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.

changing seasons

And Bed #1 is being completely replanted.

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.

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...

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

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.

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).

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

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

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.)

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...)

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!

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

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

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

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

Squash, strawbs, and a chilli.

Ong-Tsoi, or Chinese Water Spinach.

Corn.

More Tomatoes.

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

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

Sunflower, beans, and passionfruit.

Garden facing east:

Garden facing south:

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.

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:

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:

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.

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:

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!

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!

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?

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:

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.

Harvests

Last of the first corn, three cucumbers, the start of the tomatoes:

It'll be interesting to see if the second planting of corn produces anything. There's only four plants and two cobs at this stage, and I'm not sure they got adequately pollinated what with the rain and the pumpkin.

I've planted out a new batch of corn - late autumn corn. They'll probably need a lot of feeding, so I've got the worms eating scraps like crazy, and a new compost heap quietly steaming away.

Still no actual work on the orchard bed.

pests, weeds, and harvests

The worst part about garden maintenance is the question of what to do about pests and weeds. It causes all kinds of issues in my indecisive brain, along with the eternal guilt of "maybe if I ignore it, it'll go away?" And the permaculture principles which is that weeds are plants in the wrong place, and pests are a food source for predators in your garden and therefore to be encouraged.

The biggies this year have been mildew on the zucchini (thankyou, Bunnings) and pumpkin (thanks to the zucchini), slugs on the corn (dealt with via beer), and now pests in the corn silks - including a few worms in the ears.

The mildew is being dealt with thanks to bicarb soda spray - 1 tablespoon bicarb, 2 tablespoons olive oil, mix well, add 2L warm water, shake and spray. I do need to do the whole garden a thorough going-over but with some cutting and trimming and spraying it's being dealt with. Mostly.

I put a whole bunch of mildewed leaves (as well as the zucchini stalks) into the latest compost which seems to be getting pretty hot, although I don't know if it's hot enough to kill the mildew. I had to pull up the zucchini to make space for other plants - they were getting outtahand.

The slugs eating my corn silks I got with beer traps. Most of them. They seem to be somewhat fewer these days - possibly because the caterpillars, bugs, and ants have moved into the corn silks. I tried spraying with vinegar and the corn husks went yellow and dried out. But it seemed to slow down the pest activity. However, recommended was to rub the tops of the corn together to kill the pests in the top which I will be trying with the corn in future. Or maybe a drop of olive oil.

But by far the worst offender - not in the backyard garden, but in the frontyard orchard, is what my mother calls 'onion weed'. The stuff is a noxious weed all over the place, whose 'use' is mostly attracting pollinators. That one's going to be a horror to clear out, because you need to pick out all the little bulbs and there are a lot of little bulbs! *sob*

Finally, my multicitrus graft is not doing so well in its new position - I'm not sure if it's because it's not getting enough nutrients or something else, but I'm going to have to take action soon...

In more positive news, the garden is producing madly: the zucchini are still huge and flowering and producing like crazy.

The gherkin cucumbers are growing so fast I think I"m going to have to do some urgent pickling pretty damn soon.

The pumpkins have been trussed and are being trained up lines and across gardens.

And, pests or no, the corn is ready!

And delicious!

The tomatoes are ripening - I seem to have tiny red grapes, tiny red cherry, and larger ones growing in the front orchard. Some of the seedlings I was growing back in November have finally gotten big enough to be planted out, so hopefully there'll be a harvest from them later!

In the area of neighbourhood foraging I found a lilly pilly overhang in the walk-through on the way to the station. Might nip out and grab a few berries for a try this evening!

And I have a lovely-smelling plant that I think is lemonbalm but which I'm not entirely certain...