Filed under: gardening
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Filed under: cooking
check out what i just found:
http://www.greeningofgavin.com/2009/06/home-made-camembert.html
thats right, home made cheese. oh yeah, going to attempt this.
Solutions to my previous post.
- Find my garden bible, “The Permaculture Home Garden” by Linda Woodrow, hidden somewhere inside my house.
- Build a chicken dome. Or box. Something moveable, but not uprootable.
- Throw fast growing chicken fodder seeds (Asian greens, amaranth, lettuce, pigeon pea, fat hen) in one of the fenced off beds, so when the chickens find themselves in a much more enclosed space they will have food to graze on.
- Plan guilds, mark out circles.
- Get a heap of compost/manure/mulch to help improve soil. Put chickens in dome, cross fingers.
- Find way to keep possums off newly exposed veggies.
- Deal with pile of sticks.
- Clean chicken poo off balcony for final time
- Be patient with my seedlings, wait until they get a decent height before transplanting.
- Sew grass seed to encourage lawn to regerate
- Make peace with the Jasmine, at least until everything else is working properly.
Easy, right? Then of course there are other general garden to do’s…
- Paint back fence
- Nail wood on to fence to create small planters to grow shallow plants (like strawberries)
- Clean out shed. Paint, remove jasmine crawling through.
- Make front stairs less slippery
- Build Japanese garden out in clothes-line area, as always planned.
- Beautify front deck with French cafe or Mediterranean theme
- Clear overgrowing plants from front garden
- Remove non-native weeds and grasses from native front garden, and replace with more natives
- Germinate / learn to grow from cuttings more natives
- Remove litter from gutters and leaf litter from ground before fire season
- Eventually there is an area around the side I’d like to make into a little field, with poppys springing up, and sweet smelling informal english garden plants along the edge. Suki loves sitting in this area and discovering the grass, I’d have to add a little sweet seat, too.
I somehow have the feeling this will be quite an ongoing list….
Filed under: gardening | Tags: chickens, garden, gardening, issues, jasmine, mice, pests, problems, weeds
I’m depressed. With my garden. A year into it I envisioned a very different backyard. I pictured one overflowing with produce, a garden of Eden abundant and green.
Sadly this is not the image in front of my eyes. Jasmine is continually growing back despite the constant control we try from this very invasive weed which propagates from anything, and grows everywhere, including our compost!
Mice run throug the branch and stick pile destined to be burnt in our fireplace, if only we used it more often. Instead it houses these critters who raid the chicken coop at night, despite our (and our dogs) persistance in removing them.
The chickens moan for food, poop all over our deck, and have left vast patches of dirt where the grass doesn’t want to grow back. They do keep the amazingly also invasive maiden hair fern out, at least when we havn’t fenced them out of the veggie beds. Too bad it grows right back, starving the emerging seedlings for nutrients and light. I’m now trying to plant them under weed mat, but that is difficult at best, and I don’t think the plants get established very well, nor that much water.
The veggies themselves are weak. Nothing much makes it to maturity, instead preferring to bolt, or allowing the weeds to take over, if it doesn’t dry out in the hot Aussie sun first. They also require protection from the possums. Lines of wire seem enough to stop them, however it also makes it difficult to walk through to the edge of the beds.
Of course not all plants make it to the veggie patch. So much germinates but never makes it anywhere. They get to 5cm in my greenhouse before pausing. Too small to plant outside without dying, I eventually get impatient and plant them, while sewing more seeds with the hope that it will grow better the next time.
So, readers (and hopefully readers to be), this is my before shot. These are my issues and hopefully by identifying them I can fix them.
Filed under: gardening
What an amazing discovery. A list of gardening blogs from all over the globe. I even found a blog a suburb away from me, which is awesome! I love local blogs, sharing in the weather and flora that can survive in our climate, in the same season!
I’m itching to explore blotanical more, if only I wasn’t so busy working. But considering the weather this weekend maybe I’ll have more of a chance… At least I can also be happy the garden is getting a water…
Filed under: garden
Filed under: gardening
I saw this on Stewar’s My Veggie Garden, who found this on the Warm Earth Snips and Tips Newsletter (which I also get, but hadn’t read it yet)…
Are you a gardening addict?
Find out by answering the following questions:
Have you gone to a nursery for one plant and come back with several?
Do you ask for manure or compost for your birthday?
Have you bought a new plant knowing there’s no room in any of your beds?
Do you worry about your garden when on holiday?
Have you taken cuttings from public gardens or parks?
Is gardening more important to you than cleaning the house?
If you see a weed in a friend’s garden, do you have an urge to pull it?
Do you have difficulty keeping your fingernails clean?
Do the staff at your local garden centre know you by name?
Have you gardened through meals or until it was too dark to see?
Have you ever got out of bed to check on plants?
If you answered yes to four or more of these questions, you’re a gardenaholic. Unfortunately there’s no known treatment for the condition and it will probably last a lifetime, but don’t despair. The good news is that this is one addiction which is actually beneficial to your health.
Filed under: gardening, vegetable garden | Tags: planting, recycling, tomatoes
Over the northern hemisphere summer I saw a lot of posts about growing tomatoes upside down. Now we are coming into spring I thought I’d give it a go…
My tomato seedlings are about 2cm high at the moment, and I have replanted them out of the seed germinating trays into little tubs to help them grow better. So I guess I can try this in a month or two. I have two planters I can use, since my rocket is bolting. I was also thinking of using milk / PET bottles.
SOURCES:
http://www.minifarmhomestead.com/gardening/tomato.htm
The Upsides and Downsides of Upside Down Tomatoes
AND There are HEAPS of tutorials on instructables.com:
how to plant hanging upsidedown tomatoes
Go Green Hanging upsideown planters
Matt’s Original Inverted Planter a.k.a IPlanter.
Upside-Down Hanging Earth Box!
How to build an attractive, space saving upside down planter.
Slow soaking hanging soda bottle planter
Filed under: gardening
Last year I had lots of trouble with weeds. Maiden hair fern, to be exact, would spring up everywhere, devouring my seedlings and taking their light, air, and eventually losing them in the mass of fern.
This year I’ve started using weed mat. The only problem is, it takes FOREVER to plant my seedlings, and I need some help on the best way to plant them.
My issue, it seems, is that I must not be cutting my holes large enough to be able to get my hand in and do a propper planting. Solution:
Weed mat from about.com
I’ll give it a go today, I have lots more seedlings to plant.
Sources:
About.com
