dilly dalley doolittle gardening

Rain

Yup. It finally came. This is the kind of serious rain that we need. I know other parts of Southern Australia have been having rain for a few weeks but now it is here in Canberra.

And let me show you our water storage which I use to water that very thirsty rhododendron and my plants on the front verandah.

Three of them are large plastic drums which were used to bring olives to Australia. The red one is a traditional metal 44 gallon drum. The water from the downpipe is diverted into the drums and in this photo it is closed as all the drums are full!

And from the verandah you can also see my frog pond.

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Tomato bed preparation

I like to plant one whole bed of tomatoes with some eggplants and capsicums. In previous years I've settled on 32 tomato plants, 6 capsicums and 10 eggplants. I also, in previous years, grew everything from seed and would crank up the propogator in August for the October/November/December planting of the heat loving and frost hating vegies. This year, I have not been growing from seed. I have purchased seedlings at fetes and garden nurseries. I will probably go back to propogation next year. It is much cheaper, you get a greater range of vegetables in seeds and though a lot of work it is very satisfying.

Here is a shot of the beds being prepared for the tomatoes.

In the bottom right hand corner are my treats! I've been looking at the Digadoo tools for ages. I finally decided that after 3 years of consistent vegetable growing in our community garden, I was here to stay. I didn't want to lash out and treat myself if my vegetable growing was some whimsical, fly by night activity soon to be replaced by another worthy but whimsical cause.

Look at all this digging I've done.

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Green manure - beds in progress

So, about a 2 weeks ago I began digging in the green manure. Let me show you my progress.

From this angle it looks like one big bed but it is actually two beds and for some dedication to symmetry reason I'm digging along each bed at the same rate. It kind of helps me set goals. I work in the morning before school/work for about 1hour max. I have the chooks to look after and then assuming it's not a watering day, I get to do some digging, weeding, or harvesting. Digging has been my focus. This year I decided to dig that green manure in. I know, I know it's late, late, late - this is the theme.

You'll also notice my digging board over on the second bed. I stand on this and it distributes my weight across the bed and then I dig from the front, long horizontal edge and throw the dirt forward onto the pile in front. For those of you familiar with his work it is a John Jeavons technique. I try not to be too disruptive to the worms and microbial life and I know digging has some fans, some enemies. Peter Cundall is a digger. I'm an in-between. Sometimes I do, sometimes I dont. These beds were a little bit compacted after having the chook house on them. Chooks don't weigh much but we stomped around on the dirt, feeding them, moving things around, that kind of thing for over six months. I think the soil will benefit from digging in the organic matter and lifting the dirt and adding air to the mix.

From this angle you are looking over the green manure back at the diggings. In the far distance you can see the new neighbours' chook shed, part of the old neighbour's chook shed, a small "bus shelter" type structure, and the orchard behind it. And of course our chook shed!

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New chook house Mk5

We have a new chook house. For the whole time we've been in the community garden we've had a mobile chicken house. It has been important to me that we move the house around so that the vegetables can benefit from the chicken manure. I also don't want the soil under the chicken house to become too intensely fertilised so the house only sits over the beds for about 4-6 months.

Over the years, our chicken sheds have become increasingly more complex. This is Chook House Mark 5. The first one was made of straw, the second one sticks....no, not really. The first one was too small, the second one was bigger but was still too small once we knew the ACT regulations required 20sq metres, the third one was big enough but had grown like topsy and needed to be rationalised. The fourth one was designed on the principle of our tent with crossing over electrical conduit tubes to support the frame. It, unfortunately, became a bit wobbly over time and lost the ability to support itself.

Bring on the new chook house. Tim reused the conduit and some of the chicken wire, the door, the floor and the house, which had been made from an old government surplus desk. He bought new timber for the frames and some new chicken wire. He assures me that two men can move it. I think it looks substantially bigger than the last one yet it only has a 20 square metre floor space - which is what the last one had.

This is the view from the back of the chook house, through the asparagus.

Nice looking Asparagus, huh? These plants are three years old now. I grew them from seed, so the first year we harvested nothing. The second year we also harvested nothing but this year!!! Wow. It was the most beautiful asparagus in the world.

They were abundant, very tall and I ate them every day for weeks. Then I got sick of them and much as I tried, I couldn't convince my children to eat them. My husband would occasionally eat a spear. With this kind of treatment, probably sooner rather than later, I let it bush out into those ferny shrubs. Next year I will harvest more and give them away.

