Monday, February 24, 2014
Everything is coming up Roses
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
What does that word mean
ever wondered if there was a term for a particular event. like the smell of rain after a period of dry weather. well there is such a word and right now I can hardly wait.
Petrichor, the smell of rain on dry ground.
Petrichor, the smell of rain on dry ground.
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Garden Quotes and Funny sayings
Gardening requires lots of water - most of it in the form of perspiration. ~Lou Erickson.
There can be no other occupation like gardening in which, if you were to creep up behind someone at their work, you would find them smiling. ~Mirabel Osler
in every gardener there is a child who believes in The Seed Fairy. ~Robert Brault.
God made rainy days so gardeners could get the housework done. ~Author Unknown
"A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill except for learning how to grow in rows."
- Doug Larson
A toddler who was found chewing on a slug. After the initial surge of disgust the parent said, "Well, what does it taste like?" "Worms," was the reply.
Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes. ~Author Unknown
There can be no other occupation like gardening in which, if you were to creep up behind someone at their work, you would find them smiling. ~Mirabel Osler
in every gardener there is a child who believes in The Seed Fairy. ~Robert Brault.
God made rainy days so gardeners could get the housework done. ~Author Unknown
"A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill except for learning how to grow in rows."
- Doug Larson
A toddler who was found chewing on a slug. After the initial surge of disgust the parent said, "Well, what does it taste like?" "Worms," was the reply.
“A single rose can be my garden...a single friend, my world.”
The best things that can come out of the garden are gifts for other people.
Jamie Jobb
A person who loves his or her work Is like a plant in the right spot: Their growth is maximized and the yield is greatest.
Jeff Cox
Who has learned to garden who did not at the same time learn to be patient.
H.L.V. Fletcher
There can be no other occupation like gardening in which, if you were to creep up behind someone at their work, you would find them smiling.
Mirabel Osler
In gardens, beauty is a by-product. The main business is sex and death.
Sam Llewelyn
Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes. ~Author Unknown
How to sow or transplant vegetables in straight rows
Every wondered how to lay out the vege garden rows and get the transplanted plants or seeds that you sow to grow in straight rows.
OK, get yourself a section of reinforcing mesh or a section of stiff wire mesh , it doesn't need to be a large piece. Lay it over the area that you are planning out and sow the seeds in the middle of the squares. Transplanted seedlings the same, just make the hole for the seedling and pop it in, press the soil back around it and continue on. Fill all the spaces where you plan to have the plants grow. Remember when laying out the section of mesh to leave a space to move around in and to separate different plants from each other. some plants will require a larger growing space and depending on the mesh size your may have just one plant per 300mm of mesh squares.
When each section is planted, remove the mesh and relocate it over the next section of beds to be planted up.
If the area is large you could run a string line to marry up the side of the mesh each time to ensure that the blocks of plantings continue in a straight line.
A good Idea is to make the longest side follow the contour of the land.
Water in the new seedlings.
Place the labels with variety and date of transplanting. I use T1 for seed to transplant out. T2 if the seedlings have been sown enmasse then pricked out into tiny pots before moving them up a size and then planting into the garden beds. ( Use a chinagraph pencil or paint pen so the writing lasts through the season.)
The wire mesh can be hung up after use. or used as a support for beans as they grow.
A support for shade cloth to protect plants from the heat. Re-use and Re-use and Re-use .
I hope you found this helpful and that you enjoy the straighter lines in your vege garden!
Cheers,
L passionateaboutplants
OK, get yourself a section of reinforcing mesh or a section of stiff wire mesh , it doesn't need to be a large piece. Lay it over the area that you are planning out and sow the seeds in the middle of the squares. Transplanted seedlings the same, just make the hole for the seedling and pop it in, press the soil back around it and continue on. Fill all the spaces where you plan to have the plants grow. Remember when laying out the section of mesh to leave a space to move around in and to separate different plants from each other. some plants will require a larger growing space and depending on the mesh size your may have just one plant per 300mm of mesh squares.
When each section is planted, remove the mesh and relocate it over the next section of beds to be planted up.
If the area is large you could run a string line to marry up the side of the mesh each time to ensure that the blocks of plantings continue in a straight line.
A good Idea is to make the longest side follow the contour of the land.
Water in the new seedlings.
Place the labels with variety and date of transplanting. I use T1 for seed to transplant out. T2 if the seedlings have been sown enmasse then pricked out into tiny pots before moving them up a size and then planting into the garden beds. ( Use a chinagraph pencil or paint pen so the writing lasts through the season.)
