Hawthorn Garden Update - Week 13

After a few busy weeks doing all sorts of non-gardening related fun stuff, it was wonderful to have two full days to dedicate to the Hawthorn Garden this weekend just gone.  It was so action packed that I didn't have time to pop past Luscombe Street!  So it was one of the first weekends that wasn't drizzly or raining which was great - we had made stencils to put on the planter boxes about a month and half ago, so got out the black paint and stenciled away so that the paint would be dry before the rain returns early this week.  I thought it would be a great idea to have the containers numbered so that I can take note of the plants that have been in each container season by season, making managing crop rotation that much easier.  Corny I know, but we have also put C & D for Claire and Dan on the bottom of each of them - well we made them together so I thought that would be nice :)

The worm farm is going full steam ahead, so much so that it has reached the time that a new tray be put on top of the initial tray ready for the worms to be transferred and the first lot of worm castings harvested.  You can see below how much matter the worms have worked their way through since setting them up a couple of months ago.  I'll leave them there for about two weeks to move on up into the new tray before taking the old one away to use.

We relocated the containers on the weekend into what will be known as the 'Spring' configuration - all containers lined up in a row on the eastern boundary, so that they receive the most amount of north and western sun during the season.  I love how they all look stacked up in a row, and it means that we have more space to use during the warmer part of the year.

All of the veggies in the containers are doing really well.  We continue to pick from the baby spinach a couple of times each week for evening meals, and the snow peas are blooming away.  Whilst we haven't picked any peas yet, we're almost there, and hope that they will continue to provide yummy peas through Spring.

The mushrooms have also just gone crazy over the past week - we're just about to harvest a whole heap of Swiss Browns!  Honestly, you see a little shroom coming up through the ground and within 3-5 days its big enough to eat.  Just amazing!  The broccoli continues to flower and has been bothered by a few aphids here and there, but nothing too crazy.  I have just blasted them off with a hose whenever I have seen them munching away on the yummy new flower growth.

The beetroot is growing really steadily, and will be ready to harvest in the coming few weeks which is great because the next batch of seedlings have been taken out of the hot house and are hardening up ready to be planted in two or three weeks time.  The garlic is also going great guns!

We also spent some time finishing off the three herb pots, made from scraps of the timber we used for the containers, that can be moved from container to container when required as companion plants.  It was really important that they could be moved, should the plants need them, throughout the year.  So we have a pot with mint, a pot with sage and another with lemon thyme.  Useful as companion plants, and for additional herbs for cooking!  We might look at making a couple more during the year depending on the types of good and bad pests we begin to attract to the garden.

So all going very well in the Hawthorn Garden.  Its great to be at a point now where we're harvesting what we're growing, and being so proud of the work that has gone into the garden over the past couple of months.

Mushroom!

Lots of Mushrooms!

New tray placed on top of the inital worm farm

Worms eating away the last of the scraps in the lower tray

Beautiful containers all lined up in a row :)

 Looking back the other way toward the new Potato bags!

 

Beetroot are kicking on - this also shows the stencilling on each container

Beetroot!

Broccoli is flowering!  Have had to flick off the odd aphid but they are doing pretty well.

We finished off the small herb planters - companion planting boxes that hang from the containers via hooks and can be moved when necessary

 

Garlic and prostrate rosemary

 

 Baby spinach continues to thrive.  We pick and eat from this container once or twice a week.

Potatoes!  Bags were bought at Bunnings after a sad failed attempt to obtain recycled hessian bags from local fruit and veg shops.  Apparently they aren't receiving veggies in hessian bags anymore???  At least we can use these from year to year, and they have a little peek-a-boo flap on the bottom for early harvesting!

The next batch of Beetroot are on their way.  Parsley is still growing away, and the random seeldings (not sure if Fennel or Warrigal Greens!) are growing away as well.

Pumpkin seeds have been sown ready for planting mid Spring

And I almost forgot....we have potatoes growing in the backyard now too!  After heading down to our local green grocer, I realised that not many producers are using hessian bags anymore to store their vegetables...which baffled me!  I would have loved to have reused something to grow the potatoes in, but I eventually gave up and went down to Bunnings to buy a couple of specially made potato growing bags for the 6 'seed' potatoes that had sprouted in the bottom of the cupboard.  Yes, I think people recommend that you buy seed potatoes to grow at home, but these were ones that I had bought from CERES, that were grown at their market garden organically, so I thought would be fine to use for growing at home.  The bags actually have a little peek-a-boo hole at the bottom of them so that during the season, whilst you are piling up the compost in the bags as the sprouts grow, you can harvest new potatoes from the bottom of the bag.  Pretty neat!  They seem so easy to grow, so it will be interesting to see how they go :)

Oh, and the first of the Spring / Summer seed planting has begun with pumpkin seeds that I had saved earlier in the year from a CERES pumpkin going into the hothouse this weekend :)  Exciting times!  I can't wait for Spring to come along!

