Australian Bush Life

Hello Readers.

Please note that the Bush Dudes at Australian Bush Life have had some difficulties with their blog being hacked and then having to change hosting sites. This has caused us much grief over the last few months, but we are almost back online. We have finally got our blog back live but need some time to reload the images and other small things that are missing. Sorry if this has been a problem for any of our readers.

Hope to be back running as normal soon…it has been a long time and we have missed it!

The Bush Dudes.

Seaside Daisy - Erigeron karvinskianus. Pink and white flowers.

Seaside Daisy - Erigeron karvinskianus is a classic garden plant introduced from the America’s due to it’s pretty appearance. Seaside Daisy is actually becoming quite weedy as it can readily take up residence in native bushland areas where it can outcompete our indigenous plants.

Even though it is a weed it is still commonly sold at nurseries, markets, garage sales etc. Many of our environmental weeds, the ones that don’t get legally classified as “noxious” are increasingly becoming a problem for our local biodiversity as they can still be sold and traded.

So what can we do about this environmental problem? It is all in the hand of the buyer. If you don’t know about the plant – be aware, learn about the plant and choose carefully. It is safest to buy plants from local nurseries with knowledgeable staff (preferably local indigenous plant  nurseries) and to steer clear from buying plants from sources such as markets, garage sales or any large plant distributor like hardware chains that sell plants on the side.

If you have any Seaside Daisy - Erigeron karvinskianus planted in your garden or know anyone that has please consider to replace with a local native plant. This will help our local biodiversity prosper.

There is a really similar indigenous daisy that can easily replace the weedy one. So pull out Seaside Daisy and Plant in Cut-leaf Daisy – Brachyscome multifida. Just as beautiful and non-invasive to native bushland.

Cut-leaf Daisy – Brachyscome multifida. Flowers.

The Cut-leaf Daisy “ Brachyscome multifida is a great garden feature plant. It has loads of pretty mauve-pink colored flowers which are present for a long time throughout spring and summer. This plant forms a dense mat and covers the ground thickly. It is perfect for use under trees, in rockeries (it can trail/overhang raised areas),  along path or step edgings and binds and holds well on embankments.

Being a local indigenous plant it is a fantastic ground cover plant that can support local biodiversity too. It’s abundant flowers provide nectar for a variety of insects and the plant itself is a great hiding place for small frogs and reptiles like garden skinks.

If you are interested in buying it for your garden try to source a local variety from a nursery that specialises in local indigenous and/or native plants.  This is a commonly sold garden plant and there are many nurseries that sell modifed versions of this plant. It is also the perfect plant to replace the weedy Seaside Daisy - Erigeron karvinskianus which is often found in many gardens.

Cut-leaf Daisy “ Brachyscome multifida. Ground cover plant.

Nurseries have readily cultivated the Cut-leaf Daisy using techniques such as hybridisation to select for features such as flower abundance, duration etc that will sell well. These modifed specimens particularly if planted near local bushland can reproduce and mix with the local varieties and potentially alter the local/indigenous varieties ability to survive in the local area. The local features are really best suited to the area as they have evolved over many years to cope with the local environment.

So many of Australia’s unique wildlife are killed or injured on our roads each year. A rapid response from the driver/passenger could mean life or death to the animal who has been hit. But who to call when there are 3 Wildlife rescue and rehabilitation groups in Victoria. Choosing from 3 under pressure is difficult.

So luckily RACV has this amazing program where if you just ring their number they will automatically transfer you through to your nearest wildlife carer to the accident location anywhere in Victoria. Link to RACV Wildlife Connect.

Too easy. 1 number to remember. 13 11 11.

Plug this number in to your mobile phone right now so you are ready to respond.

Please pass this message around…

Also keep these items in your car so that you can readily deal with an injured animal:

• old pillow case
• empty box
• blanket/s
• gloves

More information on local wildlife…

More sustainable living tips…

Garden lighting is something we use minimally in our lives. All lighting uses energy so wherever we can avoid lighting the less energy we use and the better for the environment.  For minimal garden lighting we only use when we are in the garden at night (when you obviously need to see) and we only have lighting illuminating particular garden features:

• Our carpark
• Our BBQ
• Our outdoor seating / dining area
• Our front and rear entries

We never have outdoor lighting on when we are inside. This not only saves energy (and money) but even more importantly to us we don’t want to upset our wildlife neighbours.

