Wednesday walk through & future plans...

Walkthrough...
Just a quick one as not a lot has happened this week due to the holidays which meant Visitors & Visiting...

On a sad note...
I think we may be pulling out Bed #5...
On a happier note, Wit is going to be replaced with an Aquaponics set up...

**Does happy dance**

Have been reading up on a lot of information on fish farming & Aquaponics as well as watching the multitude of videos available on the net... It will be good to grow some of our own protein... Due to local regulations meat Chickens are out of the questions... We are hoping to include the worms in the system as food as well as active participants within the grow beds... We purchased 3 IBC (Intermediate Bulk Container) tanks to turn into Fish tanks & Grow beds... I wont be rushing the project due to upcoming nuptials but will be spending most of the honeymoon building the system... Maybe... If I'm allowed... 
I could Rabbit on about it for ages but shan't due to the fear of loosing my hairy noggin...

Have a great one all...
: )»

Odd jobbies...

Seeds...

   Finely got around to harvesting the seed from the long purple Eggplant that was on the bush in the patch... After looking in the Seed Savers book we decided to just scrape the seeds out rather than cutting into cubes, whizzing in a blender then floating the seeds out... We also purchased a large white variety at the markets on Sunday so some seeds will be collected from it soon...
   I think I may have cooked the last lot of seeds we sowed in punnets after putting them in a make shift grow box... Some more were sown in other punnets over the long weekend...
In punnets I planted,
Broccoli, Albert x 6
Cauliflower, All Year Round x 6
Cauliflower, Purple Sicilian x 6
Kohlrabi,  White Vienna x 6
Kohlrabi,  Purple Vienna x 6
Lettuce, Mignonette mixed x6
Cabbage, Sugarloaf x 6
Kale, Dwarf Green x 3
Kale Red Russian x 3
Eggplant, Rosa Bianca x 4
Eggplant Udumalapet x 4
Parsley, Italian flat Leaf x 6
These will just be left in a sunny spot in the yard in a tray to germinate...
I also sowed 6 or 7 Blue Lake climbing beans under the trellis in Bed #8 after pulling out the Cucumbers... They just were not preforming well which I think is due to the Tomatoes that grew there before them... Not very friendly to each other those 2 plants...

Compost & Worms...
We harvested all the larger fruit from the Zucchini's to make up a batch of sauce & found 3 to be fairly badly blown with some sort of fruit fly... Would be nice to be able to spray the garden knowing the Neem is going to stick & do the job it should...
Such is as they didn't get wasted & were turned into worm food...

These guys are mating & increasing in volume so fast that B☼ is thinking about getting a bathtub so we can increase the output of castings for the patch & to help some others out... I have 3 bags of composted manure blend to feed them as soon as they have finished feasting on the current batch... The 8 bags of manure I was ageing for a few weeks has now been blended with Blood 'n' Bone & cracker dust then added to the drums for3-4 weeks... I used some of the leftover compost & castings solids/slops from the compost tea to help speed things along with it's added beneficial bacteria... This is the first time I have screened the manure before mixing it so it will be interesting to see if that helps with the process at all...

Have a great one all...
: )»

Wednesday Walk through the Veggi patch + Buckets...

Wicking Vs Global Buckets...
Have been watching a few clips on You Tube on the Earth Boxes & the DIY versions including the Global Buckets... I have decided to give the Global Buckets a shot as I can see the merits of the system... I wanted to do a comparison between the Global & Wicking buckets just to see which method will produce the best crops for us due to the limited garden space I am allowed...

Will be following the Buckets progress in the weekly Walk through the patch just to show the growth between the 3 lots of plants...

Walk through the Veggie Patch...

It has been 7 days since the seeds were planted into punnets & placed into the mini makeshift hot box but still no sign of any shoots so a bit disappointed there...
In the Box I put,
6 Purple Cauliflower
6 Sugarloaf Cabbage
3 Dwarf Kale
3 Red Russian Kale
3 Yellow Capsicum
4 Perennial Capsicum
4 Udumalapet Eggplant
We have had cooler nights so a Styrofoam Hot Box may be built to give them a kick start...
 
New Seeds...
We received some more seeds from Eden Seeds this week...
Snake Bean, Black seeded
Bean, Blue Lake climbing (organic)
Eggplant, Rosa Bianca (organic)
Eggplant Udumalapet
Cauliflower, All Year Round
Cucumber, Muncher Burpless
Cabbage Walking stick...

