late summer report

[tielan]

I fixed the bathtub garden – pulled the water chestnuts out, drained the tub, and sealed the plug capping again, carefully filing in holes. It now holds water.

It also holds two water chestnut plantings and some azolla.



Okay, so, now it holds two water chestnut plantings and a lot of azolla!



(Sorry about the blurry photo, it was evening and getting dark.)

Azolla is an aquatic nitrogen fixer, and it apparently loves the conditions in my bathtub garden! Which I have no objection to, because that means I can keep scooping it out and putting it on the compost. If only I had a dam-ful of the stuff… *dreams dreamily*

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The chook-house has been replaced and fixed, although we’re having a bit of a time getting the girls to actually roost. They don’t much like roosting – they much prefer nesting in the hay. Which they’re not supposed to do.



I need to fill the ‘under base’ section with more stuff – either woodchips or other mulchable materials. Leafmulch maybe?

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The plum-stone bed now has the chook tractor, but it’s not really getting shit on as much as I’d like. As in, I want plenty of chook shit in that baby, to make a really good compost, and then a mulch layer on top! But the chickens aren’t spending as much time there as is needed. Might have to start locking them in there during the day. At least when it’s not crazy hot.




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The bed that the chook tractor came off was the avo-shed, and it’s been planted out with Roma tomatoes, a couple of eggplants, and a heap of pumpkins/melons along the back line.



They may need some fairly intense watering/mulching/feeding to get a crop out of them before the cold hits. I should throw a heap of blood and bone down for them.



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I’ve got seedlings of broccoli, brussel sprous, and cabbage planted and sprouting, once they reach about 5cm tall, I’ll need to get them into seedling pots. A regular sowing of those might get us through the winter, albeit we’ll be sick and tired of them by the time we hit spring.

I got some potatoes out of the potato patch – not many, though! And the corn is being harvested – crap, I should pick the last few ears out of the rain – the rest are drying in the laundry, and will be used for adding to soups, etc. come winter. The sweet potato vines are running rampant (and you can eat the leaves) but there’s no guarantee on any tubers.

Earlier this summer I put in some papaya seeds and they've gone kind of crazy:



Now I need to find somewhere to put them! (Not all of them, just one hermaphroditic tree that self-pollinates.)

Oh, and the Chinese water spinach (kang kong, ong choy) has been doing pretty well. Just need to start eating it. (I wonder if picking off the top and some of the leaves makes it grow better.)


(Kang Kong - Chinese water spinach on the left, taro in the centre, and sweet potato off the right edge of the photo)

Still haven’t set up the garlic-and-root bathtub: don’t think I have enough soil for it. Might have to make slow compost underneath it...

Pics of the harvest tomorrow.

Comments

[kailing]

mmm yum! all hard wrok, but it looks really great from here <3

[tielan]

Yes, it's a fair bit of work. And I just got a full-time job, which means my time is considerably less for pottering around in the garden...

I have to harvest and chop down the corn stalks tonight, without destroying the cucumber-like thing that has grown up one of the stalks. (I interplanted cucumbers with the corn; it didn't do so well.)

[ravena_kade]

it's the middle of winter here in my neck of the planet and it was so nice using your green things growing. Still have a couple of months before we can do outside work...and I am chomping at the bit.

[tielan]

See, in the middle of winter here in Sydney, it's...wet. And cold! But things still grow (brassicas, mostly, some lettuces/leafies)...

Some UK friends have bemoaned the lack of a non-growing season - that the growing never actually ends...

[tielan]

What kind of garden/plot do you have, and what do you grow?

[cesy]

Yay food plants!