It might be time to blog again.

Looking back at the old pictures is an eye opener. The garden has changed, my family has changed, maybe I've changed? I hope I am a better gardener than I was.

Anyhoo, I am a stay at home Dad this year while also running a Organic Food business, and looking after my nearly 2 year old. The impetus for starting a blog again is that if I can't get the garden right having a year with it, then I'll never get it right. Hopefully this holds me to account.

I also want to help some friends out with their garden exploits, so I might chronicle that here too.

Alright, let's make this a habit eh?

Lets try this again...

Its been nearly a year since I started this blog, and something like 9 months since I last updated. What can I say, I'm a busy person. I just need to make this a habit. I did have a garden over the summer, and it was pretty successful. It was in the big caged space, and we had enough growing out of there to make a decent salad whenever we needed to.

My seed raising is still really bad, so most of the stuff put in has been bought from Northey St. I still try the seeds occasionally, but with patchy success.

At the moment I am contemplating a more permanent arrangement for the winter garden (which is different from the summer because of the sun). This is on the southern side of my backyard, and this is the only patch that gets anywhere near enough light. This will probably remain, and the chooks will sit on it in a month or two, and then I will put a cover crop in to keep it fertile over summer (mustard or lucerne or something).

I am going to build a garden bed here, where I used to try and grow seedlings:

That will be a winter garden and maybe I will try the leafy things here in summer as it doesn't get direct sun. It might save some lettuce from bolting, who knows? It means that the chooks won't be rotating around so much anymore, so their job will be to make a clean compost to add in to this bed.

My friends Matt and Deb have started raising some seedlings for me, so I am hoping that works out ok for a bit.

I'll post againg after I have done my new garden bed.

Photos by Em

Emma took these this arvo. Going to try and ripen some of the peaches away from the fruit fly. Also, featuring: Lettuce, beans and corn.

Water, Growth, Some Seedling Success

This week saw a nice little flush of heat and rain which meant the green stuff in the garden has shot up. Emma (wife) went out to Caboolture markets to fill out some of the blank spots in the bed, so there is plenty of produce to look forward to. Spring onion, cucumber, corn, basil, dill, coriander, lettuce from the markets, and tomatoes from my seed raising. It looks goodish!! Most of it will bolt pretty quickly, but it will give me some time to refine my seed raising.

Speaking of, pak choi came up fast as usual, and we are seeing heaps of beans, beetroot, royal oakleaf, and a couple of cucumbers. Still waiting on corn (grrr...), eggplant and capsicum. This round of raising has been moderately more successful, which makes me think its the temperature that might be holding the little fellas back. I will persist!!

Fixed the watering system in the bed so it has more pressure from the pump (making more of a closed loop. Thinking about it now, I might put some taps in to increase the pressure to some areas if they need a spray from time to time. Thats where this blog comes to the fore as a garden diary. I just have to read it later...). Anyhoo, its more of a spray than a drip feed now.

Found a peach with some colour on it on the ground, alas, already fruit fly infested. I would have thought it was too early, but what do I know? Almost nothing. The peaches seem to colour before they are ripe so it gives a good visual target for the flies to lay eggs. Maybe this seasons peaches will be chook food? I'd like to at least get one of them untouched.

September Holidays

I was away for the first week of the holidays, so I didn't get to plant what I wanted, but this week a whole round of seeds went in. Lettuce, beans, corn, beetroot, pak choi, zuchini, capsicum, cucumber. Probably other stuff too. The things that are in the garden look ok, while my advanced seedlings (tomato, capsicum) are at a friends house being looked after. They'll go in next week.

I made the biggest compost pile i have made so far, with a trailer load each of dirt, sheep poo, and grass clippings. I'll wet it down today and cover. I am hoping for a 4 - 6 week turnaround, and I can use that compost for planting the seeds that went in today.

Pak choi gets a far amount of slugs on them, but it hasn't bothered me, as I only really plant it for the chooks, and they really love slugs! Better the pak choy than the lettuce...

Emma did the egg photo. She is awesome.

finally its hot

Planted out beans, beetroot and dill. That is all.

Oh yeah, and some more capsicums came up and a zuchini. So it turns out my seed rasinig issues are temperature related. Hmmmmmmm...

Mid September...falling behind

Stuff of late include things such as:
- tomatoes out of the shade house and soaking up some rays in a compost mix
- beans are finally going good
- went away for the weekend and all the capsicums died
- Finished off the washing water irrigation thing
- possum ate a young dill, and is now having a rest in the shadehouse
- i need a bigger shadehouse.
- just once, i would like to do a project only once, rather than 3 redevelops
- spring onion from seed is a waste. they do fine going asexual.
- sometimes i can just not figure out why the hell some things won't freakin' grow. if anything, all i do is stunt growth. Eg: mint is out of control. spring onion from the chooks scraps grow better than my careful seed raising. the best tomato plants i have, have come up on their own. i found some parsley under the stairs. no idea how it got there.
- got to try again with cucumber, zuchini and corn...