Garden Update

The garden and I aren't motivated to produce much at the moment. It seems we are preoccupied with events, heat etc. My seedlings mark II have been another dismal failure. In our last place my cucumbers took off, but in this place it seems to be much harder work. I think also have the veggie beds spread out makes it less motivating to take care of. But anyhow, here's how things are:

Strawberries

We discovered that our strawberry in pipes would have worked except we planted running strawberries rather than the regular sort. These babies love to run, but had no where to go, so Nate knocked up these awesome planter boxed out of 'acquired' pallets.

The two plants that survived are thriving and running, so we should have more soon. The plants in the other planter died, BUT some other goodies, we're not sure what yet, have sprouted from the compost!

Fruit trees

We had our first delicious nectarine the other day. It was perfectly juicy and we shared it between the three of us. There are no other fruit, but in a year or two we look forward to that tree spoiling us in Summer.

The other trees aren't ready to fruit yet, but have got lots of leaves and are doing well. A few weeks back I took some mint cuttings from Grandma's for ground cover. Quite a few weeds and other average looking plants started to make the area look shabby, but all it took was 20 minutes of editing and it went from this:

to this:

Vegetable Beds:

I have successfully grown heirloom carrots, spinach and lettuce. They are so pretty and colourful. I think we have really lost something by streamlining what colour, shape and size all vegetables should be.

Our corn is also coming along nicely and I replanted some watermelon and rockmelon (cantelope) and I see one healthy shoot! It's disappointing as I planted four, but I've got to take what I can get!!

Our grass invaded sweet corn.

Finally, a melon sprouted!

Our garden bed has got a lot of grass growing in it, so I have trialed zero weed kill directly on the grass in our garden beds to see how it goes before attempting to do it near the veggies. I'm waiting for this crop to be over before doing it. I'm also tempted to try the old boiling water trick.

Tomatoes

I caved and sent Nate to get seedlings. They have done so well and have been delicious  I'm starting to think seeds don't like me as they know I love to eat them!

Terrible photo, I know!

Not much better, but you can see the little orange glow peaking out begging to be eaten!

And that's it, our garden in the middle of Summer. How is yours going?

Summer is well and truly here

Tommy Toe Red Tomatoes from Diggers Club

It has been rather toasty in little Adelaide over the past few days. Which reminded me that I haven't posted this season's fridge cheat sheet. So here it is!

I've been finding lately I've been in a rut with preparing meals, so hopefully this cheat sheet will give me some inspiration to cook with this season's goodies.

Tomato's are in season, which is fantastic as meals taste so much better with fresh tomatoes rather than canned. I still haven't had heaps of luck with tomato seedlings, but I'm hoping to plant out the ones I do have today. Fingers crossed they survive the weekend.

What are some of the successes in your garden?

How not to kill seedlings...

This nifty $1.95 gadget could have saved 64 lives...

[Source: Diggers Club]

After our tragic family loss, 64 seedlings, I am pulling all my strength together to do it all again!

I visited my beloved Diggers Garden Shop today and got some advice on what went so horribly wrong. From my studies and expert advice, here's what not to do:

1. Drown in water love. Be that watering the babies too fast and too much or leaving them to soak in a tray of water for days, either is going to end in rotted seedlings, not a great ending for anyone involved.
2. Close the vents on the incubator! If it's a sunny day like we've had, those incubators will cook your little seedling babies!
3. Leave your seedlings out over night. In the harsh, windy, cold elements. You get the drift, it's obvious!

Thanks to the wonderful man at diggers here's some hot tips on how to get your seedlings flourishing:

New look Green Lifestyle Mag!

1. Give them the best start in a nutrients rich soil, especially tomatoes. The new look Green lifestyle mag this month has a great little article called Tricks with Tomatoes. It is written by Kirsten Bradley from milkwood permaculture and gives you the formula to winning soil for growing tomatoes.
2. Water them by soaking the seedling tray in water for about 15 minutes. This will let the roots draw up the water they need.
3. Water then let it start to dry out. Weather is a cycle and in nature plants are rarely kept constantly wet. Watering every few days by soaking is better than drowning! If it's particularly hot and the darlings are looking like they need a drink every day then do so, but don't water everyday just to keep them wet. If you feel they need a water from the top or you want to get the kids involved this nifty little watering bottle top is the answer! 
4. Seedlings need warmth, but don't cook them! Make sure the soil can heat up but make sure they aren't getting burnt. At night bring them in to somewhere out of the elements, you don't want  a midnight trip out to save them from filling up with rain!

Tomorrow I'm replanting in my incubators:

• capsicum
• celery
• eggplant
• leeks
• zucchinis
• tommy toe tomatoes (cherry tomatoes)
• grosse lisse tomatoes (salad tomatoes)

I'm also planting direct into my garden beds:

• more carrots (the first lot seem to be doing well, and I'm planting more as we go through heaps!)
• lettuce
• Lebanese cucumbers, (my first lot haven't come up, but I did plant a bit early and I'm worried they dried out).

Today I got hanging baskets! I'm hoping to stock them full of tumbling red tomatoes as a bit of an experiment. I've heard a few reports that you get a big crop, so here's hoping! I've got the smallest basket possibly for tomatoes (30cm) so we are going to have to keep them hydrated. Hmmmm... hopefully I'm not setting myself up for another disaster.

Feel like joining me in the garden? What are you planting?

Gardening in August!

It's August - last month of winter, to state the obvious, but I'm excited as there is heaps of fun stuff to do in August. If you are in coastal SA (i.e. not inland) this is what we can be doing in August. Melbournites you can join us too!

