One of the things I like about planting advanced seedlings is the instant gratification of it. This is the garden bed I planted out today – advanced seedlings of lettuce, raddichio, parsley, chinese cabbages, cauliflowers, leeks, silver beet, spinach, celery, red cabbage, broccoli, kailan, plus some parsnips, broad beans, peas, and snow peas.
Most times I do my picking walk first thing in the morning before breakfast. It usually takes about half an hour, and its the most productive garden work I do. I walk with a bucket and a basket.
This year, I’m going to grow enough onions. I’ve never yet grown enough onions. I’ve got close-ish, with leeks and spring onions and chives as the support team, but never quite enough to last the whole year.
This time of year in this part of the world (northern NSW), fruiting annuals are all a gamble. I might just squeeze in another round of the summer annuals, especially the faster ones like zucchini and squash and cucumbers and beans. My site is pretty well frost free and with luck they’ll bear into June, but an early cold snap will zap them just as the first fruits are ready…
Every year a few garlic plants manage to escape harvesting in early summer. The leaves die off and I lose them in the garden. Every…
I’ve just moved the chooks into a new bed, and they are feasting on broccoli that is well past bearing human food. They like the cabbage white moths and grasshoppers on it the best and have lots of fun hunting them.
This is the lettuces for April and May, planted on the leafy planting days last weekend. These are my own seed so they are free and bountiful. But still there’s no point in planting more than a pinch of them. We take lunches and lettuce is in it practically every day when it is in season, and we would have a salad for dinner a few times a week too.…
I’m very proud of these. Eggplants are one of my difficult crops. In my garden they are prone to attack by flea beetles. The flea beetles themselves are a nuisance – they chew holes in the leaves – but not critical. But they spread virus diseases and the nightshade family (that eggplants belong to) is very prone to virus diseases. And I live in an area where wild tobacco (Solanum…
My garden came through the frizzle weather of the last couple of days not too badly, though the dam is low now and I’m very much hoping we don’t get more of it before decent rain. Stacking to the north, shade, mulch, and plant selection did the trick though.
There’s a permaculture principle of designing for disaster. The same principle applies to big disasters (whoever had the bright idea of building the Fukushima nuclear plant wasn’t taking account of it), or small disasters like a hailstorm or a day of sizzling hot weather when carrots are germinating or establishing. Like many permaculture principles it’s hardly rocket science: just research, consider and design for the extremes not just the ideal,…