Garden Nut

**Well,

As you can guess a LOT has been happening since my last post,  more than I can remember.  So I will just update on what is starting to bear fruit.  We have been eating lettuce for a few weeks now,  and the original ones are starting to go to seed,  My Scarlet Runners are flowering and my corn is starting to get tassels.  Both my homegrown and shop bought seedling Tomatoes have flowers,  and I found my first Zucchini yesterday (it’s 2cm long).  My carrots have gone to seed and they are magnificent,  they are taller than me when in flower.

**Well,

I went a little nuts this weekend!  We spent the weekend at a girlfriends house who is just as ’self-sufficient’ obsessed as me.  She took me to the markets Sunday morning and this is what I bought:

4 punnets Corn
3 punnets Honey Snap Peas
1 punnet Greek Basil
1 punnet Sweet Basil
6 Greek Tomato seedlings
1 Swan Plant
1 4 Leaf Clover plant
1 Pineapple plant

So why did I buy seedlings when I have been starting everything from seed?  Well,  firstly,  out of about 30 Basil seeds I planted - 1 survived.  The corn was because even though I have about a dozen plants in already,  any seeds I have planted recently have not sprouted,  so I will not have a great succession planting rate.  As for the Peas,  well,  I have plenty of Snow Peas,  but every time I planted my Sugar Snap seeds,  the slugs sucked the centres out of them as soon as they puffed up with water to germinate.  The Greek Tomatoes were a whim,  I have no excuse for them.

The Swan plant and the 4 Leaf Clover are for the fairy garden.  The Swan plant apparently has little flowers,  but the seed pods grow quite big and ressemble (in my opinion) a cross between a custard apple and a swan.  The pods are light and are quite often displayed floating in bowls of water.  So now my littlies will be able to tell people that they can ‘grow their own swans’.  The 4 Leaf clover plant will also go in the fairy garden,  possibly with a little cauldron of gold next to it.

The Pineapple plant actually came from Bunnings and will probably be one of those plants that you really have to work at to keep alive here in Melbourne.  Although with the drought this year,  I may be lucky as far as heat goes to make it produce Pineapples.  The Pineapple is actually a Bromilliade (sp?) and they look quite weird because the flower is the actual Pineapple.  The plan is to plant it into a large terracotta (or similar) pot and place it against a North facing wall so it can soak up as much heat as possible.

Also,  my son’s kinder had chicks hatch in a incubator a week and a half ago,  so we are now the proud owners of Rhapsody and Bob the hens.  They are soooooooo CUTE!  We have had chicks before,  but they were raised under a broody hen,  so were never overly tame.  These two littlies though actually love climbing all over us,  and snuggling up to have a sleep.  They are Isa Browns,  so they will produce a LOT of eggs in the first 2-3 years and then not many at all.  Unlike pure breeds who lay not as many eggs,  but keep laying for years.

**Well,

One of our hens died today.  I think the heat got her (it’s 30+ here at the moment).  My kids actually took it really well.  I had to dig a hole and bury her,  except that as I’m digging all the other chooks kept trying to get in the hole to get to the worms,  bless their little souls.

**So on Saturday I planted out beans, snowpeas, zucchinis, corn and tomatoes.  The gate still hasn’t been fixed and the celery seeds aren’t planted,  but at least that gives me something to do this afternoon.  I also noticed this morning that I have another 20 snowpeas that have germinated,  several beetroots, a carrot, more beans, and 7 yellow pear tomates - guess I will be quite busy this afternoon actually…

**Well,

I made a gate,  it is actually the ugliest gate in ALL creation,  but at least we will sleep tonight.   I used cherry plum wood and managed to nail it together (round wood and hammering on a flat surface = sore thumbs and toes).  Then I wrapped some wire around each corner and crossed it over in the middle for extra support.  We didn’t have any spare chicken wire so I nailed some old chook feed bags over it - so yeah,  it’s ‘interesting’.  Now that I’ve eaten,  I’m planning to fix the broken gate now,  and then get some seedlings planted….
EDIT: I never succeeded in fixing the gate,  but the hubby made the most AMAZING gate a few months later.

