Date Palms and water-tanks 31 May '05

This morning I busted the plastic pot off of datepalm seedling. The 200 mm dia pot could no longer contain the strong roots, the palm bearing fronds about 2 feet long. I had to cut off about 1/3 of the rootmass, but unlike most other palm varieties, Phoenix family of palms are not worried by major root disturbance, so it should settle in ok. I planted some lupin seeds around it, they help to break up hard soils down to a depth of upto 6 feet deep. These were old farm lupins I's given 10 years ago so dunno if they're any good, I'll just have to wait and see if they sprout

I picked an area well South of the house but near the chook's shed and dug about a 40 litre hole, replacing only about 20 litres of soil. The top few inches is nice loam but below that is clay.

I re-arranged the overflow system from the rainwater tank, so that excess now flows down some 80 metres of salavaged-from-local-rubbish-dump old irrigation-piping and automatically waters the 20=litres worth of depression around the newly planted palm seedling

Any water that can't get down *that* long length of plastic-pipe fast enough overflows via another short piece of plastic pipe, onto the smaller of my 2 establish-ing BUNYA pine trees. And it's a pretty smart piece of jigary-pokery if I do say so myself.

My watertank had been overflowing but I ran some off onto various plants so it is now down to about 3/4 full (900 gals / 4 kl max) However next time we get a decent rain, it'll be overflowing again

(Note Auracauria bidwillii, is an Australian native pine, of tropical rainforests in SouthEast Queensland. Cones are the size of basketballs, but only form on well established female and bisexual trees. Some trees are male and consequently bear no cones. Probably another 25 years to wait for cones from mine. I have 2 successfully establishing themselves here in my dry-Mediterranean area which gets only one fifth of their normal rainfall. After initial few years, these young trees now get almost zero supplemental watering during the hot dry Summer period. The best is about 2 metres tall and the smaller one about 1.5 metres tall, in about 10 years.

Incase the 2 I have turn out to both be males, then I have about another dozen smaller seedlings I've been growing myself for the last several years. Note something the books don't say.....the seed takes nearly a year to sprout, so I'm glad I didn't give up on them too early. Now all I need are some good locations, with extra water for the initial establishment years, for those dozen or so seedlings. Currently they're confined to 200 mm plastic pots but many are nearly a metre tall and really do need to be in the ground, or at least in a great big tub/planter of some type.

Note the seedling datepalm will hopefully grow well enough to provide an amusing area for the chickens to scratch around beneath it, when it's hot and dry.......although it'd take many years to get *that* well established. Obviously the first year is the most difficult time.

Thunderstone info correction, Mon 30 May

A slight correction to my earlier posting

Recently the ABC in Australia starting airing Thunderstone season One which had first aired on another network

I have successfully recorded every ep they broadcast all in excellent quality

Unfortunately they DID NOT AIR ep 1.01 aparrently.

Now "perhaps" they started the series a week earlier than advertised and I missed it un-awares, but this is unlikely as I'm normally pretty on-the-ball about such things

Therefore I do indeed have good recordings of eps 1.02 thru to 1.26

ABC *has not* aired seasons 2 or 3.

I have "most eps" of season 3 fairly good quality recorded from ch 10 in Newcastle NSW. Yep I have a *spare* videotape deck located about 3000 miles away at a friend's place !

I have zero eps of season 2 and therefore no almost nothing of the storyline, except I'd hazard a guess it links the storylines of seasons one and three together

Mandarins and Cactus (inclu CITRUS propagation info) Sat 28 May 2005

Yep today I planted out 20 "Prickly Pear" cacti offsets I've had curing for about a month in the sun

I also potted up 18 seedlings of Mandarins into larger pots. Larger ones 2 to a pot, smaller ones 3 in each pot. I'll pot the survivors on again about Springtime into individual pots (a few might die in the meantime)

Usually citrus varieties are grafted, a bud from a named or hybrid variety is put onto a rootstock at a special plant production nursery, however I checked the textbooks and Mandarins grow well on their own roots, mandarin seedlings often being used as rootstocks anyway

These seedlings I have grown from (seeds that were in) some especially nice mandarins I bought at a roadside stall about 9 months ago, I's on the outer edge of the Perth metro area, in the area of hobby-farms, market gardens and orchards, known as "Karragullen".

Note this approaching Winter, I have for the first time some "Sour Oranges" ripening on a small shrub which I potted up just a year or so ago into an old washing-machine inner steel tub

Sour Orange is not available as a variety for the public to buy in nurseries but is grown in production plant nurseries as a rootstock for lemon and lime trees. Someone I know has a Lime tree which was accidentally destroyed in a gardening accident but the rootstock, sour orange, sprouted from underneath and has developed into a large shrub which fruits heavily

Nearly ten years ago I took a bunch of those fruits home to eat, and decided I like them, sorta like the old fashioned grapefruits which were sour enough to make you gasp, not like these modern namby-pamby varieties !

