March 2016 Blog Posts (17)

This is a continuous seasonal diary which I will add to as the season progresses.

The weather is improving already though still a few hot days. Enough showers now and then to keep my 5000lt tank ticking over for garden use.

It's a jungle out there.

The garden - fruit trees, ground covers,…

Jack and the not-Beanstalk ;-) It's the new-to-us Jack Bean from the seeds given to Lissa recently. Anyway it's growing well except that 'something or someone' is busy skeletonising the leaves. Whether I'm growing this plant in the right place (western-facing) or in the right season is anyone's guess right now. I'm not a fan of the beans themselves but it's good to grow something on the trellis until it's time to grow the Tatume squash. So hoping that there…

While I'm outback pottering about in the dirt, my other half is slaving away on the veranda making mosaic and Pique Assiette whoopee.

It goes to show how productive the outdoors can be. 

Pieces of china and tiles…

With the lack of access to my back yard to get soil or any machinery down there I decided a few years ago to build a down and dirty wicking bed by converting my poorly performing raised garden bed to a wicking bed. But I'd be filling it with just dirt and manure as opposed to the perlite/sand/vermiculite/compost/coir combination that seems to be standard media components in wicking beds. I then planted two tomato plants. One in the standard wicking bed and one in my ghetto one.  I didn't…

Just a few photos of the tropical root vegetables (mainly from the ginger family) that I'm growing to show that I don't just grow weeds.... Actually I have had some success with this kind of crop two years running so I may have found a good spot to grow them. These plants are great as they hardly need any maintenance, save you money (especially the rhizome spices) and give your garden a nice tropical feel. Best of all they are easily grown in polystyrene boxes.…

Due to new and ongoing commitments I haven’t posted a blog for a while but with some free time this morning I thought I would put something quickly together. Note though this isn’t going to be one of Susan’s, Dave’s or Lissa’s garden tour blogs of abundance (unfortunately). Nope, this is all about weeds.

Having only time to really water my ‘pot plant garden’ recently the rest of garden has been neglected. This has resulted in the weeds having their way. I’ve written about Leucaena…

Well, it's that time of term again - you know the one where all the marking and reporting needs to happen.  Currently, I have three piles of exam papers to mark with another two coming Tuesday so what do I do?  Why, I find every excuse NOT to be marking this weekend, then I'll end up in a god awful panic at 6pm tomorrow night and stay up till two doing the most urgent (yr 9 papers) and spend the rest of the week cranky and stressed and tired because I have too much work to do.  Even though I…

It always amazes me how various the food basket is.Not all of this is harvestable but it's all out back growing --although some plants are growing better than others. 

For detailed view click on the image.

One day I'd seriously like to fret over a few plants rather than pander to the many.…

After doing 2 lasagne beds (lucernce, compost, chook poo, sugar cane mulch layers), and reading a bit on BLF, I decided to try a Hugelkultur one for my 3rd bed. This was actual really just a process of consolidating my broken branches and sticks pile with my old grass clippings, ends of old flower pots and pulled-out weeds pile.

I started with layering down some cardboard to minimise weeds (probably don't need this in traditional Hugelkultur but figured can't…

I have been very busy in the garden since the Garden Rescue, you all gave me just what I needed, a swift kick up the backside to just get out there and stop feeling sorry for myself. Well that is what I did. It's a start.

VEGI GARDEN #1

The Lettuce have…

Hi Everyone,

Thank God for the rain!! My garden has been without decent rainfall for about 6 weeks now and everything was struggling to stay alive.  Watering was taking a big chunk of my time and things that I wouldn't normally water (the established apple and peach for example) had to get watered as well as I was worried about how they were travelling as my grass was D.E.A.D.

I had a problem with spider mites on my mango tree.  All the new growth was going pale and burnt…

Hi everybody,

Those who have followed my ramblings about how my avocadoes did not get pollinated in Spring, will no doubt be a little fed up with the accounts of the lack of success that I have had to get pollination occurring. Having said that I don't recall anyone else raving on about how good their avocadoes were this year. Now is this because they wanted to spare my…

Oops! My sincere apologies about this. It means I have to go back to the drawing board. I know my grow mix is very rich in Biota and has a more complete range of nutrients. What I have now come to realise (especially after studying an analysis of Searles Premium mix) is that my mix does not have the plant growth boosters that it has. This is I now realise a deficiency in my mix. (Although there is a caution here – too much booster and plants grow weak and attract insects to attack it). It’s…

Just wanted to say hi. I have been lurking for awhile using the search to learn as much as I can as I have only been vegie gardening for about 18 months. I live in Brisbane so the information on the site is so helpful, it's a huge learning curve and one I'm thoroughly enjoying.