dear diary: 12th October

WEATHER & OBSERVATIONS:

After an exceedingly dry winter, we've had a few weeks of wet warmth and everything is growing, shooting, seeding, sprouting.

I planted a bunch of clover cover, and it seems to be actually sprouting where I planted it, once I covered it with a bit of pea straw and

I no longer have the time to dedicate to the garden in the volumes that I once did, now that I'm not working from home anymore. So A lot of stuff that needs to be done is going to be done on weekends only, although some watering will take place once I get home. Also have to learn to be careful about overdoing it. I accidentally did four hours in the garden today because I got involved in doing things and lost track of time!

Driveway corn is doing well, one died – got dug up by the chooks – but the others are growing well apace. I feel like they need more feeding, so I'll probably look at giving them a bit more chook poop direct.

Note: PATH VEGEPOD has the Musquee de Provence PUMPKIN.

CHOOKS:

Six chooks-a-laying means a lot of eggs. A lot of a lot of eggs. And even once we use them up, they're still laying! We've given eggs away to the neighbours all around, and I guess my church friends are up next.

Since the chooks have denuded all the spaces available to them, and only one set of neighbours brings their grass clippings over, I've been pulling the seedy grass weeds up and tossing them down for the chooks. They're also getting a fairly regular diet of mustard greens, along with any leafies that have holes in them. For the most part they seem pretty happy with this.

Kerry still seems to be the bottom ranking – at least, she's the one that everyone picks on when they're looking for someone to punish. She's the smallest and the most ragged, but when they hop up on the perches at night, she's usually tucked into the corner – “my corner – MINE!”

Gladys has a 'cough', which is as regular as a hiccup and sounds a bit like a honk. That said, she doesn't seem to be in pain, it's just a noise she makes – autonomic, rather than conscious.

Goong is back to laying, Hamyuu never stopped. Daofu hasn't shown any issues since we discovered the hernia and she's still laying. Carambah is fine but obviously doesn't lay since she got the implant. Siyao is fine, just has a lot of 'white' feathers, like she's gone prematurely grey.

They all seem happy.

COMPOST:

Got moved from centre bay to right bay, but didn't heat up, unfortunately. Very annoying. I made another pile in the centre bay and that one has almost gone to 'active' but not quite. I think it might need more chook poop to properly compost, so maybe next weekend, I might do a bit of adding and turning, and mix up the centre bay with more chook poop and then mix it into the right bay.

PREPARING:

Chook tractor is still on the APPLE-CREPE, chooks have quite thoroughly dug it up and cleaned it out. It might need some compost toppings before it's quite ready, though.

If I can get some woodchipping done sometime this week, then I can put that in the chook tractor. Otherwise it may end up being mostly pea straw to cover things over.

SEEDING/SPROUTING:

Trying to decide what next to plant. I feel like I should do at least a couple of brassicas and attempt a cabbage. Right now it's the peak time for planting.

DAHLIAS underneath the MANGO are sprouting.

Discovered a volunteer cucurbit near the driveway cornfield, which is pretty funny.

PLANTING OUT:

SIDE VEGEPOD
TOMATO – wasp peach, in a trio
CORN – silvermine, about a dozen of them
ZUCCHINI – black beauty
SWEET PEAS – (left to right) Matucana, Original, Beaujolais, Solstice Crimson

TRIANGLE
BEANS – snake beans to grow up wire grille sealing off the chicken frontage
SUNFLOWER – a solitary one that sprouted

LOUNGE BED/CHICKEN FRONTAGE
SWEET PEAS – remainders from planting out the side vegepod
SUNFLOWERS – (might be moonwalker and teddy bear, or else Van Gogh's Landscape and Giant Russian Organic)

PLUM-STONE
TOMATO - marmande
LETTUCE - Australian yellow leaf (one survived)
SPINACH - bloomsdale
BEANS (I think they're bush beans left over from elsewhere)

POTS
Two MELONs – one moon and stars, one unknown from someone in Thornleight – and the PUMPKIN – Galeaux d'Eysines – planted into pots and stuck back into the greenhouse, fed with chook manures
CAPSICUM – planted all into the black six-pod seedling, and feed with chook manure

DRIVEWAY CORN
Planted one more ZuCCHINI and a couple of CUCUMBERS in among them. We'll see how it goes.

HARVEST:

Still AVOCADOs, but the ALPINE STRAWBS are having a good go of it, and the

FEEDING:

Watered some beds with biologics,

NETTING:

I really need to net the donut peach and the cherry, even though the cherry doesn't have much on it this year.

THOUGHTS:

Steph came to visit the other week to get some avocado scions for grafting to one of her own rootstocks, and of course she got a tour. She commented that I had a lot growing, and that it was all doing well. At least, right now it is. Whether it continues to do well? That's another matter.

I do have a lot of things going on this year, and that's pretty deliberate; I'd like to settle into a rhythm of doing better at actually using what's in the garden, and gardening for what I'll use.

eg. Making a quiche out of eggs and the leafy greens from the garden last week. Eating avos. Working out how to turn spaces more productive.

I'd like to get some cabbages/broccoli in for winter. Somewhere with a bit of sun, but otherwise cool. Not sure where this mythical place might be...

dear diary: 13th September, post-surgery

Got out of hospital on Sunday, have been taking it easy (where 'easy' is relative to what I usually do; it's hard to stop entirely) but the problem is that this is spring and there's so much to do!

I'm presently negotiating with friends to do a few things around the place while I'm still unable to actually do stuff.

OBSERVATIONS:

AVO-STONE: has been left for a couple of weeks. A TOMATO (unknown) has sprouted, and a couple of BRASSICAS (unknown).

Apricot graft on STONE has produced two apricots, they'll shortly need to be netted.

Flowering SALVIA between DONUT PEACH and CHERRY isn't doing great (not well-watered, didn't dig a hole for it, just set it down.

Don't think any of the grafts are going to make it. The hot-and-dry wind of late August/early September stalled them all, and they're not going to make it.

APRICOT at FRONT FENCE seems to have a couple of tiny apricots.

MANGO at FRONT FENCE is shooting what looks like fruit florets. It looks like the fruit florets come off new wood which grows off old wood.

LYCHEE seems to have died during the dry winds of last week. Roots weren't covered enough, weren't watered enough. Dammit. I think I have / had a LONGAN, but that doesn't seem to be doing so well either.

The PERSIMMON fruits (like the MANGO) on new wood, which sprouts off old wood, as seen in the pic:

CHOOKS:

Goong is STILL BROODY. Argh. Just going on four weeks.

Everyone else is fine, dustbathing in the triangle garden is the pastime of the day. Tunnels set up to channel them carefully across the grass. Trying to grow clover around the tunnel.

