Tree following – April 2014

A full week of rain in Melbourne marked the transition from an Indian Summer wannabe to Autumn proper. It felt like the soil itself let out a welcome sigh of relief, as a contestant drizzle eventually soaked the earth until it could hold no more. The best (or worst) sign of this is when find a heap of dead worms on your back porch on the morning after a big storm.

Now soaking the soil with rain water just got better over at my place due to having brought in a couple of tonnes of basalt and granite dust, mixed in with quality garden soil. It is a remineralization of the soil experiment that will have its own post shortly, and suffice to say – the trees are loving it!

One such tree that seems grateful for the change is the Tamarillo, having just been pruned back hard in preparation for a new season of growth. As I’ve described previously, tamarillo fruit is borne on new growth, and a hard prune will result in a greater harvest.

I’m also participating in an interesting initiative named Tree Following, where each month a heap of gardeners from around the world document the changes of a nominated tree – which in my case is the tamarillo.

From the site:

Each year, I choose a tree and see what it does:
when its leaves appear and when they fall
which twigs grow and which fall off
if it has seeds
and if any germinate and grow into new trees
what its bark looks like – when it’s wet and when it’s dry
whether anything grows on it – like lichen
whether creatures sit on – insects, birds, butterflies
what plants grow round it and what they do too.
And I invite others to join me – to choose a tree and to ‘follow’ it.

So here goes!