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Winter veg

Again, I am still in catch up mode. Not long now and I'll be in tune - reality, photos, stories all as one. But for now, bear with me while I show off. Remember my winter beds? Well look at this beauty. I took this photo on the 25th of July. Isn't that an amazing head of broccoli? Big and tight and beautiful colours. I had a glut but alas that was yesterday and now I have none.

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Catching up on Green manure

I've been running late all year with  my planting and gardening. If you recall, I was late putting in the green manure. I can show you now what it looked like twoards the end of winter. Not overly impressive.

These two beds had the chicken house on them during the summer, then in the autumn around May we moved the chicken house, reshaped the beds and then late in the autumn (really probably early winter), I sowed the green manure seeds. In previous years it grew to knee high by the end of winter, early spring. It is at that stage, knee high that you usually dig it in, or slash it and leave it to rot on the surface. I've used both techniques but probably prefer to dig it in if there is enough time for it to break down before you need to plant out the bed.

In the background, in one of the communal areas is a pile of bagged up sheep manure. A local school just outside Canberra, about 40 minutes drive away, in a small country town, does a fundraiser each year where they bag up the sheep manure from under the shearing sheds and sell it to Canberra gardeners. They market it as Gundaroo Gold and as part of the service they delivered that big pile for us. About 4 or 5 gardeners got together and ordered 25 bags of poo. It's the first time I participated but will certainly do it again next  year.

Here is a close up of the stalky bits to try to give the impression of growth!

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Blossom snow

I thought you might like to see some of the effects of the end of spring on the Manchurian pear. We certainly enjoyed it. As I drove up the street, white petals would fly off the car into the air and all over the road. It was like being part of some bizarre wedding ritual.

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More Spring photos

Here are some photos taken through September of the Wattle in the front garden. I did say I would produce a series through the Spring. Well, my apologies because I didn't realise that ambition. Fun though it would have been to see it change. Though I can tell you that it didn't change much through July. Then all of a sudden it was bright yellow and fluffy. Here it is in early September. The Manchurian pear is doing a better job of being showy than the wattle.

However, not to be undone, the wattle got into gear a few weeks later and produced this...

You can see from the glimpse of the Manchurian pear in the top right corner that it now has given itself over to leaves, while the wattle is positively neon and LOUD.

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A few out of date photos of spring

That fabulous Manchurian Pear in the front garden was a wooly sheep in the early days of July and August. We have long since moved on but as mentioned earlier, I was having my garden panic attack during the dry, spring so while I photographed it's beauty I didnt' post about it. Spring was so glorious though and so now I will share a few (old) photos.

As you stood in the driveway, you could hear the bees buzzing in the blossoms. I sometimes gathered the children before school and asked them to stand quietly and listen. It was always the littlest one who said "Wow - Bees". Then we hopped in the car and burned fuel up the street but still the bees were there, they were still in the tree, doing their business, gathering the nectar, fuzzing up the tree, vibrating and humming.

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I can't really explain it

I didn't intend to take such a long break from writing about my garden. I can't quite put my finger on what has kept me away - life I guess. There was the hospitalisation of my husband, the weeks of recuperating, the 10th birthday of my son, the school productions for Kindergarden (Peter Rabbit show) and Grade 3-6 show (Rocky Monster show), the visit to Berry to catch up with family, the visits of family from Melbourne, the school fete....anyway, just life.

I think the break has also been about the, what is the word, nothing seems right, despair? panic? dismay? of the long, dry spring. We knew the Il Nino was over and when it ends we are meant to get a wet Winter. And Winter wasn't too bad, but the four months July, August, September, October have been very dry. The dams, which hold the water supply for Canberra, are lower going into spring/summer this year than they were last year.

There was a time when I really was expecting stage 4 (no outside watering) to be called. Under this pressure, I found it hard to summon up the courage to plant out my garden for spring. Slowly though I've been coming around. ACTEW have said they think we can get through summer if we are all moderate with our watering and we manage to live within our stage 3 restrictions. They are currently projecting stage 4 in March 2008. If they can hold off till then I can certainly harvest a summer crop under stage 3. So....relax Melissa...go forward. Plant those plants, weed those beds, let nature do it's job. Breed and multiply. Worrying wont make the rains come and refusing to plant a vegetable garden out of fear that they will all wither and die in the drought is no solution.

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