Mid Summer Update 2015

A week or so ago I began to sort through some of the soil from the chook pen and managed to extract a few decent wheelbarrow loads of soil which I used to pot up seedlings and the odd avocado seed or mango seed that I found along the way. This is the second time I have 'mined' the chicken yard to get soil to top up containers instead of purchasing potting mix and it works well and is already inoculated with micro-organisms, matured chicken manure and tiny, tiny immature compost worms. It's great stuff. 

What happens of course is that along with whatever I am trying to grow in the pot, dozens of 'weed' plants also pop up. This did cause some despair at first until on careful observation I realised that the majority of them we can eat ourselves and the others are great feed for the chickens. So given that most of our plantings are in containers it is not such a big call to weed them out over time - especially when I am picking and thinning out for using in salads for lunch at work.

Something of an anomaly for us this year is the noticeable absence of Monarch butterflies. Only one has been sighted to my knowledge earlier in January. Ironically, of all years, I actually have a decent supply of milkweed for the caterpillars to feed on. On the upside however is that given the plants have not been eaten bare they have managed to set a decent bunch of seed pods which I will harvest for growing out a small forest of these plants to put to good use next season.

Last week I also managed to find some sweet potatoes in the garden. Normally I dig for these around autumn but with areas of the garden dying off and drying out I decided to hunt around. If there wasn't going to be a find of any sort then I would plan to plant out the garden earlier. This was the harvest I found in one area of barely a metre squared.

I thought that this year I would train the grape vine out into the garden to help reduce the impact of the easterlies in summer. I think it has worked but probably took energy from the plant which it would have put into fruit otherwise. Despite this, the vine was covered in more bunches than I have seen previous years, as though it has established itself after nearly five years and was tapping into some reliable water supply. Our boys got stuck into the bunches that the silver-eyes didn't get to and the rest were quickly harvested by my wife to dry out into delectable little currants.

This is a scene of the mid-summer jungle. Already plants are drying out and the garden is transitioning into an autumn looking garden as the vine leaves have turned colour in this last week quite quickly and are already falling from the vine, dried, brown or golden, and ready for the compost heap.

Australia Day Harvest

After the last couple of warm days and their accompanying easterly winds I have eased off on the watering in parts of the garden to allow some of the plants to dry out so we can harvest their seeds.

This evening after the days celebratory activities there was just enough time to get into the garden and harvest some of the beans, tomatoes and lettuce. Plus cover up the one decent sunflower head that made it through the last few months so that the Red-capped Parrots don’t polish it all off in the early hours of the morning.

We have been calling upon the mains water to deliver water to parts of the garden this summer which is not a practice I like to do too often and over the last five years of living here is something we've really only done sporadically. This summer we've watered with mains more regularly and the results are much the same as other summers still. The summer conditions still dry out large areas of the garden. The more resilient areas being those where there has been a good covering of wood-chips and mulch previously and/or some serious compost areas. 

The chickens are doing well and have been supplying a regular egg or two a day on average. Enough to get us by with the odd carton purchased from friends here and there. The build up of vegetative matter from garden pruning and kitchen scraps is now due for gathering up and forming into another large compost heap ready for autumn plantings.

Large areas of the garden are now ready for clearing up and re-planting which seems rather early in the year compared to previous years when I've had tomato plants still in full swing. I missed that pleasure this year as I relied more on seedlings that came up in the garden as time really was not on my side with the regular routine of seeding which I do around August and September.

This summer I have really had to let the garden take charge of itself and simply keep the water up to it and train any stray tendrils or vines along the string or rope or cane that I have managed to put in place to guide them.

Scattered around the place are seedlings for various trees that I have started over the last few months in order to plant them out at the new garden when we move. I've had great success with wattle seeds from the trees at the back fence which I collected late last year. These will be grown and planted out and will be sacrificial trees that will be cut and mulched once they have done their job of establishing the garden soil.

Our fish have steadily died off since last winter it seems. Nearly all of our goldfish are gone now leaving only the Koi which seems a little odd. On Christmas Eve we got a bunch of yabbies for the table and we released a few into the pond to see how they would go as the marron we had did really well previously. They don't appear to be harassing the Koi at all and are more than likely doing a fine job of cleaning things up on the bottom.

