Africanaussie

I have been toying with the idea of planting a green manure crop during the wet season. In the end I ordered pigeon peas, recommended for the tropics. You get an inoculant with it that helps to fix nitrogen in the soil when you cut it back. This is also recommended for building up the soil to resist wilt diseases. I want to taste the actual peas though and might keep some growing to use as mulch. One site said that this is the pea most commonly used for making dahl , so maybe I wont have to buy lentils anymore and can just use what I grow in the garden :) It looks like quite a strong large plant and one blogger uses it to grow her tomatoes next to and then uses them to stake the tomatoes. Here is the bed cleared and ready to be planted. I have never done green manure before, so this is all a learning experience. Most sites say to cut down the plant and then it releases nitrogen into the soil, but on the tropical permaculture site I read that every time you prune back the plants the...

When we got back from our holiday the tomatoes were looking very sad, so this weekend I ripped them all up and created a new compost pile where they will be next year. Crop rotation! I have an old table legs and base which is going to act as the support for the vines. So with a bit of fencing around the sides it has created the perfect compost pile. With all those tomato seeds I probably wont even have to plant the tomato bushes! Leaves, bushy trimmings, the old tomato plants and some cardboard have almost filled it to the top. I will probably get some seaweed in the next couple of days as that always seems to get compost heating up quickly. There is a pumpkin volunteer nearby so if I train that over the whole pile it can look good too! The area that used to have the tomatoes has been cleared and I am going to do a green manure crop - not sure about maybe doing some sun solarization first. My eggplant wilted overnight and died - two now, but when I cut through the stem it wa...