The battle out the front is won.. well for now :-)

I have been battling grass that had been invading my front garden for 2 weeks between rain (and sometimes in the rain).  So at great length I finished today and even added a new bit to the garden *and* finished mulching!  With a little help from Brandon :-D

So before I started... this was the state of my long garden bed :-(

and after...
Isn't that sooo much better?!?  I still need to get rid of the bump in the lawn from when the builders dug up the lawn and half fixed it.

This looks so much better! 

My willing worker!

  

The new garden bed section!

I dug the corner out of the grass and will put in some lemongrass (for one of my lovely neighbours).  I might add some rainbow chard for some colour too.

Blueberry - confused!

Rhubarb

 <== The Rhubarb is getting some new leaves and seems to be growing slowly and steady.   

The blueberry is confused... half red and autumnal and half spring with new growth?!?

Happy Gardening,
*hugs* Sarah!

Holy Sweet Potato Batman!

Well I was mulching and weeding today (no rain for a while YAY!) and decided where I saw a little sweet potato I would have a bandicoot around and see if there were any more as the folks on Jetto's Patch have been talking about harvesting.

What I saw the other day   =>



Well to start with I thought perhaps I found a red house brick... but I poked around a little more then had to run to the front door and get Chris.... I could not believe it.... ready???

A 5.6 kilogram (12.34lbs / 0.88 stone) Sweet potato!!!  So my unruly sweet potato vine that is stabilising the sand is apparently quite happy!  When I got over my shock I found another one which was 1.016kgs!  I think I better check my vines more often hehe. I hope they are edible when they are big?!?!  It is all a big learning curve.


From there I couldn't help myself I went over to the vine next to the passionfruit - partial shade.... and found two smaller sweet potatoes!  The boys were so impressed when they came home from school they both actually helped dig grass from the garden with me! :-D  I think we need to find treasure more often!  Tom helped with the photos by holding up a dinner plate for some perspective... great idea!

So while I was outside I grabbed some mulch and threw it over the Sweet Potato Vine... I will give it a feed when finish the great grass battle.

Oh and I was worried I might not have planted the watercress correctly in the new hydroponics bed.... I think it is actually quite happy!  On the left is the day I planted it (Monday) and on the right is today (Wednesday)... I will be having salads before I know it!

 I have had to improvise a filter after my issue with the small particles of vermiculite and Perlite that decided to invade my whole system... it seems to be working too :-)  No I don't have my pond yet but the old dog bowl is working for now :-)

Happy Gardening *hugs*

Sarah

A new grow bed!

Hi all,

Between rain I am still battling the grass in the front garden but the last few days I have been working on the hydroponics.  Before we can go to aquaponics we have to have grow beds up and running to help filter the water so yesterday I got started with the boxes and bell siphons. Then was stupid and put pearlite in... which was full of teeny tiny particles that messed everything up!  So today I cleaned it alllll  out, glued the siphons together and put expanded clay into one of the boxes (the last of my expanded clay).

So watercress has now been added!  A very nutritious addition to our diet and it will filter out solids from our system with its roots as a bonus.  My NFT plants are growing great guns... I can hardly believe that they have only been in just over a week!

Above were at planting... on the 14th of May.  Below are the same plants today!

 Today I think it is safe to say the Rainbow Chard (left) has doubled in size along with the Kale (Middle Red cups)!  The chives have definitely lengthened - hopefully they will the pots a bit too (Middle Blue).  The Rocket for Chris is going well like a rocket! (right)

 The Thyme is growing... it will benefits from some sun so it isn't quite so leggy!  The Oregano is bushing out.. hard to believe it has only been a week and a half!  The strawberries I am going to need a ladder to get to lol but at least Miss Balla Balla (our resident strawberry thief) wont be able to get to them first - the neighbours might though! ;-)

The basil has definitely doubled in size!  Before we went away the basil we had growing in this system was giving us a whole colander full every week and we could have still harvested more!  The chives will be a lovely addition to my salads some time soon :-)

Thanks for visiting!

*hugs* Sarah

Another pleasant surprise.

