08 December, 2015

again, a great dearth of regular updates

But an abundance of pictures:

Garden November 2015

Plums, of which only one has really survived.

Garden November 2015

Cherries, all of which survived and not one of which fell to fruit fly - unlike the nectarines...

Garden November 2015

Corn, tomatoes, and squash up the back - this bed is doing amazing now:

Garden November 2015

Passionfruit - it just sat there all last year, but now, all of a sudden, it's decided to start growing!

Garden November 2015

Beans. I think I mixed up the bush beans with the runners, and the result is actually not a bad thing - a whole bunch of low-down bushes, and just a handful that are reaching for the sky!

Garden November 2015

Potatoes; I dug out half the bed - back by the fence - and have replaced it with a few corn sprouts. The rest will be in the bed next door:

Garden November 2015

Raspberries and tomatoes:

Garden November 2015

Have to work out where these are going to go next year...

Central bed: still holding the leeks and the remnants of the swiss chard, which we haven't touched at all.

Garden November 2015

I need to stop and think about what I'm planting, where I'm planting it, how it's going to grow and whether I can persuade my sister to eat it. (The key thing in growing the garden.) Ironically, this year, the fruit (which we would have eaten) has largely failed, while things like beans and suchlike - not our usual fare - are doing spectacularly. It's all a question of trying to work out what goes where and which grows how well.

2016, the year of better planning!

22 October, 2015

fruit trees, watering systems, heatwaves, and flies

Alas, for I have lost much of my hoped-for fruit crop to the couple of days of heatwave we just had, wherein I didn't have a watering system set up for the backyard trees.

*sadface*

All my apples but one have dropped off. The plums are holding on, but the apricots fell off in the last two days, and the donut peaches have withered on both the tree and the multi-stone. The nectarines in both the front and the back are looking like they've become fruit-fly heaven, and I'm not sure about the regular peaches.

Also, I'm not entirely sure I trust the local people not to just wander up and help themselves to my garden since our driveway is pretty open. And the other day I saw a guy and his partner and their dog pointing at my trees through a gap in the bushes that line the walking trail, they didn't realise I was the house owner until I backed up into the driveway. So, wonderful. Thieves on top of everything else.

On the plus side, I've invited the parentals around for dinner on Saturday night. I want the menu to be roast pork with crackling, but my stepfather is apparently putting on weight and would like to eat healthier. So...maybe just a small roast? But there will be new potatoes, swiss chard, kale chips, and possibly broccoli leaves as a vegetable accompaniment.

19 October, 2015

harvest: leeks

Roast leeks for dinner, with roast beef, and new potatoes.

Garden in October

Roasted, they were amazing. I ate the leeks straight off, and then ended up having only one piece of beef with a new potato. So leeks are definitely on the 'plant next year' list.

I haven't posted many pics of the garden this spring; it's kind of messy.

Garden in October

But growing! The fruit trees are fruiting, the broccoli and cauliflowers are going to seed. And I have to seed save some of the last ones, because they've survived really well without bug attacks or anything!

Now the big question: pull that bed apart to make 'rows' for the corn, or leave it as a central bed for the time being?

02 October, 2015

Where the Water Tanks wander

Whimsical post title is whimsical.

The problem with water tanks is that the space for them are all down the lower end of the property. Which would mean pumping. It's only a metre or so of difference, but I don't want to be doing even that.

So I think we're going to be losing some carport space in the name of permaculture practicality. And that space along the east boundary of the house is barely used, so maybe there.

Hm. We could maybe stick one on the back porch, under the bathroom window, and build a cabinet over it so there's somewhere to put...plants? Growing things? IDEK. But summer is coming and a water supply for the garden is going to be very necessary.

Looking here at Water Tanks - at least one, preferably two. If I thought I could get away with three, I totally would...

16 September, 2015

harvest: tricolour carrots and mizuna

So, out of all my carrot sowings, I only really managed one of each, and it took 9 months to grow them!

Homegrown carrots.

They're not easy veggies to grow, that's for sure!

Better soil next time, and somewhere to grow that's out of the way. Or else, look for short-term carrots rather than long-term.

Also, home-grown mizuna in salad!

Amazing salad for lunch! #mealforameal #food

Unfortunately all the other vegies had to be bought. I need to better manage my planting of salad greens in the coming months.

