dilly dalley doolittle gardening

Seed potatoes have gone in

On October 14 we planted this year's potato crop (by which I mean the potatoes we'll eat next year). I gave an account of our potato planting process in this post and nothing significant has changed since I wrote this up. In the photo above, Tim is filling a couple of trays with water. We soak the newspapers so that they don't fly around while you lay them down onto the garden bed.

Last year's report included evidence of my children's assitance with potato planting but this year we did not have any children with us. They are old enough now to be left to their own pursuits at home. We are just back from our annual October bushwalk and they are both happy to be at home and do their homely (read electronic devices) connections. I can't tell you how grateful I am to have had a childhood that was pre-computer. I crave the outdoors away from desks and electronics. I love the dirt and the garden and the sky above me. I like listening to the birds and the wind whip across suburban Dunlop and rip across the vegie patches. I don't know what it will be like for this generation of children who went from womb to screen. What do their brains perceive when they are in nature? Is it the same as mine? I don't know. Can they be as connected to nature or are they always craving electronic connections?

Like last year, this year's seed potatoes have once again been purchased from New Gippsland. We have Pontiac, Desiree, Sebago, Coliban, & Nicola.

In the absence of having someone to jot down what order we planted the potatoes, I decided to photograph the bags laid out in the order that they would go on the newspaper (so at the top of the beds are the pontiacs, then the desiree, then the sebago, coliban and finishing with the Nicola). Tim then wanted to place the paper bags under the actual type of potato and photograph the effect - just as an extra piece of photographic documentation. So I distracted myself with gazing at my pea seedlings in the bed next door.

 And lo and behold....husbands are funny creatures aren't they? Charming photo. I guess he thought it was amusing - I think it would be best posted out of context.

Moving right along.....to finish off, the bed was covered in straw then sprinklings of sheep manure, blood and bone and sulphate of potash were added to start the composting effect. The whole pile was watered well and then we walked away.

Previous posts

Potato bed - mid Summer (January 2012)

Potato bed - early summer (December 2011)

Potatoes are up (November 2011)

Planting seed potatoes (October 2011)

Buying seed potatoes (September 2011)

Leek and potato soup (May 2011)

More on the potato harvest (March 2011)

Potatoes and leeks (March 2011)

Potato bed - update late summer (February 2008)

Potato bed - early summer (December 2007)

Peas are up

We came back from our holiday and were pleased to see the peas up. We planted these September 23rd - so these photos were taken 3 weeks later on 13th October.

I checked my blog from last year and it seems I prepared the ground for the peas on Sept 14 but then didn't sow the seeds until Oct 8 and then around mid-Nov they were half way up the frame. We'll see if getting the seeds in a few weeks earlier makes any difference.

There are a couple of little gaps in the row but nothing really dramatic. We were away for 9 days so there would have been no water to them in that period, except for rainfall :-) of course!

 

Previous posts

Sowing peas: Spring 2012 (September 2012)

Beans, beans, beans (Feb 2012)

Pea and bean bed - mid summer (Jan 2012)

Shelling peas - summer 2011 (Dec 2011)

Pea and bean bed - early Summer 2011 (Dec 2011)

Pea and bean bed - Spring 2011 (Nov 2011)

Spring vegetables and sowing peas (Oct 2011)

Planting peas - preparing the trench (September 2011)

Bean bed - update - end of summer (February 2008)

Bean bed - early summer (December 2007)

Seed saving - beans blue lake (May 2007)

Seed saving - beans (April 2007)

Sowing peas: Spring 2012

On Sunday the 23rd September we headed down to the garden to get the Spring on. This bed was planted with tomatoes last summer and now it will be the legumes and brassicas.

The garden was quiet when we arrived and at first we three were the only ones there despite the glorious weather. Having said that, it was super windy. My hat blew off many times. The start of Spring in our community plot was a three person event. I did the weeding, then Tim did the digging, then Nick helped lay the straw and manure. We've received our Gunning Gold sheep poo order as evidenced by the bright yellow bags in the background.

