A Garden update.. the Autumn edition.

On the evening of 20 April Lake Macquarie and other parts of the east coast suffered some significant storms.  The high winds and torrential rain lasted for 3 days.  A lot of trees came down, a lot of property was damaged and a couple of people lost their lives.  I got off lightly.  The power was out for 36 hours and the phone ....  a whole lot longer, about 6 days!!! As a result there was a lot of damage in my veggie patch.  Some root veggies like carrots survived unscathed, but others, like ginger and garlic were awash.  I'm not sure if they will survive and prosper, only time will tell.  Above ground crops were badly affected.  All the corn was lost, an entire bed of it. Although it was planted late in the season and may not have been overly productive anyway.  I thought the broccoli was a goner, but it seems to have survived and the first heads are ready for harvest.  The silverbeet was lost, the spring onions flattened and the peas and beans and all their climbing framework was lost.

After the winds abated and the lawn began to dry out I cleaned out beds 1,3,6,7,9 and 10 and replanted with new seedlings.  20 silver beet, 4 mini cabbage, 8 brocollini, 8 cauliflower, 2 rhubarb, spring onions and a mix of different varieties of peas and beans.  There are still 4 beds unresolved.  Today the sun is out and bed number 11 is getting a makeover.  The basil in it was flattened, but has much young edible leaf.  It will have to go though and then the bed will be built up with a bag of moo poo, and a handful of troforte M, Searles 5 in 1, dynamic lifter, blood and bone and some lime for good measure.  I try to feed the soil, not the plant and it has worked for me so far... but I might be doing it very wrong.

I'm not sure what I might plant in bed 11.  Possibly more beans but it will be dependant on how the rest of the veggies are coming along and what is in stock at the nursery.  The yard needs a lot of work, there are two mid sized trees right down the back, both are harbouring dead limbs.  One assaulted me as I tried to remove it.... one is far to big for me to attempt.  Both might get a visit from Mr Nextdoors chainsaw later today if I see him!!!

Last Autumn white moth decimated my broccoli crop.  So I visited my local hardware and built a  frame of PVC covered curtain rods and plastic corner pieces that allowed me to drape mosquito netting over the frame and effectively exclude the moth.   This works well but the framing cost nearly $40.  A few weeks ago I saw flexible pvc coated metal rods that were 180cm long.  I bought 3 at the enormous amount of $2.80 each and they work in the same way.  They are only suitable for lower growing crops like cauliflower and cabbage, but work well to exclude the moth and uses less drapery in the process!  Still looking for the ideal solution, but I am moth free this season!

As usual, photos follow.

This is the set up with the 180cm bendy poles and mossie net.  Underneath is 4 drumhead cabbage and 8 broccolini I think the broccolini might grow too tall.

As the sign says!

Wish I could get more of these markers, they will last forever and are pretty groovy!

Snow peas, not my favourites, but I couldn't get any sugar snap ones. I usually plant peas and beans from seed, but after the storm took everything I used seedlings to speed up the process.

This time I used carrot tape as my last 3 attempts all failed. 

Pilchy, on guard duty!

Peas peas peas!!!

In the last post I talked about sisters floral front lawn no-mow garden makeover.  Well enough of that tizzy girly stuff... lets talk food production!

The veggie patch has now swelled to 12 1200x900mm raised veggie beds. The last three having only been in place and filled for about a month.  Assembly of them is really easy.  Ordering and receiving delivery of the soil from Green Thumbs Garden Centre was also easy.  Carting the 3 cubic meters of soil from the front yard to the back is a whole different story!!  That was hard.  Sister and I knocked it over in under 2 hours on a stinking hot sunday with quite a few rest breaks!!!  It was hot heavy work.

Those new beds now have capsicum, Queensland blue and butternut pumpkin, sugar snap peas and rockmelons growing in them.  Nothing productive yet, but on their way.  New growth is strong and the butternut has already spilled over the bed edge and onto the lawn.  There is still sufficient space to throw in more produce. A LOT more produce!   In other beds I have all the usual suspects carrots, tomatoes, corn, zucchini, cucumber, spring onions, radish, silver beet, garlic and an abundance of sugar snap peas.

