Catch up from Saturday

Marty cut the water tank in 3, and we made use of the new garden beds. These two have potatoes in them. They were really overgrown in the bags, and were desperate to get out! The variety closest to the camera are Saphire. We grew them last year, although not very successfully thanks to the earwigs. The one further away in this picture are Russet Burbank. We havn't grown these before, but the description says "An American cultivar released in 1908, Russet Burbank is a multi-purpose potato suitable for baking and chips. It's a late maturing type with highly russetted tubers." Sounds interesting!



These are a bit of an experiment this year, as we used our compost which is a little (a lot!) too alkaline. To counter this, we've layered the compost with large amounts of pine needles, which are quite acidic. Potatoes prefer a slightly acidic soil, so hopefully things will work out in their favour. Good luck little taters!

The third one is the not-painted tank on the back-right in the picture below. Inside is growing lettuce and carrots. The carrots are only seeds at this stage, but the lettuce have been growing well in the cold frame, and we transplanted them to their new home on Saturday as well.



Again, we used a mixture of compost, horse manure and pine needles. The top layer is basic potting mix, purchased from the local nursery.

The garden bed at the front has lettuce and spring onions, and the one on the left has beetroot.

Otherwise, the garden is looking very weedy! The rain has settled down and everything is growing crazy. The bok choy here is about ready to harvest the seeds from, but even so, the celery is still in there, growing happily.



And next to the freezer is some broccoli that I threw in because I had nowhere else to put them. I honestly wasn't expecting them to survive, as the bed had pretty fresh horse manure in it at the time.



Oh, can you see them between all those weeds? Never mind!!

Last but not least, we havn't accomplished much with the chook pen lately - except we found a window for it! It's second hand, cheap and very dirty. I think it'll clean up well though!



Next post: an update on the house, finally!

Posted for last Monday - oops

We've been composting! We ran out of room, so Marty built another bay.



Now there are 4! One is not being used - so we've got something to turn the others into. Two is the first turn of a pile we started months ago but been lazy about. Three has a new pile in it - piping hot thanks to the horse manure layered with the neighbour's garden pruning. Four has finished compost in it, ready for the garden.



We took composting in turns, but I ran out of steam much faster than Marty did! I took the opportunity to photograph a few of the trees that are doing well now the weather is warming up.

This is the lemon scented gum - still very small, but growing!



This is a eucalypt known around here as the Silver Princess. It's quite popular with it's showy red flowers. Maybe in a few years time...



Now, for today...

Hooray, it's Flower Day!

Today is "Flower Day" - a great day to plant flowers, peas, broccoli and linseed! How do I know this? Cosmic Garden told me so! ;)

I've been looking forward to today all month. We started by finishing the preparation for the linseed bed. Since we took out the rose-tree, we have been adding horse manure and turning the bed over regularly. What was lifeless sand has turned into lovely looking soil. Today we added compost and sprinkled over the linseed/flaxseed, followed by another light layer of compost.



Watering the linseed bed was all the proof we needed that the soil preparation went well, as the water soaked-in beautifully - rather than beading-off!



I planted out some broccoli which had been waiting for over a month. They're in the 3rd garden bed in the front, and should do well considering the amount of manure in there!



Oh, this "volunteer" plant came up the other week, and I have no idea what it is. I'm thinking a pumpkin vine? Any ideas? It must have come from the horse or pig manure..



We got some hose for the water tanks and hooked them up. There was not yet enough pressure to bring it out of the long hose, but the short hose worked well to fill up the watering cans.

Earlier in the week I placed rocks around the round garden bed in the back, and had been adding a little horse manure and compost. Today I added a little more compost to it, and planted the beneficial bug blend into it. I'm looking forward to seeing what pops up!



We did some preparation for some more peas to go into the 3rd garden bed in the front garden. We plan on getting them in the ground tomorrow - we're going to try something a little different - using the potato cages for them to grow up onto. It'll post a picture of what I mean tomorrow.

The compost heap is going along really well. We turned it yesterday and the heat can be felt on top of the carpet cover! Marty found this colourful bug on it.



We sift the larger bits out of the compost before using it in the garden.



Lastly, here's a little update on the broccoli - slightly eaten, we pick off bugs every day or two - but otherwise looking pretty healthy.



Until next time!

General garden update

Glenda - Hi Mom! - wanted to know how the worms are going!



