Well, I took more photos today.
I also did some construction!!
SO, thanks to some tomato stakes, freecycle (Thanks Greg!) for the polypipe, donated shadecloth (Thanks Lucretia!) and a roll of packing tape (yes... I said packing tape.....) here it is...

The Vegie garden SHADE!!!!



And another shot from the other end...





So here's to keeping the rainbow chard from wilting




Meanwhile, a few more garden pics...

The potato patch (yes, its' a true miracle, and now I have little potato plants popping up all over the place!)



The pumpkins




New tomatoes, (there are some basil plants and some capsicums or chillis in there too )



The peas




My nectarine tree, which isn't very happy at the moment.
I have just watered it again and mulched it up with some fresh pea straw. Poor tree really needs to go in the ground, only there isn't any prepared ground to put it in yet.




This is what the chooks look like now. Take a good look at the white rooster - if I'm feeling motivated enough I will be getting up stupidly early tomorrow to put him in a box and take him down to the auctions. 2 roosters is definetly 1 too many - possibly even 2, but we're willing to give the handsome black fella a second chance..




Next to the current chook run is a tamarillo tree. It's flowering and starting to fruit madly. I fertilised it a bit when we first got here and it seems to have made a difference. Now I just have to remember to water it lots - and try and find recipes for the fruit.



ALso next to the run is this thing. It appeared all by itself from UNDER the weed mat. It has no thorns at all. I'm hoping it's a thornless blackberry that I can get some yummy fruit off over the years. Then again it might be a weed. It also might not get the chance to make any fruit, especially if the chickens get to the flowers!





THis is my rain gauge. Why the photo? Because the other week it told me I had some rain and I coudln't figure out how much it was. SO here it is.



And this is what the bottom says



Essentially - I'd had 15 mms of rain. One day I will learn to read things properly.

Last but not least I thought I'd pop this pic in - this is the back of our house from the development that is going on over our back fence. (Yes, there is a fence there, its' just a dog-wire one that you can hardly see)





Loads of big trucks over there again today and dust everywhere! Oh well. One day they will be finished. One day!!!


That's it from me!

My rocket is no more.

WEll, practically.
There were about 25 little green fat caterpillars all over my rocket, eating it into the ground.

I say 'were' because I picked em off and fed them to the chooks MuHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA take that evil caterpillars!!

Of course, there are also some on the brocolli and cauliflowers.
Along with some other weird grey bug things that are very tiny. I have no clue what they are.

SO it's caterpillar exams for my vegies every morning and afternoon here - and a lovely high protein diet for the chooks!

Yes, there's a lot of it around at the moment. SO much so that the tomato seedlings and various other things i had in small pots out the front, have been starting to droop and wilt.. and the parsley was going yellow.

So this afternoon I planted them out in the strawbale bed, which is now officially full. I'm feeling like I really don't have enough space at all. There's only 5 tomato plants in there - and with the two others I've got out the front, I don't think there'll be enough crops to bottle pasta sauce to last us the winter. So I'm going to have to make up more garden beds somewhere, and soon.

After I put the tomatoes in (and the few capsicums - well, i hope they are capsicums, they might be chillis - I forgot to write it down) I stuck the el-cheapo $10 plastic greenhouse on top of that end of the bed. Hopefully it will keep the conditions nice and damp in there for them. I also took advantage of the sides of the straw bale bed under the greenhouse and put in some more seeds - this time, and entire punnet of capsicums (that's 12 little individual thingies with seeds in them ) and 4 chillis. And 8 celery's. Because the celery that was in there before dried out too much. Again, hoping the greenhouse effect will keep the damper.

Also put my other four garlic plants in, and the unknown things-that-looked-like-pumpkins.

Which I found out (by process of elimination - which seed packets were open) are in fact, butternut pumpkins OR bush cucumbers. Luckily there is only a couple of each, and I planted them right next to the sides of the garden bed, so I should be able to train any vines out and along the straw, rather than having them overtake anything that's in there.

I also bit the bullet and put in some rosella seeds. Apparently they like heat to germinate, and we've got a lot of that around at the moment. And I topped up the peas that got dug out by starlings (or mice, not sure which yet) so i can get a good wall of peas growing on the frame.

Still haven't organised my plot for the corn/beans/other peas. Nor my zuchinnis or the other pumpkins. My lettuce's have just about done their dash (these are winter ones i grew from seed) and I'm going to pull them up shortly, and dig in some straw/poo from the guinea pigs pile (which is slightly composted) Then I'm going to put some zuchinni seeds in there I think, and train them across the empty yard space.. hopefully!

Right. that's it for now!

While I was mowing a section of our lawn with our push-mover this afternoon i realised I haven't updated with garden pics for a while.
So I pushed my dreamy way through the swarms of baby dragonflies flirting with the breeze (ooohhh i love living here!) and grabbed the camera to take some pictures.


We have finished the raised bed!!! Altogether finished it, except for the final bits of planting.



It's pretty long, but I'm already out of space and trying to figure out where to plant the corn and carrots and other beans....
Here is the best spot according to DH - out of the way and stuff - but oooh! all the work I have to do to make it happen is a little scary. I need more power tools - only i don't have them. And there's black plastic and scoria buried under all that..