The peas are amazing.  I think I planted 16 pea "seeds" and from that I have already well over 1500 edible pods. A second wave of pods is ready for harvest in the next few days, but 3 vines have given up the ghost and will come out today.  Hence a new planting in one of the new beds.

We are in stir fry heaven here!  So many are eaten straight off the vine.  Sister and I like them in stir fries but mum just steams them and eats them whole. The neighbours are loving the excesses of bounty but I need to get into a rhythm of swapping excesses for eggs....as I chicken out of having chickens!!

The whole veggie garden experience is super easy to maintain.  All the work is in the setting up.  I do wander thru the veg every day.  I water daily when it is stinking hot, but thru the winter months it generally takes care of itself. I have not noticed any spike in the water bills thru watering the food crop.  Weeding is all done by hand.  No pesticides on the food, but I do kill the grass around the outside of the beds with a herbicide to slow the invasion of weeds and grass into the beds.  There are quite a few Redback spiders living in the corrugations of the metal beds.  They get squashed!  I might spent an hour in the veggies every weekend just tidying, trimming and weeding and about 15 minutes some mornings for watering.  Harvesting is in the evening just before dinner.  You can't get much fresher than that!

As per usual a visual reward for reading this far.

I chickened out!

After careful consideration and much budgeting and financial analysis I have decided I won't be getting chooks.  It was not that the fact that it would take 87 months of regular egg purchasing expenditure to even break even.  It was more the fact that I don't think I could really touch them!!!  They do need their wings clipped and they do attract vermin.  They do get lice and fleas and they do need care and attention that I really don't think I am up for.   They need to be kept clean and have fresh food and water daily...and I don't really have the time and energy for that when I can simply walk into the fruito and buy free range eggs.  It would be fair to say I chickened out!!

I decided that I would rather spend more time growing veggies that dealing with feathers.  I know that those who truly love chookies won't "get" me.  I know that those who are bird phobic will!!  I'm not bird phobic, not like my sister, but I don't really want to deal with them.  I don't want to risk having a fox or dog have a free meal and I don't want to deal with them when they depart this fine earth.

I sold the coop on Gumtree.  It took exactly 8 minutes from hitting the "submit" button to the first phone call.  In fact I wasn't even sure I had placed the advert correctly and was still refreshing and searching for the advert when the phone rang.  Her name was Julie and she had both Bantams and Reds.  She drove down from Mailtand, so the coop was gone from my yard in under an hour from the advert being placed.  Further, I sold it and recouped my outlay and delivery charges in total.  When considering the pros and cons of chooks verses no chooks it came to me that I would rather turn the yard over to more veg than any kind of livestock.  I felt my forte was veg not meat.  So the decision was made that I should sell the coop and invest those funds into my veggies.   So that is what  I did.

Today I took a trip with sister and mother to Masters Homewares at Rutherford.  On entering the store the greeter offered mum a catalogue and there, right on the front page, was the Hills Adda Garden 320's for a mere $49 a bed.   Even more amazing they were the same profile as the 9 beds I already have.  One reason why I had not expanded the garden earlier was that I couldn't find any more beds with the same profile.  Hills produce two types of raised veggie beds with the same dimensions... but they have different profiles.  Mine are the curvy wavy ones, the others are very square and sharp.  So I really needed to get the curvy ones.  I couldn't bear it if they didn't match!!!

So now I have 3 more beds to construct, 3 more loads of soil to shovel and 3 more spaces to include in my crop rotation book.  And I couldn't be happier.  To celebrate I picked some delicious carrots and chillies this afternoon and made a big vat of slow cooked curry.  I can't wait for spring when I can put those new beds into high production mode.  Oh, and there will be less mowing.  That makes life a little easier!

A garden full of goodness

Well I thought it might be time to do a veggie bed followup.