14 September, 2015

Spring and the changing face of the garden

So of course I had to go away at the most important gardening time of the year - the late winter/early spring. I left a garden that was bleak and cold and slightly frostbitten, and returned to a garden where everything is GROWING.

I left in winter and come back to SPRING! #gardenofsel #garden

It's perhaps a little daunting. The grass in particular is going to be a nightmare in the backyard. As the trees are going to be until they grow decently high that the branches aren't going to poke in my face all the time.

There are also holes and fruit trees all over the place, because my mother brought her gardener and the fruit trees she's been promising me for several years and...

Garden - Sep 2015 Garden - Sep 2015

So that's a whole bunch of new work - not just the planting of the trees, but the clearing of the area around them and planting orchard cover and green mulches.

The list of currently planted trees:
a lemon (full of flowers, seems to be doing okay),
two multi-citrus (one isn't doing so well, the other is full of flowers and seems okay)
a multi-stone (full of flowers, seems okay)
two avocados (one has brown-tipped leaves while the other seems to be doing okay, lots of buds on both, but no visible fruit set yet), and
a banana (not doing well at all - I think the slugs are getting to it)

Garden - Sep 2015

To be planted:
a multi-apple (the early grafts are flowering, but the later ones are only just budding).
a multi-stone (apricot, plum, nectarine, peach - all are fruiting, although I think I'll have to reduce the number of plum fruits - they've gone kind of crazy),
a peach (donut peach, from mum)
a persimmon (fuyu fruit, from mum)
a multi-stone (has flowers, has set)
an avocado (seed-grown, no signs of fruiting yet, but budding),
a mandarin (has never produced, although has set fruit before)
a lime (has never been very strong - has bad case of twisted leaves; needed better spraying back in late autumn, early winter)
a whole bunch of raspberry canes (they need planting before they flower!)
and possibly a cherry? (Mum said she had a cherry for me, but I haven't seen one yet.)

I'm wondering if I should try planting the trees that have already set fruit, because won't that stunt their production this year?

That's not even counting the issue of annual bedspace in the garden. I haven't worked that out yet.

Garden - Sep 2015

At this point, I think, one of the really important things is to get stuff growing. In September, the Lunar Calendar has leafies from the 14th-20th, fruiting annuals from the 22nd-27th, and roots and fruiting perennials from the 29th and into October. So the remainder of the month will be days of sowing, sowing, sowing.

Granted, the leafy annuals are mostly going to be sown inbetween everything else - mostly salad greens, and maybe some peas if I can work out where they should go.

Meanwhile, working out where everything else is going to go this year is a bit of an effort.

TEMPERATE CLIMATE
Before the Full Moon (14th-21st Sep), suitable Chinese cabbage, grain crops, lettuce, mizuna, rocket, and tatsoi can be sown directly into beds, as well as a green manure crop of chickpea, clover, barley or millet. Celery, leek, lettuce, silver beet and spring onions can be sown or planted out. Cabbage, parsley and sweet basil can be sown in a cold frame, and NZ spinach, coriander and dill sown direct after frost.
During First Quarter phase (22nd-28st Sep), bush and climbing beans, and sweet corn can be sown directly into beds, in frost-free areas. Capsicum, cucumber, eggplant, pumpkin, rockmelon, tomato, summer squash, watermelon and zucchini can be sown in a cold frame.
During Full Moon phase (29th Sept-4th Oct), Jerusalem artichoke, carrot, potato and radish can be sown directly into beds, and asparagus seed, beetroot, sweet potato and chives can be sown in a cold frame. In frost-free areas, banana passionfruit, passionfruit and tropical guava can be planted. After frost, avocado, blueberry, citrus, cherry guava, macadamia, olive, marjoram, oregano, sage, rosemary, French tarragon, thyme and evergreen trees, shrubs and vines can also be planted.

MY GARDEN
Corn/cucumbers/squash: I'm thinking in front of/beside the very-trimmed-down crepe myrtle. Chop down the oats, sow the corn straight into the ground. Sow the cucumber and squash seeds into seedling boxes and wait for germination before planting out.
Tomatoes/Eggplants/Capsicum: amidst the borage (trim down the borage something serious), grow up as much as possible up and over the fence.
Leafy Greens: among the sweet potatoes - toss salad greens down and see if anything takes.