Hoping that the next week or two will be damp enough to give them something to grow and dig into the ground...

COMPOST:

Not getting above 30C. I think that's just going to be a slow compost.

Should move the black compost bin from by the fence to...somewhere else. Don't know where. Have to think about that. I want to open it up to the public, but it'll just end up with a shitload of dogshit in plastic bags. Because people are literally crappy.

PREPARING:

PLUM-STONE: Start tossing handfuls of rockdust and other fertilisers in.

AVO-STONE: has been left for a couple of weeks. A TOMATO (unknown) has sprouted, and a couple of BRASSICAS (unknown). Planting out to commence next week.

PLANTING:

Planted a new set of Royal Burgundy BUSH BEANS – direct into AVO-SHED, with plans for planting out.

Have SILVERBEET, ROCKET, LETTUCE, SPINACH, KALE to grow in and around things. Also BASIL and CORIANDER.

SEEDING:

Germination pattern of the beans I planted; some died during the hot-dry wind that we had last week.

PLANTING OUT:

Snake BEANS – next to driveway, near flowers. I keep trying here but it never seems to go well with peas and sweet peas, maybe snake BEANS will?

Snake BEANS – between APPLE ESPALIER to grow upwards

Tiger's Eye BEANS – in old APRICOT (now LYCHEE?) - up the back fence.

AVO-SHED: one EGGPLANT, various BUSH BEANS, assorted LETTUCES, KALE, SILVERBEET, maybe some RADISHES

TOMATOES (Roma) – in 'TOMATO GARDEN' – will ask Kris to do it next week.

HARVEST:

Asparagus! The fourth spear (previous 3 picked and eaten) here:

Still AVOCADOES. One ORANGE left. I harvested some GARLIC stalks for cooking with BROCCOLI, and they were excellently tasty.

FEEDING:

Need to work out a feeding schedule for TOMATOES, EGGPLANTS, CAPSICUMS (including the two still in the CREPE-APRICOT.

THOUGHTS:

I wish I could better tighten the connections from the water tank pump; so when they turned on, they wouldn't leak so much. Connect the watering system to the water tank for the summer, run it once a day before dawn?
Move tractor to APPLE-CREPE? nothing grew well there in the previous cycle, none of the brassicas, barely any of the beetroots, everything's going to seed right now. Maybe the second crop of CORN goes there? CORN generally does pretty well in the backyard, and it's a limited-season crop, so by the time the light fades from there, we're already well into autumn.
Work out where CUCUMBERS, ZUCCHINI, SOYBEAN, TOMATOES, two PUMPKINS and a WATERMELON are going to go this summer...

PUMPKINS and WATERMELON: maybe one PUMPKIN in the BANANA CIRCLE, and the other PUMPKIN in front of the LOUNGE ROOM? Except the GRAPE and the PASSIONFRUIT are already in front of the LOUNGE ROOM.
Turn the IBC into a WICKING BED (I wish I could have done this sooner, alas), then plant maybe the GRAPE and the PASSIONFRUIT in it, or one of the PUMPKINS, or the WATERMELON.
What if I ran the WATERMELON out of one of the VEGEPODS, along with the TOMATOES and GARLIC? It would need heavy feeding, like heavy heavy feeding. Otherwise, wherever the WATERMELON goes, it's going to want an olla, at least, maybe something a bit more? Dig a compost circle around it?

dear diary: 31st August - trying to keep on top of it all

OBSERVATIONS:

We've had some crazy hot-and-windy days and those dry the garden out something terrible, especially when we haven't had much by way of rain lately.

Turns out the Apricot by the front fence (the Tilton) blooms later than the Paterson (in pot). Paterson had about three flowers, all died without pollinating. Tilton has a bunch of buds starting up! That's definitely going to need some kind of an espalier frame to hang the net off if they pollinate into teeny tiny apricots!

Downside: someone yanked out some of my flowering plants by the roots – at least two days ago – and now I'm anxious about theives. I need to stick some nettle stalks in among the last plant.

CHOOKS:

Goong still broody. Carambah still being medicated. Tofu still has the hernia, but otherwise seems okay. B1 (sister) thinks that the hernia might be growing, but it looks...ordinary. The problem is usually when trying to herd Tofu somewhere: she runs and is absolutely desperate not to get caught. She's a slippery one, and prone to getting out of the coop and the run, and I'm worried about her catching on something and then tearing herself.

Alphamites seem to be working. Have ordered some 'pen pals' mites to sprinkle in the compost and in the coop, hopefully that will hold them.

COMPOST:

Pen Pals mites ordered for the compost – 2L.

GRAFTING:

Addendum to the grafts: with the hot days, I'm hoping the grafts where I removed the plastic around them haven't dried out. One was looking a little dry, but then the soil around the tree was also dry, so I watered it.

Did another two Royal Lee Cherry grafts on the cherry since it's not yet budding. We'll see if they take.

SOWING:

Tomatoes – Waspinicon Peach

Capsicum – Seven Wonders

Watermeon – red Moon and Stars

Pumpkin – Galeaux d'Elysine

Pumpkin -

Zucchini – black beauty

Cucumber – burpless

SEEDLINGS:

Tomatoes are large enough to plant out

Eggplants could probably do with another week

Beans:
Cherokee Wax (bush) – 2/8 germination
Snake beans – have almost all sprouted (7/8 germination rate)
Royal Burgundy (bush) – 0/7 germination
Tiger's Eye – 1/5 germination

Corn – about 50% strike rate, which isn't very good

PLANTING OUT:

Tomatoes (roma) into the newly created Tomato bed (thursday evening)

Eggplant, bush beans, summer lettuces, radishes into AVO-SHED

Need to think about where to put the snake beans; they'll want to grow up a structure, but we don't really have a structure that's big or reliable enough right now. Although I'm tempted to put them at the eastern edge of the lawn, out in front of the street facing windows and see how they grow. Apparently they like lightly depleted soil, and that should be pretty much the deal there. The problem is structure.

Picked up and dumped the big flowering salvia between Donut Peach and Cherry. Trimmed it back. We'll see how it does.

HARVEST:

Avocados mostly Still oranges.

Did the last of the sweet potato, but haven't really done anything with it. It's a “just in case' kind of food, right now, not a staple. Eventually, though, I think it'll be a staple. We'll want it to be a staple.

An asparagus spear popped up! Just one!

FEEDING:

Did the mango tree (bagged chook manure, plus sawdust to cover). Should add some pea straw around the base for a bit more eventual nitrogen.

