January in My Vege Garden

 Happy New Year everyone. I hope you've had a lovely holiday. 

We never seem to do relaxing. After all the windows and weatherboards were replaced last summer, this year has been about all the preparation and painting. Hubby is determined that we do a very good job so that it will last for years. 

I've been hard at work in my garden. The weeds are an ongoing battle, but not as bad as previous years when I hadn't mulched.

The beans and sunflowers that I'd been lamenting have finally grown. Only three sunflowers, but I'll take it. 

I fixed the drainage problem in the carrot trough. I keep seeing videos showing people putting inverted soft drink bottles with an end cut off into plant pots as a way to water plants. It occurred to me that it could also work the other way.  This bottle has holes drilled in it all around and up and down the length of the bottle. 

The day I put it in, I scooped out the excess water as the bottle filled. I took out at least 5 litres. I also pulled out a lot of rotting carrots. I guess that's one way of thinning them. 

Everything seems to growing rampant. We're starting to pick and eat from the garden. Last night was our first entirely grown at home meal for the year.

Some Success in My Vege Garden

 My garden is still very up and down and the weather has been the same. We alternate between 30+ degrees Celsius and freezing rain and wind. I even had the fire going about a week ago. 

I've just been spending some time in the sun, listening to the bellbirds singing in the oak tree, trying to make a dent in the weeds that have taken off and reflecting on what a lovely and peaceful place it is even so.

I wasn't able to provide fresh peas for Christmas lunch, but I was able to pick four pods yesterday. I did provide some new potatoes. They were carefully exposed and picked without disturbing the rest of the growing potatoes or plants very much.

Unfortunately, all the rain has created a problem with the old water trough I planted carrots and radishes in. I had hoped that the stones I'd filled the bottom with would be sufficient drainage, but they weren't enough for the amount of rain we've had. 

Many of my carrots and radishes have rotted just beneath the surface. I did look at the bung that these troughs have at the bottom. But I don't think this has moved at all since the trough was made however many decades ago and it isn't moving now.

We've discussed drilling it out and drilling holes in the trough itself but no one is prepared to commit to retiring it from possible future use as an actual water trough. 

My tomatoes are doing very well. I've been sticking the laterals I pick off into the ground. They seem to sulk and wilt for a day or so, but the majority look like young, freshly planted tomato plants now. I'm hopeful for a good crop.

Both my cucumber plants (third Lebanese and second apple) are thriving. I have a small maybe 4 inch long Lebanese cucumber on the plant and I can honestly say it's the biggest cucumber I've ever managed to grow. 

I had to take the nets off as the beans were starting to grow through the netting instead of the support strings I've provided. 

I've decided to leave the wild part of my garden alone for now. I'm not keeping up with the weeds in the planted parts of the garden as it is and I don't currently have anything to plant in it. 

December in My Vege Garden

 It's been a while since I shared any of the goings on in my garden, I was asked about it recently by a friend who has been following the story.

There hasn't been a lot to tell really. 

I tightened up the nets since the blackbirds were still finding ways in. I planted more beans and sunflowers. Some of them have even started growing. 

Both my cucumber plants suddenly died. I've been told not to plant another cucumber in the same spot as there may be fungus in the soil that attacks cucumbers. I don't know if this is true, but it's easy enough to plant new ones somewhere else. 

The chilli seeds I planted have shown no signs of coming up. So I visited my Happy Place, as I've started calling Woodend Nursery, a local garden centre. The only chilli varieties they had were Jaiwas, a green chilli I'd never heard of before. I bought two and while I was there, I bought two new cucumber plants, one Lebanese and one Apple. I also picked up some red capsicum plants. 

I've since bought some habanero plants and wildfire chillies. 

Something was still eating my plants. It looked like slug damage, so I spread around some slug and snail bait. 

What a difference that made! In a week my beans doubled in size and grew new tendrils. 

