How to make a straw bale garden bed.. Our 1st Lucerne/alfalfa hay bale bed..

Have wanted to make up some straw/hay bale garden beds for a while now & am happy I finely have..




The second bed is in the process of being planted & have also started a small no dig straw/hay bed for some potatoes to go into.. I love the idea of being able to grow in the straw as it slowly turns into compost & humus that can be added to other beds once it finishes breaking down...

For more regular updates & pictures from the patch come visit us on our Bits Out the Back Facebook page..
Have a great one All...

How to make an easy as worm barrel farm for lawn clippings & garden scraps..

It really can't get more simple that this barrel farm.. I call it a dump & walk barrel as that is how I feed it.. A catcher or 2 or lawn clippings get dumped into the barrels & I walk away, its as easy as that.. The prunings & old plants from the veggie bed in the patch go in whole if they are small enough or get the once over with the lawnmower to chop them up a bit if they are to large..

A great type of farm to have under a fruit tree as any nutrients that leach out will feed the tree.. One like this will be added to a new bed we are making out the front soon..

For more regular updates & pictures from the patch come visit us on our Bits Out the Back Facebook page..
Have a great one All...
R☺b..

How to plant broccoli & other brassicas..

Was blown away by how well the broccoli & cauliflower did last year after trying this simple technique.. I came across this method of planting out brassicas last year & was very pleased with the results.. The plants that were planted in loose soil only did fair to average so decided to plant them all into firm soil this season.. 

Updates on how the plants all go will be included in the Autumn & Winter walk around clips..

For more regular updates & pictures from the patch come visit us  Bits Out the Back onFace Book

Have a great one All...
: )»

Harvesting worm castings from the Bathtub Worm farm..

Decided it was time to harvest ½ of the worm castings from the bathtub farm on the weekend.. As always, I was surprised at how well they break the manure down into castings that the garden will love.. Planing on using some to make up worm cast tea in the coming weeks as well..

If you haven't seen how the worm bathtub was set up this might help.. While I was lucky enough to have enough material to make a waste high frame to sit ours in, many just sit them on bricks or small wooden stands to give them enough room to be able to collect the leachate from the plug hole in the bath..



Also did a "How & what we feed the worms" clip a while ago...
I think this is the fastest way to turn veggie scraps into a useful garden fertiliser.. I also think that it helps the worms breed faster as they are able to consume more food & are in better condition.. I could be wrong but that is my observation..


For more regular updates about the patch come visit us on our Bits Out the Back Face Book page...
Have a great one All...
: )»

How we grow Kang Kong/Chinese water spinach.. (Ipomoea aquatica)

Kang kong is a short vining, water loving plant that is used in many different Asian cuisines.. It is related to sweet potato & Morning glory with flowers very similar to both.. Mainly grown in boggy areas & have become a pest weed in some water systems where it has been introduced..Should be very easy to grow this plant in the heat we get here & can't wait to get our first large harvest..



 We are growing it as a leafy green to be included in salads & our fruit 'n' veg "Smoothies" as well as for stir fries & Asian curries..

For more regular updates about the patch come visit us at https://www.facebook.com/Bitsouttheback
Have a great one all...

:)»

Veggie garden walk through, worm barrels & saving a few Okra seeds 12th ...

Has been a tad warm here over the past week but nowhere near as bad as some of the southern states.. The garden worms chooks & fish have pulled through just fine with only one casualty (daughters pennyroyal) so happy about that..



Now the weather has cooled off a bit I will be planting out some seedlings & tackling some odd jobs to get the patch ready for Autumn.. Will be pruning the rest of the Chinese elm & some of the mango them running it through the mulcher... This will be mixed with some horse manure & left to compost a bit.. It will eventually become Autumns top up mulch for the beds...
For more regular updates about the patch come visit us at https://www.facebook.com/Bitsouttheback

Have a great one All...

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...
: )»

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**

: )»

Spring time fun & Jobbies.....

Had a great weekend in the yard doing some jobbies, socialising with ADULTS & playing with a family heirloom that has been "lent" to me...