Potassium water on just about everything. Hopefully sufficiently diluted that they won't kil everything they come in contact with!

start using the seaweed brew

PREP:

Avo-shed is sitting ready. Tomatoes didn't do so well there last year, so I'm hesitant to try again. Maybe some eggplant if suitably fed. Eggplant, bush beans, summer lettuces, basil, radishes. That's the plan.

'Tomato bed' – a space in the triangle garden:
- dandelion 'weed tea' & worm castings raked in together
- add garden lime and superphosphate – rake in together
- cover with hay
- protect with black siding
- flyscreen 'A-frame' to cover

'half-garlic bed' – other side of the garlic bed, had sweet potato vines all through it
- pulled out all the vines and all the potatoes I could find
- worm castings raked into the soil
- cover with hay
- protect with wire baskets

DONE:
- tractor moved to Plum-Stone
- netting over two-stone
- netting over dual stone (needs pegging)
- galangal and blue turmeric planted at the edge of the chook yard – inside edge; may not last, might need some rocks/bricks or something to keep them safe

TO DO:
1. Plant out tomatoes in new tomato bed (Thursday night)
2. Snake beans into front lawn.

Dear Diary - 12th July 2024

INTERLUDE – around the 29th June

Digging up half the 'sweet potato bed' to plant the garlic into. It will need maintainence - the vines.

Chaffcutter doesn't work pragmatically. (blades not sharp enough? Too frequent? Cogs don't have enough grip?

Planted the Purple Turban variety in the other side of the 'sweet potato bed'. 

Covered both Rose Du Var and Purple Turban with a box of chook run material. 12th July 2024

OBSERVATIONS:

Chilly week, going to be even colder next week – possibly frost.

Garlic (rose du var) are poking through, I added some water/clay to them, but maybe need to give them a regular feeding of the various microbrews

Teen worker wasn't able to start the mower when he tried today. Might need to take it for a service.

CHOOKS:

Siyao has a clean bill of health!

Daofu is a bully to Kerry, while Gladys seems capable enough of running away, at least. But the others all make threatening moves towards the two girls.

Laying again – Caramba, possibly Siyao, Gladys and Kerry seem to be doing okay.

I need to teach Kerry and Gladys to go through to the tunnels to the tractor, where they can scratch and dig all day long!

Someone is rolling the eggs out of the laying box! This is very odd behaviour, because usually the hens want ALL the eggs.

COMPOST:

Still gathering things.

Been making leaf mulch the last week or so. Stopped because I wasn't carrying the big black boxes for the leaves, but there's SO MUCH of them around the place.

Got teen!worker to chop up the branches I had,now should be able to chip them more easily when I get around to it.

PREPARING:

SEEDING:

Tomatoes, Eggplants, capsicum - set them in the new (flimsy) greenhouse to grow

PLANTING OUT:

moved: Ginger/Turmeric roots to the new flimsy greenhouse to grow

planted out: three Brassicas (probably purple cabbage or broccoli) - also in fllimsy greenhouse

dig up brassicas in PLUM-STONE, pull out coriander, move tractor let chooks in? Still want to build better compost in the garden bed spaces, but it's only Kerry and Gladys who are doing the job.

HARVEST:

Avos, Oranges, still good, harvested some scarlet silverbeets, the peas will shortly be ready, I reckon. Still gotta try that cabbage.

FEEDING:

Some instructions about dealing with brassicas
potash - at growing heads
nitrogen - to get them started
4 wks - sulphate of ammonia (blood and bone) for better structure

PRUNING:

Was going to get the lawn guy to do it, but his dad went to hospital and he didn't know if he could get it done. (I told him to go be with his family and not worry about the lawn.)

Did a bit with J's chainsaw (best chainsaw ever) but can't do all of it.

prune the backyard trees more neatly, and with an eye to a) espalier, b) netting

THOUGHTS:

After the

TO DO LIST:

Improve the flimsy greenhouse:
- aim of a greenhouse is to warm during the day and stay warm at night.

Problem: plastic isn't going to do this; heats up fine during the day, loses it once the sun goes down.

Solution:
1. Make a cloth-cover for the flimsy greenhouse to slip it down overnight. Make sure that the cover is down by the time the sun is setting. (Old cheap blanket/quilt?)
2. Add a flat stone or two (cinderblock) for heat absorption during the day so it's not quite so brutally cold at night. Place stone on the sunwards side of the greenhouse?

Dear Diary: 28th September

WEATHER:

The high temps are rising, but the low temps aren't moving - currently around 13C minimum, but getting double that during the day. 30C predicted for tomorrow, a cooler day on Sunday, then HEATWAVE for early next week. ARGH.

RAIN

Rain last night - about 5mm, I think. Cool and occasional showers today. The tank is filling, there's more due later next week, but we have to get through the heatwave first.

CHOOKS:

Laying regularly: Siyao, Goong, and Carambah. Chouqette is still fluffing around, being noisy, but not apparently laying.

OSBERVATIONS

Dandelions everywhere in the front yard. Couch grass everywhere in the back. Keeping the grass in check is a trick and one that I've not gotten the hang of. The comfrey is growing back in places I don't really want it, and there's onion weed everywhere. I think the removal of that is going to be manual and slow, season by season. It's just a PITA to have to do so often and so much!

PREPARATION:

Trying to manage the dandelions, manually pulling them out (wonderful tool) and weed-tea-ing them for compost. However the north lawn (driveway side lawn) is a bit of a loss - it's almost entirely dandelions at this stage. I've actually acquired some weed 'n feed and am trying that on the lawn, but wow it smells of iron! I did find an article about organic weed control which recommends a product called corn gluten meal.

The truth is, I don't want the lawn so much as I want to be able to develop a nice meadowy space on that north side. Grass need not apply! Unfortunately what I have is creeping buffalo grass (and couch in the backyard; ugh). It's going to need more work and maintenance in the coming season to try to get it to a point of survival - especially as the summer gets hot. That said, a meadow might survive where a garden would not.

Backyard, the couch grass is starting to perk up; I'm pulling some of it up and have weed tea'd it in a bucket off to the side. The promised teenaged assistance has not materialised, so that's a PITA, and I'm mostly pulling it up by hand (and doing my back in the process).

Got the PLUM-STONE, APPLE-CREPE, and AVO-SHED beds in. Need to get the CREPE-APRICOT bed frames cut up and put together and set in place. It wasn't difficult to do - easier with 2 people, I suspect - but it wasn't difficult.

