DRY WEATHER GARDENING

Since January 1, we have only had four days of rain.  This is not normal for this time of year at all - we have only received 10% of our normal rainfall.  We are already on water-restrictions and can only water for two hours in the morning and two hours at night, every second day.

Our regional council is about to impose further watering restrictions, and therefore I have been busily looking at ways to reduce our water usage and trying to look at some smart options to re-use water in the garden.  I have been researching in particular what neighbours in Australia do when it is really dry, as our conditions at present are very similar.

One of the most important things I have discovered is ensuring that there is a good mix of compost in the soil.  This really does help with moisture retention. The other thing that is really important is mulching.  I've chosen to use pea straw as I find this to be the most effective mulch to keep the moisture in the soil.

You can see in this picture that the grass around the gardens is growing really nicely, but the rest of the grass is dying all over our property.  The broccoli and cabbages in this picture were watered first thing this morning, but they're really drooping in the heat.

Pea Straw Mulch

 

We've got lots of rogue peas sprouting all over the garden as a result of using the pea straw mulch - but I don't mind because it will give us lots of free plants!

My next steps are to put in some water tanks around our property and collect water from the roof of our house and shed.  This is not very common in suburban areas in New Zealand, because we do not normally have these issues especially where I live, because we don't pay for our water like other cities.

Luckily, I work in the plumbing industry and have thought of a plan to use my grey water from the washing machine which will be quite easy to do.  My thoughts are also to source some big 1000 litre plastic containers from a local company who imports wallpaper paste in these containers.  It's an organic product so I figure that they will be perfect.  Then I will connect our drainpipes to these to channel the water from the roof.  And of course I'll need a pump to pump the water to the hose.  The only trouble is they are a bit unsightly, so I want to dig a huge hole into the ground to bury them. 

Potential Water Storage Containers?

 

This is going be a massive project and I am on a tight budget - so wish me luck! Or if you have any suggestions for other alternatives for inexpensive storage containers - let me know!

PLANTING OUT FLOWERS TO ATTRACT BEES

Bees are crucial to our vegetable gardens for pollenating the flowers so that they then grow on to develop delicious vegetables. Unfortunately in recent times, global bee populations have dwindled severely.  I've been taking steps to ensure that I have plants that both attract bees and give them lots of variety to gather pollen.  We largely have bumblebees in our garden, but do get lots of honey bees too.  They are the hardest working insect in our garden and without bees, our crops would not succeed - so I am going to outline some plants you can plant out in your garden to help attract the bees and help feed them!  These are all photos I have taken today in my garden during the last week of summer...

Allowing some plants such as leeks, to go to seed does attract bees too.  There are ornamental alliums which you can grow, but I just let a couple of leeks go to seed each season and then collect the seeds for future sowing.

My vegetable garden is surrounded by a lavender border which flowers late spring and brings a huge influx of bees into the garden which aids the pollenation of broad beans, tomatoes, courgettes and all my other spring/summer vegies.

I have a cottage garden filled with perennials and annuals.  I try to ensure that I have a variety plants flowering all year round for the bees to feed on.  I try not to use too many traditional flowering borders that make a huge visual impact, but do not neccessarily attract bees.  Flowers that look great in borders such as asters and double dahilas, make it difficult for bees to access the pollen due to their full heads of petals.

Aster

Bees prefer flowers they can land on easily and access the pollen.  Lobelia and foxgloves are real favourites of the bees in my garden and I find that they are particularly attracted to purple flowers.  At the moment, I have a variety of late summer flowers feeding the bees in my garden.

Lobelia

 

Another favourite of bees at this time of the year, is echinacea with its' cone-shaped centre.

Echinacea

 

The trumpet-shaped petals of the penstemon is a real favourite of the bees.  This flowers several times throughout the year and the bees love crawling up inside its' flowers.