BBQ, Good Friends & Spuds...
   My farther has passed on custodianship of the family BBQ to us...  He built this BBQ for APEX outings before I was born (40 or a few less years ago) & it is still going strong with a few minor alterations like the tin side panels being replaced with Stainless steel & some Aluminium covers to keep the plate clean when stored & not in use... It had been out of service for the past 10 or so years as family gatherings had migrated to other relatives places so it needed a bit of TLC... The plate needed a bit of a touch to remove a bit of rust build up as well as replacing the regulator & lines just to be on the safe side... Not as flash as a newer model but we know it will last another 40 or so years if looked after.. I like that we can remove the burners & use them to boil the presure cooker (when we get one) for canning our produce in the near future...

    We got to use it for the first time on Saturday when we had friends visit for a bit of socialising...
   Was a great day & got a bit of help in the yard... We needed to harvest the 4 potato bags from around the side of the house as the stalks were all dying back so the young kids all got a go at digging through the soil to see what they could find... Wasn't the best yield but we are still learning with spuds... I think the mix we used was to free draining & it was a struggle to keep the water up to them...
    Also got a bit of a hand with the framework to finish off the AP site... Can set the fish tank & other grow beds up now... Thanks Guys & Girl's...
 

Fertilisers...
   We bought a couple of bags of fertiliser last week from Safe Fertilisers as we are starting to run low on the rock dust & have a few beds/barrels that need to be revitalised before they are plated out.. The last batch we got was an all rock dust blend but decided to try a "BFA Certified"  "Enviro Blend" this time..
CBM
Chicken manure, blood & bone, and minerals. This 100% organic blend provides the full
spectrum of macro and micro elements.
N 2%,  P 2%, K 0.4%, S 2000ppm, Ca 8%, Mg 2%,  Fe 1.4ppm, Mn 370ppm,  B250ppm,  
Cu 55ppm, Zn 120ppm, Co 10ppm, Mo 40ppm, Se 3ppm, C 20%, Si 5%
Not the most pleasant smelling blend but should help kick things on a bit... Will still be using the horse manure & worm castings as added organic matter to the beds/barrels, this is just to help add a few nutrients that were used up in the last crop or just not there...
The main crop of Beetroot is not preforming as well as the others planted out at the same time & it was suggested to us that it could be a boron deficiency so they will get a nice top dress of fertiliser too...

Harvesting & Planting out...
Have been picking a fair of  Kohlrabi, Carrots, Spring Onion & Mangle to turn into coleslaw lately & it has become a bit of a favourite... 4 bas of potatoes were also harvested (see picture above) as well as the garlic that is in the clip below... The stems went a bit soft on some & others had already dried out but were missed amongst the Onions so we though it best to harvest the lot..
The Silverbeet/Chard & other leafy greens are still being used to supplement the chooks diet.. They now look forward to their morning/evening treats & come running as soon as they see us in the patch...
    Below is a list of what was planted out last night to take advantage of the full moon...
Carrots, a  mix of Nantes (Johnsons seeds- organic) & Dragon (Eden seeds) x 2 rows in Bed #1
Carrots, Mini Round (Diggers seed) x 2 rows in Bed #1
Carrots, Heirloom mixed (Diggers seed ??) x 2 rows in Bed #1
Tomato, Broad Ripple Yellow currant (Diggers ??) in Lime Tree bed...
Tomato, Wapsipinicon Peach (Diggers ??) in Lime Tree bed...
All but the Nantes & Dragon Carrots were from the gift we received from from our You Tube gardener friend Watsamadoing last week... Thanks again :D»

Garden walk through Clip...
Bit of what was said above & other natterings...

Weather...
It will start to heat up here a bit by the weekend we are told, hitting about 29°C by Friday, so we are thinking about putting up some of the shade structure to try & stop some of the Broccoli from premature bolting... Will be trying to incorporate the mesh we got to try & keep the White Cabbage Moth/Butterflies from getting to the Brassicas & depositing their eggs...




Have a great one all...
: )»

Moving on slowly...

Have knocked over few jobbies from the list ...
Clips & updates...
Aquaponic Update...

Still haven't progressed from here during the week & have a busy weekend ahead so it may have to wait a while longer...
Worm harvest...

Got the top layer of the Worm farm harvested & hope to get to the other layers in the next few weeks...
Quick wander through the patch...

This was taken last Sunday with a bit added Monday morning...

