Perth Tales....A verge collection, a new (old) coffee table and a HUGE spider

April 2011

When we were living in Perth a few years ago, we used to take a trip around our neighbourhood every few months before the verge collection and see if there were any bits being left out that we could use in our little (already oddly) furnished rental. We collected all sorts of handy items, from a pale pink leather recliner chair (well worn but very comfortable) to crockery (which we soaked in bleach and boiling water before using) and we rescued a lovely coffee table that had been left in the sun too long and had gone almost completely white. 

The photo below isn't very clear, but that's M standing by the verge where we found the table, just in front of the biggest spider web I have ever seen. 

The web stretched between the two lemon trees, with multiple layers of web and a trail of dead wasps behind the spider

I spotted the table from across the road and ran straight over to take a look. I'd just bent down and was leaning in to take a closer look at the state of the table top, when M said, very calmly and quietly, "Claire, don't stand up, but there is a huge spider over your head...." My skin was already crawling as I twisted around carefully to see where the beastie was and because I was so close, I couldn't actually see the web at first, just the spider dangling about 2 feet away from my head! I gasped as quietly as possible and pretzeled myself backwards so fast to get out from under the spider, then did a little dance while wringing my hands in the middle of the road...half convinced the spider had somehow gotten onto me.

The Spider, with a convenient dead wasp to show scale

We're pretty sure she's a Golden Orb Spider - which as it turns out, aren't deadly. The effects of a bite are nausea and dizziness and thankfully, they're usually reluctant to bite humans

Close up of some of the spider web, we didn't touch it of course, but it looked really strong and quite tough

So after all the excitement of nearly getting eaten by a spider...ahem...we carefully took a look at the table and realised it was actually a really nice solid piece of furniture, slide it out from under the web and carried it home. Then we returned later that afternoon to photograph the fabulous - just don't let it touch me - spider

Work in progress in our back yard - M had already started to sand the table and the grain was starting to come through  the white sun bleached varnish

Finished sanding, now for the varnish

M spent about three evenings sanding the table (I sanded some of the legs and the sides) and once we'd sanded all the white varnish away and the grain was clearly showing, it was time to re varnish it. That took another two evenings and a few coats of varnish so it would be properly protected. I loved how much the table changed over the space of a week from a white, sun damaged piece of indeterminate wood, to a beautiful, detailed - albeit still indeterminate - coffee table.

Detail on the legs of the table - I loved how a natural ying and yang shape emerged through the grain 

Close up of the table top - this had been almost completely white from all the old varnish and resin baking in the sun

The finished table

If you're not familiar with verge collections; they used to happen every 4 months or so while we were living in Perth. We'd get a notice from the local council advising of the date and people would start to leave their old furniture, white goods, bikes and general oddments on the verge - the grassy patch in front of the house - in the week before the collection and we - as well as other groups of optimistic upcyclers - would wander around and collect any bits and pieces that looked reusable or interesting. Our little town house was already furnished, but sparsely, with an odd mix of tables, chairs and side units and we added our loot to what we realised must have been previous tenants spoils from verge collections past.

There was something similar in Barcelona when I lived there a few years ago and it was always a thrill to find a handy side table or in my flatmate's case, a fabulous dark wood wardrobe with beautiful carved doors that had to be carried, dragged and pulled up five flights of narrow stairs to get to our apartment on the top floor. And was it worth it? Definitely!

Guerrilla Gardening Perth

October/November '11 - March/April '12 - Perth WA

Although we had a very small patio-ed yard behind our little "two up, two down" townhouse in Perth, there wasn't much earth that we could use for planting.

M built some raised beds in patches of the yard where there weren't any bricks - using other bricks that we'd found on walks around the neighbourhood (skip-diving) - and we managed to grow some (tiny) vegetables and a huge watermelon plant...no melons ever appeared through, I think the roots may have been too confined in the small space, the plant really flourished though and it had small yellow flowers for about a month of Summer.

We noticed the area behind the townhouse - just behind our parking bay - seemed to be all scrub and weedy wasteland, it was pretty much out of sight from the path and we were the only people (apart from friends) who came up that way..... and we realised we could reclaim a patch of it and extend our small garden, it was close enough to water and pretty much hidden from view 

Guerrilla Garden - somewhere in Mount Lawley

cherry tomatoes, carrots, beetroot, butternut squash, courgette

We started by clearing the weeds and assessing the soil - mostly sandy - and as the area was in a suntrap with little shade, it got really hot up there, hmmmmm...

We weren't deterred and within a week or two - after weeding and digging some bags of manure compost through the sand - we'd planted some cherry tomatoes, potatoes (from sprouting potatoes we had in the kitchen), beetroot, onions as well as baby sweetcorn, butternut squash and a courgette. This small space was the biggest space I'd ever had for a garden and our local garden centre had a nice selection of seedlings and seeds - carrots and peas we grew from seed and the rest of our experimental seedlings were mostly vegetables that we liked the sound of and really wanted to try

The tomatoes really took off in the Summer sun and in a matter of weeks they were 3ft tall and still growing, the butternut squash spread itself liberally across the small patch we'd cleared and started wandering down the slope towards the car bay. 

                  

After a slow start, our potatoes did well for a few weeks - we had about six plants in total, from a variety of potatoes - but they got ravaged by a infestation of black furry caterpillars that devoured chunks of the plants overnight. I caught and disposed of as many of the caterpillars as I could, but unfortunately a lot of the plants died and after harvesting, we ended up with a small selection of baby potatoes, just enough for a meal for two

Harvest

We ended up with a nice selection of (small) vegetables; beetroot, carrots, lots of cherry tomatoes, potatoes and a few baby sweetcorn. The courgette flowered but didn't produce any fruit and the butternut squash had lots of beautiful yellow flowers, but no fruit either... I think the full sun combined with the poor nutrient sandy soil was just too much for the plants.

Baby carrots and beetroot

Fantastic guerrilla gardening website here

Perth tales...a strange avocado

After many, many unsuccessful attempts over the years, an avocado pit, that I'd carefully suspended in a jar of water using three toothpicks, like so, sprouted a little root. According to popular opinion (i.e. I read it online) this should take three to six weeks to happen...mine took ten...and then, nothing...the big root continued to grow, slowly, with no sign of any leaves, just a big root dangling into the jar of water.


So finally, I planted it, and it sat in the plant pot, looking like a dead stone for another week or two.....

Then, the outer shell split and came off and three little shoots poked out

I debated plaiting the shoots together as they grew to see if that would affect the shape of the tree...but decided against it, it was so fragile and I was so excited that it was actually growing, I didn't want to do anything that might damage the plant

I looked after it carefully, moving it around the house to give it the best light - it didn't like direct sunlight and putting it in the garden resulted in the plant wilting literally within minutes - 40 degrees summer sun in Perth was way too harsh for my little avocado




On a side note - it may have been suggested during these months of moving the avocado around the house, trying to find the best light without too much of a cross breeze from the air con that I was "mollycoddling" the plant.... but I didn't care, I was growing my own avocado tree

Then, one sunny day, I transplanted the avocado from its smaller purple pot, into a larger ceramic one.....and it went limp over the space of a few days...and died.




















                                                                                 


                                                                                   Fin