Wins and Losses

This week I potted on some pak choy, and finally saw some of the seeds come up. Tomato (only one of the varieties), beetroot, and some lettuce are up, but zuchini, cucumber, spring onion, beans and other tomato are massive fails. That is not a very good hit ratio. I will try again with the same stuff tomorrow, and see what happens.

In other news, i cracked, and went and bought $30 worth of soil, which filled in the entire summer garden. Could have saved some angst by doing that a month ago, but whatevs. I think I will persist with the seed raising thing until I get awesome at it, but i the meantime i am off to the local organic seedling supplier to get this garden looking like a garden.

There are water pipes all over the place, but now that there is a bed in place, I should be able to lay it out in a permanent kind of position... I don't know why I am writing this, it is supposed to be a diary, not a wish list...

Also got a solar water filter thing for the pond, and the pond actually is starting to look ok. The strawberries, thyme and sage look healthy sitting around it, so it is good to have some wins. Peaches are about the size of a marble. The litttle ones.

Update: So all the tomatoes are on their way now, but all the other stuff is still a fail. i replanted everything again, but in more senstive seed raising mixes. i think temperature was probably the issue, and maybe pH also. A little too alkaline maybe? Put some corn in too.

A few things...

Not much action in the garden this week. Snow peas have finally started fruiting after being sown in May...is that normal? Lets say it is. The seeds I sowed in my experimental greehouse have been a monumental failure, with only the pak choi sprouting. So I re-sowed the lettuce with a new packet, to rule out the possibility that the seeds were bad. See how they go. Also put some beans straight into the garden bed, and gave them a soaking. More finger crossing needed.

Got some bits and pieces from a large outdoorsy store, and now have a pipe that runs into the backyard, that can be redirected from the greehouse. The pipe doesn't go anywhere yet, but i'll hook that up once the garden beds look settled. More sheep poo needed!!!

Update: Put some capsicum, tomato and beets in seed trays, and stole some soil from pots to plant some cucumber and zuchini seeds.

Spring... Spring has sprung.

I may be jumping the gun, but I'm calling it. Spring is here, it's time to get your gardening game face on.

Today I moved the chooks from their palatial garden bed, back into the old chook dome. I enclosed the main garden bed, and put some garden edging in for a built up garden. Now to fill it in!

The biggest roadblock at the moment is compost. I need heaps of it, and I refuse to buy it. It shall take several trips out to the sis-in-laws house to get some sheep poo, and a thorough scraping of the park for clippings. I have stolen some fill from around my yard and have only done about a metre and a half, out of 8 or so. Sad face.

The other thing is raising seedlings. It's hard! As far as I know I have the perfect environment for raising seedlings, but only the pak choy has come up in a week. Maybe the seeds are old, i don't know, but it's never as easy as what the Internet tells me it is. I'll press on anyway, put some spring vegetables in this week, and threaten them with extinction if they don't come up.

In other news I visited the northey street nursery this week, and fell in love. I got some strawberries and thyme to go in around the pond, and some cress, duckweed and something else (?) to go in the pond. I need to get a solar filter thing so the mossies don't breed.

PS enjoy looking at the photos sideways, i'll fix that later...