October Garden Share Collective - spreading the seeds of a love for gardening

So another month has disappeared in what seems to be the blink of an eye.  And so it is time for another Garden Share Collective post.  This month the theme is Seeds.  

I have to admit, when I started to plan a garden, I bought lots of seeds.  How hard can it be right?  Sprinkle some seeds, bit of dirt, water, and hey presto, lots of plants.  Ok so it doesn't go like that.  I can grow seeds alright, but once I transplant them they seem to die a thousand deaths.  Too dry, too hot, too wet, too mouldy, too many slugs - the list goes on.  So I admit that I know cheat a little bit and now I mostly buy seedlings.

However I have had a bit of luck with seeds.  Radishes and coriander work well, plus I've had success with capsicums.  Cucumber and tomatoes haven't been so great.

"Even a child can grow radishes" #thingsmydadsays #garden #vegetables #herbs pic.twitter.com/YBuYdCQ1gL

— Crooked Cottage (@crookedcottage1) February 5, 2015

On the non food front, I managed to grow lots and lots of flowers from bulbs this year (they're seeds right?)

One of the lovely hyacinths I grew earlier this year.

My pretty ranunculus - any excuse to put more pictures of these out!

Despite the fact that I am not great at growing from seed, I have still been collecting my seeds religiously.  Possibly a waste, but I have hundreds of seeds of basil, coriander, pak choi, broccolino, and chillis.  Plus of course capsicum.  I have one lettuce that went to seed but those little babies are so fine I am not sure I could catch them in anything.  And I'm thinking about trying to keep some of the snow pea and broad bean pods just in case I get better at this seed growing gig.

So this month I finally grew a cauliflower.  I was pretty proud of that!

My very first ever cauliflower - completed with moth eaten leaves and some friendly bugs!

The broad beans also bore fruit (or vegetables?) but I have decided they are a total waste of effort.  By the time you pod the beans, then repod again you end up with about a quarter of the plant to actually eat.

Broad beans

More broad beans

Snow peas kept on going, as did my asian greens and spinach.

Spinach, chives and land cress - which all went in to a very delicious scrambled egg breakfast!

The asian greens are growing well

The garlic looks like it might be ready sometime soon.

I made a rookie error when planting out cucumber and sugar snap pea seedlings with no protection fro the marauding slugs, so I had to do that all over again!

My land cress has gone crazy, and now that I don't have very many brassicas to protect from white cabbage moth I will be putting it into salads.

And it's getting hotter, so my tomato seedlings are growing well.  

Happy gardening to you all for spring!

Another shot of my cauli

Garden Share Collective - Does Size Matter???

So I'm quite liking the idea of the themed posts for the Garden Share Collective.  And this first one is on size.  I think of it as that age old question - does size matter???

I tried to use a fancy program to draw a plan of my garden.  But it didn't work, so I have hand drawn it.

Because when it comes to size, my garden is on the "it's not the size it's what you do with it" side of the argument.   The majority of my garden is planted in the front of my house as this is both the largest area and the area that gets the most sunshine.  However, this is still a small courtyard.  The garden beds are basically one long bed running almost the length of the courtyard on the southern side of the courtyard, which is about 6m long and probably 70cm wide.  Then two beds at the front of the house, around 2m long each and also about 70 cm wide.  My neighbour is replacing the fence on the northern side and when this is complete I am considering digging in another bed, however it will not get very much sun so I'm not sure if I will be better off just using the fence as a vertical garden.

So I really won't be likely to become self sufficient growing here.  But I can still have great fun in the garden and provide at least some nice fresh additions to our meals.

The plan (please excuse the fairly slap dash manner) is here.

A pretty rough and ready drawing of our front yard.  Note the lovely feature of the bins, which have to be stored at the front of the garden as we have no side access to hide them out the back!!  Entire yard is 6m x 5 m and most of this is paved courtyard.

An older shot of the garden bed on the southern wall - it's now a lot more full and green!

The pak chois grow well

Hard to believe the whole garden started out looking like this 

Another shot of the main garden bed on the southern wall - this was during last summer and before I realised my tomatoes were being attacked by fruit fly.