**Well,

It’s CRAZY at the moment!  The equinox is tommorrow and I thought I would try and update what I have done in the garden the last couple of weeks.   Today I will be planting Celery seeds, planting out bean seedlings and Zucchini seedlings as well as making a couple of gates from old cherry plum wood.  I saw the idea in the Open Garden Scheme magazine last week,  and two nights ago we had strong winds and we discovered that the metal boards we have put up temporarily around our fairy garden (to keep the chooks out) make a hell of a racket in the wind (Sorry neighbours!  Thank Goodness I have fresh eggs as bribery) and that out trellis gate does not hold up in the wind either.  So I thought I’d have a go at gate construction today - yeah,  I told you I was nutty!  My hubby has just learned to shake his head at me and not say a word.

Anyway, as for seeds.  I have planted about 600 cells out with most of the seeds listed above (6th September),  as these germinate I then move them to polystyrene boxes that hold 12 cut down milk bottles.  So far I have about 8 boxes full of seedlings.  Once these grow big enough to defend for themselves against snails and slugs,  I will lift them out (milk bottle and all) and place them in the garden.  The milk bottle protects them from the bugs and creates a little mini climate for them.  Although I have discovered that snails will do ANYTHING to get to beans,  and chooks will do ANYTHING to get to snowpeas!  As  I plant out the seedlings in to the boxes,  I replace the cell with a new seed.  So I’m guessing I’m gonna have a seedling (and not enough room) problem pretty soon,  but we’ll see what happens.  

    **Why I LOVE Chooks:

I have 10 chooks, 7 are bantams and three are standards.  They are supplying 6-8 eggs a day at the moment.  Over Winter we had them off the lay for about 2 months,  which I was surprised at,  I really thought they would be off the lay for longer.  So at least I know now that we can store eggs for that without having to preserve them.  They are wonderful at eating scraps.  I no longer have a need for a compost bin,  we just throw all our scraps into their yard,  even if they don’t eat the food,  they dig it into the ground.  I no longer need to dig fertilisers or compost in,  they do it all for me.  They also eat meat scraps.  I no longer have to throw it away,  in fact meat fat is very good for chooks to eat,  so is old vegetable oil,  both supply valuable energy for them,  and when a chooks body temp is around 41 degrees,  in Winter they need this extra energy.  Chooks are also great to watch,  I find myself now sitting at the longue room window and watching them rather than watching the TV - and I never seem to tire of their antics.  Chooks are also very good at weeding,  I now only weed the areas the chooks do not have access to,  and then throw these weeds in with the chooks - they love them.  So,  go on,  out you all go and get some chooks!

**What I will be planting in September:

Amaranthus (hopefully this will self-seed)
Basil
Beetroot
Borage (self-seeded)
Broccoli
Calendula (self-seeded)
Capsicum
Carrots
Celery
Choko
Gourds
Jeruselum Artichoke (these were planted last year and will come up by them selves from now on)
Leeks (self-seeded)
Lettuce
Lupin
Parsnip
Peas
Poppy
Potatoes
Pumpkin
Radish
Rhubarb
Salad Burnett (self-seeded)
Silverbeet
Spring Onions
Strawberries
Sunflowers
Swedes
Tomato
Zucchini

**So I discovered couch grass growing in one of our vegie gardens (I thought the chooks had erradicated it).  Later on today I’m going to try this:

Natural Weed Killer

1 Cup Salt
8 drops Liquid Detergent
1 Gallon Vinegar/3.8 litres (approx.)

*Mix salt and vinegar in a pan over low heat until salt dissolves.  Remove from heat and add detergent.  Once cool enough,  put mixture into a spray bottle and spray affected plants.  

Warning:  This will kill any plant it comes in contact with.