Garden Layout

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Code:

P = pots, V= Veggie Patch, Straight numbers Actual trees
P1 = Custard Apple (Annona atemoya) African Pride
P2 = Coffee (Coffea arabica)
P3 = Panama Berry, Strawberry Tree, Capulin, or Malay Cherry (Muntingia calabura)
P4 = Hawaiian or Tropical Guava (Psidium guajava)
P5 = Fig Black Genoa (Ficus carica)
P6 = Kiwi Fruit or Chinese Gooseberry (Actinidia deliciosa (male))
P7 = Camellia Sinensis (Tea Plant)
1 = Kiwi Fruit or Chinese Gooseberry (Actinidia deliciosa (Female))
2 = Apricot Moorpark
T1 = GoldMine Nectarine
T2 = Elberta Peach
T3 = Charlotte Columnar Ballerina Apple
T4 = Mandarin Imperial
T5 = Williams European Pear
T6 = Sensation Pear (Pyrus communis Sensation or Red Sensation)
T7 = Polka Columnar Ballerina Apple
T8 = Lots A' Lemons Dwarf
H1 = Veronica Oxford Blue
H2 =
H3 =
A = Apple Mint
B = Chamomile
C = Comphrey
D = Greek Oregano
E = Mint Julep
F = Parsley
G = Peppermint
H = Thyme Pink
I = Thyme White
J = Sage
K = Yarrow
L = Curry Plant
M = Choc Mint
N = French Lavender
O = Bay Leaf

Z = Empty

Check out Spring/Summer plantings to see what is actually in the vegie patches

Spring/Summer 2007 Plantings

Garden Beds

Bed 1

4 rows seeds - greenfeast peas (full length of bed x 4)

Bed 2

Green Harvest Perennial Rocket Seed 1 row Planted 27/09/2007
Green Harvest Rocket Seed 1 row Planted 27/09/2007
Green Harvest Warrigal Greens Seed 2 rows Planted 27/09/2007, 1 row Planted 14/11/07
Salad Shaker Cheap as Chips Planted 30/08/2007
Top Taste Gourmet Mix 8 Seedlings Planted 30/08/2007
Top Taste Dwarf French Beans Golden Grove Nursery 11 Seedlings Planted 10/09/2007
Green Harvest Bush Beans Seeds Planted 27/09/2007 1/2
Green Harvest Purple King Climbing Beans Seeds Planted 27/09/2007

Bed 3

Living Colour Continental Burpless Cucumber - 4 plants
2 rows length of bed Cucumbers - grown from seed 23 plants Planted 16/10/07 13 plants died
Zuccinni from Neighbour - 6 Plants - died
Living Colour Zucchini Gold Rush 4 plants Planted 13/11/07
Bumper Harvest Egg Plant surpreme 18 Plants Planted 13/11/07

Bed 4

6 red cherry tomatoes - grown from seed Planted 16/10/07
8 Grosse Lisse - grown from seed Planted 16/10/07
4 Mighty Red Tomatoes seedlings Planted 24/10/07
5 Black Russian Tomatoes - grown from seed Planted 14/10/07
5 Green Zebra Tomates - Grown from seed Planted 14/10/07
4 Yellow Cherries - Grown from Seed Planted 14/10/07
5 Roma Tomatoes - Grown from Seed Planted 14/10/07

Bed 5

Top Taste Tioga Strawberry - 1 Plant Planted 30/08/2007
Top Taste Red Gauntlet Strawberry - 1 Plant Planted 30/08/2007
Nellie Kelly Sweetie Strawberry 1 Plant Planted 10/09/2007
Top Taste Tioga Strawberry - 1 Plant Planted 24/10/07
3 rows of strawberry seed Planted 16/10/07
Top Taste Strawberry Sweetheart 8 Plants Planted 14/11/07
Top Taste Strawberry alinta Planted 08/11/07
4 Top Taste Butternut Pumpkin seedlings Planted 24/10/07

