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.

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!