Spring Garden Prep

Spring is here, how great is the light and bird life?
I had a couple of spare hours today to prepare two of my raised garden beds.
Firstly, I let the chooks get stuck into scratching through the soil to turn it over. (They were delighted). One of the beds was drier, so I added more organic matter to the soil, gave it a good soak through, added some soil conditioner and mulch.
I have rotated the crops so that bed 1 which had my salad mixes, has now been planted out with peas and beans. I leave some old onions and beetroots in the beds which gives me green leaves to feed the chooks.
Bed 2 has now become the salad mix so my little seedlings have been planted which I raised a few weeks ago.
I also raised a few more seedling trays today with more plants for beds 3 and 4.
Make sure you refer to Jackie French's Companion planting booklet for crop rotation tips....

Australian Native Garden Design

We recommend 'Creating and Australian Garden' book by Angus Stewart for building your dream native plant and flower garden....

Autumn Gardening

Autumn gardening

What a fantastic season it is right now with a mild temperature (for a little longer). A good time to collect seed from the garden, clean out the garden beds, plan and sow for winter crops, seed raising and planting for Autumn.

Right now, a lot has gone to seed in the garden which is excellent for attracting good insects and keeping the soil maintained until ready to sew.

Fencing Ideas

A great use of Railway Sleepers....

A lovely little garden in Harbord....

Yellowing Tomato Plants

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Maintaining Tomato Plants

I raised heirloom oxheart tomato seeds which are growing well but slowly and which are yellowing. Yellowing is a sign of nitrogen deficiency. 

This is most likely because I planted the tomato seedlings with Sunflowers, which take nutrients from adjacent plants. Sunflowers are good soil conditioners, once they have gone to seed and are dyeing back. It is best to plant Sunflowers first and later on, plant out your garden beds.

To help my tomato plants, I have recently added composted soil from my compost bin and some old chook manure. It is said that tomato plants should be watered well, but at consistent intervals and not over watered. Other good tomato “feeders” include blood and bones or fish emulsion. If you are a meat eater and buy meat in plastic containers, drain the left over blood from the containers around the base of the plant. You can see in the image that the tomato fruit are yellowing and they are stunted in size. I will upload images in a couple of weeks to see what changes have taken effect.

It is important to supply “nitrogen, phosphate, potash, calcium, magnesium, potassium and other micro-nutrients to build cell wall structure and increase plant vigor” (veggie gardener.com)

Collecting seed - Rocket

How to collect Rocket seed (tips by organic garden designer: SDC)

1.     Once the plant has ‘gone to flower’ (flowered) it will produce long seed pods.

2.     Let the seed pods mature on the plant and then pick them.

3.     Place them on a plate or aluminum baking dish away from direct sunlight to dry out

4.     Once they have dried out, crunch the dried pods in your hands to separate the seeds which can be sifted into a colander to separate seed pods

5.     Place the seeds in a paper bag or envelope, label, date and store in a dark dry place, ready to be used again.

NOTES:

·      Rocket seed scan be sewn and grown regularly through most seasons is Australia (Southern parts avoid summer).

·      Best to collect seed from you best producing plant(s)

.     Refer to our blog on seed raising guide