Kitchen Garden - November 2012

A fairly big reorganisation with the news that we will staying here at least another 12 months (yay). Making way for planned expansions.

Making seed tape

Under spotlight. In this small space is: sunflower, corn, tomato, capsicum, summer squash, zuchini, sweet potato, luffa, carrot, lettuce, strawberries, brown onion, spring onion

Herbs near the kitchen\back door

Away from the wall - better access, air flow and sun

The start of the mushroom kingdom

For tonight's stir fry dinner

DIY self watering pots

In the garden I try to DIY as much as possible. For both environmental and financial reasons. When I first started out, quite a few sites on the interwebs had instructions for cutting a milk or soft bottle in half and inverting the top half to make a self watering pot. Recently I have been taking it a step further and turning the handle into a spout. It has been working so well that I thought I would document and share.

 Empty milk bottle, that would otherwise go in the trash

Cut ~2 cm below the handle

Cut off the handle

 Poke holes around the opening - for water to seep into the soil. Perhaps not necessary but I have found it works better if I do this.

Feed the handle back through the hole left where it was cut off. Can duct tape it into place, but I have since found its ok without the duct tape - as long as you hold the handle/spout in place while filling the pot with soil.

Place the top, with the spout, upside down in the bottom half of the container.

Optional extra - as I had some old hand towels I was cutting up for other purposes I added a wick - through the 2nd hole left by where the handle was cut away. Usually I don't bother. 

 Tada! Add soil to the top and pour water down the spout and you have a home made self-watering pot.
I have been using these in my greenhouse to raise larger seedlings.

Previously I added an overflow hole on the side - about half way up, but I don't bother anymore. As the container is see-through I can see how much water is in it. It is covered (in the greenhouse) so there is no chance of rainfall flooding the plant. Minimising access to the stagnant water will hopefully prevent mozzies breeding in there - I am very wary of creating too many mozzie breeding grounds in my garden.

April in the kitchen garden

So, I seem to have missed March in the garden, oops, oh well, here's April:

   Currently growing L-R: Smokey's pot (Bottlebrush & Cat Grass); Tomato, Marigold, Sunflowers (behind the Marigold - can't see them yet here); Corn, Climbing Beans; Zuchini, Carrots & Lettuce box, Herbs, Lucerne, and Strawberry

 Harvest! We have been adding quite a few bits and bobs to meals recently from the garden.[

 I harvested the sweet potato today - they worked! (sort of). Given it was 2x false starts and therefore very late in season they got under way I am pretty happy with this lot. Lessons learnt for next year :)

  

Winter seedlings - Broccoli, Cauliflower, Dill, Celery, Celeriac, Carrots (an experiment that I will tell you about if it works), Chilli, Onions, Alpine Strawberry

A couple of weekends ago I made an old Styrofoam box into a self-watering planter for Carrots and Lettuce. Both (according to the Internet) can be grown year-round in our climate and are good companion plants as carrots have a deep root while lettuce is shallow root. Unfortunately despite being behind the herbs, Mr Smokey has found them and lying in this box is his new favourite spot - hence few seedlings. I planted more seeds both directly in the box and in pots in the green house this weekend. I think I will put netting over it too.

Ladybugs! My poor Zuchini has suffered badly from powdery mildew due to the mild and humid summer. I nearly pulled it today but a whole colony of ladybugs (good bugs - they eat the mildew) have moved in and it is looking a bit better. Maybe I'll get another fruit or two from it (we have had a couple) and I quite enjoy looking at the bugs. The funny grey things below are the ladybug larvae.

A rewarding day in the garden can only finish with Smokey on my lap wanting a head rub.

February in the Kitchen Garden

The garden was really starting to thrive in Dec-Jan, when, we moved. I kept a few smaller things (capsicum plant, herbs) but ripped most of it out (and into the worm farm) as we were concerned about how we were going to move it all. We need not have worried, our friendly removalists berated me for having removed most of the plants and some of the soil (quote from one of the guys "have you seen the muscles on that guy?!"), but, too late, it was done.

So, Jan was pretty much start all over again. I do have some photos of 'January in the Kitchen Garden' however I think they are currently 'stuck' on my old phone, hopefully I can get them later.

We jump straight to February:

Left to right:

Smokey's pot - Bottle Brush & Cat Grass

Square Foot Garden - Tomato x2, Capsicum, Bean, Corn, Carrots x3 'plots', Marigolds

Large pot - Zuchini

Four white herb pots - Lettuce, Rosemary & Mint, Parsley & Thyme, Oregano & something that repels mozzies

Large pot & climbing - Sweet Potato

Little white pot - Strawberry

From the other direction

 Because I had to hit 'reset' on the garden, apart from the odd herbs, I had not really harvested anything from the garden... until late Feb. These cheesy zuchini enchiladas were the first meal made using produce from the garden, a HUGE zuchini.

