I keep forgetting who is where in this huge continent. Maybe a thread dedicated would help.

I am in South West Victoria, with a garden at Penshurst (between Warrnambool and Hamilton) and one in Casterton (between Hamilton and Mt Gambier) The Penshurst garden is rocky, as it’s on the side of Mt Rouse, a dormant volcano. We have seams of scoria (quarried out of Mt Rouse, that’s how much there is) but the soil is actually rather good. But there are giant rocks buried too, so when you are digging you occasionally clang. And it’s difficult to actually run a fence straight with posts at even intervals.

At Casterton I am on the flood plain, although in town. So I have lovely river silt to work with. Which goes under water every few years. The last flood that got under the house (which is 1.4m off the ground to mitigate the effects) was in 1996. But the weather is hotter in Casterton than in Penshurst.

I’m in Gawler – a town as old as Adelaide (1838) and surveyed by the famous Col. W. Light who also designed the original plans for Adelaide and Christchurch (NZ).

Gawler is the northern extreme of Adelaide and gets hot in summer. . It’s located on the junction of the North and South Para rivers where the hills finally drop down to the Gawler River floodplains. The winters here are very mild without frosts – so I’m changing over to winter vege crops wherever possible

pepe said:

I’m in Gawler – a town as old as Adelaide (1838) and surveyed by the famous Col. W. Light who also designed the original plans for Adelaide and Christchurch (NZ).

Gawler is the northern extreme of Adelaide and gets hot in summer. . It’s located on the junction of the North and South Para rivers where the hills finally drop down to the Gawler River floodplains. The winters here are very mild without frosts – so I’m changing over to winter vege crops wherever possible

How could I forget that? P and I went to a pre-Christmas party there…amazed at the number of non-locals who made the trip just for the party. Looking back on it, for many it would have been part of a weekend wine-tasting as well…that was Christmas 1981 I think…

Central Highlands, Queensland…in my locale there can be frosts and pea-soup fogs in winter, we rely on Monsoonal troughs for our main rainfall (generally Jan-Feb), also our summers (until the Wet turns up) can be very dry (humidity-wise) so the temps which can reach 45C are more bearable than those where the humidity is thick …my particular soil type is gold/copper bearing red clay, the gold bit is more yellow and I loved working with it as a child (making things)…a lot of ex-brigalow scrub, stone aggregate on the tiny hill that defines the town…people used to bring in sandy loam “in the old days” but now that there’s a lot more understood about mulching and building up the soil, there’s not so much of that…lots of raised gardens just the same, ingenious bed borders,…mangoes do well if watered young, citrus struggle with the stones …I would grow “normal” citrus if I was ever to get my “grove” (with bantam helpers) going…

So is Gawler south of the Goyder line? I can’t find a good map. I know where Gawler is…..I’m having trouble with the line.

buffy said:

So is Gawler south of the Goyder line? I can’t find a good map. I know where Gawler is…..I’m having trouble with the line.

yeah – well south.
our rainfall is about 550mm p.a.
Goyder’s line is forced a long way to the north of us by the Flinders Ranges. There is a patch of 600mm rainfall about an hours drive north of here – Clare and Burra are wetter than the Adelaide plains (altho not as wet as the Adelaide Hills which have similar rainfall to Hamilton Vic.) – …………..and surprisingly some of the Adelaide’s seaside suburbs, like Semaphore, are in rain shadows and drier than us to the north.

Hamilton is around 600-650mm a year, I think. So you are not all that much different….especially as we’ve had years of less than average now!

I’m up on the dry side of this
er; the ephemeral swamp.
My rainfall is often less but usually not more than 397.3 mm The area is semi-arid with irrigated farmland.
The temperature is currently 40.7°C heading for 43 later today. It is currently the sixth day in a row above 40, this week.

Werribee vic, south west of Melb on the basalt plans. I’ve been here for forty one and a half years. Fab soil. Market gardens and all that, and a pretty river with platypus. I saw one!
Awful dry, but when we do get decent rain, floods easily.

