Here is the link to photos of my vegie garden with descriptions written under each photo.
http://picasaweb.google.com/102630297130321540784/VeggieGarden#
Here are links to some other Organic gardening blogs:-
Australian Organic Gardening, Self Sufficiency & Permaculture http://freeorganicgarden.typepad.com/australian_self_sufficien/
Jerry Coleby-Williams blog
http://www.bellis.info/Site_3/Blog/Blog.html
Brisbane Local Food group
http://brisbanelocalfood.ning.com/
If you would like to talk to me about my vegie garden you can email me clissat@gmail.com
You can find the most recent events about my garden at the bottom of this page. :-)
7 APRIL 2010
This garden is about 8mths old now. I started it early last winter when I realized the old garden was overrun with couch grass & dried out too much in the heat of summer because it was right out in the full sun & got no shade during the day at all.
I thought the old chook pen with it's massive gum tree cover would be the ideal place with rich soil, yada, yada.....but no!! The soil was rock hard, grew nothing but weeds & even if I made beds out of high piles of manure it made no difference except the earth worms went ballistic! They grew to gynormous sizes like snakes. But plants just sat there & looked sick. Obviously horse manure is not that good for growing plants on it's own. very interesting.....
So I added all sorts of other goodies like blood & bone, lime, 5in1, & started making proper compost. I used the horse manure 50/50 with chomped up prunings from the extensive flower garden around this house. There are 100's of shrubs that need pruning regularly & I put all of that through the muncher machine. I layer it with the horse manure & sprinkle on b&b & sometimes some organic chook manure pellets. The last layer is always chipped prunings which makes a nice blanket to get the pile heated up fast.
When it is put on the soil it will slowly soften the hard ground & the recent wet season has been really good to help soften the ground enough to dig it up & mix it with the compost. Then when another layer of compost is applied over that & left for the worm to mix, it comes out really nice.
My horses are pretty much organic & when I have to worm them, I don't collect the manure for over a week so no chemicals gets into the compost.
The compost seems to need about 4-6wks to brew in summer then I transfer it to the next bay where it cools ready for use. I put it directly ontop of the garden bed & around existing plants & let the worms turn it in. If making a new bed, I add about 6-8in/20cm compost over the dug soil & cover with shade cloth. The worms take about 2wks to turn it over then I add more compost & plant the bed up. At planting time I add more 5in1 along the drills or under each plant. The 5in1 seems to really do good to this hard soil.
I spend about 3hrs daily in the garden divided between morning & afternoon. I also do a LOT of mowing as I have a huge house yard to keep tidy. I don't use the clippings because they contain too many weed & grass seeds. This all gives me a nice amount of exercise although the mowing can be hard work. My mower's self propulsion mechanism has died & it is hard to push up the slopes. This place is atop a ridge & it is up to the house at the front & down from the house at the back! lol So pushing the mower up the hill is not easy.
Anyway I do about 2-3hrs mowing every second day in the wet season to keep the grass down. I also let the horses in otherwise I would not be able to keep it all down. In the dry season I only let the horses in once a week or less to keep the grass short. Anymore & they would rip it out by the roots leaving bare soil & dust.
There is about an acre of house garden which includes 2 orchard areas, old & new vegie gardens, house, driveway & round-a-bout, cabin, roundpen for horse training, assorted other out buildings (in various stages of decomposition!). By far the largest component is all the land taken up by exotic & native shrubs which are scattered across the whole lawn. I didn't plant or design it & I see it all as a great waste of usable land which should be included into the horse paddocks.
My house yard garden extends away to the right of the gravel road in this photo. The shrubs in the foreground are typical of what is scattered right through the whole garden. There are fruit trees near the road & that is one of the orchards containing about 30 trees. There are citrus of all types, mangoes, apples, nashi, pear, fig, custard apple, lychee. The other orchard contains more mangoes, citrus, plus mulberries, nuts, brazilian cherries, large chili bushes.
This photo was taken in September 2007 after some rain so everything is a bit green. It does get very dry & brown in the dry season usually.
I have to think about these things when planning for the vegies I will plant. Luckily I have a good dam to pump from in the dry season but the water is not that good for the veggies it seems, because once I start using dam water they stop growing so well.
