Africanaussie

I have been busy every spare minute getting the veggie garden organised.  A couple of weekends ago we were looking at the swale/hugulkuture area, and thinking that the front part with the raised beds looked so nice and neat and didn't want to have the back area looking untidy.  Here you can see the small hand dug swale area and raised area mostly consisting of roots and branches behind the two raised beds.  I have only ever read about swales in large areas, and the same with hugulkulture, so would it be possible to combine the two into a raised bed system, and have another raised bed behind the two - essentially having the hugelkuture contained in a raised bed?  Our nearest Bunnings had run out of the same type of raised beds, so we ordered one in, and last Sunday went down to pick it up.  I had hubby assemble it, while I dug out around the mound I had created - the hugelkuture mound - I love saying that word :)  I popped it right over the top, added ...

This year I am going to add some polystyrene boxes to plant tomatoes in.  Large tomatoes don't do well here - we have bacterial wilt in the soil, and I think a myriad other diseases that are commonplace here.  I like tomatoes though, and I did get some free seeds to experiment with.  I am going to try a sort of wicking bed system as in the past I have had blossom end rot as well which indicated uneven watering.   I am putting some boxes front and centre.  They are resting on the front of the the asparagus bed, making use of every inch of the garden.  I hope I wont be disappointed. assemble what you need: The idea is to drill a  drainage holes about a quarter of the way up the box.  Add drainage rock - I used quincam, scoria is another good one to use.   Below this line the boxes are filled with small rocks for drainage. . Now I am not sure if there should...

As I was doing my update on my in ground worm buckets last week I began to mull over how my gardening has changed since I started blogging.... Worms ;  I had never even heard of worm composting when I first started gardening.  In fact I thought they were talking about earthworms.  I didnt have room for a worm bin, so discounted the idea of having compost worms in my small garden.  Then I read about worm tubes, but wanted to be able to harvest the castings, so with a little bit of inspiration from here and there my worm buckets were born. worm buckets Permaculture :  This is something that still does elude me a little.  I have such a small garden that I really only have zone 1/2 or 1.  Permaculture can spill out into other areas though and so I see those principles popping up in different areas of my life.  Nice to know that we dont have to own a huge farm to become permaculturists. Food forest :  I have lately been seeing more and m...

The wet season has been making its presence known and over the weekend the roads were flooded, making us housebound.  I managed to do quite a bit of sewing, and then the whole house got a very good clean.  Good, now I dont need to feel guilty when the garden calls:)  First thing was to cut back some of the mandevilla vine which the franzipani has been trying to escape from.  I hope with all the extra light it will flower a bit more.  I was also pleased to see strawberry flowers - this is the first time I have grown strawberries.  I had two hanging pots and the one disintegrated in a heap after just a couple of months.  I think I might get some more pots that actually attach to the fence with nails - they seem to do better in this climate than the hanging baskets.  I think I might move them to a wooden fence out the front as well. My new seeds were calling to be planted, and with the sun making an appearance on Sunday afternoon I ventured ...

This dry season started out with lots of cloudy days.  Combine that with the fact that my neighbor has a high hedge that has grown on one side of my veggie patch and my veggie garden has been starved for sunshine.  This meant things like tomatoes were not doing too well. Lately we have had a little bit more sunshine and suddenly the tomatoes in  the wicking beds are looking a bit healthier. We may still get some tomatoes this season :)  A while back I moved my fig in a  pot out into the front, on the side of the carport.  Normally there is no car there, but at the moment we have our old car parked there, so the fig tree has been pretty much hidden and  ignored.   I have been going back and forth about what to do - do I leave it in the pot?  Do I espalier it?  Will I ever get figs from it?  Well - look what I found - two little figs :)  I am thinking I will keep it here in the pot but not sure about the espalier trellis - it...

This year I am going to add some polystyrene boxes to plant tomatoes in.  Large tomatoes don't do well here - we have bacterial wilt in the soil, and I think a myriad other diseases that are commonplace here.  I like tomatoes though, and I did get some free seeds to experiment with.  I am going to try a sort of wicking bed system as in the past I have had blossom end rot as well which indicated uneven watering.   I am putting some boxes front and centre.  They are resting on the front of the the asparagus bed, making use of every inch of the garden.  I hope I wont be disappointed. assemble what you need: The idea is to drill a  drainage holes about a quarter of the way up the box.  Add drainage rock - I used quincam, scoria is another good one to use.   Below this line the boxes are filled with small rocks for drainage. . Now I am not sure if there should...