TO DO

• cut panels for last garden bed, or else buy more barrier edging from Hammerbarn.
• draw up measurements for BENCH SEATING
• white oil/pest spray KUMQUAT, MAKRUT LIME, PERSIMMON (after heatwave, when temps have dropped again)
• repot TINY BLUEBERRY
• pot TEA CAMELLIAS
• net front NECTARINE and GOLDEN PEACH
• shade back beds

PLANTING

I repotted both the KUMQUAT and the APRICOT

ICE-CREAM BEAN seeds planted

PLUM-STONE: SPINACH (perpetual), BEANS (blue ribbon - double check this) with a climbing pole in the middle, SILVERBEET?, RADISH (black spanish), BEETROOT (found in packet, unknown type), ONION (found in plastic packet, unknown type)

PLUM-STONE: TOMATOES (both indeterminate and determinate types: indeterminates up the back with suitable structures for hanging plants off (hopefully), EGGPLANTS (labelled, but also have a pic saved and set up), BEANS (pole, possibly snake) at the back.

1 Jaune Flamme, 2 Marmande (red), 2 Brad's Atomic Grape (yellow), 2 Waspinicon Peach (orange), 3 amethyst cream (magenta), 3 blue berries (blue), 2 pink bumblebee (green)

VEGEPOD: Planted Cecelia's GINGER - I don't think the other rhizomes are GINGER, they don't smell right.

RIPENING

Last of the CITRUSES. That's really about it, I think. Other than the fruit which are slowly growing.

HARVEST

Brassica leaves from APPLE-CREPE: should be suitable for a coleslaw-type thing. Last orange, maybe a couple of tangerines? Oh PARSNIPS from bathtub. There's also CORIANDER and ALPINE STRAWBERRIES coming good, and some RED CELERY is making itself known in various spots of the garden.

PRUNING

Pruned the AVOCADO tree - it's too broad and too wide, and I'm kind of worried about the weight of the avos going forward. Not very neat, though.

THOUGHTS

Thinking I'd like to plant some groundcover in front of the chook yard, but the problem is giving it enough time to get some roots in, particularly this summer.

Dear Diary - 19th September

WEATHER:

Hot and sunny. Still heatwave - 35C easy. Middle of the day was boiling hot, I went out to check the chickens, also move things around.

RAIN

Officially, we're in El Nino territory with the an Indian Ocean Dipole which moves cooler, wetter air on the western half of the continent even further west. It's gonna be a very dry summer.

CHOOKS:

They're hot and noisy. Two eggs today, three yesterday. Free run of the front lawn, pooping everywhere and digging up things I don't want them to dig up.

OBSERVATIONS

I actually think there's a BRUSSEL SPROUT growing in the APPLE-CREPE. Not sure it's going to set the little nubs because we're heading straight for summer this year, no spring.

PREPARATION:

On Monday or Tuesday, I dug out the HOPS pot, and got about a dozen roots suitable for replanting - green leaves or budding nodes. Planted them out into four containers for the front yard, looking to vine them up the front if possible.

Actually, thinking that a vine shade will probably need a lot more things growing.

Also repotted the GRAPE (Iona) and a large BLUEBERRY. Didn't get around to the smaller blueberry or the newbie that mum gave me. Didn't manage the KUMQUAT either. BLACK SAPOTE and LYCHEE are doing okay-ish but not great. I start to feel like I need much larger pots for the trees I have to grow successfully.

Made the APPLE-CREPE bed frame, set up the netting frame and have the netting over it. Also planted into it - WOOLLY POD VETCH and a whole heap of MUSTARD. Was going to do CABBAGES (mini) but then realised what I thought was a massive envelope of seeds of a single type was actually a massive envelope of several smaller envelopes of specific cabbage varieties. Need to go through those and work out what can be used.

Realised that the permabee helpers only left me with three garden bed frames when I actually need four. Also, council clean-up is coming, and I need to toss the old garden bed frames out.

PLANTING

WOOLLY POD VETCH and MUSTARD into the APPLE-CREPE bed. Not mulched.

POT O'POPPIES under the AVOCADO, along with MARIGOLDS. Mulched.

was going to do SUNFLOWERS in the APRICOT bed and would still like to do it, but not until after I've removed things from that bed.

RIPENING

Still ALPINE STRAWBERRIES.

HARVEST

Several leafy greens ready to harvest whenever ready.

BROCCOLI in APPLE-CREPE - more leaves than florets at this stage, but leaves can be steamed and stems could be pickled.

PRUNING

Cut down more of the FOUR-APPLE tree: the DORSET/ANNA grafts are too strong. But I want to lop a fairly major limb off both grafts, trimming the tree way back to give the other grafts a sporting chance.

I've been digging up the DANDELIONS on the front verge and the northside lawn. Also been reading up on meadows and how they go wrong, as my attempt at a meadow space did the other year - grew for one year, petered out thereafter, is now entirely DANDELIONS running wild. Need to fill the holes with something, though, otherwise we'll just end up with more dandelions and we don't actually want that.

Pulled up some of the runner grass out the back, put it in a bucket for weed tea. Need to get a lid for it.

TO DO
* mulch APPLE-CREPE bed more heavily
* cut panels for last garden bed, or else buy more barrier edging from Hammerbarn.
* white oil/pest spray KUMQUAT, MAKRUT LIME, PERSIMMON (after heatwave, when temps have dropped again)
* repot MEDIUM BLUEBERRY, TINY BLUEBERRY
* plant CALLA LILIES
* pot TEA CAMELLIAS
* pot WHITE SHAHTOOT MULBERRY
* find a lid for the backyard WEED TEA (one of the new pot dishes?)
* dig around and find out what can go on the council clean-up pile
* plant BASIL in bathtub around the parsnips
* move small VEGEPODs to front lawn? We'll want the garage space back.

THOUGHTS

Given we're heading into drought, priority with the water tank is to use it for establishing the garden, then heavily mulch and water maybe once a day in the evening for 15 minutes on timer.

Not sure what to do/how to fix the carport water barrels.

VEGEPOD - March 2023

March 2023

After a fallow summer, the VEGEPOD has been edge-composted, and is being planted out with GINGER, TUMERIC (gold and black), and some unknown rhizomes - hopefully GALANGAL.

Also: CARROTS (purple dragon), SPRING ONIONS, and 6-7 BEETROOT (golden detroit).

dear diary - april with it's showers sweet

CHOOKS

dug out bits of their yard, they're not fully using the back.

PRUNING & PREPARING

DINING WINDOW VEGEPOD
Edge composted: comfrey, worm castings, pea straw, watered in with worm wee and seaweed brew

PLANTING

in DINING WINDOW VEGEPOD:

RIGHT SIDE
main crop: GARLIC Valiant
side crop: RADISHES confetti and watermelon, SPRING ONIONS

LEFT SIDE
main crop: GARLIC Monaro
side crops: LETTUCES italian mixed, mixed heirloom, CHIVES and SPRING ONION mix

NOTES

slow sorting out spring

Trying to work out what to plant right now.