Hawthorn Garden Update - Week 10 & 11

Wow, oops I forgot to put an update up the week before, the fornight before, last...eek!  Oh well there's a huge amount to update you all on which is very exciting!

The snow peas are going mental, and flowering like crazy, and the broccoli has also started flowering which is great!  I have had to keep a watchful eye on the broccoli though as the grey wooly aphids have made a comeback and like munching in the new growth.  I have given them a good spray of EcoOil, and will continue to keep an eye on them to see whether they need another dose by next weekend.

The beetroots are also growing well.  The seedlings in the planter are growing and I have also taken the seedlings that have sprouted out of the hothouse to continue growing in a more natural environment.

And we have baby mushrooms!  It has taken, what, almost a month and a half, but we have the first signs of little white funghi in our shed!  So exciting :)
 

 All looking very green :)

 Almost ready to pick!

 Snow peas continue to grow and flower like mad.

 The first of the Broccoli!

 Beetroot are going well.  I have also planted the last three Kale seedlings to see how they go.  The companion planting herb containers are to be made this coming weekend - how cute are they!  Dan has made one as a test and I think it looks great!  It's just made from little offcuts that we had after making the timber containers.

 The worms are almost ready to be transported to another section of their Worm Cafe.  I'll leave them another week or two to demolish the last of the food in the bottom tray and then attempt to lure them into a new upper section.

 The baby mushrooms!  It looks like the plain button mushrooms have started growing which is very exciting :)

Worm Farm Update

The wormies are going very, very well in their new home and munching away on all sorts of goodies that we have put in there.  Lots of raw veggie scraps, old bananas, lint from the clothes dryer and the egg carton that had the catnip seeds that didn't sprout.  The worms are less active in winter so I'm going to leave the amount of food in there (about 2cm worth) and wait until they have eaten it all up before I add any more.

Happy wormies!

The Worm Cafe

I had a very busy weekend this weekend - I'm still trying to recover from it!  An early night tonight for me I think :)

I spent an exciting day all day Saturday at CERES undertaking the second part of the Permaculture workshop.  Having set up the Luscombe Street plot last weekend, I had spent some time during the week thinking about crop rotation and what I was going to plant in the garden for the late Autumn / Winter crop.  I had a few sketches to show Digga (our workshop guru) and we had a really great chat about how I can incorporate permaculture principles into the garden.  Its amazing how transferrable some of the concepts are from large scale properties down to a small one square metre plot.  I really encourage people to have a read up about permaculture as before this course I really had no idea what it was all about.  A lot of the principles are so common sense but are things that we would normally overlook!  I'm going to try and incorporate as much as I can, and will hopefully share with you a bit as I go :)

After the workshop I headed up to the CERES nursery to buy some seeds and seedlings for the plot, along with a ready made worm farm for home!  I was very excited about this because we are currently throwing away so much green waste from the kitchen that could be used as compost or fed to worms to produce wonderful worm tea or worm castings for both the garden at home and the Luscombe Street plot.

I bought a ready made kit, known as the 'Worm Cafe' made by Tumbleweed that comes with its own stand, bedding material, additional trays and a tap on the side to collect your worm juice.  Its quite an expensive option - you can build your own with polystyrene boxes as well - but with the concern of smelliness and rodents potentially getting in I thought it best to have a well constructed container for our wormies!  There's a great review with a video here.  For those of you who watch Gardening Australia, Costa met a worm expert in Sydney last week on the program (12 May 2012) who explained the process of setting up a worm farm really well!  Check it out here.

The process began with the reconstitution of the dried bedding material.  This meant submerging the 'brick' into a container of water for about 15 to 20 minutes prior to transferring into the first tray of the worm farm.  The bottom tray, connected to the tap, should be left empty for any juice to flow through down to the tap on the bottom.  Then it was time to add the worms!  I purchased a starter pack from CERES containing 1000-1200 worms.  These worms are wonderful feeders (they apparently eat up to twice their body weight each day!) and multiply very readily!  It will be interesting to see how they go!