Things to sow into punnets in August*:

• Late Onions (eg. creamgold and ever green spring onions
• Capsicums (we're planting 7 colour Heirloom)
• Leeks (some fancy French Heirloom Jaune du Poitou!)
• Tomato (this year we are trying Tommy Toe Red & Gross Lisse)
• Celery 
• Kale
• Asparagus (check out FAT BASTARD!)

We use a seedling tray in a little green house (less than $8 from Bunnings) and put it out in the sun when it's out and keep them in the laundry when it's not.

Straight into the garden you can sow*:

• Lettuce Heirloom Mix (any time of the year!)
• Carrot Heirloom Mix (July to March in warm climate)
• Silverbeet, why not try the spectacular 5 colour mix which can be grown at any time of the year and adds a pop of colour!
• Spinach

General gardening

• A trick some people do is to cover their soil with black plastic or newspaper to warm it up.
• You can spread well rotted compost or manure if you haven't already.

Fruit trees

• If you are lucky enough to have fruit trees now is the time to protect them from leaf curl. You can do this by spraying copper or lime sulfate. For more info check out the experts here and here.

* I'm in a warm coastal area where we get 150-240 growing days per year. Your local nursery will help you with when you can plant based on your local climate conditions.

Strawberry Vertical Pallet Garden

Ages ago we picked up a pallet off the side of the road and have been dreaming up how we were going to use it. This weekend we finally made it into a vertical wall, I know it's been done, but it works so well I thought I should share.

In our last house we had a garden bed full of heirloom strawberries that multiplied from four plants I got from the Marion Life Community Market. They were doing great, but the millipedes kept beating us to them. Nate did some research and came up with replanting them into PVC pipes with holes cut out the top and mesh gaffed on the ends. He went above and beyond and even put dripper pipes in it so we can just pour water into the pipe sticking out of the top of the end hole. It was a super simple solution and took him about an hour or so to knock up six.

Our one small family including our sponsor child. 

Next to me is 2 of the 4 original Heirloom strawberries. Within 18 months the bed was full and over flowing!

This weekend Nate pulled off the back of the pallet and slid in the two strawberry pipes. Once we get the tomatoes out of the other pipes we might plant more strawberries and nail in the other pipes.

I also wanted to make some garden beds, but the thought of buying wood is so expensive so I got googling (yes, it's totally a word) and discovered this page of inspirational pallet delights. Now I'm going to hit up the local businesses to see if I can score some free pallets!

What have you tried with pallets?

A trip to the Diggers Club

Diggers Club retail shop in the Adelaide Botanic Gardens [Source]

I was like a kid in a lolly shop! On Sunday afternoon we took a quick trip into the Botanic Gardens to play in the tree roots and visit the Diggers Club shop. They were so great there with all their heirloom veggie goodness and abundance of gardening know how. The girl working there was extra lovely and helped us with all our start up questions.

Missy Moo investigating these magnificent trees. She told me last week that she hadn't climbed a tree so I thought we better rectify the situation!

For organisation fanatics such as myself this store will take you to your happy place! All the seeds are perfectly lined up and have little tabs for those that can be sown now. This made it so easy, a little too easy, to pick up many, many seeds that I could go home and plant!

Ready to sow!

I also became a member. Which gives you 6 magazines per year, chock full of info and tempting catalogues to order seeds, trees and other gardening goodies. Membership also gives you discount on their goods, which is lucky given that I may have splurged a little.

Some of the perks of being a Diggers Club Member, these were ALL free!

I bought a fantastic book "The Australian Fruit and Vegetable Garden" by Clive Blazey & Jane Varkulevicius. The thing I LOVE about it is inside it details how you can grow ALL your own fruit and vegetables in a suburban block! We're in a duplex, but I reckon we can go a fair way to being self sufficient for fruit and vegetables with a bit (ok, A LOT) of creative planning. I'm super excited and can't wait to get into it.

Stay tuned, hopefully I'll have a garden plan soon!

The beginning of our small orchard

I posted yesterday that we bought home the first of our tree babies, so I thought I better continue the story, and let you know what happened next.

We were still on a 'retail high' - you know that buzz you get when you buy something that you think is going to make your life better in some unrealistic, delusional way! So when we started discussing where we would put our new babies and making sure we had space for the mandarin that we will have to pick up later, we noticed that if we did a 'bit more' clearing we could actually get 7 trees in! We are planning to put a tree in the middle of every panel of the fence.

Unpacking our new dwarf babies!

The BIG moment!

Missy Moo doing a spot of rhythmic gymnastics in front of the royal gala (left) and peacharin (right) trees.

Horsing around with the rope from the tree packaging in front of one of the newly cleared sections.

Our Pinkabelle in the newly cleared space.

Perry's gave us an info sheet to help us with the care of our new dwarf babies. I was surprised that we only need to water them in when planting and then not water them until they start getting leaves. We also need to do some copper spray to prevent leaf curl, which we will do at the beginning of August.

We have three spaces for more space for trees, feel free to leave a comment about what you think we should get!

The Orchard

Welcome to one small orchard. It's a little city fringe garden in Adelaide. Brimming with potential.

One small orchard is a project to try to utilise a smallish city fringe garden into a hub of nutritious fruit, vegetables and eggs. We are starting from scratch, in an everyday garden. We are starting in winter because we moved in spring and are freshly settled and motivated. Winter is a great time to start as we will be removing a portion of our front and back garden to make space for trees, vegetables and chickens!

Before - stay tuned for the progress!

We hope this project will help us live more seasonally and eat nutritionally and locally. This blog will hopefully be filled with seasonal food and recipes that will nourish, make life a little easier and affordable. It will also contain a journal of one small orchard as it develops and changes seasonally.