Showing posts with label vegetable gardening. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vegetable gardening. Show all posts

Tuesday 20 August 2013

The seeds are here!

My package from the Diggers Club arrived. I got open pollinating seeds of;

  1.  rocket - pronto
  2. Beetroot - Chioggia, Bull's Blood , Golden and White Blankoma
  3. Broccoli - Purple Sprouting
  4. Eggplant - Rosa Bianca, Violetta di Firenze, Slim Jim and Listada di Gandia
  5. Green beans - Lazy Housewife (I wish)
  6. Carror - Purple Dragon
  7. Tomato - Tommy Toe
  8. Corn - Golden Bantam
  9. Water melon - Moon and Stars
  10. Silverbeet - Five colour mix


My new seed collection

I decided to take my daughter's advice and put the seedlings beside the back door. I didn't have to move the sick animal aviary after all because I bought one of the little plastic covered green houses suggested by Jacqui (Dusty Country Road blog) and put it in the most protected position I could find, as also suggested by Jacqui. The little green house is now full to the brim with seeds planted in punnets and newspaper pots.
The new seedling raising area. My potting table is to the left against the aviary wall and the little green house is full of enthusiasm.
Some of the seedlings in my little green house. Roma tomatoes potted on from a punnet I bought. These are bound for the school gardens I am custodian to.
In an excess of enthusiasm I also potted some herbs into an indoor herb tower which will live beside a North facing window in the kitchen and hopefully result in us having lots of parsley, chives, oregano and mint added to our meals (not all of them together, obviously).



The next challenge for me is to complete stages 3 and four of the Hugelkultur beds so I can plant out all these new seedlings. I have given myself a month to do that. Wish me luck.

I am finding that setting myself goals that have to be met by a certain time is helping me to get things done in the garden. What techniques do you use to get things done?

Monday 8 July 2013

Dirt is hard work!

Well.. I hate to look gift dirt in the mouth (so to speak) but the last lot of soil from my sister's house has turned into really hard work; I knew I would have to sieve out the grass roots but I didn't factor in how sticky the stuff is. The soil from further up the ridge is red basalt; the most sought after growing soil there is, but it has a high clay content which means that it sticks to everything!!
I spent the afternoon scooping soil into a bucket with a flower pot (a small one) while sorting out blady grass, bracken and kykuyu. The chooks loved the extra greens though and I got a little bit done (about a third of the load). Oh well back to it tomorrow.

You can see the beautiful colour of the soil; like chocolate.



 I did manage to plant some bush beans in the stage one area though.


The bush beans I planted today
The beds in that run are starting to look respectable.
The chooks love the extra greens


I can't wait till there are vegetables in my new bed.






Wednesday 3 July 2013

Stage one of the Hugelkultur experiment complete

Today I have had a lot of fun. My daughter and I dug some more soil from the future toilet pit to finish off the stage one hugelkultur bed. You can see from the photo how rich the soil is down near the dam.


The future toilet pit




 
Soil added to the bed


Amazed and delighted sheep

Then we spent a while cleaning old straw (well, compost now) out of the sheep shelter, much to the amazement and delight of the sheep. This became the mulch for our new bed, and the whole lot was watered in well.
doesn't that look pretty?

Tomorrow I will spread blood and bone and then let the planting begin!!

Then its on to stage two; build another bed next to that one and so on until the chook runs are full.