Bamboo Success

I've had really good success with propagating the bamboo this year ready for the move to the New Garden. I cut up lengths of bamboo, stuffed the ends with vermi-compost and lay the bamboo sandwiched between two layers of compost. A little watering and then left under the house and only watered once or twice to keep it minimal.

This will assist in speeding up the growth and coverage of the bamboo grove at Tillellen. I've also be nurturing multiple plantings of camellia sinensis, honey locust, carob, avocados, lilly pillies and various ground covers.

Seedlings and Garden Fit-Out for the Summer @ Petit Paradis

The new garden bed being dealt whatever I could get my hands on. Kitchen scraps, horse manure, lawn clippings, newspapers, mulched green waste from a clean up at the other house, small twigs and logs, shredded office paper. Some shovel loads of dirt from the chook pen and all the large bits of material left in the chook pen after the winter that didn't break down. This was then hit with regular waterings of grey water, yellow water, cool drink, molasses, and seaweed concentrate. Topped off with horse manure. By the end of the day it had already sunk down nearly half a foot.

More use of the vertical space is planned for this summer. I've tried to still create a bit of space as last summer the garden got hit with mildew in late summer. It was a very humid little garden and the tomato plants made a real jungle of the place.

Some stuff hanging over from winter, some starting off, some fresh and new and just waiting for seedlings once things have settle down a little. This aspect will look quite different by late summer.

Small beginnings of various seedlings and left overs of the home-made seed raising mix. I need to make up a heap more as there is still a lot more I want to get planted. There will be a variety of plants for seed saving this year so it should make for an interesting event at some point. We'll see how we go. Things are busy with family at the moment so the garden is once again having to look after itself where possible.

The sweet potatoes are flourishing at the moment after looking a little sorry for themselves of the last few weeks. I have placed larger pots in the garden beds and will grow crops like sweet potatoes in amongst them. I really need the garden to be easy to water this summer as time is going to be an issue, I can see it already.

I have also had to spend a bit of time at Tillellen getting the lawns mowed and trimmed. Not a favourite task in so many ways and there is more to do. We are living with high expectations that we can hopefully get the new build started soon at at least the infrastructure for the New Garden started.

The back garden bed got some more horse manure additions today and I planned out where I will plant the corn and how I will water it. I still have chilli and pepper seeds to get started - and some room to find to plant them. I think for this year I will utilise the garden beds around the side for salad greens and allow the main garden to grow the tomatoes and chillies, corn and beans.

I have decided that we will wait for the move to Tillellen before getting quail and possibly guinea pigs. We already have our work and time cut out for us without adding more elements into the equation.

October Update

With two very active, healthy young boys I have hit a major challenge recently. I don't have the time I feel I need to keep the garden ticking along as it should. Not one to give up easily I've had to make do with small bursts of action in the garden. Not easy when your tired. Let alone recording the challenges in a blog post. It's a good thing I can touch type!

As it happens I've also started to make a few structural changes to the garden and so I'm caught on the hop of sowing seeds, getting soil set up and having to do 5 things in order to achieve completing one.

The weather has also made a mockery of the situation. Not that I mind. The sun, rain, sun, rain, sun, rain routine is great for this time of the year so it's another indication that I'm still on the mark with getting stuff in the ground and sorted out. Five minutes ago we had thick grey cloud cover, no sun and heavy, heavy rain. Now it's overcast with broken sunlight and breezy. Again, its a matter of on, off, on, off coordination with everything else that is demanding of time.

Torrential down pour at 14:30. The garden is under reconstruction!

Twenty minutes later at 15:00 it's bright and sunny

It occurred to me today that farmers at least have the time to sow and harvest and do everything else in between. Backyard gardeners in comparison have to usually make the time in amongst a normally busy urban lifestyle. Sometimes, as I am finding, this is not fun. And not easy.

But I have to say that even just some time in the garden seems to be necessary occurrence these days - as some sort of spiritual grounding.

So, hitting the soil this week were:

Rattlesnake beans

Lazy Housewife beans

Cherokee Wax beans

and some Blue Lake from yesterdays Produce Swap.

There are Swaziland White Maize seedlings coming along in the hot house along with cucumbers, zucchinis and tomatoes. 

As I finish off this post it is 20:40 and it is raining quite heavily outside. A blocked gutter pipe is causing a waterfall cascading down the side of the house which will need looking at. Another thing to add to the list!