Planting Apricot & Aprium Trees 🌿 Starting a New Verge Garden in Perth (Zone 10b)

Welcome back to my garden here in Perth, Australia. It’s the end of winter, and in between the downpours of rain, the garden has been flourishing and coming to life. My mum has been over from New Zealand to visit, so of course, we had to do a few garden projects. Join me in the garden as we catch a few breaks in the weather to somehow squeeze more fruit trees (Aprium + Apricot) into the front yard, restart the worm farms, and take the first step in an exciting new project – the verge garden.

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🌱 I am a Kiwi 🥝
🌱 Located in Perth, Australia
🌱 Zone 10b ish
🌱 720sqm urban property
🌱 Sandy-based soil
🌱 Hot, dry climate
🌱 Permaculture Practices
🌱 Fruit tree collector
🌱 Creating long-term sustainable gardens

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Welcome back to my garden here in Perth, Australia. It’s the end of winter and in between downpours of rain, the garden has been flourishing and coming to life. My mom has been over from New Zealand to visit, so of course we had to do a few gardening projects. Join me in the garden as we catch a few breaks in the weather to somehow squeeze in more fruit trees into the front yard, restart the worm farms, as well as take the first step in an exciting new project, the Verge Garden. I’ve been eyeing up the spot for a while now. And I think I mentioned it on one of my last videos. So, now was the time. The seed growing papaya had to go. So, I’m going to relocate this to another spot. I grew this from a seed, so it’s no real loss if it doesn’t survive. I’ve already cut the top off with the weed eater, and it’s still thriving. So, we’ll see how it goes. [Music] This little spot here is my tropical fruit section. So, I have a starf fruit, a sour sop, and a litechi pretty close together, as well as then my custard apples uh further down. So, I’m going to be planting an aprium here, and that is going to give some more sun protection in the summertime with having leaves um and then letting some of that light in in the winter. and mom just walking around with two lift gloves. So, we did a bit of a swap over. I’ve been super excited about this aprium. It’s the cotton candy. So, it’s a hybrid cross with a plum, but it’s mainly apricot. I think it’s like 75% apricot and it’s a white apricot and apparently super sweet and delicious. So, I’ve never tried it, but I’m really excited to. I’ve had this aprium for a little while now sitting around in the bag. So, I really wanted to get this in the ground rather than just potting it up because I am trying to decrease my potted fruit trees and try and get everything in the ground. Have you tried a cotton candy aprium or are you growing one? I would love to know. I’ve watched as many videos as I could find on it. And if you think this garden looks wild now, in a few months it’s going to be absolutely crowded as things start to grow with all of the canners are going to start getting up around chest height and offering a lot more shade and protection because that is it now. We need to try and get as much things growing for shade as possible before summer hits. And these hardy mulch plants are going to be the powerhouse that get me through the summer. If you’ve ever started a garden from a blank canvas before, you’ll know how hard it is to get started. There are a lot of regulations involved in this. So, make sure you check out your local council because they’ll all be different no matter where you live on what you can plant in the verge because it’s not your land. So, I’ve done all of this and there’s actually some easy ways that you can find out the plans and know where the water is and power. So, do all of that research first before you start digging. My plan here is just to start small and build on it, but just get something started. I’m just digging a trench and I’m going to plant as many of my hardy mulch plants as I can by just repopulating them from other areas of my garden as well as the seeds that I’ve saved for my pigeon pee. This row of plants is not only going to provide some shade and protection for future extensions of this garden, it’s also going to provide me with a lot more mulch chop and drop to feed my fruit trees because at this point I have way too many fruit trees and not enough food to feed them. So, I need to really start getting creative growing more green material and food to feed my garden. And this space is just wasted beer land. So, I want to utilize it and do what I can. And it’s about this point that I realized that my garden lines are not very straight at all. And I’m probably going to get in trouble for not using string lines and measuring it. But sometimes you just got to risk it. One of the hardest parts about this area is that it is so hot and it is so dry and it is pure sand. So I’m starting from scratch on all levels with this garden. Um in summer there will be no shade out here. It will be hot, hot, hot. So, basically what I’m doing is I’m just going to start getting a new garden established with those hardy crops to offer some shade, get some roots in the ground, start building up soil with the mulch and the chop and drop. Um, I’m planting nitrogen fixes, which are my pigeon pee and my caner, as well as any other seeds that I can find that I think would grow, I’m going to pop those in as well. I’m a huge advocate of using what you have and doing what you can. So, harvesting seeds from my garden, repopulating, and just starting small rather than getting a bobcat, digging the whole thing up. I mean, that would be amazing, but we can’t always do that. So, I’m just taking it one little piece at a time. And by doing that as well, I give myself options. I don’t have to get it all right from the start. So, I like to have projects on the go, things that I can develop on that I can build on, and I can learn from. This garden is going to continuously develop and grow just like the rest of my gardens have. And now that that huge step has been started, I am moving on to squeeze another fruit tree in the garden. This time in my driveway patch. So, I’m adding in a dwarf apricot. I already have one apricot, the fireball, in this garden. And I’m now adding in the bolita, which funnily enough, I already had planted in the front garden quite a few years ago when I had nothing else and it was too hot. It was dying. So, I dug it up and put it in a pot until now. And now it’s going back into a new spot that hopefully it can thrive. And because we dug this out recently with a digger, the soil is super light and easy and full of good nutrients. But as I dig down, you can see my natural soil, that pure white sand. Apricots are something that I’ve become really interested in growing. They are quite different to other stone fruit, and there’s going to be a big learning curve in terms of pruning them, um, keeping them healthy, and harvesting the fruit. So, I’m up for the challenge. I’m also wanting to grow some of my own. So, I’ve got a few started from seed, and I’m excited to see how that experiment goes. I actually have one that’s quite a decent size now from this tree now that I’m planting. I harvested the fruit and planted the seed. And I would love to develop my own apricot variety that is different from everything else. And because I can’t keep anything normal, this apricot tree or already has a graft on it. I grafted a I think it was a rival or a Patterson apricot last season. So, we’ll see what happens with that. Take a look at my low chill nectarina. It is in full bloom. It’s definitely going to be one of the early varieties. And you guys, I got my first glimpse of a frog coming back to the pond. And now I’m just squeezing in this papaya that we dug out at the start to see if I can get that to transplant. Um, if not, no real loss. I’ve got heaps of seeds. [Music] I’m embarrassed to say, but I neglected my worm farms and so they need a full reset. To start with, I’m giving them a good hose down clean. Getting rid of any of the old dirt and the spiders that have taken up home. I did have one tray that was semi-active, so I’ve kept that. And the other one I’m starting from scratch. So, I’m just building some bedding and some food for them using some of the mulch that I’ve got. It’s also got chicken manure in it, but dampening it down with some rain water, which we have plenty of at the moment, and some egg cartons. My bucket has a hole. A great bucket. So, I did get a set of worms so they can speed up the process and get these worm farms established quickly. I’m also going to be adding in some veggie scraps and other bits and pieces as I go. So, they have plenty of food. They have some bedding and some warmth and places to lay their eggs so that I can start producing some worm castings to feed my hungry gardens. [Music] I hope you enjoyed this update from the garden and make sure you join us for the next video because there is a lot of food that needs to be harvested from these gardens.