Since then I have also bought myself (another) cooking book... Stephanie Alexander's Kitchen Garden Cooking with Kids. With ideas from this book I have massively increased the amount of herbs I am using and it has helped shape my plans for what to plant next. Anyone interested in kitchen gardening and simple cooking from scratch, especially a novice like me, I can't recommend it highly enough!

December in the Balcony Garden

View from inside looking out

Left/1st - the 'other' corner - Mr Smokey's pot
Middle/2nd - that cocoon
Right/3rd - zuchini tendrils



Work has been crazy busy (end of year usual crazy) and Matt is up in Qld, so I have enjoyed a fair bit of down time in the garden. Over the past 2 weekends some of the things I have done include:

• Removed the nasturtiums - they were so eaten by the caterpillars they looked ugly and I wonder whether they were helping to attract the cabbage butterflies
• Moved the thyme to where the nasturtiums were, leaving two plants in that pot (parsley and thyme) and two in the pot where the thyme was (rosemary and mint) - both pots are now flourishing
• Harvested a tray of worm poo (compost) - added to the main planter
• Put the box of failed mushrooms compost into the worm farm - the balcony doesn't stink anymore
• Removed two of the broccoli/cauliflowers. I originally planted a mix of the two and can't remember which are which, now I am now using plant labels :) The broccoli/cauliflower, again, are so caterpillar eaten that they are sickly, I left the three healthiest, but they may go eventually
• Staked and tied the tomatoes and zuchini
• Planted some german camomile seedlings the guy at the nursery gave me after we had a chat about companion planting (they were a little sickly anyway). I have pegged them in the pot to help them develop new roots, one has definitely taken and looks really healthy now, the other, fingers crossed
• Divided and potted (seedling pots) some onion bottoms that had sprouted - 5 seedlings from 2 onions
• Put a couple of sweet potatoes that sprouted in the pantry in the empty pot. Trying this time - NOT planting them, just sitting on the soil and loosely covered in mulch - 3rd time lucky perhaps?
• Watched a caterpillar build his cocoon! (while doing the above). Didn't have the heart to remove it after watching him build it - removed plenty of others. Plan is to watch this one through to hatching
• Gave the BBQ a really good clean (this was a few weekends back) with the intention of using it more, now we have a lovely balcony area to cook and eat - but haven't yet because of late nights at work and constant rain
• Harvested a lot of rain - in buckets - added to the tank
• Gave the tiles a really good scrub during a storm. It was fun in the rain :) and saved using heaps of water from the tank or taps. Then, while taking the above photos and the doormat was removed from cleaning, slipped over badly - thankfully nothing broken, just body, ego and phone bruised
• Researched organic ways to combat aphids - I now have: alfoil under the worst affected (to make light reflect up to the underside of the leaves, two little yellow pots (old lids) half filled with water - aphids are attracted to yellow apparently and then drown, have ordered some cute butterfly shaped yellow sticky traps and have plans to research making garlic soap to spray on the underside of the leaves.

November in the Balcony Garden

Argh! The caterpillars. A couple of months ago I posted a piccie of a butterfly in one of my pots and commented that I hoped it was a 'good' bug. Nope, it is the enemy, the dreaded Cabbage Butterfly (white-pale yellow wings with a black spot). The butterfly itself is not the problem, it's 'the very hungry caterpillars'.

So far I have been using some companion planting and picking them off individually but I am loosing the battle. Today I bought and built exclusion netting (see photos).

In other garden news I have had a few fails recently. My mushies became too waterlogged, potato rotted in the pot and the lettuce is all in Mr Smokey's belly. But it's a learning process and some things are flourishing so I am happy. I may have also solved my irrigation difficulties... stay tuned.

October in the Balcony Garden

Sept-Oct in the Balcony Garden

August in the Balcony Garden

Matt and I had a day off together - we finally had the chance to work on the veggie planter.

Before

Legs - room for storage boxes underneath - for growing mushrooms and storage

Pond liner

With drainage holes   *see note below

Rocks as a base

Soil (store bought potting mix as the compost from the worm farm is not ready yet)
We slept in, had a lazy brunch then got into it. 15 mins and 3 screws later the battery on the drill was flat.
3 hrs charging later and we were going again. By the time we finished it was dark!

*Note: after the success with my seeding pots I had looked into DIY options to make the planter also self watering - most involved specialised equipment (= very expensive) and/or large water reservoir (= weight on the balcony) . That very night after we had finished the day's work, while looking for something else, I stumbled across these instructions:

http://www.urbanfoodgarden.org/main/wicking-beds/wicking-beds.htm

I may in the future empty the planter and set up this or something similar (shh... don't tell Matt, yet).

The next day I finished cleaning up and did a bit of pottering including a reorganisation of the overall layout. Later that day I was hanging out the washing and thinking, even without plants in the planter, how much nicer it was on the balcony. I could feel the microclimate developing already, when... something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye...

Beneficial bugs (or at least I hope so!)