 A couple of years ago I was given a Hills Adda garden raised veggie bed for christmas.  The Hills Adda garden are 120x90x30cm corrugated iron veggie beds that sit atop the lawn.  Yes, if you were wondering,  I am difficult to buy for and this was a complete surprise.   So with one bed assembled, filled and producing I thought I should buy another.  I had twin beds going for a couple of seasons and I really had the "growing your own" bug.  In 2013 I bought 4 more beds, so I had 6 in total and finally could rely on a reasonable crop of some items.   As 2103 was drawing to a close I realised Hills were changing the profile of the Adda Garden Bed I had to either jump or miss out forever on expanding the garden with matching beds.  Yes, matching IS important!!!  So I found three more matching beds and my garden of nine beds was complete.

The beauty of the Hills Adda garden is there is minimal wastage.   After assembly and before filling, the cardboard  packaging forms the base of the bed and ultimately kills the grass and then decomposes adding carbon to the mix!   The only bin items are a small plastic bag that the screws came in and two cable ties that held the 4 panel pieces together for transport.  Less than half a handful!!

So with 9 beds I began to look at crop rotation as a method of pest control and soil rejuvenation.  I'm seriously no expert but I do understand the concept.  Root crops should be followed by leaf crops.  Beans "fix" nitrogen issues so should follows plants that exhaust nitrogen in the soil.  Some veggie types will not thrive in beds with some from other families.  It's a minefield, but I am trying to implement a relaible and functional system.

I rarely use fertiliser.  I tend more towards enriching the soil between plantings.  Of course there are times, especially with high yielding crops like cucumbers and tomatoes where  a hit of thrive helps in the dying days of the plants to get just that little bit more out of them before they become compost.

I also avoid pestacides.  I try all the touchy feely "green" alternatives before ultimately removing a pest infested plant.  Soapy water, fish emulsion and cardboard cutout butterflies to name just a few of my oddities. I use chillies and marigolds to entice good bugs and bees into the veggies and use lucern in preference to snow pea straw as a mulching product.

I don't have a water tank, so I rely on rain and "town water".   I'd LOVE a tank, but I don't really have somewhere to put it so that it doesn't look like an eyesore.  No matter how much I water, a few drops of rain will yield a better result!  I think it must be the chlorine in our drinking water that acts to hinder some growth.  I do think I would have more produce with stored rain water tank set up.

When crops are at their peak I wander the neighbourhood with a baskets of excess produce and I often receive fresh eggs for gifted veggies.  Its a very gentle system.  There are only 8 houses in our street, so everyone gets something.   One lovely neighbour, new to the street, has no land for produce, so she has recently gifted me some beautiful art books.  Her late husband being an artist and his collection far exceeds her needs.  So win win!!

The nine beds are all numbered with the aim of making my sparse record keeping easier.  Actually the record keeping is a complete failure!  Growing right now are birdseye chillies, spring onions, carrots, 2 varieties  of tomatoes, corn, silverbeet, 2 varieties of zucchini, cucumbers, red runner beans, french dwarf beans, Rajan super hot chillies, baby squash, celery and capsicum.  There is also a vast array of herbs and some other chillies in pots.  This morning I planted 2 more varieties of beans, specifically as a legume crop to follow a brassica crop in bed 5.  I'm hoping that works well.  Fingers crossed!


As per usual some piccies as a thank you for reading this far!

I'm no Costa Georgiadis or even Jerry Coleby-Williams

I'm no Costa Georgiadis or even Jerry Coleby-Williams.  I'm not even close to being a Jane Edmanson or a Sophie Thomson. Nor even a Pip Courtney,  but I do love to tinker in the veggie patch.  What started a few years ago with one 1200x900x300mm raised bed has become a bit of an obsession with 6 beds full to bursting with the freshest of veggies imaginable!   In the height of summer I have so much produce I give it away to family, neighbours and friends.  Now in the thick of winter I struggle to get enough out of it at all.  But that's not a bad thing. Winter is when I replenish the soil and build up the worm population.