The wire mesh can be hung up after use. or used as a support for beans as they grow.
A support for shade cloth to protect plants from the heat. Re-use and Re-use and Re-use .
I hope you found this helpful and that you enjoy the straighter lines in your vege garden!
Cheers,
L passionateaboutplants
Saturday, February 8, 2014
A furry visitor comes to our garden
Occasionally an echidna will come through and, hopefully, not try to dig a nest in my box of cuttings!
a bit hard to move on when they decide to settle in there for the day.
and when the heat is really on there are the baby possums that get distressed with the heat. Luckily we work from home so can do the rounds a few times over the heat of the day and then into the evening and find these poor distressed animals and give them a safe place to recuperate before they get to run up a nearby tree again.What a lovely sight that is.
a couple of days ago on one of the 40 + days a frill neck lizard was affected by the heat and just sat there almost not caring that we were peering at it. suddenly it took off into the shade of the garden and looked back at us from between the potted plants.
The most unusual for us has been the arrival of a koala very early one morning.The birds were making a dreadful din and so I got out of bed and went out to investigate. Perched up in the tree close to my study was a koala! I called hubby but I think he thought I'd gone a bit silly. anyway he came out and was truly amazed. and then "Who can you call at 6.30am??.. anyway we called Neil our local wildlife man who was living a couple of doors down at the time. He was enthralled to see the koala.
over the hours as the day got warmer ( it was to be a hot day) the koala moved around the tree to find the coolest spot ..I enjoyed watching it as I worked . all I had to do was sit up straight and glance out the window to be able to see him.
the next morning he had moved on. .. we were so glad to have been able to witness this little fellow.
as our area has been subdivided and many of the trees have been removed the likelihood of another koala finding refuge in our garden perhaps has increased.
we can only keep a look out, but then again the birds told us in no uncertain terms that something was in their territory that wasn't usually there..
Wicking Beds : a step by step process of building our first large in ground wicking bed
Just started this week to build new in-ground wicking beds in the vege garden which will be covered over with shade cloth over hoop frames. the first bed measures 900mm wide by 450mm deep (perhaps will end up at 500mm which was the original plan) this bed is at the end and will be slightly longer than the others to allow for walking through and wheelbarrow access.
as this bed will be open to the elements on one side the plan is to put in sweet corn, dill, pumpkin, peas and melons. these are all companion plants to each other and the pumpkins can sprawl out over the outside as they grow and still have their root systems in the wicking beds.
Ideally there will be worm feed stations along the beds to feed the worms and they in turn will take the food deep into the soil.
what's the weather like today?? not a nice day here at all.
check the weather for the upcoming few days
vege seed sown to date:\
Lettuce , Russian Black Kale,
both germinated and Kale potted into single cell trays.
located in poly house. punnets in icecream container with 1 inch water, then swapped over the dry container if not all water wicked up.
seems to work well especially in this heat.
So back to the wicking beds under construction. did i mention that the hole has been excavated? yes, and there is a pile of gorgeous soil ready to go in along with some composted mulch and blood and bone..
so
the next step is to even up the bottom so it is perfectly even to avoid pooling of the water when filling , may use some of the sand to achieve this, then line the bed with impervious plastic and bring the plastic lining up the sides till approximately 250mm before folding it back on itself and then trimming off the excess. At this point there needs to be inserted a runoff outlet to avoid flooding when the skies decide to open up and send down 50mm or more of rain in 1 go. it does happen, although presently one would be forgiven if they disbelieved me.
so next job is to get the washed sand delivered.
the plastic goes in after Monday and the slotted agi pipe and upright plastic pipe fitted to each end with removable caps installed (to keep out the gremlins and dirt ) and then the intention is to cover the slotted agi pipe with a fibrerous weed mat to stop the sand from getting into the agi pipe and restricting the flow of water as it travels the length of the bed. Sand is next and has to come up to the 250mm mark and be even the length of the bed.
the drain over flow pipe goes in now and at this stage I'm not sure exactly how I will achieve this. as the bed is the further most one and there is plenty of space I think that into the side will go metal pipe that I can penetrate through the soil and then pass a black plastic pipe through, 25mm diameter should be enough. if it goes easily I might do a second one to be sure it doesn't flood.
