Friday, May 29, 2009

Herb Pot

Today I dug out the huge green plant pot and, finding it full of clay started to prepare it to grow herbs in a couple of months - added compost and cow manure.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Seed Choices


These are the seeds that I ordered from Greenpatch Organic Seeds

Broad Bean - Long Pod (Vicia faba)

Snowpea - Melting Mammoth (Pisum sativum)

Broccoli - Green Sprouting (Brassica oleracea var. italica)

Bok Choy - Chinese Cabbage (Brassica chinensis)

Coriander (Coriandrum sativum)

And the mustard and cress seeds came from the nursery.

Seedlings in Toilet Rolls

This is my method of seed-raising, as described in One Magic Square


Seeds are planted in seed-raising mix in toilet rolls.
Toilet rolls are in a plastic container (which packs of apples are sold in in Woolworths, they conveniently have holes in the base)
These containers are then in a large plastic bowl to keep our living room dry!
In this way the seedlings are out of the elements and away from birds looking for a tasty morsel.

So far I am growing Broccoli (planted on Sunday 24th May) and Broadbeans (planted Wednesday 28th May). The broccoli has started to sprout up. Each time someone brings home a half-drunk water bottle I keep the bottle by the seedlings and use that water to water the little babies.

Who knew that broccoli could be so much fun?


We are also growing mustard and cress on the kitchen bench, on damp paper towel and a disposable plate. Cress is shown in the foreground. Next time we will plant them more densely. They are going very happily and I look forward to eating them on a sandwich on Saturday - maybe with boiled egg?

In the beginning - the plot


This is my food garden - before I started to dig on 14th May - end of Autumn here. It is a small section of ground where lavender used to grow, and a year or so ago Steve dug out the lavender and the erigeron which had taken it over, leaving this plot, flat, and now covered with weeds.

This is what it looked like after some vigorous digging and weeding. It's not actually a square metre, wider in one direction and narrower in another, but it will do for now, because it is bounded on 3 sides already, and doesn't involve cutting up the so-called lawn. Some compost has been added, and next I bought some manure a few days later.

But while I was enthused I build a birdbath nearby, using recycled bricks and a pretty bowl waiting for a use since 1999. (sad but true)

And now, at the end of May, I have made some more progress.

At a nursery I bought:
cow manure
dolomite
bamboo stakes
blood & bone
sugar cane mulch

At a hardware I bought garden twine

and at Greenpatch Organic Seeds I ordered seeds (more info on seeds in the next post)

On the weekend we worked on our compost and in the bed, now the soil looks beautiful and dark. We have also had lots of rain. Yesterday I built this structure which is the foundation of the garden I am planning.

The garden is ready, and now I'm just waiting on seedlings!