This weekend...
Hope to get all the seed planted out for the spring crop by the end of this weekend... Some will be sown directly & others will be planted into punnets... Will try & do a full update by Monday night...

Happy harvesting...
Harvest our biggest Beetroot to date & plan to use it in a Beetroot & potato salad for dinner...
The Dragon carrot is one of the biggest we have harvested so far & are very impressed with the flavour as well... The Spuds gave us around a KG from one so cant complain about that really...


Have a great one all....
: )»

Time to get going...

I just realised that we have only a few weeks to go until Spring & I really need to pull my finger out... There are are a few seeds I could start to sow in trays to get ready as well as a growing list of small to large scale projects I really need to make a start on...
IBC Aquaponic system... This one is the big one that really needs to be done but unfortunately there are a few other jobs that need to be completed in order to set it up...
Here is a list of the most important Jobbies as I see them...
# 1.Spice Wicking bed... This is going between the Chook yard & the AP system as an extra level of "scratch" protection... Don't really want Chook poo in the fish tank... Really need to get this in so we can move onto...
#2. Preparation of Aquaponic site... Part of the area where the Fish tank is going has been roughly levelled & some Besser blocks are cleaned & ready to be mortared in place, still need to pick a dozen or so up... We will be putting down some stone in the area on top of some used weed cloth & old feed bags to keep the weeds down...
#3. Cut & set up IBC's... To tell you the truth we are still a bit undecided as to which style of system to make... I like the idea of the grow beds that run on flood & drain using bell siphons that feed back into the fish tank directly with the pump running 24h... This will only need a basic pump & should be fairly cheap to build... If we go with one of the CHIFT PIST (Constant water Hight In Fish Tank, Pump In Sump Tank) system we need a pump with float switch & extra plumbing but I do like the idea of this system as the sump can be used as a separate tank for the Yabbies/Marron the real reason for getting into Aquaponics in the first place... (I don't like eating fish, go figure : D») To make it worse Backyard Aquaponics have released a Free Download Manual on how to build a basic IBC system as well as including HEAPS of the forum members own IBC systems... Heaps of ideas but really need to get it up & running for Spring...
#4. Harvest worm castings... This really needs to be done 3 weeks ago but haven't gotten around to it... A couple of new farms need to be set up too in preparation of using them as a supplemental fish food...
#5. Build Black Solider Fly Larvae farm... This will be a great addition to the patch... These guys will look after all our meat scraps as well as veggie scraps... After our Dog Bunny passed we have been cringing as we toss out all meat scraps into the general waste bins... I see it as a waste of energy that could be used to feed other animals or plants... The Larvae can be used as chook or fish food& the wast they leave behind can be put through the worm farm...
#6. Age/Compost more Manure... Will be needing a fair amount of this for Jobbie #7... I almost bout a $30 120L composer new last night & am glad I didn't now... Will be pulling out the Carboy barrels again & might even make up a wire unit lined with weed matting... Will need to get some more blood & bone to add to the blend...
#7. Front yard Wicking Garden... We are letting the girls have a bed each in the front yard as well as a few for ourselves & a few barrels... Looking at some dwarf stone fruit for the barrels as well as a grape vine... Need to start to look at providing more of our own fruit...
There are more jobbies to do but that is a list of the ones I feel are important to get us off to a good start for the spring/Summer growing season...

Oh, & during all this it will still be life as usual with the girls schooling & general house duties or my chain will be shortened again by Queen B☼......

Feel free to crack the whip & keep me motivated...
Have a great one all...
: )»
**Removes self from Puta & makes a start...**

Catching up...

Have been a tad slack with the blog with all that's been going on so though it was about time to have a crack... 1st up, here is a post on our other blog with a few shots of our Wedding.... (click on "Wedding"..)
Now to the garden....

Gates...

The 2 side gates finally have been fixed.... Both are a temporary fix but should last for a few years... I think they were mentioned in a walk trough Clip last week...



Mushrooms...

The first flush of Swiss Brown Mushrooms have been harvested...We bought a kit from a local nursery, set it up about a month ago & forgot about it...  B☼ harvested just over ½ KG of fungus on Friday night... The top layer of peat has dried out a bit so it got a small watering & is being misted daily now but fear we may have neglected them for to long...



