A couple of hours in the garden....

Well, yesterday I got out into the garden. I only meant to spend about 10 minutes out there, but managed to be out there for 2 hours - not the greatest idea when you are sick!

 

Camomile seedling -
herbal tea coming our way!

After work I decided to finally go to Bunnings to get a Camomile seedling... but I should know by now that I can't just go into Bunnings and come out with the one thing I planned on buying... so I also bought a small Rosemary plant, a couple of pots to put them in, some more Bokashi spray and I almost bought a pH testing kit, but put it back at the last minute... I want to get one (they are only $15), but don't think it will help with my gardening ventures at this stage.

 

Rosemary seedling

When I got home I wanted to re-pot the seedlings, so as I was going into the garden I also grabbed the fermenting Bokashi bucket from the kitchen cupboard as I wanted to test out a theory of adding some to the worm farm. Now I promised you guys pictures of the Bokashi, so here it is!! You can see the white mould on top - that's good! that's what we want.  You might also see some small spots of green mould, that's not good.  That's where I needed more of the EM mix, but overall this was a good bucket!

 

Fermented Bokashi, ready to be planted

 

Bokashi layered in the pots

When re-potting the plants, I placed a layer of soil from the garden bed in the bottom, then put a layer of Bokashi in followed by a final layer of soil.  In this top layer of soil I planted the seedlings.  The Bokashi mix should break down and then feed the soil and plants as the plants grow and the roots go deeper.  It worked really well for the fairy garden Nessa and I made at the beginning of winter (I believe this is why the garden isn't dead from the frost). The reason for the layers of soil and Bokashi is that the Bokashi is quite acidic until it is broken down in the soil, and can burn the roots of the plant if it is planted directly.

 

Adding Bokashi to the worm farm

I also added a small amount of the Bokashi to the worm farm to see if the worms will eat it.  I tried to avoid any of the mandarins/citrus as worms don't like it.  As I mentioned above the Bokashi is quite acidic, so some people say that worms won't like it, but then others are saying that worms love it, so I thought I would try it for myself.  After I added some, I covered it in soil, so that even if they don't eat it right away it will start to break down and they will eat it eventually (hopefully) and if not, hopefully it will just compost lol! I did also add some of  the Worm Farm & Compost Conditioner to help even out the pH balance.  But I want to go out this afternoon to see if the worms are near it or avoiding it completely, 24 hours later.



The new set up!

The worms seem to be doing really well in the worm farm, and yesterday I moved their home to a different location.  When we moved everything was placed in the one spot, so yesterday I rearranged the garden slightly so that things are hopefully in better positions.  I moved the worm farm, composter and mandarin tree into a more sunny spot.  This does also mean that it is more likely to get more frost, but hopefully more sunshine will help with this.

 

More Bokashi being added to
the garden bed

The final thing that I came across was that my buried Bokashi I spoke of in my last post, wasn't actually all decomposed.  Turns out I was digging in the wrong spot.  Everything that is left though is basically all of the processed foods like bread and stuff, so would probably take longer to break down anyway.  Either way, I am pretty happy with how it has gone.  I even buried the remaining Bokashi into the garden bed, so that can all start to break down too. 

 

The only thing is that I am wondering if maybe I should invest in another composter, but this one would be a stationary one (the one in the picture above is a rotating one).  My reasoning for this is that when I added the Bokashi to the rotating one it didn't go so well, but this is mostly due to the fact that I didn't add any "brown" material to it either... rookie (which I am!) mistake - one I am still trying to fix. I think that once I can fix this issue, I might try and do it again in the rotating composter, but there is an appeal to just being able to layer Bokashi and brown material in a stationary composter.

 

I added lots of sugar cane
mulch and gave it a tumble

I mentioned that I am still trying to fix my compost, after a bit of research I decided to add some of the Worm Farm and Compost Conditioner to the mix along with a good serve of sugar cane mulch I had left over from previous gardening endeavours.  This is apparently good brown material as it generally takes awhile to break down and I don't think it would 'soak up' the wetness of my mix at the moment like paper would (which I was adding in the past to try and fix it.) I am unsure at what point I give up and start again... not sure when compost is considered ruined and to start again.

 

Sprouting garlic!

Finally, I came across some garlic that I had planted in a seedling tray before we moved, and thought I would plant them out to see how they go.  I realise I have probably done this a little too late, but we'll see if they take... the last time I planted garlic they didn't do so well as my soil was pretty depleted of nutrients and wasn't really taking in any water. Hopefully this time around they will do ok!

 

Planted garlic! 13 in total!

I am unsure of what to do with my herbs... I have been using my thyme a lot more, I would use the chives if they would bloody grow, and the basil is nice, but don't use it much.  The reason I am unsure of what to do with them is that at the moment they are in a big, ugly pot and I don't know if I want to put them in a different pot, or have a designated area of the garden for them... I am just unsure of how to organise them.  One thing is for sure, I really need to plant some oregano, B and I both love it and it is something that is used a lot in our kitchen...

Camomile and Rosemary now in the Garden!

 

 

Bokashi: In the Garden!

Thought I would pop in with a bit of an update on the garden, seeing as I haven't posted since I started this blog... and the reason is that I haven't done anything more to the garden!  I simply haven't had time!

 

The only thing I have done is added one of my bokashi buckets to it.  Now, for those of you who don't know much about it, I thought I would give you a little run down of what it is an how it works.

 

Simply put, it is AWESOME!

One of our bokashi buckets

 

The easiest way to explain it, is that it is basically a kitchen composter. Whatever food scraps you have, you put it in the bucket, this includes meat, citrus and any processed foods.  In ours, I put in any of our peelings from prepping meals (unless the worms need a feed, then I give it to them), any leftovers from dinner and anything else that generally can be eaten (including stuff from cleaning out the pantry). 

 

Food that was in our bokashi bucket

 

You also need to add some EM bran or spray (I like the spray) and seal it up tight, after each food scrap addition.  The reason is that the Bokashi bucket works on fermentation not the decomposition of food. The decomposing part comes later... The EM are basically little microbes, and after running the buckets for a few months now, they really do work.  The food doesn't go mouldy (green mould = bad, white mould = good), it simply stays the same as it was when you put it in.

 

When the bucket is full, you seal it back up, pop it aside for 10-14 days (use a second bucket in the mean time) to finish the fermentation process and then after that you can add it to your compost (make sure you add more brown material... I didn't and it was a fail!! lol) or add it straight to your soil in your garden.  Be careful not to put it to close to the existing plants as it's quite acidic until it has broken down... which is where the decomposing part comes in.

 

Since we have had our buckets, we have cut down on our food scraps going to landfill considerably!  While we are still getting ourselves into a routine in our new home, the Bokashi buckets will be used more and more.

 

This brings me to my garden... Last Wednesday I put the contents of one of our buckets into the garden, which was the first time I had done that.  It worked really well!! Only a week later and all of the contents are gone!!  I was expecting to find some remnants as I have read it can take 2 weeks, but there is nothing... not even a bit of left over sausage!! I am so incredibly impressed! Must have been all of the worms in there and the rain to help them!

 

I bet they are nice and fat now!!!

 

I have another bucket fermenting at the moment.  In another week it will be ready to be added to the garden.  When it's time, I will take some pics to show you all, so that you will be able to see how it breaks down, and a little more on how it works.