We’ve just had the worst vegetable season since our move to the country almost five years ago. It’s the first time we haven’t needed to give away a surplus of zucchinis. We’ve barely had enough to keep ourselves going, even with the addition of three plants of button squash filling the shortfall.
Our butternut pumpkins have also been very disappointing. We’ll be lucky to get 10 pumpkins this year. In previous years we’ve always exceeded 50.
Tomatoes have never been much of a success at our place, so even the poor crop we got was a slight improvement, but it ought to have been much better. Gloria pulled up the last couple of plants yesterday.
And our corn was possibly left too late before being picked – it was very dry despite having more than ample water with the record summer rains.
Our main successes have been onions (even though they were down on previous years), garlic, beans (lazy housewife and purple king are still pickable) and several cucumbers (the most we’ve grown so far).
I now have three empty veggie beds. One has been enriched with homemade compost and several bags of cow manure. On another I’ve been throwing prunings and grass clippings. I’ll top that with straw when I get around to buying a bale or two and hopefully will make it into a decent no-dig garden. The future of the third bed is still to be decided.
The only bed still in use has the last of the zucchini, squash and pumpkins. With frosts not too far away the productivity of that bed is also close to an end. So soon I’ll have a totally blank canvas to start all over again.
Showing posts with label No Dig. Show all posts
Showing posts with label No Dig. Show all posts
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Heat Effects and Death to the Lawn!
Apart from a short post about kamikaze insects I’ve neglected this blog for a while. With a couple of weeks of extreme heat, gardening hasn’t been very appealing and a as result the garden itself has taken on a neglected look.
It’s been hard to keep things in order when the temperature made it too uncomfortable to spend time outside. And there was just no way I could keep dehydration of the plants at bay with the hose. Now, most of the roses have crashed and my potatoes are very bedraggled after a very promising and healthy looking start.
With the lack of recent gardening inspiration I have been spending time starting up my new “literary” blog: Out of Shadows and I’ve tried to catch up on some of the books I’d been neglecting. But my garden was not completely abandoned.
On some of the cooler evenings I did venture out to reclaim some of the lawn area by creating two new garden beds. The first of these was next to the new water tank (which is now half empty again). We had three cubic metres of garden soil delivered and only half was needed for the tank area, so I used the rest to extend an existing garden.
To create the first bed I put layers of newspaper over the grass, piled a good thickness of the soil on top and added a covering of sugar cane mulch. Towards the back of this garden I planted a fuchsia that is supposed to grow up to two metres tall. If that height estimation is correct it will make quite an unusual looking plant because its flowers are tiny. Unfortunately I’m not very confident of its future, it seems to be struggling. Planting during an extended period of extreme heat perhaps didn’t give it the best start – although it is in one of the more shaded areas of the garden.
The second garden bed will be left for a while. I approached this one differently. Firstly I marked its borders by digging up the grass around the edges. I then placed the clumps onto the garden area grass side down and covered them with thick biscuits from a bale of “lucerne” straw. [I put the lucerne in quotes because there seemed to be more oats than lucerne in the bale – with an occasional hint of “Riverina bluebell”!]. I covered all of this with a good thickness of newspaper and topped it all off with the rest of the delivery of soil. I won’t plant anything here until the various layers have settled down significantly giving the area a bit more stability. I also used the last bit of my sugar cane mulch to cover half of the bare soil.
Looking at the back yard now I can see it taking the shape I’ve been looking for. After more than three years of planning and replanning, I feel like I’m finally getting somewhere. There were two clear turning points that started to move things out of my head and onto the ground. Firstly was the relocation of the old Hill’s hoist clothesline which had been right in the middle of the garden, limiting access and mobility. We replaced that with a removable clothesline to the side of the house which opened up many more possibilities. It also improved the view from the windows in our family/dining room.
The second turning point was the installation of the water tank. Now that the tank is in place we can attend to the area that was needed for access for the tank delivery.
Eventually I will reclaim all of the lawn at the back. Most will be converted to garden beds, with a small open paved/gravelled area in the middle. We’ll need to shade that area in some way, but the means of doing that will be considered later.
