Veggie Garden: v2.1 - Part 1

It's only been 2 months since v2.0 (almost to the day!), but on the weekend I started the next version of the veggie garden. This is following on from my previous post on planning, so now I am starting the follow through.

 

First I took out half of the dirt from my previous efforts and got all the way down to the clay soil. The downside to this is that I picked up all of the mulch that had been left behind previously.  This is an issue in a vegetable garden when growing root vegetables (such as carrots) the roots can split and you get a strange form growing.  At this stage, I think I will stick with non root vegetables in this bed.

 

Digging out the existing garden bed

 

Digging up all of this soil meant that I also had to dig up my Bokashi that I had buried, none of it had completely decomposed, which was interesting, and gross, all at the same time. It is interesting to note that everything that was left was basically all of the processed foods; all of the organic foods had been processed.  I did find a whole stack of worms at one point working on some of the Bokashi, in fact I found worms throughout the soil (mostly where there was Bokashi) which is an excellent sign!

 

Lots and lots of worms!!!

 

After removing the soil, I placed the raised garden bed where I wanted it to go and then placed a broken down cardboard box as the base to act as a weed mat.  If you decide to do this too, make sure you get rid of all of the sticky tape on the outside first.

Using an old cardboard box to deter weeds

On top of this, I scattered a handful of dynamic lifter to help get things going followed by the soil.  By this stage I was working up quite a sweat!  As I put the soil back in, I tried to make sure all of the Bokashi was buried, although I am unsure if I got it all... we'll see if I did, and what the consequences are! I did rake in some Worm Farm and Compost Conditioner, to help with the acidity of the Bokashi.

Raised garden bed, practically ready to go!

On top of the new garden bed I basically blasted it with nutrients!  First I added more dynamic lifter, gave it a water, then added a Seasol mix and also used some worm tea on it as well. I wouldn't normally do this, but as the bed is empty and probably will remain so for the next couple of weeks, it can sit and 'process' and settle over this time.

 

I also added a little of the Seasol to the garlic currently growing, and finally put the bird netting over the lot of it again.

Bird netting over v2.1

I also added some shredded paper to the compost and worm farm, and I also added some scraps from the kitchen to both (coffee grounds and vegetable peelings). While sorting out the worm farm, I checked on the Bokashi again and found the worms to be all over it!  The next bucket has finished fermenting and I am so tempted to add more Bokashi and cover it all in soil... but I don't want to do this until I have more working trays to add, so I think that might be my next purchase.

 

Finally, I used some jiffy pellets in a seedling tray and went through some of my seeds to plant some:

• Nasturtiums
• Capsicum
• Dwarf Peas
• Sugarsnap Peas

I still have more that I would like to plant, but at least it is a start.

Seeds! Hopefully they will sprout...

It was really great as I was able to use my new mini greenhouse!  I added a few other little plants and previously planted seeds in there in the hope that they will grow too... hopefully the greenhouse will help to keep them safe.

The newest addition: mini greenhouse!

 

Planning ahead...

If any of you know me in real life, or have read my other blogs, the one thing you will know about me is that I am a planner... naturally so!  Doesn't matter what the situation is, you can bet I have probably planned for all contingencies, even if most of my plans remain just that... plans.

 

The same goes for gardening. I have plans upon plans upon plans... and very little follow through... in fact, I think I am a lazy gardener.

 

I am very sad to admit, that I think it has been about a year since I have actually picked something I have grown (except for herbs at least), and that has been because it has probably been about a year since I planted something (excluding the recently planted garlic.) I have mostly been putting off due to monetary reasons, or the fact that we moved house or even just due to not having the time.

 

And I have missed it.

 

Over the last few days I have been thinking more and more about how much I want to see my garden grow and eat the foods that I have nurtured. I love to look back on photos  and see how much bigger the plants have gotten... they don't seem to grow that quick when you are watching them.

 

I have so many different things that I want to do or change in the garden, especially as I will need to "make do" for now, until we are able to build the garden beds that we want. As there are many different aspects, I have created sub headings below.