Penstemon

For the past two years, I have planted lots of cosmos around my lemon tree.  In the spring, we have a beautiful show of daffodils, tulips and freesias around the lemon tree and I find the cosmos is fantastic to cover up the mess left behind from these flowering bulbs as they die back.  What I have discovered is that the cosmos has been wonderful for attracting lots of bees to this area of the garden.  We used to harvest a pitiful amount of lemons (about 10 each season) and now we have a continuous harvest of lemons almost all year round with at least 100 lemons on the tree at various stages of the season!

Cosmos

The cornflower is one of the bees absolute favourites too - it's easy to access the pollen and they are attracted by the gorgeous blue colour.

Cornflower

They also love feverfew and little geums and alstroemeria due to the quick access to pollen.

Feverfew

 Little Geum

Alstroemeria



 

The lupin is a flower which the bees also seem to like. I thought the shape of the petals would be difficult for them to access, but I've noticed that the bees have been all over this plant this season.  A nice thing about bees pollenating lupins, is that this forms a seed pod which you can dry and then save the seeds for future planting.

Lupin

And they just love sweet peas!  Of course, just like the lupin, once the bees have pollenated these flowers, you get a big pod of more seeds to save for next season!

Sweet Pea

 

I also plant calendulas and marigolds around my vegetables namely to ward off insects that attack my vegetables, but the bees just love them too.  Especially the caldendulas during winter months which not only brighten up the garden with their pretty display, but also give the bees something to feed on.

 Marigold

Calendula





And lastly, at this time of the year, the absolute favourite of the honey bee (and bumblebee for that matter!) would have to be the sunflower....so as you're preparing your vegetable garden, why not think about planting some bright flowers like these that will also help bring lots of bees!

Sunflower

IT ALL BEGINS WITH GREAT SOIL...

When I started gardening, I didn't realise how important it was to get your soil structure right.  After a couple of years of trial and error: I think I've got it just right!  So I thought I should share this step-by-step list of what key items you need to get your soil into perfect condition.

I cannot reitterate enough the importance of getting your soil right so that your vegetables can prosper and to help build the soil structure so that it's full of nutrients to help the plants establish their roots and furthermore so that lots of worms are attracted to the soil to help aerate it.  I fill my beds with plenty of organic matter to give my plants the best start possible.  I find spring is the best time to prepare your soil.

I grow all my vegetables in raised beds and the basic structure when we initally filled them was a good mix of green waste (i.e. compost, old plant waste) and brown matter (twigs, paper, cardboard).

It is crucial to add to your soil every year and feed it.  Along with  the use of organic liquid fertilisers throughout the growing season - I focus on getting my soil ready in spring.  As my summer crops die away, I sow mustard seed in the empty beds which I'm not using for autumn/winter crops.  I then dig it in to the garden along with:

Leaves collected in the autumn from my two big elm trees.  I rake them up and put them in big black rubbish bags, poke some holes in the sides with a garden fork and pour some comfrey or worm wees into the bag.  I leave these bags down the back of the garden until they're ready in the spring.

 

Animal manure is another key element to dig in - my preference is to use a combination of sheep and horse poo.  But I ensure that the horse poo is well-rotted before digging it in.  I usually purchase bags of the stuff in autumn and hide it down the bag of the garden with my bags of leaves for about 3 months before putting it into the garden.  Each of these are high in potassium, nitrogen and phosphorous.

Ash from the fireplace is also dug in - this is a great source of trace elements!  Sometimes I also just scatter this on the plants throughout the growing season.

Seaweed is an absolute must for my garden.  I don't bother rinsing off the salt and sand - the whole lot just goes into the garden!  I go down to our local beach after a store and collect huge bags of seaweed and put it straight into the garden.  I suggest you don't leave this lying around for days and do it immediately as it starts to break down very quickly in a bag and smells terrible!  It really doesn't matter what type of seaweed you use - I just grab whatever is on the beach - even the dry stuff works!

Coffee Grinds are another favourite of mine.  I get bags and bags of this from our local café for free!  It is high in nitrogen and when I'm not digging it into the garden - I feed it to my worms in my worm farm.  They just love it! 

Blood and Bone is a key product to add to your soil.  Be careful if you have a dog as this will attract them!  We don't have a dog, but sometimes the neighbours dogs come wandering over to have a sniff.