I’ve written quite a lot here without including any photos to illustrate the things I’ve been writing about. I haven’t taken any photos recently because the decline of the garden (after such a promising start in early spring) has been a bit discouraging. But now the weather seems to have cooled off a little, and after a decent rainfall yesterday, I might take the camera out again in the next couple of days to take a few more photos to post at a later date.
It’s been hard to keep things in order when the temperature made it too uncomfortable to spend time outside. And there was just no way I could keep dehydration of the plants at bay with the hose. Now, most of the roses have crashed and my potatoes are very bedraggled after a very promising and healthy looking start.
With the lack of recent gardening inspiration I have been spending time starting up my new “literary” blog: Out of Shadows and I’ve tried to catch up on some of the books I’d been neglecting. But my garden was not completely abandoned.
On some of the cooler evenings I did venture out to reclaim some of the lawn area by creating two new garden beds. The first of these was next to the new water tank (which is now half empty again). We had three cubic metres of garden soil delivered and only half was needed for the tank area, so I used the rest to extend an existing garden.
To create the first bed I put layers of newspaper over the grass, piled a good thickness of the soil on top and added a covering of sugar cane mulch. Towards the back of this garden I planted a fuchsia that is supposed to grow up to two metres tall. If that height estimation is correct it will make quite an unusual looking plant because its flowers are tiny. Unfortunately I’m not very confident of its future, it seems to be struggling. Planting during an extended period of extreme heat perhaps didn’t give it the best start – although it is in one of the more shaded areas of the garden.
The second garden bed will be left for a while. I approached this one differently. Firstly I marked its borders by digging up the grass around the edges. I then placed the clumps onto the garden area grass side down and covered them with thick biscuits from a bale of “lucerne” straw. [I put the lucerne in quotes because there seemed to be more oats than lucerne in the bale – with an occasional hint of “Riverina bluebell”!]. I covered all of this with a good thickness of newspaper and topped it all off with the rest of the delivery of soil. I won’t plant anything here until the various layers have settled down significantly giving the area a bit more stability. I also used the last bit of my sugar cane mulch to cover half of the bare soil.
Looking at the back yard now I can see it taking the shape I’ve been looking for. After more than three years of planning and replanning, I feel like I’m finally getting somewhere. There were two clear turning points that started to move things out of my head and onto the ground. Firstly was the relocation of the old Hill’s hoist clothesline which had been right in the middle of the garden, limiting access and mobility. We replaced that with a removable clothesline to the side of the house which opened up many more possibilities. It also improved the view from the windows in our family/dining room.
The second turning point was the installation of the water tank. Now that the tank is in place we can attend to the area that was needed for access for the tank delivery.
Eventually I will reclaim all of the lawn at the back. Most will be converted to garden beds, with a small open paved/gravelled area in the middle. We’ll need to shade that area in some way, but the means of doing that will be considered later.
I’ve written quite a lot here without including any photos to illustrate the things I’ve been writing about. I haven’t taken any photos recently because the decline of the garden (after such a promising start in early spring) has been a bit discouraging. But now the weather seems to have cooled off a little, and after a decent rainfall yesterday, I might take the camera out again in the next couple of days to take a few more photos to post at a later date.
Monday, May 04, 2009
Vegetable Garden - Approaching Winter
I spent Saturday afternoon trying to finish the border around my latest veggie garden. We harvested the last of the butternut pumpkins the week before and I have enclosed the area where they grew with grey concrete blocks to match two previously created gardens.
Demonstrating my usual DIY aptitude, I built a low, crooked retaining wall. Hopefully next weekend I can correct the mistakes I made and straighten it up. I think the extent of the crookedness is emphasised because the garden is in direct line-of-sight from the back door.
Taking the photo at night helps to hide the shoddiness of my work.
At least now, through trial and (multiple) error, I have a clearer idea of how to do the job right and can hopefully improve the appearance.
