Awesome Onion!

So I was making quiches (along with jams and preserves) and needed onions so headed out the back.

Found some strawberries *groan*  we just got through processing 4 big boxes from the strawberry farm lol so not very enthusiastic sorry!  Pulled a few onions and cleaned off the skins into the garden bed and grabbed a few leaves for the quiche, spinach, rainbow chard and oregano.

 The bigger onion felt quite heavy so I couldn't help myself and stuck it on the scales... 284g!  Not a bad effort :-)

That's it from me... Happy Gardening *hugs*

Sarah

A busy day of disaster!

Well no photo's again today... I got up to my potato bed being dug our along with my tatsoi and bok choy :-( .  Naughty dogs!  So Brandy harvested half a bucket of small Ruby Lou potatoes. I think they may become next years seed potatoes.

I found my hydroponics run dry again so cleared out some roots, filled it up and removed the thyme and planted it into the garden... which revealed another problem... SLUGS!  Ugh! I guess that explains a bit!  I guess I should not have been surprised though... I found them in the worm farm which I take the water from to fill the hydroponics (so technically vermiponics at time.) So for now I have just put multiguard (iron based) slug pellets around where I planted the thyme.  Right next to the Cherry tree that finally has a set of leaves woo hooo!!!  As does the ginger right next door. :-)  I love spring.  It is just so exciting.

So now I have emptied the bottom two pipes and I am going to replace the little pond with a 220L barrel and probably pull around some of the shelves and set up some more grow beds and maybe add some fish.

I then used the excess coir / potting mix from the destroyed vege beds and filled the wicking pot for the grapevine.  It got popped in with lots of organic fertilisers.  I hope it does well and that is one more job off my list!  Grapes here we come :-D

I checked on our newly moved curry leaf tree and she has sent out new leaves so hopefully that is a good sign! :-)  I really hope she thrives in her permanent home.

There's currently a constant flow of strawberries, cape gooseberries and herbs into the house.  The boys seem to have overdosed on cape gooseberries so I am either going to try drying or jamming them.

I gave my new worm farm some residents today... I hope they like it!  There are so many worms in the original worm farm that we definitely needed an expansion.  So twice the home hopefully twice the production ;-)

Happy Gardening *hugs*
Sarah

Slugs, snails and puppy dog tails!

This weeks ingredients to our super salads and soups! 

 Slugs and snails required a very beery party this week along with some multiguard pellets - these turn into iron for my plants so are the only ones I will use now.  This beer trap had been down less than 12 hours!  Apparently slugs are not very picky (Swan Draught was bought for them by Hubby!) but not one of the giant snails that have been appearing in the middle of the lilies!

I went into the worm farm and came across more than a bargained for!  A new potato plant - still not sure how a whole potato made its way into the worm farm though.  The worms are looking extremely healthy and numbers are up too... ready for the new worm farm expansion.

I found a much better use for my ironing board on a rainy day... to hold up the 6 meter lengths of storm pipe while we used the hole saw every 15 - 16cm's!  Obviously with it raining I had LOTS of help.

  My furry helpers!

 As the weather fined up I started work on the new wicking pots for the Grape vine, Bay Leaf Tree and Fig Tree.   Corrugated pipe joined together then pierced with a pvc pipe for filling the reservoir.  Covered with 2 layers of weed mat to stop the reservoir filling with soil.  I then popped some sand in to act as the wick.  Now I just need the energy to fill the rest of the pots but we will get there :-D

The PVC pipe is cut on an angle at the bottom so it wont seal against the barrel or pipe.  In the second one I inserted the PVC pipe into the corrugated pipe and closed the other end with weed mat (yes it is a little messy but no one will see once it is done!

Super Salad and Soup ingredients for this week!

 Parsley, Coriander leaves and flowers, lettuces and mints (common and basil)... Kale, onions, chives, chive flowers and broad beans!

 Rainbow Chard, Nasturtium flowers, snow peas, dragons tongue beans, oregano and most importantly two of Grand-pop's Super Tomatoes!  Our very first for this season!  There are lots of purple sage flowers and leaves, a little rosemary, english spinach and nasturtium leaves.

Watercress, thyme and native violet flowers.

As we aren't using chemicals for the caterpillar problem we now not only have ladybirds and praying mantis' but also a steady supply of green caterpillars, crickets and other insects for our black faced wood swallow to eat!

So in the end we had a huge bowl of salad - I had to upgrade bowl size twice... this is my biggest mixing bowl!  I also, after making salad, felt like something different so made a vege soup :-)  

Happy Gardening!  *hugs* Sarah x

An outing and a visitor brought carnage!

Dear Hubby took me shopping today to Bunnings *swoon*... so I could get two brackets to sure up the  new arches and a roll of corrugated drainage pipe to go into my wicking pots for the trees.  We also stopped at the bottle shop to get a beautiful bottle of ... Swan Draught *chuckle* fear not!  It is not for us but for our slugs and snails that have been extremely busy pruning my plants.  It seems we should have got several other bottles as I ran out after filling the first 6 traps!

