Apricot tree to net or not to net

Stranding at the laundry trough at 6.50 am on a Saturday morning I was into my second hour of scrubbing the mold and rotting fruit stuck to the fruit fly exclusion net that had covered the communal garden apricot tree when I heard Bach's Cantata No 140 on the radio. I stopped and listened to the music- and sobbed. I have no words to convey my emotions but, dear reader, if you know the piece of music and you have ever cleaned a fruit fly exclusion net you will understand. 

The net had been soaking in bleach over night. If we had picked the apricots before they started falling into the net, perhaps the cleaning task would not have been so arduous. Anyway, the upside is that none of the fruit had fruit fly although some of the apricots were beginning to develop brown rot. The bottom of the net was full of moldy fruit! 

The harvest: After some of the apricots  been shared by the gardeners and some left on the tree- mainly because it was raining so hard we didn't have time to do a proper harvest,  I ended up with eight damaged apricots which I stewed- salvaging enough to fill half a standard jam jar- and I can't begin to tell you how good they tasted.   

Folding the net:  Once, cleaned and hung out to dry, the net had to be folded for storage in our community garden shed. My husband and I together could not manage to fold the net neatly despite laying it out on the road outside our house. Finally we managed by a mixture of folding, rolling and compression, to squeeze it into a plastic bag. If you have been considering buying one; don't. Rather than net the tree, I would prefer to pick the fruit at first blush and stew and make jam before fruit fly larvae have ruined the fruit.

Plastic; No

Cleaning out our makeshift garden shed, I encountered a pile of empty potting mix and mulch bags. Dirty and large, they are not suitable to put in the bin reserved for recycling plastic bags at Coles supermarkets and they are a nuisance taking up space in the tiny shed while I wait for the date of our next Council "Renew" collection, which will collect them twice a year. I was planning to buy some more potting mix and a bale of mulch but have decided not to purchase any more garden supplies in plastic. Both mulch and potting mix alternatives exist in my own back yard!
Mulch: Acacia implexa , a small tree, has dropped copious thin, nitrogenous leaves under it's canopy- enough to mulch all my pots and some of the garden beds as well.
Potting Mix: The potting mix is another story; good drainage is essential. I will experiment making potting mix from compost and whatever free draining materials I can find around the place and see what happens. What free draining materials? Well firstly I have some Pearlite- as well as some washed river sand- both are free draining. I will use the old supplies up and never buy any more before I resort to plan number 2, which is to crush and break up the numerous dirty old polystyrene boxes in which I have been growing veggies. I will break the polystyrene into fairly large chunks as I don't want to inhale the dust that fine crushing would create. If plants don't thrive in my home-made mix, I will replace them with pants that don't mind poor drainage. If that doesn't work, I will abandon growing pretty flowering natives in pots altogether and just plant directly into soil, give away my pots and enjoy a low maintenance habitat garden at home whilst continuing to grow vegetables in my community plot. By that time I will be in my seventies and I will appreciate not watering pots daily in summer and needing to re-pot every 3-5 years.