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

A new home.

Today was a great day... too busy for photos but a great day.

T and Chris fixed my garden arches and they are now tentatively in their new homes awaiting clearing of the previous tenants; carrots and radishes going to seed.

B and I dug the hole for our old curry leaf tree which has been living in a plastic garbage bin for about 6 years!  So today the old lady got a new home complete with layers of Rooster Booster, Organic Slow release fertiliser and 'Blood and Bone'. mixed with layers of sandy soil.  We watered her in a lot and gave her a quick tidy up.  She then got a good bucket of worm tea to perk her up and make her feel better!  Fingers crossed the old girl recovers... she has become a part of our family being planted by Nanny from Grand-pop's garden which makes this tree a special link.  This Curry leaf tree survived a move from Northampton all the way to Hedland and the heat up there for 6 and a half years and then moved to Perth in the middle of winter!!!  A tough old stick... literally lol.

I glued together my half barrel worm farm with the poly pipe glue.  Filled it up and watered it only to find I hadn't tightened the base enough and it sprinkled all over my sneakers lol!  Fixed now (hopefully) and I will check it out in the morning, if all is good I will give a few of my red wigglers a new home :-)

B and I were a little upset on inspecting the hydroponics... we found Grand-pop's Super Tom's decimated by caterpillars... holes in many of the fruit that were looking so promising.  While I have been very tolerant up to this point, rarely spraying / using anything... this meant war!  Dipel has now been deployed all over my poor suffering tomatoes.

We picked about a dozen strawberries - small ones from the hydroponics and big fat ones from the self watering pot!

In the mean time Chris blower vac'd the back patio and cleaned up all the mess from all the deliveries and projects... it is really starting to take shape out there now!

Still on my to do list is a truck load of planting; digging the bramble berries into the ground before the summer heat; potting up the grape, fig, bay leaf and mango; concreting in the pavers for the new mint beds, expanding the front garden beds and planting out some of our potted plants.

Happy Gardening!

Sarah *hugs*

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

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

More treasure!

My youngest garden gnome and I have had a busy and productive day!  While I planted 16 Rainbow Chard, 8 Kale and 8 Cauliflowers into the front bed B was busy planting snow peas along the fence and then went treasure hunting... oh boy did he find some. A 2.3kg Sweet Potato hiding near the passionfruit vine... and some smaller ones that apparently needed harvesting now! :-)  Can anyone confirm for us these are japanese sweet potatoes?  Bright pink outside and white inside.

On my way out to the worm farm for some castings for the new seedlings I spied MORE flowers on Pop's Super Toms.  Shhhh NO-ONE tell them its winter! ;-)

I definitely need to make some watercress soup as my one little pot is now escaping from its grow bed since it's so happy!

Then I lifted the top floor off of the worm farm and went for the good level down the bottom... OHHH the whole thing was ready!  There were only two twigs and some egg shells left unprocessed in this whole layer and I only fished out two worms which were returned to the currently active layer.

It seems Rex and Balla Balla have found some treasure too!  Sadly it's the chook poo I put on the Curry leaf, Bay and Mulberry trees!  

Now keep your fingers crossed my seedlings don't get eaten by the crickets, slugs, snails, green caterpillars, hair black caterpillars, millepedes or salters lol... they have all discovered that we have a delicious smorgasbord on offer all year round.  Now if only the dogs would eat them!

Happy Gardening,
*hugs* Sarah

Day 9...

G'day... today has been a run around day...   7am I got an update from the boys... more silverbeet had come up, more peas and there was a strawberry nearly ready (no really?)... I am so glad the boys are catching the gardening bug... then it was "Can we go get the worm farm yet?"  errr not at 7am on Sunday ;-)

Still no curry leaf tree seeds germinated.... *waiting*

 This morning we headed up the hill to meet a lovely lady named Sarah who had an old worm farm that she didn't use anymore.  The boys met two chooks and then had to figure out how to fit the worm farm in the back of the car.  They did an awesome job!

We got down the hill and we had a go at putting the worm farm together and then called in the reinforcements... Thank you Christopher for screwing the legs on the worm farm!

Thomas supervised!

Next was a quick clean up of the garage so that I could take a shelf unit out the back to make a greenhouse... then a quick trip to bunnings as we wanted a tap on the worm farm to keep the mozzies away and some coir to use as worm bedding.  We had a quick drive by the weigh bridge but it was closed so no worms today... hopefully tomorrow!

The new tap fitted on the worm farm...

 Not exactly what I was trying to photograph!  

The coir block swelling in the dogs water bowl... since it needed a clean out their "little" bowl was the perfect place ;-)

 Worm bed made :-)

 Top layer on... now I just need a lid...

In between all of that I began making a greenhouse but time got the better of me today... as I know it is only going to get colder and the boys want to grow Grandpop's Tomatoes and Chilli's for Dad NOW  I figured I better give them a fighting chance.  Clear plastic bags and duct tape.... what more could I ask for ;-)

Have a good one... Sarah *hugs*