 

Garden Beds

First up, this is something that I need to address, because without garden beds, I have no garden.

 

At our last place we used raised garden beds (right) which worked quite well, although I wasn't a fan of how small they seemed to be, or how short.  However, now I am dealing with an in ground bed, that is even lower and is harder to reach the back of it. While I have added more soil to the top of it, along with composted cow manure and worm castings, I am concerned about the depth, the weeds coming through and especially the fact that it has a very, very hard clay 'base'.

 

Due to these reasons, I am considering dismantling the bed as it is; taking away the wooden boarder, removing the soil I have added previously, and placing my old raised garden beds in it's place. This will give it more structure for the time being, and will also be in a format that I am used to. To help avoid the weeds, we have a lot of packing boxes in the garage, I might place a few of them down first as they will decompose eventually, but should provide a good weed mat (if you do this, make sure you take the packing tape off them first.)

 

Compost

I would love to be able to make my own soil (aka compost - I didn't realise they were the same, makes sense though), although with the tumbler, it is harder than what I thought it was going to be, especially with the Bokashi.  At this stage, I have another Bokashi bucket almost ready to go and I don't know what to do with it; do I put it in the tumbler with some sugar cane mulch and hope for the best, or try and put it in the ground again, while waiting to see if the bird netting is working. 

 

This has lead me to want to try a third option, and that is buying the stationary composter I spoke about previously. But I am torn. I don't think we really need another one as yet, especially as I don't know if it will work the way I want or expect it to, and as well as having the tumbler, I also have the worm farm, which I now know that the worms like Bokashi.

 

Worm Farm

As I mentioned the worms like the Bokashi, so if I am not going to use soil or the tumbler to break down the Bokashi, should I use the worm farm... seems logical really.... might just need to layer it with dirt and/or shredded paper.

 

Image from: http://healthyalternatives.co.nz/

However... this means that I will need more 'space' in the form of trays.  I have looked into this and it will cost me about $53 including postage to get two trays sent to me from Tumbleweed, or I can get a whole new worm farm for $55 through an initiative of the Canberra Environment Centre. If I was to do this I would have extra pieces of a worm farm that I wouldn't need, although could come in handy if I ever need new parts... or I could just simply have two worm farms. I would rather not do this simply due to space, and also I would need and another starter pack of worms (1000 worms).

 

Planting/Seedlings

The mini greenhouse I have
Image: http://www.minigreenhouse.org.uk/

As I mentioned before, I haven't planted anything in a while, but a friend of mine gave me a wonderful birthday present, a mini greenhouse!  Now I haven't used it yet, but I did build it the other day. I am hoping that this will help with saving some money by planting seeds, but also time as I vary rarely get a chance to go to the garden store... plus it also means I have the benefit of knowing what  went into the plant right from the beginning.  I will probably still buy some plants from the store, but I am hoping that it will enable me to get some gardening in when I get the time and have the inclination, even if I don't have the money. With spring just around the corner, there will be lots to plant, so far this is what I am wanting to plant:

• Beetroot
• Beans
• Capsicum
• Carrot
• Leeks
• Lettuce
• Potato
• Shallots
• Snow peas
• Strawberries (I do have one planted, but it doesn't seem to grow much... I think it needs a larger pot)

 

Potatoes

After having such a wonderful time growing potatoes last year, and getting some delicious spuds at the end of it, I have decided that I simply have to grow more this year... many, many, many more!!!! Home grown potatoes are simply amazing!!!! I never knew potatoes could be that delicious!  The issue with this is trying to figure out what I an plant them in.  I would rather not use a garden bed as they take up a lot of room, but also because you need to be careful of any diseases being past onto future crops.  I am thinking about using some large containers, but that would be one container per plant (possibly 2 plants)... but I just don't know... perhaps I should try to plant in a garden bed. No matter which way I go, I know that I need to figure it out soon, because I simply have to plant them.