12th MAY 2010
Well it's getting very cool here now. Winter is coming much earlier this year than past years. The garden is producing well & the pests have finally gone on holidays! ;-) The new tomatoes are just beginning to colour up & I am looking forward to fresh vegetable lasagna again from my diet recipes. The cucumbers have slowed down thankfully! But still producing several each week. The lettuces that were just seedlings when I took the above photos are now fully grown & I am using them as picking lettuces- meaning I am picking the outside leaves only from each plant. I am giving a bag full of produce to 2 or 3 other people every week. Jap pumpkins have begun to ripen too, along with ordinary potatoes & sweet pots.
I use Seasol or seaweed/fish emulsion to foliar fertilize every few weeks. Today I did everything with the Seasol like a booster after the rain & before winter. I do have a real problem with the earth worms though! They eat all the organic matter that the compost consists of along with the straw mulch put on top of the compost. While doing that, they push the seedlings to the surface & I usually need to replant the seedlings 2or 3 times which is fine if it is some big plant but carrots seedlings are a real challenge! So I came up with the idea of getting the worms to help me by mounding the compost inbetween the carrot rows. As the worms eat the compost they spread it into the rows hence keeping the carrot seedling roots covered. I tried the same thing with seeds last week but the worms have eaten the seeds (carrots & beetroot) because they haven't come up & the mounds have been flattened so any remaining seeds are now 4-6cm deep. Looks like I won't be eating beetroot during winter & the horses won't have as many carrots as I had planned.
2nd JUNE 2010
There has been better than average rain the last few weeks so the garden has been growing really well. The pests have taken a winter holiday up north somewhere thankfully!
The winter crops are growing well with some already being harvested. I've got more carrots, snow peas, lots of herbs, tomatoes, cucumbers still going, zucchinis still producing, lettuces that were seedlings at the beginning of this page are now being eaten, potatoes harvested, capsicums not doing very well due to grubs getting inside them, pumpkins going crazy. 100's of italian parsley seedlings came up everywhere & I transplanted many to act as space fillers, soil protectors, camoflargue for things the butterflies like to lay eggs in.
All in all everything is going well. I am foliar feeding every second week alternating SeaSol & Fish Emulsion. Also I have twice applied epsom salts (1 tspn in a 10lt watering can) to help strengthen everything because most of the plants are growing so fast that they occasionally wilt during the day. Also when picked they can wilt too quickly due to a slight lack of magnesium. I added some to the new compost heap too so I won't have this deficiency problem again, hopefully!
This photo was taken at the same place as one earlier in this page & shows the lettuces that were seedlings now are mature plants.
This photo was taken in the same place as the first on the page that showed beans running rampant with the new carrot seeds just planted. Now those carrots are half grown with beetroot popping through & in the foreground 2 pumpkins await the pot!
The compost (above photo top left & in below photo on right side) is also ready for turning, having reduced in height by about 1/3. I will remove the boards you can see right at the bottom of the photo which will allow me to shovel it into the space next to the wall of the shed (where I am standing to take the photo). Hopefully that will cause it to heat up again. When it has cooled it will be ready to use. That will be another 6wks away yet.
http://picasaweb.google.com/102630297130321540784/VeggieGarden
20July2011
I planted up a stunning summer garden late last year but the exceptional wet season ruined the whole thing! 8(
Some plants survived well but never flowered or if they did flower there were no insects to fertilize them or the pollen set. The various parsleys went ferral & became great living mulch which was just as well since so many vegie plants died. For example the capsicums, yellow squash, beetroot, peas, beans, rosellas, some tomatoes all failed at some stage & left gapping holes in the protective green cover. There was hardly any sun most days too & with so much rain the beds never dried out which was good.
Some things did ok. Carrots have done ok although they are quite slow but still tasty. Greens are all powering along including various chinese leafies, spinach, herbs, mini cabbages, onions, shallots & garlic. Sweet potatos have done ok although didn't get that big. Pumpkins did really well & I have many to carry me through the next few months so lots of pumpkin soup to keep me warm during the last cold snaps of winter. One type of tomato did well but recently the flying foxes found the trellis & broke the lot to the ground & stole all the ripening fruit. grrrrr
Fruit trees were a mixed bag. Some turned up their heels & died while others have done well & are now fruiting heavily like the citrus. Pawpaw is doing so so.
I tried to make the usual compost but it has taken twice as long because it never got hot enough.
It has been mainly dry now for almost 2months with just a few odd wet days so soon I will be able to plant up a new spring garden which should do well, hopefully. :-))