Garden lighting effects our australian wildlife

A great proportion of australian wildlife are nocturnal, coming out soon after dark to interact with their local habitat, other local wildlife or to find food and water. Being nocturnal native wildlife have adapted to function in low light and particularly their eyes are sensitive to bright lights. Imagine trying to move around in search of food with bright lights shining in your eyes…

Wildlife friendly garden lighting pointing downwards onto driveway.

The rarer types of wildlife species are generally more likely to avoid well lit areas. For instance more common wildlife species such as Ringtail Possums and Common Brushtail Possums have adapted to bright lights and hence can readily be found in our cities. But to encourage less common wildlife to our gardens not only do we have to provide key habitat features such as food (indigenous plants) and homes (tree hollows, ground cover plants & habitat logs and dense shrubs etc) we must reduce lighting.

In addition to really give our rarer wildlife a welcoming garden home working on noise reduction, particularly threatening noises like dogs barking, along with light reduction will make a huge difference for these shy creatures to feel safe and confident.

How to reduce the impact of lighting on wildlife in your garden

• Eliminate all unneccessary garden lighting locations
• Always point garden lighting downwards not upwards into trees
• Never point bright/feature lighting onto large old hollow bearing trees (wildlife homes)
• Don’t shine lights on other areas like lawns where wildlife may graze at night
• Only use outdoor lighting when neccessary
• Reduce the brightness of lighting, softer lighting is more welcoming
• Keep garden lighting close to the home
• Allow some areas of your garden to remain completely dark
• Solar lighting is usually a gentler light and doesn’t use electricity

Added bonus: By reducing garden lighting you get to enjoy clear skies full of brilliant shining stars.

Southern Brown Tree Frog - Litoria ewingii on window.

The Southern Brown Tree Frog – Litoria ewingii is a commonly frog found in our local area. We hear them croaking with a weep, weep ,weep, weep, weep, weep, weep sound (first “weep” sound is the longest). In fact I think we would feel quite sad if we didn’t hear this sound coming from our garden as it is so much a part of our lives.

We don’t always see these frogs though so got a big surprise when we found one in the kitchen amongst our drying dishes the other day. Luckily this little guy had found a nice moist place underneath a mug and was still in great condition so could safely be returned to the garden.

To pick up this frog I just ensured that I had nice clean hands as frogs have very sensitive skin and they can absorb all sorts of chemicals and other compounds that dissolve in water. I also wet my hands with clean water to reduce the abrasive impact of my rough hands (any human hand is rough to delicate frog skin).

Being a tree frog though he was pretty quick to make a get away and using his large toe pads tried to hop away by making his way up the kitchen window before I gently got a grab on him. To return him to the garden I placed him in an area with plenty of frog habitat including ground cover plants, rocks and habitat logs so that he could quickly find a sheltered place to hide out the day. I gave the area a sprinkle of clean water too to ensure that he didn’t dry out whilst find that hiding place.

Southern Brown Tree Frog - Litoria ewingii on ground cover plant.

To us frogs are such an important part of our garden biodiversity. All frogs are sensitive to pollution and habitat degradation so knowing they can find a home in our garden re-assures us that we are looking after our natural environment. These little tree frogs pay us back by keeping our insect populations under control as they are very agile predators. They are an organic gardeners treasure feeding aggressively most nights throughout the year - it is difficult to think how many thousands of potential vegetable garden pests they must consume.

Heres to the Southern Brown Tree Frogs they are welcome to live around our vegetable garden any day.

Other frogs in our garden…

Small and withered zucchini that broke off the vine as was not filling out properly

Have you ever had zucchini’s or cucumber’s that don’t fill out properly? Are the zucchini’s or cucumber’s staying small, skinny, wrinkly, yellowish or they are simply skinny at one end and not filling out at the other?

This year we had this problem, particularly with our zucchini’s and found that some advice to add a dose of wood ash to the plant base and water it in really helped. Wood ash, particularly the ash from our home wood heater where we burn eucalyptus wood (or hard woods), is a good source of Potash and other beneficial nutrients such as phosphate to assist growing plants.

Potash is also known as K₂O or  Potassium Oxide and is often a product in many bought fertilisers. Potash is simply a medium, the ash itself, which contains potassium in a soluble form. Being soluble means that potassium can readily be taken up by plants particularly if it is dissolved in water near the roots of the plants.

