seeds

I recently purchased a perpetual moon calendar and according to it I was supposed to weed and prepare beds for planting during this past few days.  Didn't do any of that even though the intent was there.  Oh well.

Yesterday I put some seeds in coir pellets - three pellets each with 2 or 3 seeds.  Here's hoping they do well.  I have the following in:

Asparagus
3 colour Capsicum
Tomato - Mortgage Lifter variety
Mini Cauliflower
Broccoli
Purple Coneflower, and
Red Russian Kale

This will be first time I have tried to grow Kale, Cauliflower and Asparagus. My previous attempts at Broccoli were not very successful - they bolted to seed waaaay too quickly.  I have had reasonable success with Tomatoes though this variety is new to me. last year I managed to get enough toms to make a few jars of sauce with. Last years Capsicums grew and fruited, but bugs got the fruits before I did.

I haven't tried Coneflower (below) before either. How hard can they be?

They are currently sitting in my mini portable greenhouse/box/thingy in the laundry.

Today I finished setting up my earth boxes.  I added in the fill pipe which is a piece of 16mm clear poly tubeing cut to size. I made sure I cut the end that goes into the aggi pipe at an angle.  Then I put a couple of layers tulle over the aggi pipe in an attempt to stop dirt getting into it.  Tokk them both outside and into their final resting place.  I had help filling them up with herb/vege mix.  Our 11 week old pup thought I was making a dig patch just for him. Nearly 100 litres of mix and they are full.  To finish them off I out a think layer of sugar cane mulch.  I will get around to planting the seeds soon.

These are going to have carrots, sugar snap peas and beans.

I still have to get some sort of trellis to put behind them for the peas and beans to grow up.

Next of the agenda is to replace the fencing around the rose bushes.  I have some wire edging panels that just push into the ground - quite easy to do.  I do however need to bend them around the corners of the beds as the bed is not made to fit these panels.  They are the same as the ones I have used on the other vege bed next to the path to the clothesline.

Should pull the weeds too - check moon calendar for best time to do this.  Knowing my luck that won't be for another 3 weeks.  In this bed are 4 roses - a white, a pink, a red that I planted and a red that self seeded - and a Nashi pear.  The pear had fruit last year but it all fell off, or was knocked off by something.  Not too sure which.  That was probably a good thing as it will enable the tree to grow bigger and better roots.

Have you done any planting this weekend?

Earth Box DIY

I like using self watering pots on my indoor plants.  Just fill up the reservoir and forget for a couple of weeks.  They are such a brilliant idea.

I have a section of our house out the back that is all brick wall and it faces the setting sun - in my case west.  You can imagine how hot that wall can get in summer.  The other side of the wall inside the house is our office area and our air con doesn't really reach that space.  So it can, and does, get quite warm during the hottest part of summer.

I have been thinking for a couple of years now of ways to shade that wall - it's not very wide, only around 2m. I have searched for suitable solutions and I think I have found one that will work - at least for the office area. Above it on the second floor is the upstairs bathroom and it has a high window that probably should have some sort of awning over it.

My solution needs to be something I can accomplish by myself - DH is of no help when it comes to this sort of thing. Not that he can't, he just won't.  It needs to cheap, it needs to be easy to maintain, and it needs to look good. Oh and I am not that great with power tools so if I can not use those that's a big bonus.

So my solution is a couple of earth boxes (or wicking beds) with some pine trellis behind them.  I can grow some sweet peas or some beans up the trellis and some other small flowers and veges in the front of the box.

I researched various earth boxes - btw this is a brand name for a large self watering pot/tub - and diy and came up with this....

They are just a couple of large black storage tubs into which I have placed 50mm slotted agg pipe.  There is also a small overflow hole in one side.  So far I have spent $15 on the tubs and $35 (ouch) on the agg pipe (it was a 20m roll so I have quite a bit left for more earth boxes).

I am not finished with these babies.  I have to get some electrical conduit cut to 40cm long with a diagonal cut on one end and some netting or shade cloth to cover the agg pipe with so dirt does not fall into the slots. I also have to get the trellis still too.

Once I have those I will do some more pics.

Spring Prep 2016

Spring will be here in 2 weeks - we are getting a taste of it this week with temperatures in the mid to high teens.  Along with spring comes my annual "I must do something in the garden" urge. After much deliberating over winter as to what to do in the backyard I have devised a plan.

After we ripped out the trees in one of the back yard garden beds I layed down a heavy load of sugar cane mulch in the attempt to keep weeds out of the bed.  I will say that I am quite surprised that it worked as there have been very few weeds come up.  This is what is used to look like with the trees still in it.......

It's a bit hard to see as the bed in question is behind the daisy things in the foreground, but you can see 2 trees, a dog house and a shrub.

Today it looks like this.......

That's where the dog house was.  This is the rest of the bed......

I uncovered the bricks along the path and relayed the upright bricks the other day.

In the car waiting to be gotten out is some bags of euci mulch that will be going on the path and some garden edging that will be going in around the edge of the garden bed.  The edging is more like a short fence that will hopefully keep the dogs out of the bed as I intend on putting in vegetables. One of the edging pieces will be used a 'gate'.  I hope I have some pavers left to use as stepping stones in the bed.