Potatoes are still growing beautifully. I've been struggling with finding material to go into the tyres. We ran out of old branches to mulch and my pile of aged, rotted manure has all gone. I could use some of the fresher stuff from the paddocks but there is a fairly high chance of lots of problem seed growing in it too. Grass clippings and leaf mulch have been in use with some mulch from freshly cut branches. 

I haven't done much more clearing of the wild untouched parts. Partly because of the lack of mulch, partly because I don't have much yet to plant in it and partly because the weather has been hideous for the past few weeks. Any fine days are spent weeding and caring for existing plants. 

I have set up a mini greenhouse for raising seedlings. I had plenty started in it when a nasty storm with a lot of wind threw my little greenhouse and all its contents across my deck. I scooped up all the soil and unsprouted seeds into a large tray. We'll see if anything comes up in that. I rescued the sprouting sunflowers and Kumara. 

My plan was to start a few more brassicas every few weeks in successive plantings. They don't really freeze well so fresh is better. 

I haven't spoken about the drive behind this garden. I didn't want to open myself up to judgement if I failed. 

I've given up smoking. Gardening has been my distraction and my reward. Garden art has also played a fairly big part. I'm painting rocks to put around my garden. I've made a 'Welcome to My Garden' sign, although that hasn't made it into the garden yet.

I've also made personalised similar signs as Christmas presents for family, but you don't get to see them until after their new owners do.

War in My Vege Garden

 I'm in a war with vermin. 

Every time I walk into my garden, several blackbirds fly out. They are getting into the netting through small holes and having a field day.

I have had to replant many of my pea plants and three or four tomatoes. I found the husks of my sunflower seeds and no signs of plants. I have had to buy more plants and seeds to replace the damaged and missing ones. 

Over the weekend, my replacement cucumber suddenly died. It had been growing beautifully for two weeks, then overnight went greyish and fell over.

I questioned everything I had done. I thought the previous one had suffered wind damage so this one was well protected from the wind. It got plenty of sun and I was careful to water the soil and not the leaves. I put slug and snail bait around it. Maybe there was something wrong with the soil? But surely that would have shown up straightaway. 

The next day it was gone completely and there was a small hole where it had been. A tomato plant that had been nearly a foot tall and starting to flower was also missing. I picked up the next tomato plant from the path and replanted it in its spot. 

My peas have had their growing tips trimmed off. Where I'd had a 100% hit rate from my seed, I suddenly found gaps. 

I made windchimes and a rough scarecrow and noisemakers. I fixed up the bigger holes in the netting. I tried leaving a patch of soft turned over soil for them to play in. 

Yesterday, I saw a small rabbit running out of my garden as I went in. 

Today I found devastation in my brassica patch. I also found the hole the rabbit had gotten in through and blocked it up.

It's getting hard to stick to the concept I wanted in this garden. I feel like it's going to turn into a fortress rather than a fun peaceful garden. 

Growing Potatoes

 I've always heard lots of stories about growing potatoes. I'm told my grandfather grew them in 44 gallon drums and had to either chip them out carefully or cut the drum because he was so successful. 

But there are so many stories and different ways of doing it. They need a lot of water, but water sparingly or they'll rot in the ground. Plant potatoes to prepare a plot for future gardens, but not anywhere where you're going to want anything else because they will keep coming back forever. Cover them completely when you mound them up but leave some leaf tips above ground. 

A few years ago I tried growing them in tyres. As it grows, you fill up the tyre and then add another. When you're ready to harvest, tip your tyre pile over and pick up the potatoes. It worked beautifully. 

Dad and Hubby weren't convinced, so the year of the super garden we had both tyres and traditional rows that got mounded up. There were more potatoes in the mounds but they were mostly very small, think golf ball sized. In the tyres, they grew to easily fist-sized and bigger, but there were fewer of them. We still got an excellent crop and didn't need to buy potatoes for most of the year. We also kept Mum and Dad in potatoes. 