Next...and probably the most crucial is compost.  I try to compost almost everything in my garden/kitchen.  And what doesn't go into the compost, gets fed to the worms.  All my garden waste goes in there including all our grass clippings except tomato & potato plants as they carry diseases sometimes which can carry on living in the soil.  In the spring, my compost is nice and crumbly - really friable like a crumbling chocolate cake.  That's the consistency you want!  In this picture, the compost is not ready to go into the garden as it hasn't gone nice and brown and still needs to break down.  Compost is excellent for helping the soil retain the moisture so your plants don't dry out during the hot summer months. 

 

 

Some people also swear by adding lime.  I don't because I think all this organic matter I add is sufficient...

Dig it all in and hey presto!  You have the ultimate soil to grow your delicious organic vegetables!  I also follow this recipe when I convert my lawn into garden beds once I've broken up all the grass.  Below is a picture of a part of my lawn which I've converted into a little potager garden.  The broccoli and cabbage were grown from seed 8 weeks ago and they are doing exceptionally well!

 

 

AND THE WINNER IS...

It's a pretty amazing feeling to grow all your own vegies, but when you're rewarded with a prize for having the 'Best Outdoor Vegie Patch' in New Zealand - that makes you feel even better!

For three months, I blogged about my garden and I won the first prize in New Zealand out of about 800 entrants in a Yates competition.  Yates is a producer of seeds and gardening products in New Zealand & Australia. 

My local paper even wrote an article about me and it ended up on the front page!  I strongly urge everyone to start a garden in their backyard - big or small.  It doesn't matter how much you grow - just get out there and do it.  The rewards are phenomenal and not just the rewards when it comes to harvest time, but the way it makes you feel!

So here's the link to the article featured in my local paper:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/local-papers/hutt-news/8153334/Hutt-gardener-wins-award-for-produce

CARRYING ON THE LEGACY - 16 December 2012

I have thoroughly enjoyed this challenge – not only the growing vegetable aspect, but also learning to blog.

I think this is a great way to keep a garden diary, and I find it much more efficient that writing everything down in my diary. Furthermore, I don’t have to get photos printed and put them in my diary. This is far better!

The challenge has also encouraged me to try different vegies that I’ve been a little apprehensive to try previously.  So I’m really delighted with the success that I’ve experienced with some new vegetables in my garden.

We’ve continuously harvested vegies since this challenge began, and although there are many which are quite a way off harvesting, they are all looking pretty healthy.  I think it’s time for a walk down memory lane, so here is where it all began…

 

1. some 95 days ago for me with my massive collection of Yates seed
2.  And my first full picture of the garden in September
3. And then in October
4. And then in November
5. And finally today in December

 

It has been truly wonderful to be part of this challenge, and I have thoroughly enjoyed reading everyone else’s posts and wish you all a fantastic Christmas and bumper crops in your gardens this summer!  Happy gardening everyone and thanks to Yates for creating such a fab competition!

I COULDN'T RESIST... - 16 December 2012

…to share this bountiful basket of tonight’s vegie harvest.  It feels so fantastic to harvest such a diverse variety of vegetables and aside from using snail and slug pellets…this is all organic!

I’ve harvested my first two parsnips of the season and they’re destined for parsnip chips tonight.  I probably pulled them slightly early, but I just couldn’t resist the temptation any longer!

In my basket are also a squash, silverbeet, parsley & a courgette (for tonight’s Crab Rosti’s), snow peas & lettuce (to add to tonight’s salad) and broad beans for tomorrow night’s dinner.  I decided it was time to pull out my first planting of broad beans…so am pleased with the last harvest from these plants.  I still have another planting of broad beans left out in the garden which I’m saving for my Grandma who is visiting us next week from Dunedin for Christmas.  (She doesn’t grow them anymore but she just loves them).

