Africanaussie

Well, as you know I have been trying to fit my new compost tumbler into my composting schedule.  You are supposed to stop topping it up at some stage and then let it finish off before transferring to the stand alone compost bin.   The thing is that I am not sure what to do with the kitchen waste that accumulates while the tumbler batch is processing (about 4- 6 weeks.)   I have lots of leaves, and they seem to take forever to break down too!  The kitchen scraps compost down quickly but the leaves take ages....So I keep adding to the tumbler, and it is in fact now getting rather full and a bit heavy, so something had to be done. This is what it looks like.  and inside: A worm farm, everyone suggested....    I have only ever heard of one person with a worm farm in this climate.  Recently though, I saw an honesty stall with bottles of worm wee.  Hubby looked the other way when I went to put my coins in the jar and pick up a bottle....

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...

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...