I’ll probably make this new garden into a no-dig area, building up various layers of organic materials which will hopefully break down into a reasonable quality soil. The first layer will be a combination of chopped up pumpkin plant and part-ready compost. On top of this I’ll start with layers of newspaper, composted cow manure and straw. Time will tell how successful this approach will be and how long it will take before it’s ready for use.
The beds I created earlier (the borders of which also need a bit of maintenance) seem to be going well. The first was started with beetroot, pak choy, snow peas, and sugar snaps. I also used an area close to the back to plant some excess Russian garlic cloves and the last of a packet of radish seeds. The radishes were picked and eaten over the weekend.
One row of beetroot looks like being the best I’ve grown, but the second row is too close to the pak choy and is being overwhelmed by pak choy leaves.
The snow peas look very healthy but aren’t yet producing many pods. The sugar snaps are a total disappointment, and have barely grown more than 6 inches. I’ve never had much luck with Sugar snaps.
In the other bed we had a very good crop of beans (as mentioned previously) and I’ve now reclaimed part of the bed to grow broccoli. After an initial caterpillar attack the plants are now growing well. A couple of applications of derris dust seem to have solved the problem.
Immediately behind the broccoli I sowed two rows of mini-turnip seeds. On Saturday I saw the first signs of germination, so they seem to be going well. The Kohlrabi seeds I sowed into punnets at the same time aren’t yet showing the same promise.
Sometime soon I’ll have to find somewhere to plant out the two types of onions that are now ready in punnets. I have a lot more onion seed to sow including a new packet of Barletta that I recently received from the Digger’s Club. We had a lot of success with onions last year, especially with Barletta. Unfortunately onions take so long to mature that they tie up an area of garden for several months. Successful management of garden space is not one of my strong points so slow maturing things like onions and garlic can be a problem in making the best practical use of my garden.
Demonstrating my usual DIY aptitude, I built a low, crooked retaining wall. Hopefully next weekend I can correct the mistakes I made and straighten it up. I think the extent of the crookedness is emphasised because the garden is in direct line-of-sight from the back door.
Taking the photo at night helps to hide the shoddiness of my work.
At least now, through trial and (multiple) error, I have a clearer idea of how to do the job right and can hopefully improve the appearance.
I’ll probably make this new garden into a no-dig area, building up various layers of organic materials which will hopefully break down into a reasonable quality soil. The first layer will be a combination of chopped up pumpkin plant and part-ready compost. On top of this I’ll start with layers of newspaper, composted cow manure and straw. Time will tell how successful this approach will be and how long it will take before it’s ready for use.
The beds I created earlier (the borders of which also need a bit of maintenance) seem to be going well. The first was started with beetroot, pak choy, snow peas, and sugar snaps. I also used an area close to the back to plant some excess Russian garlic cloves and the last of a packet of radish seeds. The radishes were picked and eaten over the weekend.
One row of beetroot looks like being the best I’ve grown, but the second row is too close to the pak choy and is being overwhelmed by pak choy leaves.
The snow peas look very healthy but aren’t yet producing many pods. The sugar snaps are a total disappointment, and have barely grown more than 6 inches. I’ve never had much luck with Sugar snaps.
In the other bed we had a very good crop of beans (as mentioned previously) and I’ve now reclaimed part of the bed to grow broccoli. After an initial caterpillar attack the plants are now growing well. A couple of applications of derris dust seem to have solved the problem.
Immediately behind the broccoli I sowed two rows of mini-turnip seeds. On Saturday I saw the first signs of germination, so they seem to be going well. The Kohlrabi seeds I sowed into punnets at the same time aren’t yet showing the same promise.
Sometime soon I’ll have to find somewhere to plant out the two types of onions that are now ready in punnets. I have a lot more onion seed to sow including a new packet of Barletta that I recently received from the Digger’s Club. We had a lot of success with onions last year, especially with Barletta. Unfortunately onions take so long to mature that they tie up an area of garden for several months. Successful management of garden space is not one of my strong points so slow maturing things like onions and garlic can be a problem in making the best practical use of my garden.
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