Simply sprinkle a big handful (or two) of wood ash around the base of each plant. Sprinkle in a 30 cm diameter around the base but don’t sprinkle on the base of the plant. After this you can water in or simply apply before it is going to rain. Be mindful though that ash is very alkaline so best only applied to more mature plants whilst they are fruiting or otherwise could effect the roots of younger plants. The results for us were very fast with zucchini’s filling out within the week of application.

Potash from eucalypt wood ash

We collect the wood ash from our wood heater fire in a bucket so we can simply add these nutrients to growing plants as we require them. You can include any larger charcoal bits also, apparently charcoal and the potash itself can actually help water retention of soil as it acts like a bit of a sponge. The charcoal most definitely had no negative effects when we applied them to our zucchini’s this year.

Other types of organic fertlisers for growing vegetables…

Home made organic Chilli Tabasco Sauce.

This recipe makes approximately 1 litre of home made organic Tabasco Sauce, which stores well and is a great gift for friends or family that like hot sauces. It is also a great way to process and store organic chilli’s grown in the garden if you end up with an abundance like we did.

Ingredients:

• 4 Kilograms of chilli’s. We used bell shaped chilli peppers but any type would do. Different types may just vary the final heat of your sauce.
• 8 garlic cloves peeled
• 4 cups white vinegar
• 4 teaspoons salt
• 4 teaspoons sugar

Directions:

Chop out any bad pieces of the chilli’s and chop off the stems then blend the remainder (seeds and all) to make a chilli pulp. Also puree the garlic cloves while the blender is out.

Boil the chilli pulp, pureed garlic, salt, sugar and vinegar in a non-aluminium saucepan until tender – about 20 minutes boiling.

Run all the contents from the saucepan through a fine metal sieve. Separate the thick chilli pulp from the more watery Tabasco Sauce.

Chilli pulp being strained from tabasco sauce.

Re-boil the Tabasco Sauce for another 10 minutes and add more vinegar, salt or sugar to suit your taste (as required). Also ensure a saucy/runny – but not too runny consistency (it needs to stick to your burritos or nachos). To finish pour contents into pre-cleaned and sterlised jars.

In addition if you want to avoid composting all the chilli pulp waste it can be added to sterilised jars. Pack the jars with chilli pulp, stir through a small amount of oil. Also cover the top layer with oil to minimise chance of spoilage and then store in the refrigerator. Simply add a spoonful to spice up any meal.

Chilli plant in a greenhouse to avoid frost.

In southern Australia many areas receive frosts during our winter time which would often kill off many vegetable plants leaving us to think that they are annuals and need to be re-planted every year. But chilli plants (and capsicums too) survive quite well for a number of years (act as perennials) if they can avoid the frosty winter months.

We kept finding that by trying to grow our chilli plants each year they had such a long time required for them to set fruit that by the time the fruit was turning red the plant was dying as it was late into autumn and getting too cold. We then put our chilli plants into pots so that we could move them under the shelter of a porch over the winter and by avoiding frosts they managed to survive more than one year. In fact we have found that by keeping these plants alive over a number of years they grow much larger and produce a great deal more fruit as the years go by.

Woody stems of chilli plant after 1 years growth.

We have also placed a few plants in a neighbours greenhouse to avoid the winter frosts, well at least until we get a greenhouse of our own! After a year the plants stems become quite woody and they have a much greater capacity to set and hold a lot of fruit . Also the plants are able to grow much more fruit as they don’t have to grow from seed each year, hence having a huge head start each spring.

So if you love chilli’s like we do getting a couple of different varieties into a greenhouse or some pots that can be moved around to avoid frosts – will mean you can have an abundance of chilli’s on hand all year around. They also make great gifts as they are bright and colorful and can store well. Here are some ideas for preserving chilli’s for year around use – we even home made tabasco sauce with our chilli harvest this year.

An example of a Fire Prevention Notice.

On Christmas Eve past our surprise present was a Bush Fire Prevention Notice in the mailbox. This is a strongly worded legal letter which outlines fuel reduction works that you must undertake on your property. It can be a little overwhelming as works must be completed within the specified time frame or they can be undertaken on your behalf and you can be left with the bill.

The Bush Fire Prevention notice really rattled us as we recieved the letter during the holiday period (Christmas Eve) and the works were required to be completed before January 2nd. What if we had been away and come home to our bush block slashed to less that 100mm? We would have been devastated – our indigenous plants are just recovering after the bushfire! Let alone been left with the bill to pay for the devastation.