I've already done most of my planting, but there's some seeds that failed and others that could do with succession sowing. But this always brings up the question of how many and what.

Tomatoes? More tomatoes? How many more tomatoes? Corn? Glass Gem for the pretty (and popcorn and grinding), or sweet corn for the eating? Pumpkins? I really do need to work out my pumpkins: I want some for eating and some for storing, and zucchinis if I can actually grow them. It's touch and go some years. I'd love capsicums and cucumbers because we would eat them, and eggplant because I love cooking with eggplant. Melons? That would be the ideal, but I never do well with melons. It might just be that I've never grown them in rich enough soil and well-watered conditions. IDK.

Those are the annuals, the ones that get sown and planted out every year. I should probably plant more lettuce for when the current crop of lettuces & silverbeets & spinaches die off - I could stick them in the somewhat shady HEXABED, maybe? Except one of the reasons I was growing flowers and whatnot in the HEXABED is because of the high lead levels...

I also have to think of what to say about Use And Value Diversity, which is October's Permie Principle. Apart from sowing heirloom seeds, or having early-, mid-, and late- varieties where possible, or buying heritage breeds to mix with layer breeds so they'll hopefully last longer than a few years' cycle of chooks. IDK.

I stuck the chooks back on the CREPE-APRICOT bed after protecting the bush beans that were growing there, because I needed them to dig up and deal with the remainder of the brassicas. But after this, they're going to be stuck with the front yards, and that's about it. I'm still trying to grow some perennials along the edges of CHOOKYARD 2, because everything else gets scratched up something awful.

In the NORTH PICKET FENCE, a couple of 'Very Large' pumpkins have started growing from the seeds I dumped there. The sunflowers I planted out seem to be doing well, and the Elder tree is in bloom. Not sure if any of the Avos have pollinated, nor the mangoes. But the Asian basils and the salvias are coming back with a vengeance, and the lavenders are starting to reshoot after I hacked them apart in midwinter.

And the roses and the wildflower lawn are going off!

APRICOT

3rd October 2022:
APRICOT has espalier frame, will tie down the branches before going on holiday
RHUBARB is growing well
POTATOES are growing well (should be some good spuds in November and maybe for Christmas!)

:

vegepods, front yard spaces

CARPORT MINI-POD

Currently is empty. But I think that some leafy greens - SILVERBEET, SPINACH, LETTUCES would be a good option for here, with CORIANDER and BASIL in patches.
ETA: Planted out today, watered in, needs straw covering.

DRIVEWAY MINI-POD

Currently: LEEKS, ONIONS (red), a couple of SILVERBEETS, but a large space against the window that doesn't have anything.

Perhaps more SILVERBEET, and more ONIONS - go the SPRING ONION and the brown onions here.

DRIVEWAY VEGEPOD

Currently has SWEET PEAS, assorted BRASSICAS (aphid infested), some BEETROOT, SILVERBEET that's still producing, ROCKET (gone heavily to seed)

In the last twelve hours, I pulled BRASSICAS and harvested the ROCKET. I've now planted out CORN ('country gentlemen', is billed as sweet heirloom) for eating. Will have to water well, and keep well-fed, too.
ETA 3rd Oct: planted ZUCCHINI (golden), COTTON, PUMPKIN (gramma).

TRIANGLE BED

Currently: aphids. Lots of aphids. Or, at least, things in which aphids are happily growing (brassicas and radishes) they went outta control with spring.

Next: Things that don't attract aphids? Exactly what these might be, I don't know. Reading up, CHIVES, DILL, FENNEL, MARIGOLDS, CARAWAY, COSMOS, and SWEET ALYSSUM are good for ladybird and lacewing populations which feed on aphids.
ETA 3rd Oct: planted unknown CURCUBIT, COTTON (2)

POLYBOXES

Currently: GINGER, TURMERIC (blue/, yellow)

There are a couple of empty boxes to be filled with compost for growing. Something that doesn't mind it warm and dry...

PICKET FENCE (NORTH)

Currently: AVOCADO, KAFFIR LIME, ELDER, APRICOT, SALVIAS, LAVENDER, LEMONGRASS, ARROWROOT, SUGARCANE.

The trees aren't doing very well in this bed, but the perennials are going great guns. I think the ELDER needs to go - it's spreading everywhere.

I'd like to plant SUNFLOWERS along the picket fence, but also more SUGARCANE

FRONT WICKING

Currently: BRASSICAS, RADISHES, CARROTS, ONION, LEEKS, also aphids.

Plan: pull out the BRASSICAS, cut off the infested RADISH leaves, spray with cayenne dishdrops

PICKET FENCE (SOUTH)

Currently: ARTICHOKES, KIWIBERRY, BLUEBERRY (boxed), and PASSIONFRUIT, along with SWEET POTATO (white) ground cover.

Plan: make a little more space for growing. Maybe toss down some radishes in the coming months for quick growing. Want to clear the grass, too.

BANANA CIRCLE

Currently: BANANAS, maybe a PAW PAW, or PASSIONFRUIT if I can grow one.

BLACK SAPOTE might be best to go here, too.

CHOOK YARD

Currently: dirt wasteland, with some seedlings growing under upturned basket shelves

Planned: a deep-rooted perennials chook forest, with plants that will do okay with shaded summer sun and very little sun in winter
Fruit Salad Sage?
Indian Borage?
Yacon?
Mexican Marigold?
Daikon radishes?
Hawk Hill's advice on Chicken Coop Landscaping

This afternoon, planted: AVOCADO (unknown provenance), PERENNIAL BASIL, 3 BEETROOTS (mostly leaves), and SALVIA (red) as perennials.
Also planted SUNFLOWERS and CUCUMBERS ('Japanese' they were billed as last year, but they were quite prickly). Tomorrow I will enlist one of the twins to help me put a fence along that side so that the chooks can't scratch them up, and leave it all for about a month before letting the chooken through. By that time, I might have fixed a roof on it, and also repaired the triangle coop. (ahahahaha)

apricot-avo, avo-shed, bathtub, wicking

APRICOT-AVO

Currently CORN (glass gem), some BEETROOT, BASIL. Planted some BEANS (blue lake) with many of the corn.

AVO-SHED

Currently has CHOOKS on it, have to work out what's going here. Another Pasta/Pizza plot from OMS?

I am presently growing from seed: TOMATOES, EGGPLANTS, COTTON, ZUCCHINI, CUCUMBER, CAPSICUMS, CHILLIES.

I think I need to double-check the sunlight on that bed, particularly with the donut peach tree in the middle of the yard. I'm pretty sure the midsummer sun is sufficiently high, but just in case.