The centre section is probably going to need to go to green manure for the next couple of months. I need to work out what's happening there.

Garden - Sep 2015

Anyway, work to be done, plans to be made...

14 August, 2015

another winter month, another set of plans

My mother has gifted me with garden work time for my birthday. :)

Unfortunately, I'm going to be away for the next month - on holiday. Right at a time when the garden probably needs the most work. *sigh*

Tonight's plan:
1. take a photo of the washing line before my mother pulls it out
2. pull out the peas, massacre the borage, make compost
3. mark out where the paths are going to go
4. make watering plan for the garden while I'm away

a link to hay bale gardening

05 July, 2015

a winter rethink

The silence of the last three months is witness to my need to do a rethink of how I'm going to garden at this new place.

The backyward in which I toiled all summer is on the south-east side of the block, shaded to the northeast by the neighbour's house and the back fence of our property. In midwinter it gets nearly no sun during the day, although it gets a lot of reflected light from the white weatherboard cladding on the east-facing wall. Which is probably why the winter vege are doing pretty well there.

However, where we're living now also takes me longer to get home here than it did at the old house, and even once I'm home it's cold and chilly and I'm not inclined to digging out in the dark coldness of the yard.

So we're going to need to move things around a bit.

The winter garden will need to be somewhere accessible and visible, while this south-eastern corner is put to other productive uses.

Right now, I'm thinking the south-east corner can be the small orchard and summer vegie garden, and the winter root garden. I'll replace the grass with orchard cover crops and other nutrient grasses in winter that can be used as mulches.

Leafy vegies and legumes would be grown on the stepped garden blocks between the house and the carport. Currently, those are occupied by those little red rock fillers, a fishbone fern, an azalea, a gardenia, and weeds. We could move the azalea and the gardenia into pots, or around to the front garden bed with the rose, and I don't care about the fishbone fern. But the rock fillers can be dug out, and so long as I keep planting the space with vegies when we pull them out, we should have a reasonably steady vegetable supply - and rather more visible than the current bed of swiss chard, broccoli, kailan, peas, and beans which are growing out the back and not being harvested.

The front bed can continue to be the winter orchard - citrus and some stonefruit, although I think the bed is deficient in magnesium - the citrus leaves have all turned yellow and at least one half of the multi-citrus seems to have died since it was first put in. Still haven't taken the pH of the ground which is pretty necessary to determine if the soil is okay. :/

So, in the backyard: two avos, a multi-stone, a donut peach, cherries, an apricot, and a plum. They'll mostly be dwarf so it shouldn't be too crowded. (I think the cherry is full-size, but that's okay - at least one full-sized tree helps turn the place into more of a grove.

Anyway, my mum is offering me garden work time for my birthday - I think I'll get her and her gardener to dig up grass to lay down the sawdust paths, and, if there's time left over, dig out the red-rock boxes by the carport. It'll require making more compost heaps to fills the red-rock boxes and burn the grass away.

24 March, 2015

changing seasons

And Bed #1 is being completely replanted.

Sunday late march

Pulling out the remainder of Bed #1 reminds me of how far I've come and how much I've yet to learn.

The carrots would have done well if the soil had been decent and uniform beneath the surface. It wasn't. They forked and twisted and made little bulbs with no taper. So, yeah, next time, good friable soil.

Sunday late march

The 50 Shades Of Grape Tomato went a little cray-cray and tried to take over the garden. Next time, it gets grown up trellises and across vine things maybe? Like this?

Also, the slow compost of the bed means it's somewhat smaller than it was when I first made it and planted it out with corn...

Sunday late march

So taking some of that compost heap that's been burning the grass for the last couple of weeks and building up the bed:

Sunday late march

The other beds along the north fence are getting a redo, too:

The bed below (#4 roots -> legumes) was potatoes but has gone to peas and beans.

Garden February 2015

The bed below("asparagus" legumes/mulch -> fruit) was green mulch, and is settling the 'late fruits' - capsicum, zucchini, pumpkin, eggplant, and some kailan that's doing pretty well (and some that's not doing so well).

Sunday late march

We'll see how it goes in the cooling weather.