After the soil was covered, Tim put the frames in; one for peas, one for beans. I wont sow the bean seeds until October. They really do not like frosts and we are still due any number of frosts before the baking heat is well and truly here.

After the frames went in, I sowed the pea seeds. I've owned up before to being a ramshackle kind of seed saver. Half the frame was sown with Sugar Snap Peas from Green Harvest. The other half the frame came from a paper bag labelled 'PEAS' in a young person's handwriting.

So you will note that it is a mixture of seeds...brown ones, green ones, white ones...some really plump, others wrinkled...that sit waiting to be encased in rich black dirt. In a few months we'll know who these creatures are when the pod up.

 

 

Previous posts

Beans, beans, beans (Feb 2012)

Pea and bean bed - mid summer (Jan 2012)

Shelling peas - summer 2011 (Dec 2011)

Pea and bean bed - early Summer 2011 (Dec 2011)

Pea and bean bed - Spring 2011 (Nov 2011)

Spring vegetables and sowing peas (Oct 2011)

Planting peas - preparing the trench (September 2011)

Bean bed - update - end of summer (February 2008)

Bean bed - early summer (December 2007)

Seed saving - beans blue lake (May 2007)

Seed saving - beans (April 2007)

Potatoes are up

These potatoes were planted early October. Here's the potato bed mid-November. For those who have followed along for awhile, you'd remember that I have permanent plantings at the end of each of my beds. At the far end are the comfrey plants and at the close end, from the photographer's perspective, are the strawberry plants.

Red thing says 'Yum'. In my view, the two plants that are most different in taste to the supermarket varieties are tomatoes and strawberries. (and maybe rockmelon). If you only ever grow tomatoes and strawberries you would be improving the quality of your life, thousand-fold (in my not-so-humble opinion). But you may as well grow some potatoes while you're at it (cause they're easy).

 

Previous posts

Planting seed potatoes (October 2011)

Buying seed potatoes (September 2011)

Leek and potato soup (May 2011)

More on the potato harvest (March 2011)

Potatoes and leeks (March 2011)

Potato bed - update late summer (February 2008)

Potato bed - early summer (December 2007)

Tomato bed 1 planted

We planted the tomato seedlings on a recent Sunday evening (Nov 13th). I always plant seedlings in the afternoon. We had gone down to the garden hoping to have a family BBQ after planting the seedlings. Unfortunately both the BBQ gas bottle and post-driver had walked out of the shed.

This year I have two garden beds available for Solanums (tomatoes, capsicums, eggplants, chilli plants). So far, I've only planted one bed and mainly with tomato seedlings. Though at the end of this bed in the photo below, I have two capsicum plants.

Our post-driver looked a bit like the one below....a handy garden tool. The weight of the thing really drives the tomato stake into the garden bed. Highly recommend them. However, I don't recommend human behaviour in community garden sheds.

Source of image

Unfortunately, with the absence of the post-driver, our tomato stakes have a curiously drunken-looking lean to them. You'll note too that I didn't weed the self-seeded lettuces and mustard plants.

Years ago, I developed the habit of planting a seedling on either side of the stake. I think it happened one year when I had gone overboard (lost at sea) with all the tomato seedlings I'd sown. Every since then I've rather enjoyed the jungle of tomato plants that this method creates and as I crop more than enough tomatoes, I haven't bothered learning a different way to plant the tomatoes. It's the usual story...this works for me.

 

Previous posts

Tomato bed - mid summer (January 2008)

Tomato bed - early summer (December 2007)

Tomato bed prep (November 2007)

Pea and bean bed - Spring 2011

The peas are up and climbing up the frame. The garden beds and paths between the beds are being covered in straw to suppress weeds and retain moisture in the beds. The heat is coming, in fact we've already had some pretty  hot days in November.

On the other side of the pea and bean bed is another climbing frame. I've just planted the bean seeds. There are three segments of this frame and I've planted a different set of seeds in each segment: bush beans, Beans Blue Lake (my recent favourite) and a yellow bean (name escapes me, I'll update later, promise, but a favourite from childhood). The mountain of bales of straw is casting quite a long early morning shadow over this bed. Ah well, the straw isn't long for the pile, most of the bales will be used in the next few weeks.