 

BUMPER CROPS! - 16 December 2012

I’ve had a great day picking all sorts of vegetables today:

• snow peas to give away to friends
• squash for my parents
• broccoli to go with dinner tonight
• snow peas for lunch
• parsley & thyme to go with lunch

 

The quantities of snow peas that we have harvested are unbelieveable, but the plants are starting to turn yellow now so I think that they are at the end of their days.  I really am delighted with the amount that they have produced for us this year, and I’ve given away a lot to friends and family as we simply cannot eat them all. 

The broccoli I harvested today, were side shoots off two plants.  I’m going to use them tonight in a bacon and broccoli salad.  We have had excellent crops from our broccoli all year with virtually no attacks from bugs.  However, I did notice that we had a little infestation of green aphids on one of my plants that I planted out a few weeks ago.  There were also several caterpillars on that plant and some of my cabbages, so I squished them all and got out the derris dust.

Our squash is doing exceptionally well, and I thought I’d give a couple to my parents to try out as they don’t grow them in their garden.  There are plenty more ready to be harvested, so I think I’ll use them grated up tomorrow night in Crab Rostis which are like little crunchy fritters.  I am quite surprised at how quickly they grow!  Squash are much faster to grow than courgettes that’s for sure!

I have oodles of seedlings ready to be planted out, but it was just too hot to plant them during the day, so I’ll plant them out tomorrow morning.

Right – had better go and water the garden.  We haven’t had rain for over a week, and everything needs a good soak!

STARRING...MY FIRST TOMATO! - 15 December 2012

I had just started watering the garden, when I noticed my first cherry tomato on one of my plants.  So I raced inside to grab the camera and take a photo.  This variety is Yates Tomato – Small Fry.

Our tomatoes have been raised from seed and I think that we are on track in comparison to previous years of tomato growing, but I am amazed to see that other fellow gardeners in this challenge are already eating tomatoes that they have grown!  And I guess it seems like this has taken forever to appear because the first flower buds appeared on 4/11/12 and it has taken over a month for fruit to appear.  I see plenty of bugs and bees out every day in the garden, so I’m a tad surprised that pollenation has taken so long!

I was a little bit worried that our tomatoes weren’t doing as well as they have done in previous years, as the bed that they are planted out in this year, is directly under an enormous elm tree.  They are in part shade/part sun, but they seem to be doing okay.

Our plan is to cut the elm tree down next winter to give our vegie patch more light.  However, it’s going to be a pretty tough job as the tree is about 14 metres high, and I have all my raised beds directly under it….so we are devising a plan to protect the vegies when we eventually chop the tree down. 

Well…I am digressing!  I must get on and finish watering the garden!

 

CAT AMONGST THE PIGEONS - 14 December 2012

Actually…there’s no cat amongst the pigeons…but mushrooms amongst the carrots!  I don’t know what has caused these to grow, but clearly some mushroom spawn is in the soil!  Mushrooms are popping up all around our carrots.  And they grow so quickly – these grew in less than 24 hours!

I put compost from our bins into our gardens quite frequently for two main reasons:

1. it helps with mulching the garden to keep the mositure in the soil
2. it has lots benefits for plants by helping them grow and returns the nutrients to the soil

Lately I’ve been chucking the mushroom paper bags into the compost too as they decompose really quickly.  Perhaps that’s how the spawn got into our garden..who knows?  I actually have a mushroom growing kit at home ready to go and keep forgetting to ring the number to get the spawn delivered…must really do that some time so I can try it out!

But in the interim – I will monitor the progress of these self-spawned mushies and perhaps we’ll get a little side harvest of mushrooms, and if not…they’ll make excellent compost!

Speaking of harvesting….I really ought to harvest these carrots tomorrow!  One looks like it might be going to seed.  My husband has been telling me that it looks like a trunk on a tree, and I should harvest it.  Alas – I haven’t had a call for carrots in any meals over the past few days, so will find something nice to eat with carrots this weekend!

BANANAS ARE GREAT FOR BEANS! - 13 December 2012

I’ve learnt a very valuable thing today to assist my beans…apparently lots of people all over the country have been having problems with growing beans according to New Zealand gardening guru Tony Murrell.  My mum heard his gardening show on the radio and gave me his tip: cut up banana skins and sprinkle them around your beans.  The potassium in the bananas is really great for helping beans to thrive and grow strong.

