Saturday, December 6, 2008

Oh and i only moved into Renmark from Barmera in late September
so im very proud of my achievements thus far!!
I would like to note that all my efforts in the garden are all organic i do not use artificial fertilisers or any chemical pest or weed control methods

fertilisers i use include:
seasol (seaweed concerntrate)
power feed (liquide compost with fish emulsion)
cow manure
chicken manure
for weed control i use my hands
and pest control i invite predetory insects to control the pests
and if i find a plant that is being attacked by pests i levae it there in the hope that will only attack that plant and leave the others alone.
this is my new patch i started just this week it has been planted up with mescullin mix lettuce, lollo mix lettuce and a few other leftover seedlings such as artichoke, capsicum, chilli and egg plant for reference ill call this one bed five the citrus tree in the middle had been hit by boarers so ive choped it right back and now seems to be responding well.



bed four (tomatoes bed ) is coming along well and have had to stake them, in one month they have gone from 2 inch tall to 1 foot in most cases



bed three is going fantastic the corn is starting to flower and pumpkins are already starting to from, it wont be long before me family is enjoying BBQed corn and pumpkin








bed one (beans, corrots and silverbeet) the silverbeet is now muture enough to eat, carrots are goin very well and to some extent showing what colour they are on the leaf stems, and the beans show lots of colour with flowers although i wont be harvesting the beand this year for food they will produce enough seed for next year




bed two (capsicum, basil and russian tomato) while the basil and tomatoes are going well im having trouble with the capsicum, i havent seen any pest and can only put it down to the dramatic changes in tempreture with the storms and the heat, here hoping they come good
I have found propergating vegetables from seed to a decent size before planting in to the garden to be touch and go especially out doors. This is why I built myself a hot house with a built in misters for irrigation and have found it to be much easier. hot house available @ Bob's Barn



here you can see that i have made up some seed trays out of hard wood
divided into three's and placed on work benches at waist height.
down the other end i have made a garden bed wich i have planted my prized rhubarb that loves the conditions that the hot house provides.
an over supply of my tomatoes have also been planted.
This bed contains high amounts of organic material and manure
Freash eggs are probably the most noteable advantage of having your own chooks, but better than that they are the perfect recycling machine. i feed all kitchen and garden scraps to them and in return i get the eggs and munure that is high in nitrogen that gives the vegetables an essential element to produce leafy growth.
Worms play a major role in the garden braking down organic matter to castings and produce micro-organisims that will bring nutriants to the plants.
for this reason i do not use chemical fertilisers such as super phosphates as these kill off microbes and as a result would have to use more fertiliser to get the same results









This is my worm farm that i built, it is available at Bob's Barn. As you can see it is a stacking system, as the worms eat through the matter and come to the top i will remove the top section where all the worms are, empty out the bottom sections and place the top section down the bottom a start the cycle again. im currently feeding the worms on cow manure that i get from my uncle.
Also at the bottom is a drip tray that catches all the fluids that I use to folia feed the vegetables.


this is the tomato patch it consists of ten colour heirloom mix which should give me an array of diffrent colour tomatoes . Ive also planted a row of italian fryer capsicums

This patch is put aside for the fresh herbs it consists of Rosemary, Dill, Mint, Rocket, Tyme, Corriander, Italian Parsley, Chives, Oregano, Sage, and Curled Parsley

Below is the asparagus patch unfortunatly ill have to wait for two years before i can begin to harvest so the root system can fully develope











This patch is for the strawberries, alot of them died off due to root rot when i had them in pots whilst moving house.





I planted these beds back in early october after turning in a crop of green manure along with horse, chicken, cow munure and a healthy dose of blood and bone. With most of the vegetables i have planted I have chosen to use hierloom varieties so i can harvest the seed, Heirlooms are regarded as a gardeners inheirtants

In bed one(1) i have planted five(5) varieties of beans including Berlotti, Kidney, Chereokee, Yin&yang, and Flagelotti which are growin on the trellis. A row of five colour Silverbeat, they produce an array of colour from reds, oranges and yellow to white. Finally a row of Hierloom Carrots that most people would not know of, but produce purple orange yellow and whites carrots. NO they are NOT parsnip they are White carrots!!

In bed three (3) have planted Heirloom Pumpkins Mix down the middle, Im not sure exactly what varieties they are but im very interested in what i get.
the row on the left is Kelvedon Glory F1 Sweet corn and on the right is mini pop F1 baby Sweet corn the interesting thing i have done with the corn is when i planted the seed i did a mix of cruched charcoal, seaweed concerntrate, fish emulsion, cow manure and sand and placed it in the bottom af the trench, then placed the seed on top. This practice has been used for thousands of years in the amzon basin where they had very impoverish soils and is known to double and triple yields.

In Bed two (2) I have italian fryer capsicum and sweet allsorts on the left
a row of basil (red and green) down the middle,
and on the right a mix of Russian Hierloom Tomatoes, im very excited to see all the colours from these.