Blog Posts

The unintentional gardener

9/9/2021

By John Coldebella

MOST people who aren't too caught up in their thoughts would at some time have noticed plants growing in the cracks in concrete or in the mortar joints of brick paving. Often, these plants will be weeds but it is not uncommon for them to be vegetables.

My first experience of this was seeing a tomato seedling sprouting from between two bluestone pitchers that were part of the lining of an open drain in a Wonthaggi back lane. I monitored the growth of this plant on a daily basis en route to my primary school until the day there was a ripe tomato hanging from it. I ate it there and then. Since that time, my eye has been caught by tomato plants in a variety of locations including the gap between the concrete and a traffic light pole in a city.

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Out of season

28/7/2021

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Midwinter raspberries: a sign of the times?

By John Coldebella

EVERY year is different in the garden. Outcomes and productivity vary with all the possible combinations of weather conditions which include cold, warm, hot, dry and wet. Whichever conditions arise, some plants will thrive and others won't. The same goes for the many pests that attack plants, fruit and vegetables. There's always something new to observe and this past growing season was no exception. Throw in some climate change and anything can happen.

Last year's wet spring was ideal for earwigs and slater bugs, also known as woodlouse or Malacostraca Isopoda. Between them, they wiped out my first planting of beans as they came out of the ground.

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Full and plenty

17/6/2021

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Autumn harvest: feijoas, walnuts, hazel nuts, strawberry guavas, pineapple guavas, chestnuts and Chilean guavas. Photos: John Coldebella

By John Coldebella

IN geographic terms, Bass Coast Shire lies in what is called a temperate climate. The good news for gardeners is that this means a long growing season – virtually all year round.

Even through our cold winters, cabbage, cauliflower, swedes and many others continue to grow. Fruit, berries and nuts can also be produced as the pages of the calendar are turned. There is not a month when something can't be picked, even if it is only a lemon at the most meagre time of the year, which is around October.

Based on the last sentence, I consider my own harvesting to begin in November with the arrival of red currants and raspberries. Both crops last well into December with almost daily pickings.

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The joy of gardens

20/5/2021

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Young children experience gardens as an adventure playground
and food festival.

By John Coldebella

MY LOVE affair with gardening goes back a long way. One of my earliest memories as a pre-schooler is of being in the yard next door on a summer day. Standing in the cool shade under a canopy of grapevine leaves with filtered sunlight breaking through here and there. Next to me were towering plants that seemed alive as they dwarfed my young child frame. There was the sound and sight of birds, and another sight and sound that seems to excite most young children: that of running water. In this case, the rhythmic pulse of water coming from one of those old type garden sprinklers that were common in the 1960s.

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The moments that matter

5/5/2021

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Anna Coldebella (1925-2018) surrounded by her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

By John Coldebella

MY MOTHER lived to the age of 93. At the time of her death, I didn't have it in me to write or deliver her eulogy and it is not my intention to do so now. What prompts me to speak of her is something she said some months before she died, and with Mother's Day almost upon us, now might be as good a time as any to share it with the Post readership.

She declared that there were two stories about her that she deemed worth telling once she was gone. Neither of them relate to her recollections of the nightmare years of the European 1920s, `30s or `40s, nor of the `50s when she left her home and family to come to Australia, and she had no shortage of memories of those times, many of which she shared with me. I can appreciate her choice.

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The scarlet pimpernel of Wonthaggi

21/4/2021

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Cartoon by Natasha Williams-Novak

By John Coldebella

MANY people would have recently seen the video footage of a fox that entered a Wonthaggi house during the night via a dog flap.

For many residents of South Wonthaggi, this was neither the first sighting of this particular fox of unconventional habits, nor its debut on CCTV. It has been gaining notoriety for at least a couple of months.

By unconventional, I mean to say that this fox doesn't seem to observe the traditional traits of foxes that patrol the back lanes at night, looking for the chook pen that has been left unlocked, while keeping out of sight during the day as far as residential areas go.

urthermore, it doesn't seem overly perturbed by encounters with humans. It has forced me to rewrite the rules (or lack of rules) of fox behaviour.

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The charm of the humble blackbird

10/12/2020

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John Coldebella confesses to a love/hate relationship with
the birds that share his garden. All photos by Pauline Wilkinson

By John Coldebella

MOST gardeners are familiar with blackbirds, especially at this time of year when thoughts turn to the netting of fruit trees and berry bushes. In between eating crops, they keep busy digging up seedlings or burying them as they forage for worms and insects. In recent years their impact on fruit such as apples and pears has been dwarfed by the industrial scale damage caused by the flocks of parrots and their relatives that have discovered our region. Even so, the blackbird is still capable of inducing a summer of expletives.

Having said that, they also exude a certain charm. To me, their song, particularly in the evening is entertaining and comforting. I also find the young ones to be very cute. Just after leaving the nest, with their feathers still growing, almost looking like they've been to the barber for a trim around the collar, and only able to awkwardly fly short distances, they are naive, innocent, curious and impressionable.

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A little upside down

19/9/2015

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Former Speaker Bronwyn Bishop insisted she’d
acted within the rules as she repaid the cost of
hiring a helicopter to travel to Geelong for a
Liberal Party fund-raiser.

By John Coldebella

BACK in the mid '70s, Bob Dylan wrote a song called Idiot Wind which contained the line: "Everything's a little upside down, as a matter of fact the wheels have stopped." It didn't mean a great deal to me at the time but, 40 years later, I'm inclined to agree.

Back then, our parliaments were a breeding ground for statesmen. I use the old gender-biased term because in those days there were few if any women representing the populace. Government ministers qualified for the title "Right Honourable", and in many cases this was an accurate summary of their character. There was much respect between political opponents who, like an honest footballer, tended to play the ball and not the man.

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Heaven help us

29/8/2015

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God has been unceremoniously dropped from
Bass Coast Council meetings.
Credit: Creative Commons/Viktor Vasnetsov.

By John Coldebella
August 29, 2015

I commend our former MP Alan Brown for raising the topic of prayer time at council meetings. Having accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour, Mr Brown is acutely aware of the sacred gift Jesus left us in the Lord's Prayer, an invocation to his Heavenly Father whereby we may receive clarity of mind and purity of heart to assist us in every aspect of our lives.

Yet we must also remember the warnings and pitfalls surrounding prayer that Jesus bequeathed to us. Just as "the garment maketh not the man" so, too, the "prayer maketh not the council meeting". Jesus warned us about "vain repetitions" as well as "those who pay me service with their lips while their hearts are far from me."

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