None of the melons or pumpkins will be growing in the backyard. Cucumber vines only. Big vines take up too much space and we've got plenty of space in the frontyard.

BATHTUB

Currently has CARROTS in baby size (none of the ONIONS planted at the same time took), and a couple of LETTUCES (forellenschluss). I have a couple of CABBAGES in there, but I'm thinking I might pull them out. All I get with brassicas is aphids, unless I thoroughly net them. May have to set up a brassicas frame and netting

WICKING

Currently has ALPINE STRAWBERRIES (perennial) along the 'back', a RADICCHIO, some PARSNIPS (baby, will take all summer to grow), GARLIC CHIVES. I planted...maybe some more spring ONIONS? Or sprouting GARLIC for cut-and-come-again.

apple-crepe, crepe-apricot, seed planting

Dumping thoughts:

APPLE-CREPE

Currently BROADBEANS and BEANS (bush, blue ribbon) along the back, mustard everywhere else

check pH of bed!

make a Pasta/Pizza plot from One Magic Square:
TOMATOES (marchand?) & BASIL (Fothergills)
RED ONIONS (lime bed, plant direct)
ROCKET (far side of bed)
EGGPLANT
CHILLI & CHIVES (white packet)
CAPSICUMS - one overwintered growing under the APPLE already, feed v lightly w/ manure tea & seaweed solution

CREPE-APRICOT

Currently ASIAN GREENS (BOK CHOI, CHINESE CABBAGE) - lowest leaves are sketchy, possibly slugs?

Crop Rotation Planning suggests CARROTS, BEETS, RADISHES, then adding fertility with manures. If I skipped the root round, I could maybe manure it up and do CORN? Hm. I don't have peas in any of the beds yet. Might go with SNOWPEAS.

Okay, we'll do SNOWPEAS. I'm pretty sure I have them. Will need to make trellises for them to climb up. Although I guess I already have the frame on the western side of the bed...

check pH of bed!

PLUM-STONE

Currently SPINACH, LETTUCES, SILVERBEET and some BROADBEANS.

Again, Crop Rotation Planning suggests CARROTS, BEETS, RADISHES. I have these mostly growing elsewhere. But the leafy greens will last quite a while here. Could put some more SILVERBEET down, though for through the summer and into autumn? Maybe lime it and plant ONIONS here mid-summer?

tidying up the garden: weekend report

Spring is in, which means everything is growing (or going to) and the crops need to be gotten into the soil.

I planted glass gem corn a couple of weeks back, during the fruits/leaf planting period. I planted them out on Saturday in a bighuge block (an entire garden bed). I also shook out a bunch of basil seeds, and planted some beetroot in the 'shallow' part of the bed (where I need access to step over to the brick).

Hopefully they'll be growing pretty decently by Christmas, at which point I can replace it with late summer tomatoes. Or more leafy greens for winter.

--

On Friday evening, I got a call from Gardening Australia - one of the people who runs the 'storyboarding' process, looking at the kinds of stories they can run. She'd been given my name and number by someone who'd been featured on the show (and is something of a friend of the show) and wanted me to send pics/video of my garden and particularly the setup with the chooks. They were looking at a 'suburban chicken owner' segment, and wanted to see what kinds of options there were. So I ran the video around the (admittedly less than impressive) garden. It is spring, and the garden doesn't do much over winter (except house the chooks) so things are still in the slow-growing stage.

In the end, she opted to go with another idea for a segment - the secretary of our permaculture group, who's been doing amazing things with his house and yard in the last five years.

But it lit a fire in me to get the backyard looking a bit more decent than it does. More perennials, more chop-and-drop plantings (comfrey; more comfrey!), and garden beds that are made to last longer than a season so they don't look quite so miserable!

That's another project: make more garden bed/chook tractor frames. Use screws to put the panels in, rather than nails (screws will hold better), and paint/limewash the frames so they last longer than a single season! Also, the panels towards the 'back' of the bed frames down the side (apple-crepe, crepe-apricot, apricot-avo, avo-shed) need to be longer, to prop it up higher, because the ground slopes significantly down to the fence.

--

On Sunday, my sisters helped me get the tarp to a higher elevation - a less saggy position - and as a result it looks way nicer!

Still need to paint the chook house properly, and add a roof of plastic/corrugated iron that actually does the job of keeping the rain out, rather than the weird green roof thing that is pretty much just slowly growing mould. I don't think I have anything to hand that will do the job, but there's a council clean-up coming and I can probably scavenge a couple of sheets of something. Polycarbonate would be best (nice and light) but we can do corrugated iron.

--

I'm going to need to put netting over the trees: this is the last you'll see of the backyard without netting for some months. Unfortunately, the fruit flies are here and they're here to stay, and if I want any kind of a crop, netting is the only way to go.

I'll take a photo at lunch today.

Overall, I feel like I've gotten a handle on the backyard and how to grow things. It certainly helps to have five chooks adding fertility: it seems that almost all the trees are blooming really well this year - so that's hopeful.

CREPE-APRICOT

:

:

:3rd October 2022
MUSTARD greens growing, added two BUSH BEANS (cherokee wax),

5th October 2021:
ASIAN GREENS (BOK CHOI, CHINESE CABBAGE) - no crop from them, though, too many aphids

weekend gardening

Weekend was warm and sunny before a cold front bringing rain was to hit us mid-week. So it was a good time to get stuff done in the garden.

Did/Done List
1. Removed a wire fence from behind my two driveway bed apples. It was useful back when I was using it to confine the chooks, but now that we have so many more chooks, weeding is going to be a lot faster: done in a couple of days rather than over the course of a cople of weeks. The fence wasn't helping guide the apples anymore, and it was detrimental to netting the trees, so I replaced it with two wooden posts to string some wire between for netting to cover the apple trees.

2. Planted out my mother's black lilies in between the apricot and the elder tree
3. Planted ranunculus bulbs in front of the multi-stone in the backyard.
4. Grafted two apples - don't know if they'll take: I can't get the whip-and-tongue grafts to fit properly enough that the cambium layers match. I might have to stick a butterfly clip on it to properly pin the surfaces together.
5. Planted out a 'green fodder' bed in the second chook yard.
6. Planted blue turmeric and galangal, and I did the ginger just this morning.
7. Set up the north side garden beds - including the turmeric, galangal, ginger beds - ready to be watered from the kitchen vegiewash run-off. I'll need more soil with which to fill out the polyboxes that I'll be doing the growing in (insulated), and I need to better work out the watering system so it more evenly distributes, but...it's a start!
8. Attached chook wire to the new midpoint post of the chicken yard. Now I just need the hardware for affixing the beams and bracing them against each other so they stay square and don't sag.
9. Moved the composting frame from the compost in the chook yard to the banana circle (where it's blown over in the present winds). The plan is to get mostly garden clippings and stuff from the neighbours and toss it in there to decompose and rot. I may need to put a wire base on it to keep the rats out.
10. Closed up the fruit fly netting around the peach/nectarine and set some traps for them within the netting to catch the ones that had already turned up.

