managed to obtain another Babaco plant (an apparently cold tolerant papaya, which isn’t frost tolerant) and planted that out in the greenhouse. The fruit from the original plant, which can be seen on the left hand side of the above image, is amazingly tasty and abundant. Observant readers will also be able to spot some of the upside down tomato vines hanging from the steel cable.

Due to the recent solar power system upgrade, we haven’t been able to water any of the plants in the large sapling fenced enclosure pumpkin patch. Fortunately, it hasn’t really mattered, and the smaller ‘yellow globe squashes’ have produced a lot of fruit. The squashes have tough skin which means they keep well. We roast then eat the fruit throughout the winter months. There was so much fruit I used the smallest power wheelbarrow to bring them all back up the hill for winter storage.

A whole lotta squashes (maybe 50-ish)

There are also many of the most excellent ‘Queensland Blue Pumpkin’. The variety is a standard pumpkin down under, which I believe is sold under another name in the US. They keep very well and have a sweet flavour which is excellent roasted or boiled. If I were going to grow only one variety of pumpkin, this would be it. That variety will be ready to harvest in another couple of days or so, probably before the rain arrives.

Queensland blue pumpkins, nuff said!

Just prior to the current heatwave, the nights were becoming quite chilly. The zucchini plants are beginning to display signs of powdery mildew, which indicates an end of the growing season for those Triffid-esque monsters. The fruit keeps well until early spring.

Despite the heatwave, powdery mildew does not lie, and so the end of the season is nigh!

It’s a weird climate here in that citrus trees are at their very margins of cool tolerance, and so we have fresh fruit from those trees into the winter months. The latest of the more usually expected cool climate crops is the Kiwi fruit. But before those are ready, there are the always the Persimmons.

Persimmons are something of an acquired taste

The cooler nights have continued to ripen the grapes on the vines, and these are very tasty. Mostly, they’re consumed with breakfast as fresh fruit. We specifically planted out dual purpose table / wine grapes, so can be flexible about how they’re used.

We grow dual purpose table / wine grapes

Globe artichokes are a funny plant. As a thistle, you’d imagine they’d do well in poor soils with minimal watering. The truth is otherwise. They prefer a good feed and plenty of soil moisture. We’ve been unable to water them this season, and despite that the plants have produced a good crop. They’d prefer a regular drink.

Globe Artichokes are beginning to set seed

Onto the flowers:

Geraniums thrive in the heat
Oregano is in the mint family, which are kind of indestructible
The bees love catmint
Pomegranate flowers are plentiful, the fruit, not so much

The temperature outside now at about 9am is 23’C (73’F). So far for last year there has been 213.4mm (8.4 inches) which is up from last weeks total of 211.2mm (8.3 inches)