Friday, October 09, 2009

Wind

Back at the end of July in Moved at last. It should be a fun house I talked about our new house. I said that we were going to enjoy the eighteen months we had here. It was partly the views.

The following is the view from the backgarden.

P1060892

And this is the view from the side.

P1060898

And this from the front.

P1060897

I also said that I was going to enjoy gardening again. This is the vegetable garden the Saturday lunchtime after we moved in. Note that I have started mulching the bed.

P1060910

Now what does all this have to do with wind?

Just this.

The new house is on a hill exposed on three sides to ocean gales. The day after I mulched the first part of the bed, the wind distributed mulch including paper all over Coogee. The bed was left bare!

I did try to water the much - normally I soak the bed first, mulch and then soak the mulch - but this time I tried to be a good boy (water restrictions, you know) and used a watering can to try to wet everything. It wasn't enough.

Early yesterday morning - at 5am - I had to take youngest to work. She is working in a Red Rooster outlet at Sydney International Airport, I heard this banging but could not work out what it was. When I got from work that night, I found that the wind had reefed the gutter part way off. It was about to crash into the power lines, so emergency action was required.

I do still love this house. The following photo will show why. This is wife and youngest in the garden. Its just nice.

P1060911

My challenge is to learn how to manage a new place with its different seasons. The first part of the garden bed now has new plants - rosemary, two types of oregano, thyme, mint, basil, (I love my herbs) plus tomatoes, baby egg plant and a variety of salad greens. So its all good!

4 comments:

Kanani said...

Ah, so you also get the high winds, being up there on the hill. We get that too, and yes, I've had the rain gutter banging against the house.

Our soil is hard packed clay. So I've resorted to putting my herbs in pots. It works quite well, and I keep them just off the kitchen.

Jim Belshaw said...

Kanani, do you know the no dig gardening method? It works with hard packed clay soils.

Anonymous said...

Looks like South Coogee rather than North: am I right?

Either way (at the risk of vulgarity) a step up monetarily as well as geographically from Roseberry.

Still a long way to Parramatta, though.

Jim Belshaw said...

Hi Marcellous. Actually on the boundary of Coogee and Randwick, just up from the Spot. While you can't see it clearly, the Waverley cemetery is on the far left of the first photo.

It is indeed a very long way to Parramatta and in more than one way. This is indeed a step up in the world, if only by accident. We moved from Rosebery in the first instance only because the girls need more space. Then we had to leave that house after six months.

We got this house only because the owners had bought it to do up for themselves, but needed a little financial breathing space. We were also lucky because, Sydney being Sydney, many of those looking at the house saw only the defects!