Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Help me! I am melting.



The family and I saw out the last days of winter while on holiday at Falls Creek, Victoria. This snow playground was a fun and enjoyable way to say farewell to winter, ending it on a high note. Unfortunatelly I brought the cold back with me and on the return journey came down with one. I am feeling well now and I am getting back on the ball.

This seems to be a common pattern for me at the beginning of spring. I always have excuses getting in the way of what I consider a gardeners most important time of the year. I often don’t get seedlings start earlier enough and end up having to buy them. The end of summer here in Adelaide can be quite brutal for the garden, hot and dry. Thus I am thinking if I can get the summer garden started earlier enough I might get a good run out of it before the real heat hits.

As we are already a number of weeks into some great weather I was starting to feel behind and a touch frustrated. So I called upon my gardening group for help. Within no time at all we had the newly built seedling table loaded with seedlings. Thanks gardening group. I am sure I have said this before, but if you don’t already belong to a gardening group I highly recommend starting or joining one.


Still need a few more. I will need to get some tomato and lettuce seeds. Here is what we have got on the seedling table:

7 Mizuna
4 Pea
6 Spring onion
6 Coriander
6 Chive
6 Dill
7 Bean runner
4 Bean climbing
6 Bean bush
12 Basil
2 Egg plant
4 Zucchini
6 Cucumber
3 Capsicum
5 Beetroot
4 Broccoli
4 Pumpkin
25 Carrots

The potting soil we used I made myself by mixing soil from under the compost heaps with sand. I believe the sand you are meant to use is river sand. I only had beach sand on hand so I hope that wasn’t a mistake.


Meanwhile with little effort on our part the chickens have been doing a fantastic job driving the tractor around preparing the beds. Only a few weeks prior this bed was filled with knee high grass. The only thing the family and I have to weed is the path.

I am now feeling ready and very excited about spring, are you?

10 comments:

  1. Good job! I think every gardener feels like they are playing catch up with one thing or another. Looks like you are about set.

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  2. I love spring too and my garden has come to life with the warm weather. I also like the idea of a gardening group as I have trouble with seedlings and timing. Sounds like your seedling table is getting a good workout filled with a great selection of vegies and herbs.

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  3. Lisa Thanks, it feels so good to be on top of things. Yes, playing catch up does seem to be a common problem. Melanie has been following the fly lady with great success. I am going to see if I can apply some of her thinking to the garden.

    serendipity2000 Lovely to hear your garden is springing to life. I so love the word 'spring'. Spring, spring, spring. I can't recommend a gardening group enough. They make me feel like I have a support team. Let me know if you want any gg advice.

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  4. it is going to be good to see all the veggies in the newly garden beds. They are going to look amazing.
    I planted my toilet roll seedlings and so far everything is growing and seems to be quite happy, so far!

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  5. Sounds like the tractor beds are working well, with the chickens doing their thing. The gardening group is a great idea.

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  6. dirtandflowers good to hear your babies have made it into the garden. How have you found the toilet rolls thus far?

    Kellee yes the tractor is working great. I think the idea of integrating animals into the garden is a brilliant one. I am so pleased I did it. I recently read about using pigs for the same purpose on larger scale gardens.

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  7. Woohoo, bring on Spring! We've taken to direct sowing this year - trying to keep up with seedlings last year nearly did our heads in. We figured we'd just grow less, and be less stressed. :)

    We've just planted beans - 10 snake beans and 10 dwarf beans, potatoes in hessian bags, and the tomatoes are growing indoors and fruiting already! Basil, eggplant and kohlrabi have been scattered over beds - the kohlrabi in particular seems to do very well with this method.

    Glad you're over your cold, and that the chooks are doing their job - they're pretty wonderful, aren't they! :)

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  8. Celia I agree it is important to not take on more than you can chew. But you might find my next post useful.

    My teenage daughters room has the perfect north facing window for growing plants indoors, however she won't let me. I have heard of buying potatoes in hessian bags, but growing them in them? You have got me curious.

    Yes chickens and wonderful in so many ways.

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  9. I've been growing 2 types of potatoes in large pots on my deck through winter and they went crazy. Here's a few tips I came up with that might help. Hessian bags are a top idea and look really good too because potatoes plants are a beautiful green and very attractive.
    http://ordinary-2-extraordinary.com/2011/07/20/how-to-grow-pot-atoes/

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  10. serendipity2000 nice pot post, still don't know how you would grow them in hessian bags.

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