Bed 6

Living Colour Red Hot Cayenne Capsicum (Pepper) - 8 Plants
17 Top Taste Sweetcorn Seedlings 3 rows Planted 08/11/2007

Bed Under Fruit Trees

Green Harvest Moon and Stars Watermelon - 2 rows x 3 seeds

5 seedlingsNastursiums grown from seeds

8 coliban potatoes - grown from sprouted shop potatoes

Fruit Trees - Pots

Custard Apple (Annona atemoya) African Pride
Coffee (Coffea arabica)
***Panama Berry, Strawberry Tree, Capulin, or Malay Cherry (Muntingia calabura) Died***
Hawaiian or Tropical Guava (Psidium guajava)
Fig Black Genoa (Ficus carica)
Kiwi Fruit or Chinese Gooseberry (Actinidia deliciosa (male))
Camellia Sinensis (Tea Plant)

Fruit Trees - In Ground
Lots A' Lemons Dwarf
Polka Columnar Ballerina Apple
Charlotte Columnar Ballerina Apple
Mandarin Imperial
Williams European Pear
Sensation Pear (Pyrus communis Sensation or Red Sensation)
Elberta Peach
GoldMine Nectarine

Herbs/Spices

Apple Mint
Chamomile
Comphrey
Greek Oregano

Oregano(from Neighbour)
Mint Julep
Parsley
Peppermint
Thyme Pink
Thyme White
Sage
Yarrow
Curry Plant
Choc Mint
French Lavender
Bay Leaf

Seedlings Died/no grownth Planted

Rock Melon

Cucumber

Beans

Strawberries

Basil

cherry tomatoes

Grosse Lisse Tomatoes

Green Zebra Tomato

Roma San Marzano Tomato

Black Russian Tomato

California wonder Capsicum

Golden Calwonder Capsicum

Purple Tomatillo

Cherry Yellow Pear Tomato

Passion Fruit Black

Marvel of 4 seasons Lettuce

Saladbowl Red Lettuce

Saladbowl Green Lettuce

Gwenda White Lettuce

Lollo Rossa Lettuce

Marvel of 4 seasons Lettuce
Saladbowl Red Lettuce
Saladbowl Green Lettuce
Gwenda White Lettuce
Lollo Rossa Lettuce

Green Zebra Tomato
Roma San Marzano Tomato
Black Russian Tomato
California wonder Capsicum
Golden Calwonder Capsicum
Purple Tomatillo
Cherry Yellow Pear Tomato

Newspaper Pots

In anticipation of my seeds (mentioned in post "The Beginning" I have been thinking about how to plant all of them - I have already used up pretty much every container, seedling tray and anything else suitable I have laying around. I figured there must be a easy cheap way to do it, so surfing the net I went. I came across the following web site:

http://www.geocities.com/newspaperpots/

Newspaper pots - what a great idea - easy, recycling so that's good and it cost me nothing but time. So I've been making lots of them in anticipation. Whats really good about them is when the plant is big enough then no fiddling around getting the plant out of the seedling tray in one piece just plonk the whole thing in the ground and the paper breaks down and the plant is on its way. Less stress on the plant so in theory this should yield a higher success rate.

Some things I did think of however were:
1. You will need to be careful not to over water because this will cause the paper to breakdown prematurely.
2. With seeds that may take a while to take off it may be worth while doubling up buy making up the pot out of 2 sheets or placing one pot inside another.

I think the second option may be better because the double sheeted may be to thick to breakdown quick enough where as the pot inside a pot, the outside pot can be removed when its time for planting if need be.

First thing this morning as I'm sending the munchkins off to school the posty arrives with my package - so I know what I'm doing over the next few days. For a list of what I'm growing this spring/summer see my post labelled Spring/Summer 2007. There is a list there of all the vegetables I'm planting and as the season goes on I will rate the success of these.

Growing Pineapples

A friend and I were mucking around on the net looking at garden information and we came across how to grow pineapples at home from the top of store bought ones so we thought we'd give it a go - It's now a competition to see who grows the best one - I will post here with the information I find and the progress we make.