I haven’t had much success with my climbing beans so far like other gardeners in this challenge, so I figure I have nothing to lose and have sprinkled lots of banana peels around my beans.  Fingers crossed this helps them to really get growing!  I guess time will tell…but sadly I most likely won’t be able to report on their progress before this challenge closes….  :(

 

BROAD BEAN HEAVEN - 12 December 2012

I feel like I’ve just had the food of the gods tonight!  I harvested a cup and a half of broad beans tonight and made an amazing risotto using broad beans, mint, chives and parsley from the garden and of course a store-boughtonion (because mine are quite a way off) and store-bought garlic as mine isn’t quite ready in the garden.  There was also home-made stock, wine and bacon to go with the risotto.

I have spent the majority of my life disliking broad beans…but I have found some terrific recipes and I’m really starting to develop a taste for them. 

Broad beans have been super easy to grow and this is my second year growing them.  Last year we had lots of problems with fungal diseases, but I’ve been on top of it this year and we’re getting bumper crops from our two plantings of broad beans.  I planted two successive crops at three week intervals in late winter/early spring.  And they have been so easy to care for.  The only real problems I’ve experience this year was with the wind as I talked about in my blog early on in the challenge, but next year I have some ideas about how I can combat that!

So all in all, it’s fair to say that I think I’ve had great success with broad beans and I’m definitely an advocate for growing them!

 

MULCHING THE CUCURBITACEAE - 11 December 2012

Things are really gearing up a notch here…the sun is shining and the temperatures keep rising: therefore the garden is drying out super fast!  So I’ve added some much needed mulch to my cucurbitaceae garden.  I mulched around the corn weeks ago with pea straw, so I’ve just carried it on around the courgettes and squash.

This part of the bed has some old broccoli in it which I’m just harvesting side shoots from at the moment too – I’ll pull it out in the next couple of days.  I’ve also got my little eggplant, cucumber and capsicum plants in here which grow under the polytunnel (which I removed in order to mulch).  They’re a bit difficult to see thanks to the squash and courgettes which are blocking them in this picture.

This is my first year using pea straw as a mulch and I have to say that it has been exceptionally effective on the corn, cucumber and tomatoes!  That is why I decided it would be helpful around the rest of this part of the garden, as this garden keeps drying out really fast and the pea straw has been fabulous at locking in the moisture really well.

The lavender border at the back is doing brilliantly and I counted in excess of 10 bumblebees and 5 honey bees out there doing their thing just now.  Pretty amazing given it’s well after 7pm!  I think pollenation has been phenomenal this year in the vegie garden thanks to the work of these bees and clearly the lavender (and my other flowers in my cottage garden) are really helping to attract the hardworking bees.

Just behind this garden, you can see the first of my raised beds.  On the left hand side is my allium bed which is brimming with leeks, spring onions, garlic and red onions.  On the right hand side is my brassica bed which is absolutely bursting with plenty of broccoli, silverbeet, pak choy, wombok and cabbage all ready to be harvested!  I’m going to have to mulch around these soon too I think!

 

PROLIFIC SUMMER SQUASH - 10 December 2012

Squash is by far outperforming the courgettes in the garden at present!  They are growing much faster and far more prolific!  This is my first year growing these, and I have to say that I have now converted from Number 1 Courgette Fan to Number 1 Squash Fan!  They really are my most favourite vegetable now!  And not just because they are great producers of vegies, but also because the taste is on a completely different level!

I feel like I’ve been far more adventurous in the garden, trying out new things that I haven’t grown before.  And of course that means that I’m really challenging myself.  However, it’s not just the challenge in the garden, but also the challenge in the kitchen that I’m enjoying!  The only squash I’ve ever really eaten until this season, is the little yellow button squash on my travels in Europe.  So I’ve become quite audacious when it comes to my cooking.  And I am just loving it!