Well yesterday I was battling the grass which has invaded every garden bed - a lot more to go but got a wonderful surprise!  Sweet potato :-D I am thinking I will mulch over the trailing vine to encourage more tubers :-)  and also start harvesting green tips to saute to stop it taking over everything :-)

Before (Friday) and after mulching (Saturday)... I need to dig the edging back in - which I already did? hmmm Once the mulch settles I will probably give it another inch on top.  Anything to help stop the grass!

Before (Friday and After (Saturday) ... it looks like some of my plants have disappeared lol There are 3 blueberries in the middle of this shot!  Much tidier though :-)

I still cannot believe it... Rhubarb resurrected! This makes me soooo happy!

 That pile of mulch (left is Friday) does not seem to be going down even though we have taken about 20 trolley loads out! (right Saturday).  Brandon giving some perspective as to the magnitude!

 Ok off out to battle the grass and mulch some more... have a wonderful Sunday *hugs* Sarah

Always wear shoes while gardening!

Well my junior gardener learned a valuable lesson... thankfully without stitches.  Mr B decided to help me by trimming the Wedding Bushes with the new hedge shears... in bare feet!  He thought something crawled onto his hand, dropped the shears... "MUUUUUUUUUM!!!!!"  A quick trip to the Doctor and a day off school later I don't think he will be in a hurry to garden barefoot again.  Very glad it wasn't worse.

Today I got a wonderful surprise... a telephone call from a man with a truck full of wood chips / leaf litter!  The best part is it was FREE via www.mulchnet.com !  When it was in the truck it did not look that much... but when he emptied it.... OH DEAR lol... I guess I know what I am doing for the next week! :-D  This could not come at a better time as with the rain coming while we were away... my garden has been invaded by grass again :-(  So dig out and mulch DEEEEEPLY.

 Did I mention there is a LOT of MULCH? lol
In the foreground you can spy some rosemary grown from cuttings from Aleisha's. Lemon Fingerbowl Pelargonium from Henriette and Sweet potato from Lizzie... so thank you all... I managed to not kill everything and your kindness has helped stop the invasion of sand :-)

 I have a mystery plant pop up in the front side bed... I am wondering if just maybe this is a jerusalem artichoke given to me by David which did not show itself at all.  So fingers crossed it was just biding its time.








Today I replaced the natives that did not survived with some more rosemary - we use a lot and its a great structure plant and some thyme seedlings I picked up from Bunnings.  I am finding we use so many herbs and with supermarkets charging more and more and giving less and less it makes sense to grow our own.



  As you know while we were away Perth got rain and cooled down.  Apparently my Glove Artichokes appreciated this tremendously... they grew more in 3 weeks than they had in a year.  By the way I love the new solar lights Chris brought and the boys installed through the front garden :-)  As you can see the grass ignored and grew around the grass barrier... so I spent 3 hours digging our grass this evening.  I popped a thyme seedling in that bare patch - those pretty flowering natives die if the kids stand on them so I am thinking the thyme might be a little more hardy.  Tomorrow I will finish mulching this front bed and continue de-grassing and mulching.  I am finding lots of little onions I missed in the last harvest so I am picking them out and will replant them as onion slips in a single area that I can keep heavily fertilised.

Now as you can see Edward Scissorhand's got into this bed... well okay maybe it was me.  I dug out and pruned the deceased cordylines... the three older plants keeled over ... I replaced them with two more blueberries.  Hacked back the Giant Purple Liriopes as they were looking very tatty.  The lavenders got a haircut too to make them nice and bushy.  Tomorrow hopefully this will get mulched.  You can also make out some of my rhubarb that I thought I had lost over summer :-) The passionfruits are starting to grow enough to train over the archway  too :-)

My long garden has gone wild in the last month... it is amazing how fast the grass invades when there is not a weed barrier!  I forsee a lot of time on my knees digging grass roots out :-(  but look at my Globe Artichokes :-)  The Lilies are coming back after the fire damage as is the little clump of Asparagus (far right).  So hopefully this will all be mulched by the end of the weekend... well that might be wishful thinking but I will try :-)

Happy Gardening *hugs*

Sarah