Previous posts

Spring vegetables and sowing peas (Oct 2011)

Planting peas - preparing the trench (September 2011)

Bean bed - update - end of summer (February 2008)

Bean bed - early summer (December 2007)

Seed saving - beans blue lake (May 2007)

Seed saving - beans (April 2007)

Silverbeet going to seed

I know I haven't posted anything from the community garden in a little while. The ducklings have been very distracting, no?  I should bring you up-to-speed with the Spring garden before we tip completely into Summer. The forest of silverbeet has now gone to seed. In earlier posts I mentioned that the silverbeet was self-seeded. By leaving some of these to form seeds, I'll be ensuring that the cycle will continue. Also, they just got away from me, but I like the idea of pretending it's all part of some grand plan I have as an organic gardner.

 

I will need to remove a lot of these plants but I will save some to harvest their seeds when done.

Previous posts

Weeding the paths - silverbeet (June 2011)

Uses of silverbeet (May 2011)

Silverbeet - putting some away for later (January 2010)

Ducklings - one week old

I thought you might like to see a few photos of the ducklings at one week old. We have a small ornamental pond that is fenced off from the ducks (the ducks have their own watering system). At one stage, after seeing a combined fish and hydroponic system at a garden show, we considered getting trout for our pond. We did some research and spoke to the local trout farms down in Tumut and decided that the pond wasn't deep enough and wouldn't keep the water temperature cold enough for trout through our hot summer. Anyway, it remains an ornamental pond and the large, wide-bodied ducks can't get into it. But ducklings can.

Because ducklings can drown if they can't get out of a body of water, we needed some escape routes for them. In the past we've put bird netting over the fence to keep the ducklings out but as the large ducks use this pond to drink from, we decided against that practice. Instead we have put some ramps in for them to climb out.

This ramp is a little bit steep and there's a bit of pushing and shoving going on I think....siblings!

Most of the ducklings are back under the watchful eye of mum.

These photos below have all been taken with full zoom on my little camera. The mums are hugely protective of their babies and I don't like to get too close. They have a very strong set of alarm calls that bring the flock to them. It starts off as a kind of low repetitive set of yips and barks and then the ducklings all become alert. Then the mums calls get louder and more insistent and the ducklings peep peep back in earnest. By this stage they are all around her and at her bidding. On this occasion, despite being all the way at the other end of the garden, the mums decided to take them back up to the duck enclosure (which at present has no door to enclose them but will do again sometime soonish).

Up the hill they go.

Up into what is distinctly their territory.

One little one decided "that's it, I'm here, rest time".

And although  I don't think I managed to photograph all 11 at any one time, they are all still peeping along, doubling their body size each week. No way these guys would fit back into an egg.

Ducklings

The ducklings have arrived and there are 11. They started hatching out late on Tuesday 2nd Nov and by Wednesday afternoon they were being taken for a walk. Then on Thursday afternoon the nest had been abandoned and so I removed the eggs from the nests that had not hatched (11 of them). Ever since then, we've been trying to get a few glimpses of yellow fluff, without disturbing the mums too much. They travel as a group, two mums and 11 ducklings. It is so funny when they come down these steps. The mums kind of waddle down but the ducklings sort of walk, sort of slip, sort of just tumble.

At only a few days old the ducklings often still try and sleep under the mum. She lets them arrange themselves and when ready she kind of sits down on them. I guess its safe and cozy under there and they aren't visible to predators. Kind of squishy though.

I

 

Previous posts

Two ducks sitting on the nest (October 2011)

Drakes - a short history since 2006 (October 2011)

Nesting ducks (October 2011)

I was wrong - not once, but twice (December 2007)

Duckling arrived (November 2007)

Sitting ducks (November 2007)

Baby apples - is there a name for these things?

Baby apples - applets, budlets, promisory notes, mini-crunches, post blossomets, pre-apples....whatever...they are here.

 

Some of the branches are quite laden with small apples. What is nature thinking?

 

Previous posts

Backyard apples trees in Spring (October, 2011)

Heritage apple trees - when to prune (September 2011)