Thursday, May 22, 2008

Garden Gaurdians

Today we had our first veggie protector make it's home on our cabbage.




And just look at our carrots....that worm juice is amazing!

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Planting potatoes

Today we planted our potatoes that have sprouted. Despite all our best attempts to find seed potatoes, we failed so have sprouted out own and now we will see what happens.

Due to space constraints we are using tires. So lay the tyre down on a solid surface. Place a layer of potting soil at the bottom and nestle your sprouted spuds in.



Cover the spuds with a good layer of compost.





Place another tyre on top.



Ideally they should now grow and when the stem is above the height of the FIRST tyre we will add more potting soild and compost around the stem to force tubers. This will then continue for a 4 tyre stack.

According to my book this should yield us 5 - 10 kgs of new potatoes within 20 weeks. We have two such stacks going and if it works will do more.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Blame it on age

Maybe it's because I am getting old :-0 or maybe it's just because I have too much to remember already...but we are planting things and then I am forgetting what it was when I see the shoots appear out of the earth.

So my son has made me some signs so that we can label our plants as we so the seed.



The seeds that we have started to sow in trays are now ready for transplanting which means that this weekend we will sow another set so that we will have new seedlings every 4 weeks.



Besides this we are waiting for our "garden guy's" return so that he can come and remove the bay tree and grass so that we can get moving on the next 4 beds. Winter is here in the Southern Hemisphere and the rain and wind in full force so our days in the garden have been limited.

We have started another compost heap this time only using our peels and leaves...and we have PLENTY of leaves from the Stinkwood that is pelting us with them right now.

Monday, May 5, 2008

Yipppee - we are growing!

My daughter's seeds have started to sprout after 1 week of tender loving care! We have scattered crushed eggs shells around the seedlings to protect from snails, given lots of water and thought good thoughts for them....

CARROTS



SPINACH



we have also sown other seeds into the empty punnets which we will repeat monthly so that we eventually have a constant cycle of seeds ready to plant out.

This past week we got hold of a garden service to quote us on the removal of a huge bay tree and the grass and root mat so we can lay down another 5 door sized beds...

Saturday, May 3, 2008

Great Website

I thought I would share this fabulous website...the pictures just make me drool....I can't wait til our little food garden starts producing!

I also think his pictures on building a raised bed are wonderful for visual learners like myself and they are also a solution for my very established garden with all the root mat...

http://www.vegetable-garden-guide.com/

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Slog work



Today we had to get rid of all the branches that we cut down to make space for the first bed.

First our son sawed the big branches into firewood sized pieces, then I cut the other smaller branches into single sticks. Thereafter we all took turns feeding and ancient rusty shredder the small branches and leaves. The shredded material has formed the beginnings of a second compost heap. The firewood is now stacked and ready for winter.

This was really a slog job, totally unejoyable and very noisy...but it's done!