These summer squash were from a packet of Yates Squash Mix and it seems that only seeds that germinated are the summer squash variety.  The picture on the packet shows four different varieties, but it seems based on what it fruiting in my garden at the moment, that the summer squash were the only successful ones!  So I’ve bought a packet of Yates Squash – Yellow Button to try that out too.  Better get planting soon, because otherwise they might not do so well!

These two fat little squash are my biggest yet measuring just under 150mm long.  Unlikecourgettes which turn into marrows, apparently squash (according to some research I’ve done on the internet) aren’t as good if you leave them to over-mature, but I might try it out later in the season for myself.

I really can’t wait for dinner tonight!  These squash are going to be amazing with our salmon this evening!

 

ANOTHER 500 GRAMS OF SNOW PEAS! - 9 December 2012

Crazy stuff…I harvested just under 1kg of snow peas yesterday…and today I’ve harvested another 500g!  We seriously have far too many to eat as I per my post yesterday.  I can’t figure out why we have so many this year when I’ve planted the same amount for the past two years.  (Not that I’m complaining of course!)  The only thing I’ve done differently is to grow them on an arch and in a different area of the garden as I rotate my vegetables every year so I don’t grow them in the same bed each year.

Half are growing on the edge of the brassica bed and the other half are growing on the edge of the broad bean bed.  They really are growing like weeds on both sides. 

Well it’s off to conjure up something delicious that has snow peas in it…maybe a pork, avocado and snow pea salad…It’s been a busy day today with only an hour in the garden unfortunately, but did manage to be exceptionally productive!

SNOW PEA GLUT... - 8 December 2012

Snow Peas are officially our best vegie so far this season!  They are honestly growing like weeds!  In this picture you can see a photo of the snow peas growing over an arch exactly one month ago….and now they are completely covering the whole arch.  And they just keep on producing!

The picture I’ve taken labelled ‘December’, just shows a little bit of the growth on top of the arch and there are hundreds of snow peas all hanging there ready to be picked.  They grow within a couple of days! 

We have a lot of friends that keep telling us how hard they are to grow, but I have to say that they are the easiest in my opinion.  And that’s largely because they require virtually no maintenance and you don’t even really need fertilise them.  I think people have issues with this because they don’t plant them out early enough.  I plant mine out late winter/early spring – before normal garden peas…

So of course snow peas were on the menu tonight.  In fact, I used a whole host of vegies from our garden in a delicious pasta I’m calling ‘Pasta Primavera’ (or ‘Spring Pasta’…even thought it’s now summer!)  The following things from the garden made it into the pasta: snow peas, broccoli, chilli, leeks, thyme, Italian flat leaf parsley, rocket and garlic (picked my first bulb as I was a bit impatient).  A dash of wine, ham, olive oil, butter and parmesan….and this was a sensational dish!

We’re meeting with some friends tomorrow, so I think I might have to give everyone a bag of snow peas…we have far too many to eat! 

 

THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO HMM... - 7 December 2012

Hmm…I can’t quite figure out what is going on with these cucumbers to be frank. 

I planted out my cucumber seedlings on 25/10/12, but one died and the other was looking really sickly, so I decided to plant out some more seeds.  The weird thing is that I planted both Yates Cucumber Long Green and Yates Cucumber – Continental.  But only theLong Green variety germinated back in September…

So I decided I needed some new plants and on 25/11/12, I planted out six seeds of each variety and this time, only the Continental ones germinated.  (They’re the ones poking their heads out in the picture on the right).  Really not sure what is going on here…it is quite peculiar. 

What’s more, my sickly cucumber plant in the garden and suddenly bounced back to life and is growing new leaves.  I’ve never managed to grow a cucumber bigger than the size of a thumb before they shrivel up and die….I’ve read so many books about how to growcucumbers and they all make it sound so easy.  Clearly I’m doing something wrong…wish I knew what it was!  I really need some help with growing cucumbers!

Well, it’s wine o’clock I’ve decided!  Looking forward to a good day in the garden tomorrow!