 So because of my lack of garden beds I have to use a lot of containers.  Lots and lots of containers.  I am gradually filling up the courtyard with plants in pots.  My neighbours have taken to donating their unwanted pots to me (which I'm very happy to accept) so it probably won't be long and I won't be able to walk through the courtyard.

My dwarf lemon tree in one of my many brightly painted pots

Two lovely low line containers planted out with asian greens.

My kaffir lime also planted in a pot

My lovely pots of ranunculus with the never ending flowering snap dragon next to it.

I also struggle a bit with the sun.  The front faces east, and so the front yard gets morning sun.  The southern wall gets sun for most of the day, but the western side has the sun go off by late morning.  The back courtyard gets almost no sun due to buildings around it and a very large oak tree in our neighbours yard.

Even though I don't really have enough room to properly grow vegetables I am really enjoying learning about gardening and from my successes and failures.  I am quickly realising that given the space constraints I'm better off planting and growing those plants which are fairly high yield for small space.  Pumpkins are out!.  My snow peas have been brilliant and I have just planted out a crop of sugar snap peas to see how they go.  Mind you, there has been carnage as I didn't properly protect them from snails and slugs.

Prior to my snow pea harvest on Saturday - the wire trellis was being pulled off the wall!

My tomatoes yielded well in summer but the fruit fly ruined those.  Still, the capsicum plants are good for fruit and lettuce and rocket are always favourites and easy to grow.  

My capsicums went quite well so I will be planting some more this year.

I'm looking forward to harvesting my first garlic crop, and I'm hoping my square metre of precious sunny space will be worth giving up for 6 months for a good crop!  The broccolis and cauliflowers haven't really returned enough on my investment of space.

The garlic took up a fair amount of space but if I get 20 bulbs out it will be worth it.

Celery is going well in lots of different pots and my herbs are growing even out in the shade of my back garden.  

So this month I have started planning my spring garden, planting cucumbers (destroyed by slugs) sugar snap peas (also attacked) eggplant, zucchini, rocket, parsley, lettuce, tomatoes and asian greens.  Once I deal with the slimy critters (been out liberally applying table salt to them all tonight!) I will try again with some of my seedlings.  

I think as well I will try my hand at growing some carrots, and also some radishes and capsicums - all from seed - which will be next months GSC theme!  Happy gardening to all and look forward to seeing you next month.  

Garden Share Collective - August

I missed last months Garden Share due to work, planning a holiday and general laziness.  But despite my general neglect of the garden (or maybe because of it!) some of my vegies are going well - and some not so well.

So as I missed last month this is a sort of catch up post!

I have managed to do a bit of planting, most of which was done in mid July.  I put in broad beans, cauliflower, and baby beets.  All were bought as seedlings, some from our local organic markets, (Orange Grove) and some from the nursery.  I also bought a kaffir lime tree from the markets.

These are my broad beans and cauliflowers after planting.

Snow peas are going great - climbing up my improvised chicken wire lattice - and I have even managed to harvest a grand total of 4 peas - but there are plenty more coming.

Lovely snow peas flowering away -and some of the peas themselves

My first ever snow pea ready to harvest

Broad beans also look good, flowering away and have grown much bigger.  No beans yet but I'm sure they're coming.

The broad bean flowers are quite lovely.

Trying to be arty aerial view of the broad beans - but it means you can't see really how well they've grown

The cauliflowers have grown and my land cress appears to still be working to keep the caterpillars away, but no sign of any florets yet.

The pak choi has been half/half - two seedlings bolted straight to seed and are now flowering away - the other two are looking like we need to cook some stir fries!

Look at the pak choi go!

Silverbeet has grown well and we have been picking a bit as we go.

Need to get eating the spinach

Other vegies that have still been providing this month are my never ending rocket plant - the more we pick, the more we get!

Some of the celery I planted ages ago is still going strong.

Coriander has gone a bit to seed but there are still quite a few good plants, and the other herbs - oregano, mint, thyme, rosemary - are still ticking along.  I also put in a pineapple sage so will see how that turns out.

When we got back from our holiday I discovered the broccolettes had all gone to seed, so they have been pulled out. Likewise my chilli plants I decided to pull out as they had gone pretty straggly.  The garlic were looking a bit brown, which may have been from lack of water (I went away and had assumed it would rain enough to water my garden - luckily nothing died but I probably should have arranged some watering!) and the lemon tree is looking like it needs a bit of fertiliser.