Also, we have to contend with these critters...








The red-legged earth mite. Yes, they are eating the weeds - but they also eat my spinach, and other things that I wish they wouldn't!

This is the aviary that is falling apart. Putting the chooks in it was a good idea until we realised just how much it was falling apart.




My aim for this week is to carefully cut off all the wire and roll it up for other uses (more chook tractors probably LOL) and then wire the frame for growing cucumbers, zuchinis and gourds and luffas up.
I have to try and figure out a way to improve the soil in there too. All i've got left of my supplies are a couple of bags of chook manure and the litter from the guinea pig houses.





Mystery flowering tree - remember last time it was all pink? Now it looks like this



Still no idea what it is.

So here is my brocolli - happily heading up (or whatever it is called). Unfortunately it's the only one that is so far..



Tomatoes - they will go in the empty end of the raised bed once they are big enough



Thyme - man, it's hard to beleive that the parsley next to it was planted from seed at the same time. They must call it thyme because of the sheer amount of the stuff it takes to actually grow!




This is pot luck. I planted out some seeds. And I didn't write them down. I can't remember what they were! Obviously some sort of cucumber or squash or pumpkin or... hmmm, you get my drift. Although I'm pretty sure I didn't put climbers in there... who knows!




For some strange reason, out of about 4 large pots I'm sure I put various capsicum seeds in, only this one seems to be growing. And I'm not positive it's not a tomato.
Given the amount of capsicum that gets eaten in this house, I think I need to put in some more




NOw back to the strawbale bed. Good news! The broad beans that lucretia and her girls helped us plant have actually popped up! I thought they wouldn't at all. ANd yes, I know it's too late. I know broad beans are a winter crop. But I like watching things grow. It might work! The seed packet said it might!





These are the seedlings I bought from the farmers market last weekend. I went back and bought more garlic this weekend, but haven't put it in yet.




And this is the potatoes under straw bed that I did. I am actually thinking it might not work. It seems too dry.. i shall have to sneak out late at night with my watering can, so that the people driving my don't dob me in for illegal watering. We have a huge rainwater tank that I use, but you can't see it from the street...




Also, here is the other side of the bed, where you can see the beginnings of my path system. I have laid down cardboard from old packing boxes, and covered it in sawdust from my uncle.
He has a half a wool bale of sawdust waiting for me to go and pick up now, which MIGHT fit in the back of the van.. but will probably finish off the paths rather nicely!





Well that's probably enough for now. SO my jobs for this week are to get the chook wire down and new support wire UP for the vine plants, and dig in something good in there so they will actually grow.
THEN I have to massacre the enormous weed patch out the side somehow, so I can dig something into that and let it sit and become a good place for corn, peas, beans, and pumkins.
THEN I have to mow the other side of the house - because it's Rory's birthday on Saturday and we're going to have a house full on Sunday. Can't have them getting stung by the nettles!

Hmm and don't forget all the other million and one things LOL

I will leave you with a picture of the chickens. I'm even more positive that we have 3 roosters. This is going to be interesting!!!

At the very least, you can see how much they have grown!

We went to the local farmers markets, where I spent quite a bit more than I really should have. But there was a lady there with all sorts of herbs and things....

So now the completed part of my raised vegie patch is full! There's only about a metre left to fill up with the mushroom compost, I was going to do it today but the bit of planting that I did sparked the hay fever, and it's really hard to shovel whilst sneezing. Also have to go out to do Father's Day shopping soon anyway.

But I digress.
No photos, but I now have oak lettuces, rainbow chard (red, orange, white and green!) rocket, mignon lettuce, parsley (lots - Declan could live on parsley alone.. although add beetroot and he'd be in heaven!) coriander and... (drum roll please!) GARLIC!

I'm soooo happy to have garlic in there. I know its a long-term winter type crop. But I'm over the moon to actually have some, I can't find garlic in the shops to sprout coz it's all horrible chinese irradiated stuff. Next week I'm going back to the markets to get more, because I could eat garlic forever!

Also found a comfrey plant, which I put in the front yard.

So now I have a few problems. Firstly - I'm running out of garden bed. Well, that's the main problem really. I don't know where to put another one. I don't know where my DH will be happy with another one. And I don't want to do another no-dig because the finance for straw and mushroom compost just isn't there now.

I'm thinking I will turn over a few patches of lawn or something. I've got seeds in to sprout - and a cucumber poked it's head out this morning!!! - so I will shortly need somewhere to plant them. The rest of the raised bed I think is going to be dedicated to a few tomatoes and maybe carrots?

I honestly never thought I would run out of space. But I've got to find somewhere for the climbers - pumpkins and cucumbers and zucchinis and gourds. Also the rosellas (mental note, get seeds into pots soon) and then there's all those Chinese greens...

I have to stop stressing about it! And go and plant the snowpea seeds *grin*

So I decided I'm going to blog my garden trials and tribulations.
This is going to be a LOOOONNNGG post, with lots of photos, so I'm going to do the swanky LJ cut thing (biiig thanks baroquestar!)

( See garden and pics! )


Yep, that's it for now. Will update as things grow and change!

Thanks for reading!