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Tag: Garden

Lettuces Any Day You Like

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.…

Roots and Perennials Planting Days in Late Summer – First of the Parsnips

It’s a too early yet for onions and garlic, but I’ve planted the first round of parsnips for the season. I had left a couple in the garden to go to seed (that’s the picture), and they reckon it’s the right time to plant seed. Parsnips are from the umbelliferae family, and like the rest of that family their flowers are good for attracting predatory insects like tachinid flies, assassin…

Fruiting Planting Days in Mid Summer – Eggplants at Last!

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…

Roots and Perennials Planting Days in Late Spring – Hazpac-ing the Carrots

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,…

Fruiting Annuals Planting Days in Late Spring

I’ve planted a few each of Hungarian Wax capsicums (in the picture), which are a yellow banana type, and my Supermarket Flats, which are a thicker walled, sweet pepper that is red when fully ripe.  They are at the perfect age for planting out – raised to advanced seedlings (about 15 cm tall) in individual pots filled with a compost/worm castings/creek sand mix.  This means I can plant them out…