Wet coastal sub-tropics, near Qld. border, and it is a much drier than normal season so far, dreadful, not into dry, i like lush green all year round with plenty of rain, in the climate here we do get plenty of nice sunny days, and many overcast days in summer, sea breeze tops it off for all round pleasant living :)

roughbarked said:

The temperature is currently 40.7°C heading for 43 later today. It is currently the sixth day in a row above 40, this week.

shudder

trichome said:

Wet coastal sub-tropics, near Qld. border, and it is a much drier than normal season so far, dreadful, not into dry, i like lush green all year round with plenty of rain, in the climate here we do get plenty of nice sunny days, and many overcast days in summer, sea breeze tops it off for all round pleasant living :)

lush green sounds good – me and the chooks are heading north ….. I wish.

Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. A small city in a rain shadow on two harbours. Soil is black clay, very reactive. TC Dylan stole our Monsoonal Trough and dragged it south.

painmaster said:

Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. A small city in a rain shadow on two harbours. Soil is black clay, very reactive. TC Dylan stole our Monsoonal Trough and dragged it south.

Much appreciated (the remnants of TC Dylan)…

Anyway it was never your Monsoonal Trough, was it? Or did it tack itself on to the eastern end of ours?

Swanpool, 23km south of Benalla Vic. Home of the Swanpool Cinema.

When it is hot it is very hot, and due to the mountains south of us it takes a day or two for any cool change to take effect, if we get it at all! Winter mins can get to -5°C but more usually about -2°C. Soil is granitic I think.

Dinetta said:

painmaster said:

Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. A small city in a rain shadow on two harbours. Soil is black clay, very reactive. TC Dylan stole our Monsoonal Trough and dragged it south.

Much appreciated (the remnants of TC Dylan)…

Anyway it was never your Monsoonal Trough, was it? Or did it tack itself on to the eastern end of ours?

We had a monsoonal trough over our heads and the cyclone took it away. It hasn’t returned either.

painmaster said:

We had a monsoonal trough over our heads and the cyclone took it away. It hasn’t returned either.

Another is going to go up to POM by Friday…so they say…

Newest hub for murder and crime, Noble park lololol At least my pot plants be safe, no one game enough to venture here these days :)

Thee’s Estate said:

Newest hub for murder and crime, Noble park lololol At least my pot plants be safe, no one game enough to venture here these days :)

It’s in Wikipedia

Dinetta said:

Thee’s Estate said:

Newest hub for murder and crime, Noble park lololol At least my pot plants be safe, no one game enough to venture here these days :)

It’s in Wikipedia

I’ve tried to avoid mentioning the place name. I live in a satellite village of a rural city of great fame, if you want to talk about money laundering of drug money, murders and all that underbelly stuff.

roughbarked said:

I’ve tried to avoid mentioning the place name. I live in a satellite village of a rural city of great fame, if you want to talk about money laundering of drug money, murders and all that underbelly stuff.

Once you mentioned that Mackay chap, I zeroed in on you…and I agree about being chary of mentioning the place name…altho’ suburbs in the cities are less “specific” I reckon, than the country towns…

When we were in Adelaide all those years ago, we wondered about the Nugan Hand stories, and a nightclub blew up one night whilst we were there…opened the newspaper and “dear you remember that ??? club we walked past last night (trying to find Adelaide City night scene apart from the B-R-I-G-H-T cop cars)? Well it’s involuntarily exploded”….

Dinetta said:

roughbarked said:

I’ve tried to avoid mentioning the place name. I live in a satellite village of a rural city of great fame, if you want to talk about money laundering of drug money, murders and all that underbelly stuff.

Once you mentioned that Mackay chap, I zeroed in on you…and I agree about being chary of mentioning the place name…altho’ suburbs in the cities are less “specific” I reckon, than the country towns…

When we were in Adelaide all those years ago, we wondered about the Nugan Hand stories, and a nightclub blew up one night whilst we were there…opened the newspaper and “dear you remember that ??? club we walked past last night (trying to find Adelaide City night scene apart from the B-R-I-G-H-T cop cars)? Well it’s involuntarily exploded”….

Yep. Nugan Hand Bank.. hmm..

interesting read, I like the fertile soil bit LOL

Jack McWilliam said when asked why he was planting grape cuttings here.. He said “If I planted a six inch nail I’d harvest a crowbar”.

roughbarked said:

Jack McWilliam said when asked why he was planting grape cuttings here.. He said “If I planted a six inch nail I’d harvest a crowbar”.

that good, hey?