And a final glimpse of the garden, cleaned up and sorted out:

Sunday late march

The garden guys are digging out the red rocks on Thursday, and I have 10 bags of horse manure arriving on Friday. Hopefully it'll come to about 2msq and will be good for burning all that drat onion weed and turning the woodchips into compost. A lot of work, but we'll see about the result.

And then we'll have a garden for the fruit trees. (Hopefully.)

13 March, 2015

seed saving, crop rotation, and potatoes

I've saved seeds from 50 Shades of Grape (Tomato), and the fat little ones out the front which I'm calling the 'Buddha Belly' strain, because they're just so round and fat and cute. They're in the height of cropping, too, but they were planted later, so that's okay. They're also pretty sweet, which might be that the soil is a bit better where they are.

I'm worried about the multi-citrus; it's just dying - the leaves are going yellow and it's seriously dying. I don't know how to stop it - I've tried all kinds of micronutrient additions and it's just giving up the ghost. I may have to dig up the roots and see if it's got grubs or something.

Crop rotation has kind of begun on Bed #2 - I've planted swedes, parsnip, spring onions, chinese cabbage, and kale among the last of the early-planting tomato, eggplant, and capsicum. Assuming any of them grow, I'll replace them with green leafies for spring, and hope they don't rot too much in the winter/spring wet.

The green mulch beds are looking pretty good. The original idea for mulch bed #1 was to plant it out with the asparagus come winter, but I only have about four asparagus plants that are actually alive, so it's a question of where they should go. They're going to be there for the next 20-30 years, so it can't be somewhere that needs too much shifting or changing. I've been wondering if maybe I should plant out a couple more potatoes up the back of asparagus bed - plus the beetroot, and a bunch of other summer plants that I have growing - eggplants, zucchini, capsicum, cukes, and a jarradale pumpkin...

Also must decide on the final bed orientation for the garden. It's pretty much dependent on the fruit trees. Which, right now, I'd plant around the edge of the garden, with good bug mixes/orchard cover beneath. Annual beds at the leafline, flowing with the treeline, and the perennial/long growing beds in between. It's a little messy, but I think it could work okay. And I need to get the avocadoes in ASAP - they're outgrowing their teeny tiny pots.

Ideally the plantout could take place Easter long weekend. (I wonder if I could organise an Easter feast, and invite people over for a food-provided working bee?)

The potatoes are confusing me. I put a load of lucerne mulch on top, and I have a feeling it should have been lucerne straw, and that the mulch is actually rotting the potatoes instead of feeding them. Next year, I think the potatoes will have to be much better organised, and my mulching procedures set up. Also, growing things up strings will need to be a thing. I have to get some shelving braces and attach them to the wooden fence to act as growing frames. Need many more growing frames. Also, cotton twine, not the plastic stuff, which will never biodegrade.

That vine growing all over the back fence? African horned cucumber. I have no idea where it came from, but we'll let it start producing and see what we think. Maybe not a seed saver.

The spaghetti squash is growing pretty well, however, I cannot for the life of me get the butternut pumpkin to actually set fruit. It's the most frustrating thing in the universe, and I am jack of it right now. If the next pumpkin doesn't set, I'm going to pull the thing up. It's had months to get its act together, and it hasn't. At this point, I'm doing this entirely for the seeds, since one pumpkin off an entire vine is not a very productive outcome. (I wonder if I could grow the pumpkin up the jacaranda next year...)

25 February, 2015

Thoughts for late summer

I know what to call the grape tomato that's gone insane over Bed #1: Fifty Shades (of Grape Tomato). It needs regular tying up!

Garden February 2015

Bed #2 will need to go to green leafies over the winter - no heavy feeders since it spent the summer with zucchini, tomatoes, eggplant, capsicum, pumpkin, and sunflowers. And then after the leafy greens, I might do a winter green mulch.

Basically, I need to work out my rotation planting sets better.

The last zucchini in Bed #1 is not doing so well - it's reached the end of its useful life and probably needs composting. I'm uncertain as to whether to try for seeds from it or not. My instincts say 'not' because it was very prone to mildew, even if it was crazily productive.

Bed #1 is generally a problem: even once the tomatoes come out and I replant out the lemongrass, there are still carrots and...other things in there. Although now that I pulled out the potato (got a couple of nice little new potatoes), maybe I don't have to worry quite so much about it?