On our return I walked out the back to set a cup of beer in the worm farm for the slugs that have decided to squat in there I came upon carnage... pipe fittings; hydroton (round expanded clay balls); pipes and mess all up the back corner... and two very, very excited dogs.  Well I followed Rex who made it quite plain he had found something... I am actually quite relieved this little bobtail was whole and unharmed but probably had several nose prints on his back as the dogs investigated his obviously interesting odour!  

Ice-cream container to the rescue and a quick walk out the front and this lil garden buddy got to go explore under the cape gooseberry bush... so I guess its now the season I better start wearing shoes in the garden as the snakes will start coming out of the conservation land!  

Now I know that technically I should not harvest my rhubarb this year however it was so crowded at the top of the fence I decided I better thin it out and taste test... yet to taste but so exciting.  So Strawberries from my garden (big ones) and hydroponics (little ones), cape gooseberries, broad beans and snow peas. Not a big harvest but every little bit helps :-D

I enjoyed my afternoon watering with seasol and aquasol... hoping this is the pick me up some of my plants need to survive the onslaught of the never ending caterpillars, slugs and snails.  Anyway that's it from me tonight..

Happy Gardening!

*hugs*
Sarah

So much to do, so little time!

Excuse the mess but everything arrived all at once so I am having to build things and clean things and dig things all at the same time... really not sure how this happened hehe... So yesterday I built the two arches which will go either side of a 2/3 barrel with a Grapevine in in front of the wall you can see... after I pull all the old veges out of the garden bed.

 The full barrels are being scrubbed out and then used to collect rain water for the Aquaponics which we are currently building (along with everything else!).

Chris upgraded his phone so I claimed his old one... which happens to have a panorama function on the camera... so I played with it while working on my hydroponics.  Far left is my ole curry leaf tree which will be going in the ground soon.  On the shelves are two grow beds... the top are tomatoes - Grand-pops Super Toms;  below prolific watercress... which drives my dogs wild lol.  Then 2.5meter lengths of NFT hydroponics... looking quite healthy - I have just cut back the rocket and some other plants and will be pulling them out and replacing as soon as I get two minutes.  Beyond... you can see the shelf supports which got affixed to the limestone wall after this picture (Thanks Chris!) and a multitude of pipes that need holes drilling into them!

 As you can see the rhubarb is growing really well... along with some winter grass?!?  I am rather unsure how I have come to have winter grass in the top level of my system lol.  These are less than six months old and already the stems are thicker than my thumbs!

Strawberries up the top are now quite productive!  Their flavour has also improved with the warmer weather... that green mat below is oregano!  It is so prolific that I pick some daily and it looks like it hasn't been touched!

My superstar performers are still going strong even after all the green caterpillars!  Rainbow Chard... such an all rounder... soups, salads, stir fries and steamed greens!  Once the Aquaponics is up and running I will definitely be planting a whole lot more.

 The chives don't look spectacular however they have been harvested a lot for salads... The Kale is looking quite tragic!  It has been munched on by a million caterpillars and I have a feeling it is because it is at the bottom so has less sunlight and any thing that falls from above lands here.  I am picking off caterpillars daily so fingers crossed we will see improvement soon.







 Well T cut down some barrels to give me some big pots for my trees... so I put the tops to good use today.... a worm farm!  The hardest part was getting one barrel top to go into the other!

Not a bad effort even if I do say so myself!  The top has been perfectly drilled by B to allow air into the worms... we will put it in the shady side of the house.

Ok that is about it from me tonight *hugs* Happy Gardening!
Sarah x

Photo bombs!

Well my boys make me laugh even when I don't expect it!  Today I dug the potatoes that B planted in the Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep Shade before we went away in April... It is not the biggest harvest, nor the biggest potatoes but they will make beautiful new potatoes for Nanny's Potatoes. :-) (Boiled potatoes, olive oil, garlic and parsley from the garden).

Yes I was photo bombed!  hehe Thanks Mr B!

My IBC arrived today - Thank you Derek!  It was previously used for the water based resin they use to seal tiles and fish pond!  This will be my water reservoir / pond for my aquaponics which will be along the back fence.  Yes photo bombed yet again :-D  but if there are weeds to be pulled they disappear hehe.

This will hold 1000 litres so we might not keep running out of water this time!  The task for tomorrow is to get it into the back garden... I think the fence may have to come down!!!

I'm going to have to cut the top out for access... or draw a line and mention "power saw" to T and then it will be done O:-)

 Spring flowers!  Carrots - so pretty and Rosemary.  My garden is bursting with life.

My blueberries got dug up from the sandy soils and popped into pots with Azalea potting mix (acidic).  They are already looking much much happier.  

 
 Now after searching for green caterpillars because my kale and cauliflowers have holes I discovered I need more snail baits as my holes are being caused but slugs and snails!  Oh and I have tomatoes popping up all over the place! :-D

The two asparagus plants that had died down for winter has sprung for spring!  No harvest this season... another year and we might get a few spears in the kitchen!  The bigger of the two plants is flowering so I am contemplating collecting the seeds.

 The super short (late) Broad beans are flowering.  I don't expect many beans this year but hopefully enough to keep my dear Husband happy :-) .

The rainbow chard I popped in the front is starting to look quite happy!  We use so much of this versatile plant... it ends up in salads, with roasts, in stir-fries and often is just munched by us while on the go!

Thats it from me for now... Happy Gardening *hugs*

Sarah