I've just gotten a new phone, and because the cameras differ between phones, I'm taking a quick photo of the backyard with it:
It's been a pretty dry winter. Some rains, yes, but by and large not enough to really penetrate the soil. I've got a number of leafy green plants in and am mostly hand-watering them with homemade seaweed solution and worm juice. But the truth is, I'm not very good at eating my leafy greens from the garden, which is a pity because they're growing pretty well this year!
Gardening is a process of learning from your mistakes, and I'm learning that I can grow green leafies, I just need to sow them pretty thickly and give them time to go hell for leather. And then I get a pretty decent crop!
Root vegies, on the other hand, are still touch-and-go. Carrots did marginally as usually (I really should give up on carrots, they never turn out). Parsnips were okay - nice big tops, at least to start with. Turnips didn't do well at all - only the size of my thumb and about as long before they developed really fine roots. Beetroot...not really. But the onions... I think I have the onions worked out now. Sow pretty thickly, leave to do their thing, then thin the small ones ASAP and let the others grow to a medium size. I planted the onions late last year, and so they only really got to golf-ball size. This year, the plan is to get some to tennis ball size!
The brassicas continue to be attacked by aphids and I don't seem to have sufficient ladybugs or lacewings to deal with them right now. I really have to plant some land cress to attract the white cabbage moth (although I did catch one the other day, killed it, and am now displaying its body on a fine copper wire in order to deter other cabbage moths). But I bought the land cress and then simply haven't planted it!
This winter, the tomatoes have done better than tomatoes usually do in my garden through the summer. I'm not entirely sure if it's the soil, the cool, or that it got a pretty decent raining on when it was about 5 weeks - 2 months old. Might have to try that with my summer tomatoes. Also: mulching. Mulching mulching mulching.
Beans and pumpkins: not together, but I have some fairly specific (and limited) heirloom types that I plan to grow this year. The squashes I've decided to grow are one maxima - golden nugget, one moschata - gramma, one pepo - zucchini. I don't think they can cross-pollinate, so we should be safe! This year I have two climbing beans and two bush beans, and I'm going to keep them in very specific places: climbing beans in the front, growing up a trellis, bush beans in the back in the annual beds.
I bought some hops rhizomes, and they're going to grow up the front of the house, and hopefully provide a little shade against the harsh western sun. That's the plan, let's see if it manages to come to fruition! I have the containers prepared, but they're definitely going to need some good watering, and I think it's going to have to be with 'waste' water from the kitchen, because I'm bad at regular watering like that.
Corn: I plan to grow at least two types - the extremely pretty glass gem corn, and another heirloom type that I bought last year and didn't grow. I would really like to grow the f1 sweet corn again - that stuff was goooooood - but I think the heirloom types store better over winter, and have better flavour that way.
Structure plans: setting up the watering sink on the front porch (pour a bucket of water into it and it will water the various plants in the front), improving the watering system down the driveway side of the house (from the kitchen sink), a growing frame for the squashes, a suitable frame for the beans, strings for the hops to grow up. That's for this year. So many plans, and the uncertainty of whether or not any of it will come to fruition or if I'll just end up exhausted and out of it. A little each day is doable. Just a little.
Mulching, fertility, nutrients: with between four to six chickens feeding the soil over the last year, a visible frame for the garden beds, and a significant improvement in my composting systems, I'm hoping that the backyard beds will do far beyond my expectations. Soil fertility for annual vegetables is a big issue in the rough clay of this property, and while last year was better, it's not the degree of growth that I've been hoping for. The fruit trees have always done well, but the vegies have been touch-and-go. I have three bales of lucerne for mulch, the laying box hay, and I've been tossing the 'night chaff' into the tractor in between adding it to my composts. Five full-grown chooks excreting half their daily poop should do a decent job of fertilising the ground. Now to see what comes of it!
Have a picture of Hainan chicken perched in the chicken tractor over a garden bed:
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