While we understand the need to manage fuel loads to reduce the risk of bushfire for community safety, we did not move to our bushblock to turn it into a parkland. We can see the need to slash and maintain areas of weedy/pasture grasses or thickets of weeds such as blackberries as they do contain a high fuel load. But we only have indigenous bushland, maintain a cleared area and well watered vegetable gardens around our home, have a home with low risk of flammability and do not have any vegetation touching our home. Our home has actually just lived through the bushfire in 2009.

Some information that we have found out about Fire Prevention Notices since being served with one. As it is a legal document it is imperative that you act immediately before the deadline for completion of works specified in your letter.

• You have the right to oppose the Fire Prevention Notice if you have bushland that you want to protect
• Write an initial opposition letter in writing asking to work together with the fire prevention officer to come to an agreed management strategy, ask for more time if you need it and send it by certified mail
• Clearly outline how you already manage your property and bush to minimise the fire and fuel load risk
• Arm yourself with knowledge about your land such as knowing your local plants, animals and habitat that you want to protect
• Work with your local fire prevention officer to develop a mangement plan for your property if required
• You have the right to ask how and why the notice has been served to you
• You have the right to seek clarity on what specifically the letter requires you to do as we were very unsure with the ambiguous wording regarding what vegetation exactly was required for removal
• Try to contact someone in your local council who works in “environment” or with “indigenous vegetation” to gain advice as they may have a different angle to the fire prevention officer
• Contact your local Councillor or environment groups to ask for advice/support as required

By asking questions it appeared our notice was served on us without a fire prevention officer visiting our property and was purely on the request of a neighbour, which is allowed under the CFA Act 1958 – section 41. Our neighbour is looking to build and is hoping to build a home to a low Bushfire Attack Level (BAL) rating, which is cheaper.

This is obviously easier if we clear all the vegetation from our block as the fire threat is reduced to their block, but in no way are we stopping their building altogether. In fact we believe that if you live in a fire prone area then you need to build a house to a high BAL using quality materials and design so that the home has a higher level of surviving the bushfire event. Asking a neighbour to clear and maintain their vegetation is not a long term sustainable solution for building to a lower BAL rating and is really just a disaster waiting to happen.

An example of the legal wording in a Fire Prevention Notice.

We felt particularly that this letter did not take into account the fact that all our indigenous plants are currently recovering from a recent bushfire and that currently all plants are between 1 – 2 metres tall (whether grasses, shrubs or trees). Also the coucil have just recently installed a roadside conservation sign protecting indigenous vegetation right near where we were being asked to clear/reduce fuel to. Here is some of the ambiguous wording that we sought clarity over – in fact we still don’t really understand what these words mean and what exactly we were required to do.

• Cut all “grasses” to less than 100mm. We only have indigenous grasses and they are mixed in amongst all other types of native vegetation (forming a habitat) so difficult to single each grass out and cut them.
• Cut all “blackberries” and “weeds” to less than 100mm. We don’t have any weeds including blackberries.
• Cut all “undergrowth” to less than 100mm. We still do not understand what this means. This is a classic case of an ambiguous word and can be taken in so many different ways. All of which tend to lean to cut everything. Apparently undergrowth does not mean trees or shrubs, in which case we weren’t sure how we could single out indigenous grasses from the regenerating trees and shrubs that have sprung up since the bushfire.

Anyway in the long term our fire prevention notice was anulled, without even so much as a site visit – all sorted out over the phone. But the process was stressful so we hope that we have made this journey easier for others out there hoping to protect their indigenous bushland from being cut to extreme levels. We believe that the strong and legally worded letter scares many people into clearing their bushland unneccessarily and in an undesired manner. If you feel like us then this would be very upsetting clearing away your wildlife homes too.

Here are some councils who have online statements indicating that native grasses and low indigenous vegetation are not the fuel load and major bushfire threat they have been demonised to be. Weeds are far more risky!

www.goldenplains.vic.gov.au/webdata/resources/files/Fire_Prevention_Notice_FAQs.pdf

Why don’t you make the greenie with all the native grasses cut their block?
Native grasses generate about 1/10th the fuel load of introduced pasture grasses such as Phalaris and Wild Oats. This is why we encourage the retention and regeneration of native grasses. This can only be achieved if we allow them time to re-seed. Not doing so encourages introduced grasses which create a much greater fire risk.

www.melton.vic.gov.au/Page/Page.asp?Page_Id=170&h=1

Sparse low growing native vegetation is less of a fire hazard than dense, tall growing pasture grass and weeds.