I am trialling a 6 bed rotation system this year.  No two crops from the same family in a row.  Alternating root crops with leaf crops season by season yet still attempting to adhere to the principals of companion planting.  I don't use any insecticides or pestacides. I do make my own compost and I do use a mix of crushed up fish guts and seaweed as a deterrent to the white cabbage moth, but otherwise I hand pick pests off leaves and hope for good rainfall, sunny days and strong growth.  Season dependant I use chillies and marigolds to discourage bugs.  Fortunately the local possum population is not fond of broccoli or radish, so they leave me alone.

I've done a little experimenting too this season.  I planted spring onion seeds into a mini greenhouse and let them establish.  I transferred  them into a bed after a few weeks.   That same day they were planted I directly sewed seeds from the same packet into another bed and 10 weeks on the direct sewn spring onions are thriving.  The greenhouse crop, whilst older, is far less advanced.  Whooda thunkit!  So for spring onions at least I will buy seeds now, not punnets. Seeds are HEAPS cheaper and are always on hand so  I can zip out and plant a few rows instead of driving to the nursery and grabbing a punnet THEN planting!  Over time I will test that theory further with other veggies too.  

So with my 6 beds full or replenishing before a spring crop I needed to either buy more beds and get another truckload of soil delivered  OR acquire more space by other methods.  I'd like to increase the variety of plants I grow and so some extra beds are essential. The backyard here is massive, but massively overgrown.  It is just your classic quarter acre block, but I have left one area wild for native birds and animals.  Side beds are overgrown and have poor soil with neighbouring trees sucking the life blood out of them and being a mass of twisted tree roots.  The large lawn section is where I have placed the 6 beds I already have, but that still leaves me with masses of lawn to mow and realistically I could put another 6 beds in........  but then it wouldn't really look much like a backyard anymore!!  So in my quest for more space  I have acquired the use of a long narrow disused veggie bed that is divided into four smaller spaces at my sister home, just up the road.

That bed is in really poor condition!  Some worms, but a tangled mat of roots in the soil that will take me some time to clean out and build up.  I tackled one part of it yesterday and got it cleaned out and I planted spring onions to get something in!   Then I bought some blood and bone and lucern mulch.  Today I spent a couple of hours digging out what weeds and roots I could then treated the whole bed with blood and bone.  I covered two beds with lucern mulch and gave it all a good water.  I then planted garlic in the corner of the spring onion bed and tomatoes and capsicum in the far end of the bed.  The one remaining plant from last year is a rhubarb so it got a hit of blood and bone and a good water too.  It may well flourish again.

So what is a blog without images.  Heres some of the garden...... or should I say gardens!!!

3 day weekends!!

I love the weekend.

I work a nine day fortnight so every second weekend is a long one, which I love MORE than a normal weekend.  Fortunately the planets have aligned and I am now enjoying my THIRD three day weekend in a row!  Hallelujah!!!

Being back at work after being crook is still a struggle,  I'm not enjoying it and I am finding it very draining, but these 3 short weeks are helping.  This weekend I am in a position to catch up on some of the stuff I have let slip over the last 12 months.  I don't mean just around the house, although that is a big part of it. I mean taking photos, heading out for a bit of social activity and filling the freezer with decent meals ready to nuke on those nights when I get home late and couldn't be bothered whipping up something nutritious and tasty.  So this weekend I have managed to do a fair bit in the garden, attend an exhibition opening and still found time to take a few photos.

And here are some....... oh and I grew the chillies!!!

The Art of Blogging

I can't believe there are American magazines on the blogging.  What's more, I can't believe I buy them!!!  "Artful Blogging" is my favourite but is as dear as poison to have delivered in Australia.  In the days of "Borders" you could pick them up for a mere $40 an issue.  Even though I was pumping as much money as I could into Borders they still went bust! Maybe I didn't buy enough copies of "Artful Blogging"!!!

Its funny cos I don't read a lot of blogs.  I find it hard to find a really good blog I keep going back to.  Searching for something is a bit of a mystery to me, but word of mouth is the best way for me to hunt up a good read.  I have my absolute faves and I have some I visit from time to time, but I do enjoy knocking up a post and sending it out into the ether.  Strangely my fave blogs fall into just two categories....photography and home gardening.  Go figure!!!

