Hydroponic rehash!

Well this weekend I have been busy... my hydroponics had been neglected with all the family commitments and sad times we had had.  So this weekend I decided it was time to rectify that and get proper fresh salad back in our kitchen (rather than the compost from the shops)... so the top 4 pipes and the two black plastic grow beds are being fed from the 2/3 barrel which is hydroponically fed.    The lower two pipes are being fed from the small blue reservoir which will have fish in once I have built a solids filter and the water has aged.

 This method of growing via hydroponics and Nutrient Film Technique (NFT) and grow beds last year gave us all our greens, herbs, a few strawberries and rhubarb for months.

So at the top "jungle" are chives which need separating and cutting and drying as they are so happy they are breaking out of their cups!  Old basil green and red going to seed but still good and some oregano which has been completely cut back.  The lower cups have seedlings of rocket (arugula), cos, mixed lettuce and rainbow chard.  The seedling have the potting mix / fertiliser washed off then they are put into cups that have holes pierced in with a red hot fork all over and filled with expanded clay.

 In the barrel there is some Kang Kong that was trailing across the ground which I am letting take root, then I will pass it on to a fellow gardener.  There is no solids filter on this system due to there being no fish in it however I am considering adding one to keep the insides of the pipes a little less silty.  The roots catch all the small particulates and have to be rinsed.

 Kang Kong - also acting as rafts for the bees that come to drink. The basil has been neglected and gone to seed but is still quite usable and extremely pungent!

 The new system which will have fish in it.  Now yesterday the boys were busy whittling / creating / destroying / making mess.. and made some water channels with my bamboo... so waste not want not... I added a tray with some chocolate mint and expanded clay under the out feed of the pipe.  This will help disperse the water making more droplets and more oxygen into the water.  It also casts shade to help stop algae.  The "grass" is water chestnuts and the long tendrils is orange sweet potato that has popped up in back yard and was in the way so its here until it gives some roots... then will fine a new home.

 Now in the aquaponics I split the 4 pots of strawberries from up the top and put them into pots... and last night they had strawberries on them... juicy red strawberries... I came out this morning and there were no juicy red strawberries.  Now I blamed Balla (in the background) until I watched Rex - the dog who will pick out every vegetable and piece of fruit from his dinner gingerly pick a fruit right in front of me!  Being extremely careful not to pull the plant or dislodge the cup! LoL - I have now made a barrier as I actually want my fruit!  I am so glad I found my strawberries alive up the top hidden among the chives... I so thought I had lost them!

 Both my Hydroponics and Aquaponics attract the bee's from the hives at the end of the road... they all make a bee-line to get a drink here before going on to the wild flowers in the conservation land next door.  The word seems to have got around that I am no threat and am good at surf rescue when they fall in in the ponds lol... These insects are very welcome!

 In the top grow bed / box had tomatoes in which came and went - with harvest but as they were growing I stuck a cutting of kang kong and vietnamese mint... this JUNGLE is after harvesting for stir fry! The grow beds also work to filter the water although this box needs pulling down, the plants splitting and replanting so they have room to grow.

 

This box... haha this is my watercress... or should I say WAS?  3 very fat caterpillars and some stealthy slugs who were under the clay!  I have some new watercress but I have a tray of heavy iron slug pellets sitting in here just to be sure.  

Since we are on the subject of creepy crawlies... I lifted the lid on the bottom layer of my worm farm that I only filled with worm food a week ago... they have been busy!  I am very happy to see so many happy workers.

Ok that's it from me tonight... Happy Gardening,

*hugs* Sarah

A busy day - garden make over.

I finally got into the garden again!  I am struggling to fit in house, garden, kids and study so I today I decided to dig deep (so to speak) and get my garden back!

This morning we started like this:

What a MESS!  Lots of veges gone to seed (on purpose honest!) invasion of winter grass and lawn grass.

By lunch time I had actually made progress!  Thanks to Chris for cable tying my arch back together... I am just not that tall... and the bolts keep coming undone!

 Still a way to go at lunch time but definitely progress made.... so onward I went... thanks to Brandon for hoofing the bags of potting mix for me... I got the Pineapple Quince into a big bin - used for the curry leaf tree before it moved into the ground; We potted up the bay leaf tree as it had outgrown its pot and was suffering and then put a white grape in by the second arch.

Much better!  I still need to dig out some grass; reposition the bramble berries; pot up the mango, dragon fruit and plant some more plants.  Oh and concrete in the mint bed... I will get there one day I am sure.

Happy Gardening *hugs*

Sarah

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

Strawberry Fever!

Well the boys and I went strawberry picking!

 A fabulous day and at only $10 per big black box a cheap family day out.  So this is what we started with:

 That is 2 trays less the ones that we ate 25.4kg.

 So we set to work... ok I set to work... Jams, preserves, cordials, dried and frozen.  We then went and got two more trays since we are stocking up the store cupboard.

 B helped make a jelly tart (dairy free version of a cheesecake-ish)  Digestive biscuits and dairy free margarine base chilled then sliced strawberries then strawberry jelly (jello)... no artificial colours of course!  Set in the fridge and disappeared really fast.  Yesterday I broke out the puff pastry and egg slicer (best way to slice strawberries ever!) thats it... that is all the ingredients for the pretty flower / star pastries ;-)

This morning I moved all the strawberry jars into the laundry - going into a cupboard in here as my kitchen is *small*. 

 Jam's on the left... the Ball Pectin worked the best.  CSR Jam Sugar did not set even though I followed the directions so it will go into cakes and on ice-cream.  Jamsetta gave mixed results too... so definitely sticking to Ball Pectin next time!  On the right - Preserved strawberries... really yummy and can be turned into Jelly (Jell-o) easy peasy.

 Left - middle jars are Strawberries with Balsamic Vinegar and Black Pepper.  Sounds funky but is delicious.  Right - 3 jars of dried strawberry "chips".  Ended up using the oven on 50C - 75C fan forced.  Much quicker than the drier and leaves them with more flavour.

 In the corner is dried rosemary from the garden... have lots more to dry lol.  I will use this in savoury scones.  The Preserved Strawberries here have a dash of Cognac in them for something different.  Two of the smaller jars are the Juice left over from this batch that I sieved and turned into American style "Jelly".

The rest of the left over "juice"/syrup from the strawberry conserve got sieved put in a bottle as cordial.  The boys definitely wont be lacking vitamin C!

So since we outgrew the half a shelf in the kitchen we decided to consolidate and move all our preserving efforts... Strawberry - everything; Salt Lemon Pickle; Nectarine Jam; Peach Jam; Spiced Nectarine Jam; Black Marmalade (brown sugar!); Lemon Marmalade; Honey Nectarine Cordial and a few other bits and pieces.  

So you might be wondering why this is on our Vege-patch page.  Well the whole point of our vege-patch is to provide for our family good fresh food.  We have a kitchen garden and preserving our harvest where ever it is harvested from is part of this.

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

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