Woo hoo...the days are getting longer and Spring is only 6 weeks away 😀

Oh yeah 😀

We are subdividing and selling a large portion of our property to reduce the mortgage right down, which means (damn and blast) I lose all of my 5-6 year old orchards, but will be ordering more fruit and nut trees shortly to get going all over again.
At least we are keeping the established vegetable gardens and large dams.:

Are those productive fruit tree's too large to move? (You can still move them while they are dormant if you can lift them)
I pick and choose bare rooted fruit trees (unless I want something in particular) from markets and nurseries at the end of each winter (sometimes they are even discounted) because I figure that if you can still buy bare rooted trees then you can still mess about with your own - I've not lost one yet and I moved 4 of them from a coastal area (sandy soil) to my new place (heavy clay soil) 3 hours away in the back of my car. It was cold, dark and wet by the time I got home but I dug the holes and put them in straight away.

Haha...I would love to move them and at 5 to 6 years old it is possible to do so, but it is a much better selling point saying the property has established mixed orchards etc so I would rather spend a couple of $k to replace them if it helps sell the property to reduce our mortgage.
I just hope we can sell before the market sinks any further, thankfully there is plenty of interest in it as we have priced it for a quick sale and it is the very nicest land in this area at that price so here's hoping it goes.
Hard to be prepared for financial crisis when you are owned by the bank...eeek 🙁

I can see your reasoning there with leaving those trees where they are......bummer about banks though! It's only going to get harder to manage with the new carbon tax (I read/saw that the Treasurer said that the cost for food would only increase by less than a dollar a day and was video taped while he was waving a box of vita-brits or weet-bix about........I wonder how long it took him to realise that that was pretty much the only item that didn't increase in price!) Good luck with the sale, I hope you guys get a good price for it.

I'm about to construct my own poly tunnel for a head start to the growing season....other than that I'm still working on my little permie patch to increase the yield....a couple more fruit trees, more perennials, lots of heritage varieties of everything i can fit in and then I need to run an orange plastic doggie fence around the newly planted area to stop my "babies" from thundering through the garden like they always do 🙄

Our worst enemies in the garden have been the bandicoots...each night they would dig up my garlic and make a little pile about a metre away and each morning I would replant it all, then I placed an old screen door over the patch and that stopped them in their tracks 😀
They will have to go back to eating the left over cat food.

You could always leave some fruit out for the bandicoots 🙄 that way they'll hang around and will probably get rid of some pests for you.....maybe......or they'll eat all your root crops (not so good)

I've been following the conversation - the whole flip flopped seasons always intrigues me. I had to look up bandicoots - I thought maybe it was an Aussie name for raccoons but it is not.

Cute little mouse like creature... https://www.google.ca/search?q=bandicoot&hl=en&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=z1MNUJXQGfS60QHfyejJAw&sqi=2&ved=0CGwQsAQ&biw=1786&bih=790

Maybe not so cute when they are destroying your garden 🙂

Agree, I have been reading as well, my first thought was huh, then I figured it out.. granted I am working and preparing for spring as well in my own way, we spent the weekend clearly tree's and bush to build another massive hugelbed for gardening next summer, then I need to fence and move the pig's into that 1/8th of a acre for them to clear the rest and work the stumps, finish hauling them out, haul in compost, and tun the chickens loose, then if on time, plant into winter hard red old fasion wheat, if not, green cover but ready for planting next spring..

Huglebed 😆

I had to look that one up...what a funny term!

A few of my gardening books are from the northern hemisphere so I am always saying..."Oh, who the hell would plant tomatoes in June" then say whoops, of course half the world would 😀
It's been sooo warm this winter though that I reckon' I could have almost over wintered tomatoes...only two light frosts and plenty of unseasonal cloudy weather is keeping things really warm. Today would have reached about 22 deg.

Bandicoots are pretty cute, nocturnal and really quick so it is hard to get a good look at one...but there is always evidence of them being around.
They aren't very destructive, just destructive in a very funny and strange way...thus making little piles of garlic bulbs.
Won't matter soon as they won't get into the polytunnel 😉
We have more trouble with wallabies, the males get into the orchard and have boxing matches with each other and if there is one left without a sparing partner they take to my young fruit trees which of course aren't much competition in boxing so lose a few branches.

Hmmm...I don't know if this is going to work but I just added a file picture of my garden ❓

It's been sooo warm this winter though that I reckon' I could have almost over wintered tomatoes...only two light frosts and plenty of unseasonal cloudy weather is keeping things really warm. Today would have reached about 22 deg.

Lucky you....we've had a lot of frosts this winter but not much rain, and our night time temps are getting down to -4C some nights with a maximum of 14C during the day......bugger! That's what you get being inland I suppose........however I have bee's already in the garden, so maybe the colder weather is over.

We play "dodge the roo" around these parts anytime we have to travel to a major centre. 18 months ago I had a big buck smash through the windscreen (I was travelling at 100km's an hour at the time).........that was a tad scary 😯 he dinged the car up pretty bad too. I think I prefer your bandicoots!

Thanks for posting the photo, its looking good!

Thanks for posting the photo, its looking good!

I agree! Very nice 🙂