Bit of a mess - but broccolettes gone to seed, coriander also heading that way, the never ending rocket and some chives hidden in there too.

The garlic plants are still going well.

I had to conclude my potato in a bag experiment as all the plants had died.  I think a variety of factors played a part in this failed effort - probably not enough sun as I had in my back courtyard, which gets very little direct sun.  Also I have a bad habit of neglecting the back yard and focussing on the front, so I may not have watered often enough.  And when I just dug out the bag I discovered the top soil was quite dry but the bottom soil was quite muddy and almost clay like, so I suspect the drainage in the bag was not sufficient.  So for my 4+ months of effort I only have 3 small chats and some tiny easter egg sized potatoes!  On the plus side, the soil in the bag was full of worms and will now be stored until I can use it for some more planting in spring.

The grand total of my potato experiment.  Not exactly successful.

Very blurry but we're hardly going to be self sufficient at this rate!

So my plans for the next month - I will be travelling a lot for work so realistically I won't get much done, and can't really plant too many seeds as I won't be around to care for them.  But I'm hoping to keep tending my peas and beans.  I also want to spend some time planning out my spring/summer garden as my pots seem to be multiplying and I want to dig up my front garden bed, which has been overrun with self seeded vincas and even a primula or two that have popped up - but I think I could use the space better for vegies given the full sun it receives.

Garden Share - June 2015

My how time flies!  Can it really be time for another garden share?  The month has flown.  As before, I am joining in the Garden Share Collective which is hosted by Lizze from Strayed from the Table, Kate from Rosehips & Rhubarb and Krystie from A Fresh Legacy.  You can also find it Facebook if you want to share your adventures in growing your own food.

But this month I feel like I can actually claim to have done some good work.  Mostly on one particularly busy and productive day, but however I did it I have managed to get started with some new vegies!  Mind you it appears that after all my hard work on that day I apparently couldn't hold the camera steady - I do apologise for the blurry photographs!

I finally put in my garlic.  Whether I am a bit late we will find out I suppose, but they are actually already shooting up (although I noticed this when I got home today after a few days away and it was too dark to photograph).  I counted 27 cloves off just two bulbs that I have planted. (I initially had three bulbs, but didn't need any more to plant, so we cooked that last one!)

I bought the garlic from an organic fruit market - and to be honest I don't know what kind it is.  I read that you can plant any garlic, however you shouldn't buy them in the supermarket because they have been treated with chemicals to stop the cloves shooting.  Also they come from goodness knows where in the world.  So organic it is.  Once I peeled off the outside layer I realised these ones were already shooting.

I just broke apart the bulbs into individual cloves and dropped them into little trenches which I made in my specially made garlic patch - in the prized and much too small section of my garden which does get almost full sun.  Covered up with some good organic vegetable mix and fingers crossed for a great haul!

When I was turning the soil for my garlic I was quite pleased to find a number of worms - hoping that means my garden is nice and healthy.  After I found this one though I stopped using my trowel and used my hands instead - I didn't want to kill all these lovely earth turning creatures!

Also planted this month - 

Pak Choi - last year I had a lot of success growing these and we used a lot in stir fries, so this year I'm trying again.

  
Silverbeet - my spinach growing has not been great, but I'm hoping these might be more successful.

Snow peas - possibly not the right time, but I have saved another small part of my sunny side garden bed and hopefully the snow peas will climb up my chicken wire lattice.

Cabbage - along with some land cress to try to prevent caterpillars.

Landcress has also gone in around my broccolettes, as they continue to be attacked by caterpillars, despite my best squashing efforts.  These are some of the critters I did find.

Spring onions - always a good addition for stir fries.

Mignonette lettuce are also always useful, and I find not too difficult to grow, always good to have on hand.

So apart from my new additions, I continue to have chillis, coriander, basil, oregano, and those late tomatoes are still green but getting bigger!  I've harvested some more broccolettes and some rocket and lettuce, otherwise a bit of a lean month.

So for the next month I think it will be mostly looking after my new seedlings, and starting to plan for spring which I am sure will arrive before I know it!  Happy gardening to all.