As you can probably appreciate, I'm not out there today working on it.!
see you next time when I will post up some pics of where we are at with the current wicking bed.
interested in wicking beds, here a good link
http://www.wickingbed.com/
and
http://maireid.com/wickingbeds.html
this design was done by a student at Milkwood Permaculture www.milkwood.net
Wednesday12 Feb today A stage further along now, with a hidden stump having been dug out of the side of the bed,
now if I'd know that was there I'd have moved the bed in by another 40mm to avoid that extra work.
Still it came out and all is well. Skies very dull with smoke although no smell of smoke which is appreciated. temps probably less than expected 39C due to the smoke haze.
Thurs 13Feb. got the spirit level out to see how the bottom was and not too bad at all. A bit to scrape out then it's go for the wheel barrow and get some sand to put down under the plastic sheeting.
Have the plastic sheeting and the slotted agi pipe and the plastic bends to fit onto the agi pipe and support the uprights which the water will be fed into.
the days are still pretty hot but by working early in the morning and then later in the evening I have been able to get the heavy shovel work done and been back in the cool fairly easily.
Saturday, the sand comes this afternoon. shovel and barrowload after barrowload because it's looking like rain. I really wanted to catch the rain and use it in the wicking bed so the pressure is on.
and then it rained!! 9mm for the day.
Sunday 16th Feb,
another load of sand and this time less pressure to get it in before the rain came. Actually the sand was easier to smooth along the area and the water had made the previous load settle so i could walk along on it to level the sand using the back of an old kitchen broom. Once the sand was in and levelled off the water level was about 1mm over the sand. the fabric that i used then to separate the sand and the growing medium ie the compost and garden soil is a piece of frost protection blanket.
that should keep the sand clean. i then placed a length of pipe into the side of the bed just below the level of the black plastic and pushed it through the soil creating a hole that I could then pass a length of pipe through to avoid flooding the bed when it rains.
I have included a worm feeding station. which after wracking my brains for a suitable container that i could access easily I came up with the idea of using a small kitchen compost bin which has a hinged lid. Hubby drilled holes with a hole cutting saw, holes are about 3.5 cm diameter, and one on the bottom. the worm food goes in and the worms enter and leave with the food to take it into the surrounding areas.
.
I added worms from my old above ground wicking beds (apple crates)and have transplanted self sown silverbeet seedlings from the old wicking bed and added some of the worm castings from there as well. the beds are covered with damp cardboard to give the worms time to dig down into moist soil.. One area of the bed has a section with sandy loam for carrots and have just sown 2 rows of carrot seed. added sweetcorn seedlings ,a punnet of beetroot seedlings and dill.
Wednesday19th Feb: everything is settling in nicely and the day has been cooler with just a couple of showers around 4pm.
I'll wait a week and then start on excavating the next bed.
as this bed will be open to the elements on one side the plan is to put in sweet corn, dill, pumpkin, peas and melons. these are all companion plants to each other and the pumpkins can sprawl out over the outside as they grow and still have their root systems in the wicking beds.
Ideally there will be worm feed stations along the beds to feed the worms and they in turn will take the food deep into the soil.
what's the weather like today?? not a nice day here at all.
| Summary | Sun Feb 9 |
||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Windy |
|||||||||||||||||
| Maximum | 38°C | ||||||||||||||||
| Minimum | 27°C | ||||||||||||||||
| Chance of Rain Likely Amount |
5% < 1mm |
||||||||||||||||
| UV Index | Extreme | ||||||||||||||||
| Frost Risk | Nil | ||||||||||||||||
| 9am | 3pm | ||||||||||||||||
| Wind Speed Wind Direction |
28km/h NE |
32km/h WNW |
|||||||||||||||
| Relative Humidity | 17% | 18% | |||||||||||||||
check the weather for the upcoming few days
vege seed sown to date:\
Lettuce , Russian Black Kale,
both germinated and Kale potted into single cell trays.
located in poly house. punnets in icecream container with 1 inch water, then swapped over the dry container if not all water wicked up.
seems to work well especially in this heat.
So back to the wicking beds under construction. did i mention that the hole has been excavated? yes, and there is a pile of gorgeous soil ready to go in along with some composted mulch and blood and bone..
the next step is to even up the bottom so it is perfectly even to avoid pooling of the water when filling , may use some of the sand to achieve this, then line the bed with impervious plastic and bring the plastic lining up the sides till approximately 250mm before folding it back on itself and then trimming off the excess. At this point there needs to be inserted a runoff outlet to avoid flooding when the skies decide to open up and send down 50mm or more of rain in 1 go. it does happen, although presently one would be forgiven if they disbelieved me.
so next job is to get the washed sand delivered.