They're doing OK, but I think their activity level is slowing down due to the hot weather we've been experiencing. I managed to find some:



I'm a little worried - we'll find somewhere cooler for them, I think.

Elsewhere in the garden, the beans are doing great!!





The beetroot is having limited success - most have died off - but I'm not giving up just yet. The one or two that did survive are doing great, which is encouraging.. I intend to plant some more seedlings, but directly into that area rather than into a paper-pot this time.



(It's all a learning experience!)

And I'm crossing fingers and toes that this (and some others like it) is a carrot this time, and not a weed. :)



Here's something we had no part in - they could be apricots, but we're not entirely sure. They don't taste wonderful, but they've weighed down the tree!



We've taken out the no-dig garden bed's contents - it was a little sad to pull out perfectly good corn, but we'll start again.



Oh, and good news, we discovered the missing ingredient in good compost - water! It was dry and cold and wasn't working at all.. with the addition of some water, we now have heat! Finally!



Until next time!

We're back.

I guess it's no surprise that the last post here for a while has been about the bread - it stopped us in our tracks for sure. I'm starting to question the xanthan gum ingredient as the cause.. Anyway, we've done a little gardening over the past two days - onto the pics!

Firstly, the lemon tree wasn't being watered, despite this setup from our rinse-water sink:



The red arrow shows the greywater diverter, so that we could switch it back to wastewater if the need should ever arise. The problem was the diverter was designed to allow 5% of the water to flow-through to the wastewater, and it never did provide enough of a flow down the purple pipe and onto the lemon tree - it simply waited until it emptied down the 5% allowed flow-through. Bummer. So, Marty did some creative plumbing, and here is the result:



At last, enough pressure to water the lemon tree every time. :) The lemon tree thanks Marty! (Hopefully with some tasty good-sized lemons soon)

Our Blue-Tongue lizard friend is still hanging around, this time in the warm compost heap:



We were careful not to squish him when adding more. :) The compost heaps are finally starting to work well - it must be the warmer weather:



Can you count the pea-pods in this picture? I can't! It's amazing how well the peas are doing. I know what we'll be planting more of next time.



The 4 surviving beans are doing well.



I give much thanks to the skinks, geckos and lizards living in the area for helping keep down the earwig population in the front garden beds. We've made this area for them, and it seems to really work - as well as being one of my favourite parts of the garden!



Down in the corner I've put down eucalyptus mulch and thrown any old bark down there too. We've put many rocks in random piles, and it just looks great. Every time I lift a piece of bark or such, there is a little skink disturbed - so I try not to. ;)



The photos also shows the water tank, in it's final resting place. We dug out the ground in a circle, made it level, added about 3 inches of sand and made that level. The water tank is now ready to be hooked up to the house drain-pipes and store some of this lovely rain.

Now, I know I promised no more ikky earwig killing photos but we're still battling them here, and we're pretty happy with the latest earwig trap bait - cooking oil. It's cheap, it's been used for chips, so we're recycling.. it attracts the earwigs in large numbers - better than a few days old yeast and sugar water! So, here's the latest largest ever trap we've made to try and get the earwigs out of the no-dig vegetable garden (with the corn and beans it it!!):



That's corn on each side of the huge bowl there - we put a cover over it because something drank the trap the night before last! Yuck! Luckily it was only yeast and sugar. :)

The newest potato cage has been badly effected by earwigs since it started to shoot - they couldn't get even a single leaf open. This is the same cage this morning, and wow. 2 nights of serious trapping and they're able to get leaves out properly!



The container in that cage was an old Nuttelex container with a little hole cut into the side. It is then filled with oil (in this case, linseed oil), and put into position. It works, and it has quite a few earwigs in there too. Of course, there were 3 other traps in and around that little potato cage too.. The hardest thing is keeping up the effort. Having so many glass jars to clean and fill every night or two is quite a task, but well worth it.

The last of the bean seeds are being sprouted in pots, up and away from any earwigs. It's our final effort to get some more beans in this year. Once they sprout, we'll put them in with the corn - as all the beans we planted in there earlier have been eaten before they could even sprout their first two leaves. It's been quite sad to watch.

