Abdallah House - Redesigning a Home

Principle 3: Obtain a yield Boysenberries can be a great producer, or a big problem, it all depends on management. My gardening mentor Brian has been advising me on how to make the most of these prolific plants, and suggested growing them on mesh, which doubles as a fenceline whilst supporting the downpipe to rainwater tank. The mesh supports a sultana grape vine, male and female kiwi fruit vines along with about 7 metres (2.4m high) of boysenberries. The trench on the laneway side of the mesh has small check dams within it to hold water so that the water can seep into the ground rather than run off which reduces the need to irrigate them so often. Boysenberries require frequent maintenance, but not much of it. This is best done using leather gloves, as the tiny prickles can be quite painful if they break off in your skin. The main task is to feed new growth through the mesh, and remove excess leaders before they get out of control. The images below show the growth and management ov...

Ethic: Care of the Earth Due to the heavy rains our original plan of cleaning up at the Whiteheads Creek bridge near St. Marys was a non-event. But that didn't stop us! We pick up this lot on the walk back, which was less than 1km. I've always thought about getting involved in Clean Up Australia Day , but never managed to get around to it, until this year. I'd planned on join in the local Clean Up team at the Whiteheads Creek bridge near St Mary's with the family, but recent heavy rains have swollen the usually mellow creek to burst is banks a little further downstream. It wasn't a surprise to find that we were the only ones to turn up. But this didn't dishearten us at all, we brought some bags of own own and began cleaning up along the path that we took to get there. Within a couple of hundred metres we'd filled them, and so headed back home for a cuppa. Kai and I returned with a wheelbarrow and his trolley to find that someone else had cleaned up a ...