The a few seeds of the Walking Stick Cabbage, 2 beans, Cauliflower & the Rosa Bianca Eggplant will be planted out into punnets today... Will be a tight squeeze in the patch but not too worried as there are 4 Wicking barrels that can be made up if need be + the old Sweet Potato bed can be cleaned out...


I have been told no more gardening until some chairs get fixed & a chair rail goes up in the dining room... Must get to it me thinks...

Have a great one all...

: )»

Living Strawberry Wall...

Living Strawberry Wall...
This was inspired by a thread on Simple Savings... Thanks for posting the question Aaron & inspiring me to have a go...
A few weeks ago I ordered 8 Strawberry "Joy" runners from Green Harvest with plans to plant them into a ½ a 44 gallon drum we found... Unfortunately I was so impressed with the way the Worms ate through the Horse manure compost that I turned it into another Worm farm leaving no place for the Strawberries until a came across the above Simple Savings thread...
I think vertical gardens are great idea.  We have grown Strawberries vertically, with limited success in the past, using 90mm PVC pipe in a Hydroponic garden we had many moons ago... I do think that this method of vertical growing will prove to be a much better way to grow in limited space & can't wait to harvest our 1st bowl of fruit...

We had most of the bits left over from other projects for the frame except for the zip ties...
We did have to buy a 15L bag of Vermiculite (Left), 3 x Coconut coir blocks (Right), & use 30L of potting mix we had under the house to fill the grow box as well as about 30L of our own Worm castings...
The Coconut Coir was soaked in a Seasol solution to help add nutrients into the mix...


Bellow is the estimated/invoiced prices...
2meters of chain $16.00
Zip ties $2.40
Vermiculite $14
Coconut Coir $8.50
30L Searles Premium potting mix  $14.00
8 Strawberries, "Joy" + delivery $16.45
1 Strawberry, "Pink" $4.00
 Grand total of..... $75.35 AU
At today's prices for Strawberries, $5.00 per 250g punnet (as seen the local Stupidmarkets), it works out that we need to harvest 3.77kg of fruit for the wall to pay for itself... May take a while but I am hopeful that it will pay for itself before December...
Will post walk through up date before Wednesday hopefully...

Have a great one...
 : )»

Garden/Jobbie update...

New Worm Farm...

½ the Worms we harvested on the weekend are now in a new home, the ½ barrel we found at the local nature reserve... We are using an old fly screen frame with black builders plastic in place of the screen as a lid... They appear to be happy in there so all is good... The other ½ were put back in the 3 tiered farm...



Transplants & Seeds...
4 Passion fruits were taken out of the old Sweet Potato bed on Sunday, 1 was planted in the new Passion fruit barrel in the Chook yard as a back up & the others were potted out along with some that we planted a while back to give to family members...
A few punnets of Broccoli, Kale & Purple Cauliflowers will be sown out tomorrow just to cover any failures that may happen & for when we clear out Bed #5... Also planting some climbing Beans on the Cucumber trellis as soon as the seed arrives...  

Walk through Update...
Had to cut this one up a bit as I was rambling on just a tad... Hopefully I shall get better at this so the clips run a bit smoother... 

 
Have a great one all...
: )»

Compost & Worms...

Compost Screen...

Made an alteration to the compost screen by installing a larger gauge (right) mesh as the smaller gauge (left) was clogging up far to much which made the process rather long... I screened 3 of the drums yesterday & the end product still comes out fairly fine with no large "clumps"... This makes it great for breaking up the soil structure in the beds... I also think that it will make great bedding for the worm farms...
I am going to screen the next batch of manure before I add it to the barrel to see if I can get a more consistent "cooking" of the blend... Being horse manure I'm not to worried about burning the plants more so trying to cook any worm drench out that the horses may have been medicated with that can kill our little fellas... It is also a good time to add the Blood n Bone & cracker dust to help feed the bacteria that aid in the process...

Worm Farm...

The old farm has had a composted horse manure blend in it for a month now & was harvested today...  We got at lest double the amount of worms back out of there compared to what was added as well as many, MANY more eggs than we could of anticipated... It took about a month for them  to "work through" the compost so was most impressed with that...



We came across something we have never seen before so made a clip (sorry guys)  as well...