Planned to do but did not
I was also planning to repot the black sapote, but that didn't happen and now I'm out of soil. I'm going to have to dig out the chook yard shortly, get all that good chook poop and soil for it to grow in. I doubt I'll get any fruit from it - I think it's too cold through the year for it.

We had rain all of Tuesday, along with gusty winds, our water barrels filled up and our soil soaked it up. Hopefully this means there'll be a lot more growing in the coming month, and then some more rain in late September/early October to give bulk to the fruit that's setting even now.

Gonna have to get my nettings on over all the fruit trees. And that's going to be a job and a half, oy.

Spring makes its inevitable march; unfortunately, the warm temperatures we're having now promise a burningly hot summer. It won't be pretty at all.

wiritjiribin: the cold and windy

Wiritjiribin is the name for this season in the language of the Dharawal people who lived from the south of Sydney harbour down to the Shoalhaven and the start of the Wollondilly river network. The season is characterised by cold weather and high winds, and we're certainly getting both!

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:

chooks and tunnels and tractors, oh my!

My garden was originally designed based off Linda Woodrow's Permaculture Kitchen Garden.

In the Woodrow design, the chooks both sleep and live in the large-size tractor which is moved around the garden. They live their entire life in the tractor, and Woodrow had it reinforced against domesticated animals and wild.

However I wasn't comfortable with the security of the tractor, and since they'd arrived in their own tractor-coop, I was reluctant to switch things around, at least to start with. So I left them in their coop, which was heavy and not very easily moveable, and which didn't make the ground very accessible at all, and set up detachable wire tunnels to get them from the night-coop to the chook tractor.

But the tunnels running across the yard were a pain to climb over. And with the tunnels, it was difficult to access all areas of the yard, particularly sections that were diagonally opposite to the coop, which required going around the cherry and donut peach trees that were planted in the middle.

A better system was needed!

At the time, I was struggling with intruding couch grass and weeds from the neighbour fence. It just kept coming up in spaces I couldn't reach easily, nearly impossible to weed.

It occurred to me: what if, instead of running the tunnels across the middle of the garden...I ran them around the edge of the garden? What if I used the chicken instinct to peck and scratch at every bit of green to keep the neighbour's weeds at bay? It would solve my problem of how to get the chooks from the coop to the tractor, as well as give them a little more area in which to hunker down and dustbathe and even shelter at the sunniest points of the day.

So I took the map I'd drawn of the yard, marked out the trees, and decided on where the annual beds would go. Those would be the chook tractor stations, with a path around them and sometimes in between them, and a tree on each side. Yes, the tree would take up some root zone, but we'd deal with that.

Yes, the tunnels wouldn't be very accessible, but they wouldn't need to be. I could run the chooks over the roots of the trees I'd planted around the edges of the yard, and if things got too bare in the run, I could toss straw and woodchips and leaf matter down to absorb the manure that ended up in the tunnels...

Access into the chook tractor would be from the tunnels This would also allow me to have the chook tractor over each garden bed, giving the chooks the ability to 'free range' across the garden, without rampaging through my carefully planted and tended garden beds.

There were some logistical issues - some of the trees had been planted quite close to the fenceline, which meant there wasn't much space for the tunnel. But there was enough for a chook single-file, so...we'd just have to get small chooks!

The original chicken coop was a simple, triangular tractor that was designed to be moved around the yard every couple of days. It was heavy to move and the wheels weren't great across rough terrain (or anything that wasn't smooth grass, anyway). Basically, okay for starting out, but not for the long-term.

I got hold of an old guinea pig house and adjusted it for the chickens. It would do for the two to four chooks we planned to get, and the corner of the garden where the chook house was situation never gets sun anyway. Sheltered up against the wall, it would be relatively well-insulated from hard winds, even if it got pretty hot in the height of when the sun hit it early in the day and didn't leave it until mid-morning.

Ultimately, though, the idea was to run the tunnels from the coop to the tractor, wherever it was. And then I realised a small but significant issue. There wasn't really enough space to keep the chooks in the backyard all year round. Not if I wanted to grow things during the summer (at least).

Enter the front chookyard! about 20m2 of free-range space with deep-litter for the chooks to scratch around in and generally enjoy. The tunnels could be extended all the way along the side fence and out to a section of the front yard which wasn't being used at all.

The original plans were to have the chookyard all the way up to the front boundary line, but we decided against it in the end. The first chookyard encompassed 20m2 and was built in less than a day, needing only three posts - two for the corners, one for the gatepost.

Eighteen months later, we've added another chookyard to the first, accessible via another gate, mostly for the purposes of slowly integrating new chickens in with the old flock. I wanted separate spaces to be able to allow the chooks to integrate with each other over time, without things getting too fighty.

Advantages of the tunnels includes maintaining the perimeter of the garden, the chooks being able to move themselves from one area to the next, and effective use of a space that I otherwise wouldn't use.

Disadvantages include the lack of space in the tunnels and the propensity of fights to happen in those small spaces. We've had several sets of chickens already (Original Recipe, the New Shanghai, the Banquet, and the Babies) and found that in the setting up of the pecking order, a lot of the pecking actually takes place in the tunnels where there's no room to move and nowhere to run. Not ideal, but nobody being left defeathered and bloody just yet, so it's not the worst timeline.

I've put together a video about my chicken keeping - specifically about the development of the tunnels. It's not the best video, but it's a small start to what will hopefully be a bigger series.

garden bed planning?

The eternal question that I raise is: how do I do this kind of bed rotation when the beds don't get enough sun through the winter, and the chickens have to be on there for at least a month, if not more?

Plum-Stone: has been manured, chooks are presently on
last: had tomatoes, beans
next: cabbages, broccoli, caulis (probably around May)
spring: lettuces, rocket, asian greens

Apple-Crepe:
last: had tomatoes, basil, eggplant, pumpkin
next: (add lime) garlic, leek, silverbeet
spring: chives, onions, shallots?