Out with the old...
A decision was made to remove old Goliath to help make room for the reception marquee so a new one was made out of bits of leftover play equipment... Not as big as the old one **Sigh** but will still hold 2 loads from our 7.5kg washer... It looks like we will be making a proper more permanent line in this style up the side of  the house...

Quick update clip...

When wicking beds go BAD !!!!
This is what was found in & under the plastic liner in Bed #5 when it was removed....

Harvests....
We have been getting heaps of fresh veg from the patch at the moment...
Left is what the Raspberries looked like before the wedding & the guests got to sample the fruit... Getting ready to cut it right back after the last 3 or fruit ripen... Right is the Swiss brown we picked on Friday....


Left is the huge Kohlrabi that has been used in 2 stews, last nights Chook & tonight Beef one... Right is a shot of Mangles in the patch... After reading a thread on Simple Savings we "thinned" some out last night & they tasted great in the stew... The leaves make a great Spinach substitute...

Have finally started to harvest some mature Carrots over the past week or so & must say, we are most Chuffed with the results... No bitter taste as some have told me their home grown ones have had... We will be making up some more Carrot seed tape tomorrow so another batch can go in...
The Beans, Snow & Sugar snap peas have all gone crazy... We are harvesting about 500g of each every 3 or so days... Think the Snow peas my be nearing their end but have plans for that bed so all is good...

Right... Tonight's Beef stew with Carrots, Beetroot, Kohlrabi, Beans, Snow & Sugar snap Peas from the patch.... Very Tasty!!!!!!


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

Organising the Yard...

This weekend was meant to be spent getting the back yard ready to hold our reception in it... Saturday morning saw B☼ & I wander around & find some locations to put the migrating Sweet Potato bed & spots for 2 barrels that will have our new Berries in them... This took longer than we thought it would due to grub harvesting from the Brassicas, spending some quality time with our Pumpkin dwelling Lizard friend & general garden maintenance...  After that was done with I set about finishing off the Worm harvest from the barrel that had been flooded... Some timber was then routed in preparation to be installed as chair rails in the dining room then ½ a Wicking Barrel was put together & placed down the back to plant the Blueberry bush into... Not a bad days work but still had heaps to do Sunday, before & after a trip to visit the celebrant... That was until I reached for some Muffin trays to make some mini Sticky Date puddings in & sliced open the knuckle of the index finger of my right hand... Not a deep cut but it is in a position that I can't bend my finger for the next 4-6 days so all the little jobs that were planed to be finished during the week like the Wicking Barrels, painting the back stairs & fitting the chair rail & painting the Dining room will now have to be put off until next weekend...
Such is really... At least I have time to sit & blog I suppose... : )»

Worm Barrel...
I started to harvest the worms from the half barrel farm Monday last week but got side tracked with the solar panel installation & painting the back stair area... The idea of the barrel farm was to have no drainage & run it as a "dry farm"... The tower farm was run like this last time as the semi composted horse manure blend that went in there was moist enough... The problem came when we had some heavy rain accompanied with strong wind gust.. Some of the water from when I water blasted the back stairs ended up in there as well but not much...

I finished going through about 3 quarters of it & used the last ¼ to top up the trays in the tower farm... It is a bit hard to gauge how many worms were in there by weight as I probably pulled out five 5-25mm (1/5 - 1inch) long worms for every adult + the hundreds if of eggs as well... Was very slow going as it was basically mud...

Solar Panels...
Just a quick clip on the Solar set up we had installed just over a week ago...

Still need the get the Feed in Meter installed by Energex but it is good to see the meter running backwards...


Wednesday Walk through with Potato & Tomato update by Moo...

Moo took the camera for this one & I only butted in once...
Or  ½ a dozen times, but who's counting...

This weeks harvest...

This week we got heaps of green beans, a few Eggplants, a couple Kohlrabi, Mangel leaves, a Mignonette Lettuce, a few handfuls of Snow Peas, A couple of Beetroot, Assorted herbs, & a very small Sugarloaf Cabbage...

 

 B☼ made a great Warm salad last night to go with a roast Leg of Lamb using Our Beetroot, Sweet Potato Kohlrabi, Sweet Basil & Dill... She also added some Asparagus, Capsicum & Red Onion we bought at the shops...

That's about enough nattering from me I think...
Have a great one all...
 : )»

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...
: )»

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...
 : )»