I've done some research into why we're experiencing such a bad earwig plague, and it seems as though we've done everything to make it worse since moving in! We've cleaned-up a lot - moving wood and bricks means the earwigs homes were taken away. We didn't have a diverse garden yet, meaning they had nothing else to eat other than delicious new potato and bean shoots - and not much around to eat them, including skinks and geckos. We mulched heavily, using newspaper then pea-straw, providing them a perfect home of rotting material around all the new plants. Now we understand what went wrong, we can be more careful next year. Once the summer hits, the earwigs will go hide, and the garden should have more of a chance to grow once more.

Of course, next year we won't be mulching until we're well into summertime, and in the meantime we're making it our mission to bring some diversity to this garden. We've already planted 8 trees out the back, and there are many more to be planted and native grasses and flax to be sprouted.

Until next time!

Even more green paint

I've been fighting off the same week-old cold, but it seems to be finally loosing it's grip now. I'm all excited because I ordered some more seeds on Friday - roll on next week! This is what will be arriving:

Bean, Climbing - Purple King
Beetroot - Detroit
Carrot - Nantes (organic)
Carrot - Purple Dragon
Corn, Sweet - Golden Bantam
Corn/Maize - Hopi Blue
Lettuce, Looseleaf - Oakleaf Green (organic)
Pea, Shelling - Greenfeast
Pumpkin - Jack Be Little
Pumpkin - Waltham Butternut (Organic)

The chives I planted last week are sprouting already, so we should have plenty of chives for cooking soon! Spartagus the Asparagus is still dormant - but he may never wake up since he was a left a little long before going in the ground, and became a bit mouldy in the bag he came in. Eeww..

The fence is almost finished now - and there is compost in one of the bays now.





It all looks so much better now!



This is the view from the railway track (I was careful, no trains! hehe)



Oh, and the potatoes are looking great too!



Until next time, Goodnight! :)

Happiness is a green paint can

I'm so proud to show you these composting bays! Marty did a wonderful job with these second hand materials, most of it while I was sleeping off a nasty cold / flu. :) Yesterday we painted them to match the fence, and we're thrilled with the outcome!



See? They almost blend in - just a little more fence to go now...



Here you can only just see the bays at the very back. At the front are the potato cages and the "lawn" is just a mass of weeds, but they do look pretty!



Since it's suppose to rain tonight we might not get the painting finished today. Instead I would dearly love to be able to get some native trees from the local nursery and plant out a border around our property. Obviously we won't get all that finished today, but we made a start the other day when we planted the She-Oak. It's not looking very happy, so all we can do is cross our fingers and hope it recovers. The border will serve many purposes - apart from looking nice, it will also hopefully dampen the noise of the trains a little, cover the view of the silo's just a little, and also protect our property from the "Round-Up" that the neighbouring land owners insist on spraying. Here's hoping!

Lovely Weather

Today was the warmest weather we've had since moving in! A lovely day of about 27°C (80°F) according to weather.com.au.

Here's a quick tour of the garden - the potatoes look much healthier now!





Marty digging the post holes for the compost bays.





We do intend on painting them and the fence. Anything has got to help make the poor fence look a bit nicer before we plant trees in front of it.

Sick day update

*cough *cough :)

Well, no coughing, but I am sick - since I've sat around in bed all day and slept on and off, I thought I'd better do something useful now and show the pics I took the other day!

This is the beginning of our compost heap. Marty has already started the "bays" since this pic was taken. It doesn't take much to get a lot of green waste from our yard - it should make for some good compost in a few months time.



This is the side of the garage area that gets practically no sun, and it was covered in weeds and bricks and wood.



There are 2 rose bushes left out the front, but since spring has hit, I don't think we'll get them moved to Mum's house this year. The one on the side of the house is flowering like crazy, and the smell is quite strong! They're quite pretty, and if we were fans of roses, we'd be in heaven right now - but we're not! Despite their lovely flowers, I'll be glad to see the end of the thorny things!



Oh, and the potatoes I planted so long ago now - we were getting really worried about them since they didn't sprout.. so we all got brave and dug in to take a look - lo and behold!! They're growing!! Now I know that I planted them too deep.. hehe. Oh well, this is what the biggest one looked like when we uncovered it - it looks lovely now, I promise to take an updated pic tomorrow and post it. :)



That's the Saphire potato. I've since planted 2 more potato cages out with 4 potatoes each of the Saphire and Ruby Lou in them. More pics tomorrow!