A bunch of photos from the last week:

Good Bug Bed
Garden February 2015

Fifty Shades (of Grape Tomato): it needs regular tying up
Garden February 2015

The potato bed. I think it needs more potassium to really do well - that, and mulching.
Garden February 2015

Spaghetti Squash. This is the furthest along, but there are several others biding their time on the vine.
Garden February 2015

Squash, strawbs, and a chilli.
Garden February 2015

Ong-Tsoi, or Chinese Water Spinach.
Garden February 2015

Corn.
Garden February 2015

More Tomatoes.
Garden February 2015

Takeover vine - I think it's a pumpkin, but no sign of any fruit yet.
Garden February 2015

Kumera, with a multi-graft apple on the right and a dwarf avo on the left:
Garden February 2015

Sunflower, beans, and passionfruit.
Garden February 2015

Garden facing east:
Garden February 2015

Garden facing south:
Garden February 2015

There's a lot in there, and I'm trying to get even more in! And what isn't going to be fruit is going to green crops. Lots of mulches - I need a way to keep the soil healthy without having to repeatedly import things.

13 February, 2015

not much happening - the late summer report

The garden is producing, but I haven't really been maintaining it. At this point, it's mostly harvesting and a little bit of prep/planting for the winter.

The tomatoes are a mad tangle:

Garden

But are producing as much as we can eat! The plan for next year is to get a few different varieties going - the only ones that have been really productive this year are the grape and the cherry.

The potatoes are not holding back:

Garden

I would really like to mulch them up to get more potatoes, but I don't have any compost readily available right now. Hopefully they're forming potatoes under the mulch though, and not just doing leafy te2000 hings.

After repeated sowings that were eaten by...something I know not what, I finally have another crop of corn. This one is Crop #3, and it's going to be a very late crop, unless I can seriously nurture it along. May need some manures to give them an extra boost.

Garden

I am wondering if next year I should seedling the corn and then plant it out - it would give me better control over the placement of the plants - this year's crop tended to be a little bit everywhere. The very earliest planting died of heat exposure (my fault), and several of the recent plantings didn't get beyond the first sprout stage, since something ate the kernel and the seedling both. I kept these ones from being eaten by putting a plastic box over them to 'hothouse' them.

The spaghetti squash is producing at least one squash:

Garden

I'm kind of looking forward to this - I just have to work out when to harvest it. And does the skin need curing? I have a garden shed that should get plenty of sun for it! There are a couple of others growing, but they're not quite so well-advanced as this.

And, frankly, the spaghetti squash is doing the best out of this year's curcurbits. The cucumbers aren't quite growing, the Waltham Butternut is mostly rotting, and the Golden Nugget is just sitting doing nothing. So, yeah. This year's pumpkin attempts, not so great.

Also starting to produce - the strawberries!

Garden

I'm thinking that next year I'll grow a bunch of strawberries from seed. Apparently you need maybe 500 plants per person if you really like strawberries, and it would be lovely if we didn't have to keep buying strawberries for my sister.

You can barely see them, but here are the start of some borlotti bean pods!

Garden

They're in the front garden - I grew a few of them as green mulches more than anything else, and they're doing okay - not great, just okay.

The fruit trees in the front are all doing 'okay'. But I'm worried about this peach graft: is it getting sunburned?

Garden

Garden

I was kind of planning a 'front yard chill spot' that I figured would give the medium-chill fruit trees a chance to actually produce. Basically, a little grove of trees on the south-western side of the house, so it's shaded by the house to the north, and by the jacaranda the rest of the time - with the exception of that brief leaf-drop that jacarandas have in the middle of summer.

Thinking about produce goals for next year:

1. not have to buy any:
- basil
- coriander
- thyme
- mint
- oregano
- sage

2. through summer/autumn not have to buy any:
- tomatoes
- pumpkins
- corn
- cucumbers
- zucchini

...although the tomatoes are easy peasy - this is just this year, and from a random sprout out of one of the fruit tree pots:

Garden

3. through summer not have to buy any
- avocadoes
- lemons/limes
- stonefruit
- apples

4. through autumn/winter not have to buy any:
- potatoes
- carrots
- pumpkins/squash

I need to work out some more perennials that I can grow and eat.