Sunday 16th September
Ok Time for research - I have brought the pinapples - not as easy as you think - 3 stores before we found one that didn't chop the tops off the fruit - now to find out how to go about doing this. One of my favourite sites Tropical Permiculture has some great pages on pineapple growing -
http://www.growing-tropical-permaculture.com/growing-pineapples.html#growing-pineapples-overview

and here is another site

http://wierdling.longboys.net/images/pineapples/pineapples.html

They both have instructions on how to grow from the tops of pineapples but one has you soaking in water one does not - What to do what to do - Try both of course!

19 Sept 2007

I have eaten 2 of my pineapples now and have them soaking in a glass - they went in on sunday the 16 Sept - check out the picies - for some reason the smaller one of the two has started turning brown - oh well I will keep going and see what happens.

This is the larger one

This is the smaller one

Manure Tea

I have just had my first attempt at manure tea on my garden. Lots of research I did on organic gardening all seems to talk about manure tea and compost tea and the huge benefits to the soil. Putting something back for getting something out of soil - keeping everything in balance, so I decided to have a go. My first thing was to find out the difference between compost tea and manure tea. Well the obvious is one uses manure one compost. Some of the information I looked at seemed to say that if you don't use aerators for compost tea not only would the good bacteria die off but you will increase the bad bacteria. None of the information I found on manure tea even talked about aerating beyond just agitating the manure tea a couple of times a day - so this made my decision for me, plus the fact that my compost heap is yet to yield compost yet. I used the following

1 part Compost or Manure to 10 Parts water
Brew for a week
agitate daily
Dilute the concentrate at 1 part Tea to 4 parts water

I got this from the Gardening Australia website:
http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s2002063.htm

I love this website because not only can you watch the show but it is one of the few websites I have found that even if you miss the show all the information including transcripts are on the website for free.

Here is the summary of my first attempt

Wednesday 4/9/07 20 litres of water left open to evaporate off chlorine
Thursday 5/9/07 2 litres Cow Manure in Hessian bag added
Wednesday 12/09/2007 1.5 Ltr Tea topped up to 9Ltrs with water on all Fruit/vegetables/herbs
left over poured straight onto empty bed 1
NB To much in total - reduce to 10 litres starting water

1.5ltrs of tea to 9 ltrs of water isn't exactly 1:4 but it was easier to measure out than 1.8 ltrs ( I must get some measuring cups and jugs for the garden) but I decided to err on the side of caution for my first go. As you can see the 20lts was also to much and I can't seem to find out how long you can keep the stuff for - I am planning to do this once a week on a Wednesdays - ( The day I am down to only one helpful munchkin, cause the top three are at school and number four is at kindy, much easier to deal with yucky manure with only one!!) so I will just do 10 litres and see how that goes. - Will keep updating

The Beginning

Well as I said in my description here I am stuck in the burbs and I have decided to massacre our front yard and turn it into a mini farm. I will try and add photos as my garden progresses. I have also started some seeds off in old seedling boxes, trays and anything else I can get my hands on, covered them in plastic. I've done tomatoes - cherry and full size, basil, peas, beans, strawberries, rock melon. I was also a bit naughty and went nuts on line and bought $100 dollars worth of seeds - oops hubby will not be happy when he sees the credit card!

I have also planted 2 kiwi fruits (male and Female), Black Genoa Fig, Tropical Guava, Panama Berry, Arabica Coffee, Custard Apple, 2 x Camellia Sinensis ( The tree used to make Tea), all in pots and 2 apples - Ballerina Polka & Charlotte, 2 Pears - Sensation and Williams, an Imperial Mandarin, a Lots-o-Lemon's, a Elberta Peach, a Goldmine Nectarine, a Bay Leaf Tree, and we had an existing Moorpark Apricot tree.

I have used some old pavers around the beds (raised with some old sleepers we had in our back garden before we built onto the house). Instead of laying them on the straight I have laid them on the diagonal which leaves little triangles of soil up against the beds with I am going to use for herbs and things.