 

Herbs

My sad looking herb "garden"

My herb pot at the moment is looking a little pitiful. The basil has died down, the parsley never really grew and neither did the chives... I think this is all because the thyme took off like you wouldn't believe!!!  I am now thinking about ripping it all out and starting again... even my wonderful thyme plant. I could use this pot to grow potatoes (along with a similar one I have that is currently empty (there are 2 potato plants!!)).

 

My problem with the herbs, is where do plant.  Do I get more pots? I seem to have too many as it is.  In my world, they don't match and they don't look very neat.  At the moment I do see them as a means to an end, and I do have some that I can use from previous gardening attempts or should I look at getting one of those big herb pots with all of the different compartments, but I just don't know how I want them set up... and then I need to work out what I want to plant!  This is what I am thinking at this stage:

• Thyme
• Basil
• Oregano
• Chives
• Parsley
• Chamomile (planted)
• Rosemary (planted)

With some of these herbs, I could also put them into a raised garden bed to not only help with pests, but also as a backup in case they go downhill as they currently have when planted together.

Soil
I mentioned before that the compost would become soil, but until I can get a good rhythm going with it all, I will need to buy more potting mix, which as you can imagine would get costly after a while.  I think the best thing to do is to start with getting the raised garden beds back into place and see how it all goes from there.


I think for now I need to accept that I won't have the garden the way I want it, and I will still need to deal with pests, but hopefully I can at least get something functional happening, and hopefully before spring really kicks in.

Quick update on the worm farm and compost

Following on from my post last month, I have been checking on the worm farm and compost regularly, but for different reasons.

 

With the worm farm I was testing out how the worms went with the Bokashi in there.  For the first few days they didn't go near it, then slowly they started to make their way up (it did go into a fresh tray, so this is quite normal).  However 3 weeks later, they were all over it, and on top of it! A very good sign!  I think I will continue to add Bokashi mix to the farm, but will try to avoid the meat components, although from what I can tell, the only reason to do this would be to avoid vermin... but I will start slow, then see how we go when meat is added.  The difference with the meat in the Bokashi is that it is fermented, so it should make a considerable difference.  One other thing I really need to do with the worm farm is to add more shredded paper as they have gone through everything that I have added previously.

 

The compost is doing much better since I added more of the sugar cane mulch.  The smell has become more earthy (a very good sign!) and while it does look a little too damp at the moment due to all of the recent rain, it seems to be breaking down as well as it can. The sugar cane mulch will break down really slowly, so I need to look into alternate options for adding brown material. Due to the additional dampness, I will need to add some more brown material, although this time I might add some shredded paper.  I have also been trying to give the composter a tumble/turn every one-three days to help aerate it and get those little microbes working.

 

Overall, things have improved considerably, which I am very grateful for.  I am hoping that this will show that compost piles can be 'fixed' once they are (very much so) broken - something I couldn't find while researching online.

Pests in the Garden

Since planting the garlic, over the last couple of weeks I have had some issues with something pulling up the seedlings.  To say it was annoying was an understatement!

 

I had a look online for what it could be.  Initially I thought it was a cat, but as cats generally don't like garlic and I didn't find any droppings, I thought it may have been birds. However, the ground was scratched up a little and I didn't think birds could do that... so I came back to cats.

 

While looking online, I came across the idea of using some plastic forks in the garden to help deter cats... I figured even if it was birds, then it should hopefully work with them too.  I didn't want to go down the pesticide path, as I don't like the idea of using chemicals in the garden, especially if it will be food that we will eat. The forks seem to work quite well, and there have only been two instances of finding the garlic pulled out.

 

Forks in the garden - they do help!

 

 

However, it has since extended to pulling up some of the bokashi remains; mostly onion peels and egg shells, but it is so damn annoying.

 

I finally came to realise that I was going to have to go down the "ugly" path... and get a bird net. No matter what the animal is that is getting in there, the bird net should keep them out... birds or cats. I have propped them up by using stakes, but they don't seem to stick in the ground very well (hard clay really sucks!) so I have used the fence and one of the trees to help.

 

Bird netting - and ugly but necessary evil

 

Hopefully, all this will work, but only time will tell...