Edible garden chatter

[Teeki]

Great thread! We're getting our fence put up soon (fingers crossed!) so we're starting to plan our back yard. At the moment it's a dirt/weed farm that stretches 50 metres or so to a paddock

Our fence will be 14 metres across the back, so we're planning for a water feature in the centre with a potted plant either side, then one of those raised garden beds (the colourbond kind you get from Stratco) then another plant, another garden bed then a tree/plant arrangement in the corner. So four garden beds all up.

We're still looking into what should go into each one but I'm getting plenty of ideas. I also love the idea of a compost bin/worm farm - I'd love to teach DD about sustainability.

This thread has me really keen to get started!

[2CheekyMonkeys]

I really wish my shallots were ready to go. Had to buy some for a recipe got $3!!! Hard to do that when you have a stack growing out the back!!! By the way, how do I know when they are ready , same for the carrots?


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[briggsy's girl]

that's hubby's job! lol

carrot we loosen the soil around them and see how deep they've gone - and only pick them when we're ready to use them. i find they don't keep very well for some reason - but given we eat carrot every day, it's not a drama to eat them straight away.

[2CheekyMonkeys]

The soil has come away from the top of the green leafy top on some of them and I can see a small portion of the top of carrot which has recently turned orange. Tried to pull it out but it wouldn't come out easily and wanted to come out with about three other ones that weren't orange yet so I left it. I don't want to pull it out if it's not ready or if it's going to damage other ones. This gardening business is tricky stuff!


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[briggsy's girl]

Yeah it takes some research and instinct. I research hubby has instinct. It works for us. I'm thankful we have that.

[luna moth]

The soil has come away from the top of the green leafy top on some of them and I can see a small portion of the top of carrot which has recently turned orange. Tried to pull it out but it wouldn't come out easily and wanted to come out with about three other ones that weren't orange yet so I left it. I don't want to pull it out if it's not ready or if it's going to damage other ones. This gardening business is tricky stuff!


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It'll be soon. We ate our whole harvest in two meals!

[briggsy's girl]

Using recycled materials for garden bed is both a blessing (recycling lol) and a curse (more work). It would take 10 minutes to go to the hardware store and ask for sleepers cut to x length. Instead we are recycling fencing materials and making garden edges that are essentially mini fences. 30cm high. So we gave to cut five and six foot palings into 30cm lengths. And then assemble said mini fences. 4.6m down 5.1m to go for the main bed. 8m ish for the secondary bed. And if we do the other one he wants it will be another 16 or more

Back to it I goes!

[2CheekyMonkeys]

Well I pulled that bunch of carrots out and they look like mutants. All curled around each other and different sizes, mostly small.ImageUploadedByTapatalk1347346692.588468.jpg (Hope I can post a photo, not sure if it will work anyways. ) Have I done something wrong or were the carrots just not ready yet? They are baby carrots by the way.


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[briggsy's girl]

Likely planted too close together in soil that wasn't cultivated deeply enough. If you plant carrot seeds you need to thin them. Soil needs to be cultivated deep to encourage downward growth.

[2CheekyMonkeys]

I bought them as seedlings from bunnings, also what do you mean by cultivated? We freshly made up the soil in the garden bed with lots of different soils and fertilizers added before planting. Is there something else I should have done? The garden bed is quite deep.


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[briggsy's girl]

Cultivated means preparing the soul deeply. It may. It have been that. But I know we had problems like that when the roots didn't go deep enough.

The seedling trays from bunnings need to be separated over a fair amount of space. Can't recall off hand how far apart but I know I was surprised when I read it!

[2CheekyMonkeys]

thats probably more the problem then i think, the spacing. i bout them in you know the little black tray that has 6 mini compartments. when i planted them i just put them out in 6 places thining i had seperated them but maybe i should have gone further and seperated each plant in the 6 mini compartments. (does that make sense). Bum!! now none of my carrots are going to grow properly! :-(

[veus]

We were told carrots are best sown straight in ground and thin out. Coz their roots seek water to grow. So if it isn't deep enuf they go sideways. If that make sense.