One of my fave blogs is by a rough and tumble West Aussie bloke called Dodgee Bruce.  His blog is called  "Dodgey Dealings"   and you can find it here  http://dodgeydealings.blogspot.com.au/    Its all things cars and photography and a really good read.   I "met"  Dodgee Bruce online.  He's a top tog and an all round good bloke.

Another is called Everyday Miracles http://theeverydaymiracles.blogspot.com.au/ . It's a photo blog too and I think I might have met this chick at a flickr meet once, but really I know her more from the blog.  She takes the most DIVINE images, often florally bases and writes so well about her life in old cold Tassie.  Her images have a super soft quality and I look at her stuff and go..... man, wish I had taken that!

There is another 'tog blog' I rate and that is Just Stunning Photography.  Now the blog is currently undergoing a bit of an upgrade, so if you don't get straight thru, go back in a few days.  http://www.juststunning.com.au/blog/.  I think you will be surprised to learn I met this dude at a car show. Go figure... in real life!!!   He shoots cars and glamour and tends to use super expensive artifical light sources.  He is actually a techo wizz and I rely on him to explain stuff I should already know. I think he thinks I am a dinosaur!!

On the home garden blogfront there are a few they I really enjoy reading.  Rebecca Hamby has just had a tree change moving from a suburban coastal block in NSW to 5 acres in mid Victoria.  In the coldest part of mid Victoria I might add!!!  Farmer Hamby now has chooks! Chooks and foxes and the biggest chook fortress you will ever see!   The farm already had productive fig and fruit trees and Rebecca has become a dab hand at preserves and jams!  Having personally enjoyed her Caramelised Onion Confit i can recommend reading Hamby Home(in)stead. Clicking on this link will take you there http://hambyhomeinstead.blogspot.com.au/.  She is a great writer, top photographer and a wizz in the kitchen!  There is a funny story about how we met, but I won't go into that here!  Suffice to say EVEN THOUGH she is a Nikon user, I rate her as a friend!

Another home grown foodie is Mrs Homespun.  She writes Homespun Field and this link will take you there http://homespunfield.blogspot.com.au/.  She too has chookies and veggies on an average Suburban block.  I've seen her patch and she grows an amazing amount of produce from her yard.  She also does the Esty thing and is pretty talented in all handiworks.

Five blogs hardly seem enough.  If you know a great blog the send me an email or a link.  I need more! Books are so 2012 to me!

Now a photo.... what shall it be.....

If I had chickens I'd call one Aunty Linda!

Yep, If I had chickens in my backyard I'd call one Aunty Linda.  It's all Bronson's fault though!  In that great Australian kids TV series "Round the Twist" Bronson finds a baby in the cabbage patch and his sister becomes "Aunty Linda".  That's a great name for a chook I reckon!  But I don't have chooks.  I like the idea of chooks but I think the reality would be a vastly different. At night driving home I often see a fox scurrying across the road and I don't fancy encouraging them into the yard.  Also my big brave pussy catto "Pilchards"  is scared of his own shadow so I think he would be pretty put out with chickens roaming around in his domain!    A friend of mine in Victoria has just made the tree change and got four chookies today.  Her 5 acres is filling up fast with talk of sheep, beef cattle and alpacas!!!  My 1/4 acre might hold a couple of goats, but there isn't enough room for much more. Definitely not for a pack of alpacas anyway!

I have turned over part of the yard to production though.  My one 1200x900mm Hills Adda Garden raised veggie bed has now become SIX veggie beds.  I have read up a little on companion planting and crop rotation and even keep a veggie bed book, so I can easily look back on what worked and what didn't.  I'm planting veggies that are more resilient to bugs as I don't use any pesticides or herbicides.  Large African Marigolds are my only line of defence.  So I don't grow cabbage because you cant see the bugs inside until the crop is complete, picked and cut open.  Instead I grow broccoli because the bugs eat the leaves not the heads and they are really easy to pick off and throw to the local birds as a treat.