I got a bunch of sour orange seedlings growing from seeds that within those sour oranges but they spent years all potbound together in the same pot etc etc

Then just a couple of years ago I separated the several survivors putting them all in good sized pots and one then into the large steel tub (approx 50 litres capacity I guess)

It's grown well and now has several small fruits about pingpong ball sized with some bigger

Oh yeah I got a huge Pomelo off the Pomelo shrub (in another big steel wash-tub) the other day. It's barely a metre high but was bearing 2 fruits larger than the largest grapefruits, but one was damaged (just the outer peel starting to split) and fell off as I's inspecting it, it wasn't quite ripe but was still plenty edible (Usually it's best to pick small fruits off small shrubs as soon as the fruit sets, to allow the shrub/tree to get bigger and stronger before asking fruit production of it)

Note in some countries varieties of Pomelo may be called Shaddock, and Mandarins called Tangerines

Note in climates colder than USDA 9 or so, (eg England and most of Europe and North America etc) that you can grow Mandarins from seed and into a large pot or tub. Put it outside in full sun in Spring Summer and Autumn and bring it under cover for Winter. Note that citrus shrubs CAN tolerate several degrees of overnight frost (approx -4*C is ok, so long as th frost melts later the following day) or a small dusting of snow, but they CANNOT tolerate a sustained hard freeze. If you do not have a glasshouse (heated if need be, to keep the temperature somewhere above freezing point) then simply carry it inside th house as Winter sets in. Placing the plant in a conservatory/sun-room/covered porch etc or any brightly lit room next to a sunny window

Citrus varieties do very well in large pots and tubs and after a few years will happilly give you free fresh fruit. Fruit starts to ripen in Winter and through until Spring and Summer. To get sweet fruits, warm temperatures are needed

Grrowing citrus varieties (orange, lemon, grapefruit, mandarine, tangelo, kumquat) from seeds is easy and can be fun for kids. Fresh seed, rinsed and planted promptly sprouts within a month or so, maybe less sometimes (keep warm). Even new seedlings have very attractive foliage so make good indoor plants for brightly lit areas (best to be right next a window)

Select plump looking healthy seeds and discard scrawny looking ones before planting. Plant about 3/4 inch deep aka 2 cm deep into a plant pot of normal potting mixture whatever you use. I'd use a 200mm/8 inch diameter plastic pot and put about 20 seeds in. You should get 10 to 15 seedlings up easily. Once they are about 6 inches 150 mm tall then separate them into individual pots

cheers

Thunderstone tv series query .....8 pm 27 May 2005

Oh hey here's another post apocalypse type tv show. Australian made, for kids, sorta like a lower budget version of "Mad Max"

Thunderstone started with a 26 eps season one in 1999 followed by 2 seasons of 13 eps each a year or so later

I've got a nearly complete set of season 3 eps and a much more patchy collection of "some" season 1 and 2 eps. Eps are about 24 mins nett, so "half hour" if adverts are included

Again, I'd say that for a "kids" show it is quite good, and a scifi starved adult could find it quite stomach-able.

If you know where I can get a synopsis of eps, ESPECIALLY for season 3 then please let me know. I've hunted high and low on the wwweb and found only partial lists of eps titles, and as the eps themselves don't display their titles openly, they're of limited worth.

I'd like to be able to ascertain exactly which eps I have and which I am missing, so that's why a, one paragraph or so, story synopsis would help

If you have useful info on this series then please contact me by email at xena at agn dot net dot au and/or leave a message here on this blog (if the system lets you)

Character profile updated

Ok I've been back to that character profile gnerator page thingy and I reckon I've got it sorted a bit better now.

It now successfully lists favourite books and tv shows

It'll do for now, I can always fine-tune it later

Thurs 26 May 11 am WA time

Upon reading my "charcter profile" I found that the Blog setup software edited it in an unusual way

All my info re the post apocalypse tv series the NZ/UK THE TRIBE 1999 to 2004 and JEREMIAH USA?Canada 2002/03 were excluded

I'm a sucker for post apocalypse stories so even kids stuff like The Tribe is ok. The UK made 1970's series SURVIVORS is also excellent (NOT the modern gameshow) and the 1999 THE LAST TRAIN also great p/a storyline

Season 6 of The Tribe is set for later this year after some delay. To be renamed as A NEW TOMORROW I believe the show is moving to a more mature audience

Also under 'favourite author" it just listed the biggest names obviously

So this entry will fill in the blanks so to speak

My favourite book is Tanith Lee's conjoined Novella "Drinking Sapphire Wine" and "Don't Bite The Sun". Although I listed Tanith Lee first, her name didn't appear on the profile page at all, that I could see. Possibly only keywords in some Blogger search thingy get displayed I dunno

I still have no idea why it had a random question generator that needed answering

That's all for now.

Wed 25 May 11 am

I thought I better add a web address for anyone interested in THE TRIBE, partly 'cause I read something in the library blogger textbook about Google results being impacted by web links

www.tribeworld.com

links to a big official site. Note that season 6 was delayed but is now going ahead, instead of being called THE TRIBE SEASON 6 it will be known as A NEW TOMORROW

It should be available to be aired on Ch 7 Netwok Australia from Oct 2005 onwards. All I can do is hope that it is in a timeslot where GWN (Prime WA country affiliate) will play all of it too.

GWN misses out entirely, or in some cases gets "some" episodes only of Ch 7 shows

weBlogger newbie, first attempt

OK folks, I got a book out of the library yesterday, (by library I mean the one-room which serves as a library at the local council chambers, in the "nearby" town of Burce Rock 30 kms away)

Hopefully this blogger.com/blog*spot system is as easy as the book says for beginners.

cheers. 11 am Tuesday 24 May 2005