I'm doing tyres again this year. Mostly, I'm finding where potatoes are popping up from previous years crops and putting a tyre on top. Some are taking off and some are slower. 

I'm filling the tyres with layers of grass clippings, manure, leaf litter and wood mulch. 

I am curious to see how high I can get some of them before they start flowering. 

California Thistle in My Vege Garden

 When I wrote this morning about clearing the last patch of my garden and how long and slow it would be, I neglected to mention all the California Thistle in there.

Right now, as I'm spending I don't know how long picking thistles out of the soft parts of my hands, that is feeling like quite a big omission. 

On the surface, California Thistle is easy to get rid of. All its spreadability lies in the root system. What looks like hundreds and thousands of plants spread over a patch is actually only one plant. Cut off everything at ground level and it will die. Seeds are not viable, they're a distraction. 

However, in a patch like this, growing in and around the flowering quince that I'm leaving to cut tomorrow, taking it out at ground level is a lot more difficult. 

I've found that a gentle tug on the stem pulls out that stem plus some rootlets, so I've been doing it that way. I'm having to go into it by feel and there's a whole lot of last year's dead and dried stems lying around ready to stab unsuspecting fingers. 

I would normally be wearing gloves for this, but I rather foolishly (and for the first time) left my gloves in the garden last night and it rained. 

I will get there but I'm swearing a lot about it right now. 

My Netted Vege Garden

 After realising that blackbirds were responsible for damage in my garden, I was rather upset. It wasn't helped by the plants they have just pulled out and broken. I've had to replant several peas, tomatoes and marigolds. 

I did the bare minimum in my garden for about a week. What was the point? The gobshite blackbirds were just going to trash it anyway. 

But in the back of my mind, I was thinking of solutions and working through the pros and cons for each. 

I could make a scarecrow, but for how long would that be effective? Would windchimes make a difference? What about a sparkly wind spinner thing?

I've made windchimes out of some old wheel braces and car jack parts, but finding somewhere high enough and strong enough to hang it is waiting on Hubby. It's currently hanging in a nearby tree, but doesn't get enough wind there to ring often. 

It occurred to me on the weekend that I used to net my gardens to keep chickens out. I have lettuces and brassicas netted to stop the brassica moths and any other caterpillars causing pests from doing their thing. Why don't I just net my young plants? Once they're big enough with a more established root system, I should be able to take the netting back off again. 

I also bought more plants and seed over the weekend. 

I was planting more sunflower seeds in the ravaged spot under the net this time, when I found a young sunflower close to breaking through the soil. It still had its seed husk capping the tips of the first leaves. That made me happy, but I also realised that I was finding plenty more but they'd all been broken off just below those leaves. 

I had a poke around the pot where I had planted zucchini seeds, just to see if anything was happening and found one about to break through the soil. So I'm much happier about the garden and more excited to get back into it this week. 

The last bit to clear is dragging out. Or maybe I'm dragging it out. There's a lot of flowering quince to remove and that's slow and frustrating work. 

Flowering quince is all through this garden. We have tried digging it out, but it is very deep rooting and the tiniest piece left behind turns into more. Several different pigs have dug over this patch turning it into a wasteland for a time and they didn't get it all. It throws up lots of suckers and gets quite dense at the base. So I hit Google. Several fora and websites said the only way was to cut and paint the fresh cut with undiluted concentrated glyphosate. 

I went to Farmlands and had a chat with someone there. I came home with a picloram gel product that has the brush top. 

When I clear around the base of a patch, I  leave it until morning after watering as you need to be sure there's no rain forecast for 12 hours after application. I cut and gel. I pick up every last piece I've cut and put it in the incinerator. I'm burning this stuff, I won't risk having it come back again. 

Then I have to leave the blue painted tips undisturbed for the day. I don't want to risk accidentally poisoning anything else. So I have to find a different spot to work in. 

The last part will be slow but I'm feeling motivated again.