A batch of compost blend that I screened yesterday was added to the farm & the ½ barrel we found a while back... A makeshift cover has gone on the ½ barrel for now but that should be remedied during the week... I think we will be putting all the composted horse manure through the worm farms from now on & the big blue barrel can be the food scraps...

Have a great one all...

: )»

Update Walk through the patch 5th of April...

Update Video... 
Another walk through the yard...

Compost Tea...
Oops....Forgot include the Tea into the Video... I did up a smaller, more concentrate batch using the air stone & molasses... I didn't really notice a difference between the control plants & the watered ones this week but will give it 3 more weeks/batches of the tea & then report back...

Other bits...
 There are a few jobbies I need to finish off that were not done on the weekend like potting out the Pineapple & removing some shade cloth but should have them knocked off by the weekend...

Harvested to first of this batch of Zucchini yesterday along with a Cucumber & 2 smallish Eggplants... The Zucchini & Eggplant are going into a sauce in about 10 min... : )»
We had some soil & sand delivered to make up some more Wicking barrels & accidentally got too much sand so it looks like we might just have to build another bed in the next few weeks... Such a shame... Hope B☼ doesn't mind...                 **very cheeky GRIN**
We put the batch of manure we had into the barrels last weekend so got 8 more bags on Friday... B☼ hasn't seen them as of yet..  Have also thought up another stage in the compost screening process, shall be built later this week, that should make the job of breaking it down faster...
We are also putting the finishing touches on our first pond in the garden which should be stocked with some Pacific Blue Eye fish & some plants later today....
**Does BIG HAPPY DANCE**

That's about it for now...
Have a great one all....

: )»

Wicking Barrel construction...

Made up the Passion Fruit Wicking Barrel today & a bit of a video...

More info can be found on this blog HERE, which includes an alternate way of installing the outlet pipe, & HERE which is an entry on how we made our second bed...

A few sites that got me started on the Wicking systems are Easy grow Vegetables.com & Scarecrow's Garden Blog... Both were great sources of information & even got the idea for the Shade structure from the Easy Grow site...
Hope that helps any interested persons...
 Have a great one all.....
: )»

Jobbies for the patch....

WOO HOO !!!!!

I have the day to myself tomorrow so I shall be doing all the little jobbies around the yard I have put on hold because of rain or other disruptions...
There are seeds to sow, plants to plant, Barrels to Wick, a pond to make & a little bit of landscaping to do...
I have an inkling that the onions seeds I have planted out on the 17 & 18th oh march may have failed as I have only seen 1 variety sprout.... It may just be me being impatient but am going to plant out some punnets of seed just in case... They wont go to waste as they will just be popped in throughout the patch & yard if the others have failed...

List of jobbies.... Shall come back & mark these once they are completed...
- Pot out Pineapple top
- Plant out Elephant & Glen Large Garlic  Saturday With B☼
- Plant out Dill with Cucumbers  Monday afternoon
-Sow Broccoli seed in with Cucumbers Monday afternoon
- Sow onion & Carrot tape in bathtub bed Saturday afternoon
- Transplant B☼'s Comfrey & some Aloe vera around the Lemon Tree
- Re pot Amish Paste Tomatoes the same way Ray does on his Praxxus You Tube channel Monday afternoon
- Pot up Chilli seedlings
- Watch countless more You Tube gardening clips Might wait till after jobbies are done...
- Wick up a garden bed for family member
- Investigate for root growth on the Eggplant, Sacred Basil & Tomato cuttings we took on the 17th of March & re pot if needed
-Cut down Barrels, wash then make 3 Wicking Barrels & 1 pond from them (Video on Wicking Barrels on this in post above...) Friday & Saturday afternoons
- Attach wire to the top of chook yard roof Saturday afternoon
- Plant out Panama Red Passion fruit in Wicking Barrel in chook Yard Saturday afternoon
- Make up more Compost Tea after current brew is used Saturday afternoon Monday afternoon
- Harvest top tray of Castings from old Worm farm
- Remove some of the shade cloth
- Pot up Lemongrass for friends Monday afternoon

That's all I can think of for now but shall add extra when I think of them as there is always more...

Pale-headed Rosella...

We got a visit from this lovely yesterday so thought I would  share... They normally visit in pairs but this one was flying solo so may not of found a mate as of yet...

Have a great one all...
: )»