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

Hydroponics Strawberries and Rhubarb!

After cutting back the self seeding rocket I was able to get some pictures of the sumptuous 

 The Rhubarb is looking healthier than my 2 year old Rhubarb in the ground and this has been in less than 6 months!  Some of the stalks are looking good enough to eat!  The oregano is so prolific you can barely see the pipe in places!

Grand Pop's Tomatoes... well lots of the leaves have browned and gone crunchy but lots more are growing.  LOTS of fruit are coming in and so far so good... NO blossom end rot! :-D

That's it from the hydroponics side of things for today as the rest of the garden is in need of attention!

Happy Gardening *hugs*

Sarah