[veus]

Double post.

[Dansta]

the old man next door says the same - sew the carrot seeds strait into the ground and thin out

Question dose any one know a "natural" way to try and minamise fruit fly? up here in NE VIC we have them - so we cant prevent them - but i dont fancy spending $80 on a small bottle of spray that may not even give me 80% of a crop KWIM?

[Mother Goose]

We are on the new house and my avail garden space for a veggie patch is bigger than I remember! Yay! As soon as the house is sorted I hope to get out and get planting! Dd wants snowpeas and tomatoes.

[briggsy's girl]

your DD is gonna be an easy kid to grow things for! tomatos and snow peas are almost fail proof!!

Here is a pic of the garden bed that we have on the go at the moment. DD is sick, so it's slowing progress a bit, but it's now at the point we can line the fence with tin (yay or friends in the right job - costing nothing) to stop damage to the timber, and put in the no dig garden bed - just gonna take a bit of work to coordinate borrowing a trailer, collecting hay, and getting the soil in - the hay we can do any time (sil's brother is giving it to us) but the rest is difficult to do on the weekend cos they have limited opening hours... i know how much the soil is from one place, but we have to pick it up ourselves - might ring around other places and see if we can get it delivered

[briggsy's girl]

new garden bed is in and lots of planting done. a heap of cardboard for base layer, a bail of hay, 3 trailer loads of fine grade mulch, a metre of good top soil after we started, it's done!

friday last week we borrowed a trailer and went hard - got it all in, then planted it all on saturday. we put pavers through the bed so that we can walk through it without having fear of stepping on plants - and have one section, probably about 2.5 sq metres, that hasn't been planted with anything yet - DH said he will likely fill it with pea and carrot seeds - who knows - we're still in discussions about what we need!!

so now we have in, over the two gardens:
corn (about 2 dozen plants)
tomato (34 plants)
lettuce (16 iceberg)
beetroot (about 2 dozen from memory)
beans - dwarf (10)
beans - climbing (8 - 8 more to be grabbed today to go in)
beans - bonaparte (2 dozen)
snow peas (20 from memory)
peas (about 2 dozen)
capsicum (17 plants)
carrot (no idea how many seeds are in!)
zucchini (5 plants)
cucumber (9 plants)
cabbage (6)
brocolli (6)
cauliflower (6)
garlic (about a dozen almost ready to harvest, maybe more - 30+ to go in today)
chilli (one plant and a bunch of seeds - but not seeing much life from the seeds!)
coriander (one punnet)
basil
mint
chives (2 varieties, plus seeds)
parsley (3 varieties)
oregano (i think that's the other herb!)
mandarin
lime
lemon
two orange trees
blood orange
two apples (dwarf pink lady and granny smith)
nashi or pear (DH can't remember which one we brought from the old place - and it needs some more time to develop in the pot before it will fruit)
dwarf nectarine
dwarf peach
strawberries (lots!)

we've half built the next garden bed as well - the one that runs between the two vegie patches and will have the sunflowers and other "pretties" - hippeastrums, maybe some clivias, and the flowers mum got for DD that probably need to go in the garden rather than the pots they are in - we may move the bearded irises soon too - not sure. it took a hell of a lot of work yesterday to get this garden bed cleared - had to move all the rose pots and fruit trees off the fence line, onto the other fence - and then, being that i like symmetry and organisation, we had to move all the other pots around too. although that bit me on the backside cos DH had me dragging the trolley around with the pots on it, and he was moving the bricks they sit on - i definitely got the harder work!!

very sore today, but the other bit of the garden needs to be finished today so we can work out how much more mulch/soil we need to back fill it - then probably borrow the trailer again on wednesday and get it all done. was hoping to be finished by now so i can actually rest for part of my leave - but it's not looking possible at this stage! wish my bros ute was available during the week, cos we only need a ute load but we can't get that during the week - why did our ute die a month before we could afford for it to die??