August 26

Poisoned weeds today. There aren't a lot inside the garden, but the pathways are getting overgrown! Poisoned everything, except the few little plants. Think there are two brocollis, two silver beets, and 5 tiny tiny lettuces.

June 25

Bought these last night when I was in town, roaming the shops.


Peas, leaks, snowpeas, cherry tomatoes, lettuce, big tomatoes, cucumbers and pumpkin. But I think I can get my $16.50 back in Spring :D


$-57.20

June 20

About 2 weeks ago Nathan finished off garden bed #5. There's a bit of weeding to do around the edges, and some grass is growing in the first 4, but the seedlings are mostly surviving. There's a bit of one cauliflower, both brox and all 4 silver beet.

Later today (it being half-past midnight right now) I'm going to the cattleyards again, for another load of manure. The 3rd and 4th garden beds are looking good. I dug them over the other day, and it's only still manurey in the middle. The worm population is about 20 worms psi! lol. Some of them are so fat. Lovely little worms.

Just have to watch Jasmine. She'd take every worm out of my garden if she could, and put them in a box under her bed ;)

May 21

Here are the garden beds. The nearest two are called bed 1 (left) and bed 2 (right). The far two are bed 3 (left) and bed 4 (right).

I forgot to buy weedmat, but I decided to plant my sick-looking seedlings anyway. There are two brocolli plants, two cauliflower and 3 or 4 silver beet, all spread out around bed 1. I put a few spades of mulch around each, but I didn't want to bury the poor little things. The dirt is still quite moist, so I didn't water them. If it doesn't rain in a day or two, though, I might give them a little bit.

May 20

Still haven't gotten around to getting a photo.

I went out with the kids this morning, and dug over beds 1 and 2. The manure is oldest there, and it's practically dirt, beautiful and rich, and full of worms! Beds 3 and 4 have dried out a bit, but the manure is still fresh enough to smell manurey if you turn over a spadeful.

Tomorrow I plan to plant the caulis and brocs that have survived in the neglected seedling box. They may as well grow in bed 1, as planned, and we'll see how they go. I'll get some weedmat and mulch on it first, if I can buy some tonight. Lots of grass was growing in it (though it's all turned upside down now) and I even found some potatoes from long ago ;)

May 8

I was certain I had a picture on here... can't find it.

Well, the garden now has 4 vege beds (two of the doubles like in the last post) and each double-bed has been filled with a trailerfull of manure.

It was hard work!

Luckily it was free, though. I took the trailer to the stockyards, where you can just help yourself to... erm... what washes out of the cattle trucks. The first day it was wet, heavy stuff. The next time, about a week later, it was drier, but I was still a bit exhausted by digging a tonne of it twice, first into the trailer, then out into the garden.

Not much is going on now. The seedlings are surviving, though I've been neglecting them. The second lot of zucchinis planted out into the hexagarden died off, too. But I can't really plant anything into the manure until it breaks down quite a bit.

Here's my basic plan for when we have 5 beds going.

Vege Garden rotation

Bed 1
Spring: peas, beans (legumes)
Summer/Autumn: cauli, broc, cabbage

Bed 2
Spring: Onion, leek (alliums)
Summer/Autumn: cauli, broc, cabbage

Bed 3
Early Spring: dig in manure
Late Spring: tomatoes, capsicum, (acid lovers)
Autumn: add lime, mulch

Bed 4
Spring: corn, cucumber, pumpkin, zucchini (curcurbits)
Autumn: manure

Bed 5
Spring: root crops and asian veges

Next year: bed 1 crop to bed 2, bed 5 crop to bed 1, etc.

April 11

A lone little potato plant, buried under all those weeds. We worked around it, as it has tried so hard to survive! Nathan knocked this up for me this morning! He measured and sawed and drilled while I dug over most of that end again to make sure it was flat-ish. Found the snake again when I was digging over the garden. I lifted him out with the fork and threw him over the fence (since all the kids were in the garden with me). But I decided, since he was determined to live with us, that he was going to get whacked. Sorry snake.

Doesn't that look great! All the sleepers cost me $60, and the bolts Nathan bought cost him about $30 for 30. These two beds are each 1500 x 3000, or about 4 square-meters each.

Nathan's going to make me another one to sit beside it, and a 3x1.5m one up this (North) end. Next job: fill with veges!

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-$40.70