Friday, August 17, 2012

Wicking Beds & Barrels for a water wise garden..

As it is getting nearer to spring I thought I would post some Wicking clips for anyone interested in making up some new beds.. There will be more posted in the future as I haven't filmed a complete clip while making a full size bed, only the barrels..

The whole idea behind the wicking system comes from a gentleman by the name of  Colin Austin...
http://waterright.com.au/wicking-bed-history.html
I came across it while we were in the tail end of a drought here in South East Queensland here in Australia & though it was one of the best ways to go to save water in a fairly large back yard veggie patch..
Wicking Barrels MK II..




The above clip is how we now make the Wicking barrels... They are a big improvement on the original design as the water holding capacity of the reservoir has doubled... As the existing barrels finish their crops they are slowly being swapped over to this design...

Wicking Beds...


I have ever only made clips after the fact with the beds so made up a bit of a sideshow clip to show how we made one of the earlier Wicking beds...



Wicking Bathtub...


This was a relative easy build with a free bath we collected from a member of a  local Free Cycle Group..  I must say the plants we had in there were probably a bit too large for the small reservoir in the bath...I think plants like small cropping herbs, leafy greens would probably do better than 5 foot tall lemongrass... Lesson learnt..


Wicking up IBC's (Intermediate bulk containers)...
These guys are a really easy build that could easily be done in a few hours if you were more organised than I...




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



Sunday, August 12, 2012

Walk about the back...

Just a quick walk around clip to show where we are up to...
 Will be spending the week planing the start of the spring patch lay out & setting up some new beds...
What Spring plans do you have ??
Have a great one...
: )»

Saturday, August 4, 2012

Srring time preps...


Bits from the patch...

We have had a great crop of Broccoli & Cauliflower this year especially in the little "white house" with only one incursion by a lone white butterfly.. I actually think it may of emerged from a chrysalis in there as we found no evidence of grubs after finding it..  We have planted out 3 lots of broccoli & caulie's with a forth batch ready to plant out now.. Shall be holding off a week or so until we the current lot of broccoli side shoots have been all picked then the bed needs a good turn & feed before the next batch goes in..

Looks like we will have a bumper crop of the Roi De Carouby snow peas this year.. We did have a small hiccup with all our saved snow peas being mixed which resulted in a crop of both the RDC & mammoth melting that were saved last year... From what I can tell even though they were planted together there is very little chance of cross fertilisation due to the way the flowers then pods form on a pea plant.. We will be planting some to make sure that they are going to grow true to type before offering them to others though..
 The honey pod & sugar snap peas have also done really well so far.. The plants starting to pump out enough pods for a meals worth every second day if the girls don't get to them first.. They have become a bit of a lunch time hit being eaten with a selection of nuts & seeds with a small handful of dried cranberries..

Spring is near, time to get busy...
Even though the summer heat appeals to the lizard in me I really must admit to looking forward to the winter cold & the crops it allows us to grow here in South East Queensland.. We are also lucky
enough to be able to grow some crops through the mild winters like sweet potato, as well as having fruit form on the tomatoes & eggplants.. Another surprise to me so far this year have been the galangal with all putting out new shoots this winter event hough the ginger & turmeric have both had a bit of die back due to the cold..







Started to sort out the bathtubs for the spring & summer crops so needed to harvest the lemongrass from the tub up the side of the house... The plant was divided & 3 were planted into a re worked wicking barrel & 8 small shoots were potted out.. To get soil for them I needed to raid the water chestnut tub where I got a bit of a surprise as some had started to shoot already..

I have a feeling that I may have planted out the water chestnuts & lemongrass it a bit to early as we have had a few nights at or bellow 0°C here... They are not looking the best at all..

Worm Bathtub farm..

Have made up a bathtub worm farm over the past week.. The stand is made from some old metal chair frames that were reborn into the Aquaponic barrel system frame & have been reincarnated once again to hold up the tub... The red side rails are from an old discarded bed frame & the bath was the old water chestnut bed.. The drainage rocks cost $7 & the weed cloth was under $2 so was a really cheap build..
Sort of forced myself to do it as I have harvested all the worms from the blue barrel farm so that can be turned into a Black Solider Fly Larvae (BSFL) farm... Once it's up & running I shall do a post on the farm & the BSFL themselves...


That's about it for now...Have a good one...
**wanders off to start worm harvesting**

: )»