At the moment I am growing sugar snap peas, red emperor beans, dwarf french beans, brocolli, brussel  sprouts, 3 different kinds of cucumbers, 2 kinds of chillies, silverbeet, spring onions and herbs in pots.  Just the usual suspects thyme, mint, chives, parsley and rosemary.  I have a dwarf lemon tree too, which has good sized fruit, but it seems hesitant to ripen.  I don't use much by way of fertiliser, rather I treat the soil between crops with worm wee and my own compost.  That one compost bin just wasn't enough, I now have 5 on the burst!

At times there is an excess and I'm happy to be able to share it.  Couple a chicks at work do keep chookies, so from time to time I get eggs in return.  6 beds will not mean I can avoid trips to the fruito, but it does mean that I get super fresh veggies to supplement the bought stuff.  How many more beds would I need to be self sufficient?  Probably more than I have room for.  Another 3 or 4 would mean greater variety and, naturally, more produce,  but the backyard would begin to look a bit....... a bit less like a backyard I suppose.

I took some pics with my new toy camera today, so here they are.

42! Douglas Adams would be proud.

Blog post 42 has finally rolled around and just like a good read of Douglas Adams it will make no sense at all!!!

It has been 14 days since I left isolation and I kinda expected it to be a bit different.  The fatigue or lethargy is relentless.  Head and neck aches, constant. But I am home, comfy and not eating bread or gravy!!!

I'm trying hard to get the veggie patch up and productive.  It has not had a lot of care in recent times.  The prolific summer crop of cucumbers, tomatoes and spring onions is coming to an end.  My three raised beds have become 6 thanks to the hard labour of my nephew Russell. Last sunday morning I had 2m of top quality soil delivered and Russell carted barrow load ofter barrow load from the front yard to the back and filled the 3 new beds.  It was a hot and humid day, but like the Duracell Bunny he just kept going!!!  Since then it has rained and rained and rained.  At least now the beds are ready to receive and I have been reading up on companion planting.

Over the last few years I put seedlings in wherever I had a spot, but now with 6 beds I can plant to a plan. 6 beds, 1 fallow, 5 in crop.  I had planted sugar snap peas, emperor beans and brussell sprouts, a punnet of silverbeet and cucumbers......  but the relentless rain had waterlogged them and whilst some may recover the peas are gone. The bean, rhubarb and silverbeet are on their last legs but the brussell sprouts and cucumbers look like they will survive and thrive.

I also planted a couple of punnets of Giant Africa Marigolds.  I don't use any pesticides so marigolds are my first and only line of defence!  They seem to like the wet too and have grown noticeable over the rainy days.  Some violas I planted are struggling too, but I have high hopes for their recovery.  A few days of sun will either make or break my first attempts with the new extended veggie patch.

But that is not all I have been up to. I bought a new camera and lens this week too.  I decided to celebrate the end of my treatment. A new camera for the handbag to replace the one in the handbag!  The one in the handbag was a top of the range point and shoot, that shot raw and had total manual focus control and full HD video. But I struggled to love it.  It turns out a damn fine picture, but I wanted MORE control.  So I bought an entry level DSLR (Canon of course) and a lens called a pancake.  Its a flat 40mm f2.8 bit of fluff that gives some great results! I am super happy with my acquisition...... now I just need to get out and use it!

Getting out is a bit of a problem.  I can't get a clearance to get back to work because of the side effects of the Radioactive Ablation a fortnight ago.  I admit the side effects are still pretty debilitating, I am the Queen of the Nanna Nap,  but I need to get back to work because if I don't get back there soon I'll never go back!!   The results of blood tests taken last friday will be considered on Tuesday and I am hoping they are good enough to get me over the line.  Fingers Crossed!

So what does today hold.....    Well I have been up nearly 90 minutes and I have to go have a nanna nap now. Then I need to hit the supermarket and do a bit of cooking, interspersed with more nanna napping of course and that is pretty much my lot for the day.  At least it is not raining .......for the moment!



I guess the appropriate photos for this post will be of the veggie beds and the new camera......  ohhh and here they are .....

                                   Six veggie beds and one dwarf lemon in a pot..... the rest, jungle!

                    first shot from the new camera                         Mumma bear and baby bear