Self Sufficient Me is based on our small 3-acre property/homestead in SE Queensland Australia about 45kms north of Brisbane - the climate is subtropical (similar to Florida). I started Self Sufficient Me in 2011 as a blog website project where I document and write about backyard food growing, self-sufficiency, and urban farming in general. I love sharing my foodie and DIY adventures online so come along with me and let's get into it! Cheers, Mark :)
G'day, I'm Mark from Self Sufficient Me,
and I'm back with another how-to basic
beginner's gardening tips, but not in two minutes.
I've done with that, kaputs, finished, nada, zilcho, gone,
because I believe beginner's gardening tips
should just take as long as they take.
They're too important to put a time limit on it
and to get me all pressurized and stressed out, right?
So this is gonna take as long as it takes.
Let's get straight into it.
Okay, here we have a close disaster.
Well, it still could be a disaster if I don't act quickly.
We've got a beautiful mandarin tree.
It's an imperial, and it's laden with a ton of fruit, ton.
I think I can feel a ton of mandarin video coming on.
Anyway, you can see this branch here
is precariously bent, laden down with, I don't know,
maybe 10 kilos or more, and for this little branch,
if we don't do something about it, it's gonna snap,
and all this fruit will probably be ruined,
and, well, I just don't want the branch to break
while this fruit is developing.
So what are we gonna do about it?
Well, it's simple.
I've got this really cool and easy gardening hack
that's going to prevent this branch from breaking
and save all of this fruit.
The hack is called the branch brace.
I've just made that up, but it sounds good.
A brace to relieve the pressure of this branch
and save it from breaking under its own weight.
Where am I gonna get this brace from?
Well, it's easy.
Let's just go make one up.
Out the front of the veggie garden here,
we've got some prunings.
We've been doing quite a bit of work,
and I've laid them all out in front of the veggie garden
for another project because we're gonna use all that,
but I'm sure in that big pile of prunings,
I can find a brace that I can make up to help that tree.
Too short.
I need something with a long stem on it and a wide brace.
What have we got here?
That might kind of work.
Got a nice long stem.
A Y, yeah, that'll be strong enough.
Let's cut this to size.
Obviously, that's gonna be way too high,
but I'll give it a measure when we're over there.
Now, you wanna position this thing not on the bend,
but where the majority of the weight is falling
so that it can support this weighted part of it.
So it's mainly towards the end.
Pick it up until it straightens out a bit.
It's about there.
So if I'm gonna get this down,
I wanna take about roughly a foot or so off
by the eyeball method.
If you wanted to measure it out, you could.
I've got a bit of leeway here.
As this fruit ripens, it's only gonna get heavier,
and then it will eventually snap.
You can just tell.
All right, let's see how that goes.
Slide this under.
Get a good bite.
Try not to damage anything.
Just poke it all between.
There we go.
Pick him up.
Yeah.
No, let's reposition that.
It's just not quite right.
That's better.
That is much better.
There we go.
That's taken the pressure off that branch perfectly,
and that's just gonna stay in place like that
because of the pressure of the weight of this branch
onto this stand here.
It's going to keep it in position,
but if you really wanted to,
you could dig a little hole underneath
and push that post in a little bit,
and that way you definitely won't get any movement,
but that's not gonna move anyway,
and I'm sure I'll be checking every now and again
in a big windstorm or anything like that
if that happens to come.
Just have to just check to make sure it hasn't fallen,
but even in a big wind,
I'm pretty confident that's gonna stay like that.
So there you go.
There's a really easy basic gardening hack
on how to stop your laden fruit tree
from breaking its branch
because it's got too much fruit hanging on it.
Well, I hope you enjoyed
this basic beginner's gardening hack tip.
If you did, give it a big thumbs up.
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Thanks a lot for watching.
Bye for now.
Yeah, that's gonna work really well.