As you can probably appreciate, I'm not out there today working on it.!
see you next time when I will post up some pics of where we are at with the current wicking bed.
interested in wicking beds, here a good link
http://www.wickingbed.com/
and
http://maireid.com/wickingbeds.html
this design was done by a student at Milkwood Permaculture www.milkwood.net
Wednesday12 Feb today A stage further along now, with a hidden stump having been dug out of the side of the bed,
now if I'd know that was there I'd have moved the bed in by another 40mm to avoid that extra work.
Still it came out and all is well. Skies very dull with smoke although no smell of smoke which is appreciated. temps probably less than expected 39C due to the smoke haze.
Thurs 13Feb. got the spirit level out to see how the bottom was and not too bad at all. A bit to scrape out then it's go for the wheel barrow and get some sand to put down under the plastic sheeting.
Have the plastic sheeting and the slotted agi pipe and the plastic bends to fit onto the agi pipe and support the uprights which the water will be fed into.
the days are still pretty hot but by working early in the morning and then later in the evening I have been able to get the heavy shovel work done and been back in the cool fairly easily.
and then it rained!! 9mm for the day.
another load of sand and this time less pressure to get it in before the rain came. Actually the sand was easier to smooth along the area and the water had made the previous load settle so i could walk along on it to level the sand using the back of an old kitchen broom. Once the sand was in and levelled off the water level was about 1mm over the sand. the fabric that i used then to separate the sand and the growing medium ie the compost and garden soil is a piece of frost protection blanket.
that should keep the sand clean. i then placed a length of pipe into the side of the bed just below the level of the black plastic and pushed it through the soil creating a hole that I could then pass a length of pipe through to avoid flooding the bed when it rains.
I have included a worm feeding station. which after wracking my brains for a suitable container that i could access easily I came up with the idea of using a small kitchen compost bin which has a hinged lid. Hubby drilled holes with a hole cutting saw, holes are about 3.5 cm diameter, and one on the bottom. the worm food goes in and the worms enter and leave with the food to take it into the surrounding areas.
I added worms from my old above ground wicking beds (apple crates)and have transplanted self sown silverbeet seedlings from the old wicking bed and added some of the worm castings from there as well. the beds are covered with damp cardboard to give the worms time to dig down into moist soil.. One area of the bed has a section with sandy loam for carrots and have just sown 2 rows of carrot seed. added sweetcorn seedlings ,a punnet of beetroot seedlings and dill.
Wednesday19th Feb: everything is settling in nicely and the day has been cooler with just a couple of showers around 4pm.
I'll wait a week and then start on excavating the next bed.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Phase 2: | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tuesday 25th Feb.2014 |
|---|
| I think I can seriously start to consider the next wicking bed. | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Surprisingly there were no muscles damaged during the construction of the first wicking bed. | ||||||||||||||
| Wicking Bed #2 will be in a new blog . | ||||||||||||||
How do we garden in 40 degree heat!
WOW, so hot!
the potted plants are now doing pretty well after we lined the plant trays to allow the water to wick up into the pots over night.
the first 40 degree day we had was very windy and caught us and the plants unprepared for the relentless heat and wind during the first burst of real heat for the Summer.
after watering deeply and adding composted sheep manure to the tops of each pot, lining the trays and then re-watering each plant. This most recent run of hot days over 40 the majority have come through looking pretty fantastic.
wicking! I have been looking into wicking beds for the vege garden and this system (sort of ) applies with the pots. By morning the water has been taken up into the pots and enables the plants to cope through these hot days.
the plants in the shade house get a spray every couple of hours and that keeps the moisture level up and cools the air. this is where most of the bromeliads are.
Like us on Facebook
the potted plants are now doing pretty well after we lined the plant trays to allow the water to wick up into the pots over night.
the first 40 degree day we had was very windy and caught us and the plants unprepared for the relentless heat and wind during the first burst of real heat for the Summer.
after watering deeply and adding composted sheep manure to the tops of each pot, lining the trays and then re-watering each plant. This most recent run of hot days over 40 the majority have come through looking pretty fantastic.
wicking! I have been looking into wicking beds for the vege garden and this system (sort of ) applies with the pots. By morning the water has been taken up into the pots and enables the plants to cope through these hot days.
the plants in the shade house get a spray every couple of hours and that keeps the moisture level up and cools the air. this is where most of the bromeliads are.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)