Crepe-Apricot:
last: had eggplant, radishes, tomatoes, silverbeet
next: chooks, then broadbeans
spring: tomatoes

Apricot-Avo:
last: had corn, cucumbers, tomatoes, then I dumped a load of chook manure on it
next: tomatoes, brassicas, leafy greens (silverbeet spinach)
spring: beans, peas

Avo-Shed: still has morning sun in late March
last: fat hen, zucchini, tomatoes,
next: chooks, then green mulch
spring: corn/tomatoes

fruit tree bed: being inundated by mint!
last: corn
next: late tomatoes, cabbages,
spring: corn

lounge room bed:
last: onions, carrots, a luffa
next: put down chook poop - cabbages, caulis, brocc (best sun)
spring: roots: carrots, beets, radishes

side vegepod:
last: tomatoes, basil, rocket, silverbeet, parsley - peas
next: put down chook poop - cabbages, caulis, brocc (best sun)
spring: mustards - then tomatoes, basil, eggplants

side small vegepod:
last: eggplant,
next: needs a soil refresh: leafy greens over winter - some brassicas
spring: green mulch?

bed check: January 2020

We had quite a lot of rain over the last couple of days. It's been pretty good for the ground and the plants,

Plum Stone:

Assorted tomatoes which are in the growing and flowering stage but not yet in the fruiting stage. Probably during January.

I have no idea what's happening to the one in the front; we just had several days of rain, but it's simply wilted. I hope it's not anything viral, and I should probably dig down to see about the root system and what the issue is.

I've underplanted mustards and brassicas (or they've self-sown), tossed in various greens and chook fodder for once the chooks are put onto this bed - and also for general harvest through the rest of the summer.

Stone:

This is a perennial bed, and it's been very heavily mulched with woodchips over the last few years which haven't at all broken down.

It had three artichokes and wormwood on the north side (not pictured), but the artichokes dried out and died and so did the wormwood. It's since been planted out with fat hen, amaranth, mustard and other 'easy greens' - so, of course, after the rain, both artichokes and wormwood are coming back, too. *sigh*

On the south side, the woodchips are king, a couple of brassicas (possibly brussels sprouts) cling to the ground at least nine months after they were planted there. I've tossed down poppies, fenugreek, nasturtiums, peas, and other things (maybe rocket?) just to build up some ground cover.

Apple-Crepe:

Corn, beans, an eggplant or two, a capsicum or two. I also sprinkled peas, mustard, silverbeet and 'clucker tucker' along here when it began raining last Thursday. It might be too early for the clucker tucker; but no help for that.

This bed will probably be one of the last of the current set to be tractored with chooks. The corn is going to need a decent run, and I probably need to stake those beans.

Crepe-Apricot:

Corn, a couple of cucumbers that have barely grown, and I dropped a couple of peas under the watering system outlets to grow. I'm debating what to do with this one once the corn has finished. I'm not sure that I'll have that much corn out of it - my corn silks are never available at the same time as the pollination stalks are out and dusting, and although the first corn was fine when hand-pollinated, the subsequent one failed quite miserably. I'm waiting to see how the rest of it goes.

I've tossed a lot of Clucker Tucker down, and maybe some Fenugreek. Mostly to grow green things and fill the space. Whether they survive is largely due to how far the watering system goes, and whether we get any more rain in the next month.

There's also a comfrey planted at the front. It's dried out a few times in the drought, but has perked up again with the rain and the watering system.

Apricot:

The watering system is in and ready to go! Unfortunately one of the pipes has a fairly significant hole in it, and even the plug that should be holding it in place isn't quite doing the job. I'm dreading having to pull it apart and redo it; I might try it sealing it first with something like plumber's tape.

A couple of plants of Fat Hen, I've put down a bunch of chickpeas during the rain on Thursday, some of them had sprouted by Sunday when I covered them over, and hopefully some of them will stick. There's also Clucker Tucker sprinkled all along the edges.

Apricot-Avo:

Bean up the back right, zucchini (I thought, but might be a pumpkin) at the back left, tomatillo in the middle. Onions, eggplants, tatsoi, choy sum. Not sure if the choy sum will survive the sun; it tends to wilt really easily.

I've tossed Clucker Tucker, mustard, and fenugreek all over this one, too.

Avo-Shed:

Tomatoes up the back. A tomatillo taking up space in the middle, and a cabbage/brussels sprout hiding right behind it. Eggplants, capsicums, fat hen, silverbeet, and another curcubit. (I really can't keep track of them.)

I threw down some marigold and sunflower seeds outside the bed, but they don't seem to have taken. They might now that it's rained. One can hope!

Wicking Bed:

The ronde de nice zucchini is taking over. But this is the 'salad greens' bed: lettuces, tomato, radish, beetroot, kale, spring onions, silverbeet. The exceptions to the salad are the three eggplants that are in the middle of the bed and slowly growing.

Lettuce oakleaf green, lettuce salad bowl red, Gardland serrate leaf, lettuce black seeded, mibuna, mizuna, Chinese Mustard Greens - 29th Nov
4x '10 Heirloom' tomatoes - 29th Nov
Kale, eggplant (jitendra), eggplant (finger) - 29th Nov
Radish confetti mix, onion red beard, beetroot bulls blood, Onion straight leaf - 17th Dec

Bathtub:

Planted 17th Dec: Two tomatoes - one Blue Berry Cherry, one Cherokee Purple. Carrot short kuroda, Onion purplette, carrot kuroda, onion creamgold, parsnip gurnsey. Leek King Richard up the shallow end, Beetroot golden detroit at the deep end.

I've sprinkled various seeds down by the base of the bathtub but none of them have come up. *pouts*

Hexabed:

With the watering system in and occasional inputs of compost, hopefully things in this bed will grow better than they have been. Everything's been holding on, but otherwise not growing. (Story of my garden.)

I don't even know what's here anymore; the idea was for it to be a bee-friendly garden, but I've tossed plenty of fruiting and food plants in there and not just the flowers that were the original idea. It was barely growing through spring, and I don't know how well it will do over summer and into winter.

On the plus side, the rain runs off the chook house tarp and into the garden - so much so that I've had to put a bucket underneath so it doesn't drill a hole down into the soil

Banana Circle:

Bananas (at least five or six), taro (at least four), an avocado, two turmeric, comfrey, alpine strawberries, a small watermelon, hyacinth beans. Frankly there's too many plants in this space, so I'm going to take out the turmeric, taro, and a couple of the smaller bananas.

Thoughts
1. Could grow potatoes/sweet potatoes in the cheap aldi garden beds if they were set up to be wicking. (As of 21st Jan, have set up wicking bed in front of lounge window for sweet potatoes.) Contemplate doing for regular potatoes, with water thingy in the middle.

2. Small Aldi garden bed: use frame, cover with pond plastic, poke hole in about 5cm above ground level, low layer of soil, set olla in bed, fill with soil, plant potatoes. Or garlic?

3. Run a water line down from the carport tanks to the front garden bed? Otherwise front garden bed is basically to be bucketed/heavy mulched in drought.

So many things to be done and not half enough time before the SEGT.