Vegetable garden update clip

A bit of a catch up on how the patch is going now we are coming to the end of summer.. Many of the plants are doing well but we are still having  few issues with nematodes & grasshopper attacks in the patch..
While cleaning out a few beds I found one that was extremely hydrophobic..  Below is a link that explains what hydrophobic soils are..
http://geography.swansea.ac.uk/hydrophobicity/soil_hydrophobicity.htm
Was an easy fix that involved a bag of composted horse manure & a garden fork with the rain well & truly re hydrating the soil mix in the bed..

Hope to finish cleaning out the beds tomorrow & sowing some seeds later on in the day..


For more regular updates on the patch come visit us at http://www.facebook.com/Bitsouttheback

Hope all are well & happy..
Have a great one..
: )»

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Veggie garden walk through worm barrels saving a few Okra seeds 12th

Has been a tad warm here over the past week but nowhere near as bad as some of the southern states.. The garden worms chooks & fish have pulled through just fine with only one casualty (daughters pennyroyal) so happy about that..



Now the weather has cooled off a bit I will be planting out some seedlings & tackling some odd jobs to get the patch ready for Autumn.. Will be pruning the rest of the Chinese elm & some of the mango them running it through the mulcher... This will be mixed with some horse manure & left to compost a bit.. It will eventually become Autumns top up mulch for the beds...
For more regular updates about the patch come visit us at https://www.facebook.com/Bitsouttheback

Have a great one All...

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Wicking Beds Barrels for a water wise garden

As it is getting nearer to spring I thought I would post some Wicking clips for anyone interested in making up some new beds.. There will be more posted in the future as I havent filmed a complete clip while making a full size bed, only the barrels..

The whole idea behind the wicking system comes from a gentleman by the name of  Colin Austin...
http://waterright.com.au/wicking-bed-history.html
I came across it while we were in the tail end of a drought here in South East Queensland here in Australia & though it was one of the best ways to go to save water in a fairly large back yard veggie patch..
Wicking Barrels MK II..

The above clip is how we now make the Wicking barrels... They are a big improvement on the original design as the water holding capacity of the reservoir has doubled... As the existing barrels finish their crops they are slowly being swapped over to this design...

Wicking Beds...

I have ever only made clips after the fact with the beds so made up a bit of a sideshow clip to show how we made one of the earlier Wicking beds...

Wicking Bathtub...

This was a relative easy build with a free bath we collected from a member of a  local Free Cycle Group..  I must say the plants we had in there were probably a bit too large for the small reservoir in the bath...I think plants like small cropping herbs, leafy greens would probably do better than 5 foot tall lemongrass... Lesson learnt..

Wicking up IBCs (Intermediate bulk containers)...
These guys are a really easy build that could easily be done in a few hours if you were more organised than I...

Thats about it for now...
Have a great one all...
: )»

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How to make a straw bale garden bed Our 1st Lucerne alfalfa hay bale bed

Have wanted to make up some straw/hay bale garden beds for a while now & am happy I finely have..




The second bed is in the process of being planted & have also started a small no dig straw/hay bed for some potatoes to go into.. I love the idea of being able to grow in the straw as it slowly turns into compost & humus that can be added to other beds once it finishes breaking down...

For more regular updates & pictures from the patch come visit us on our Bits Out the Back Facebook page..
Have a great one All...

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Backyard Farm garden update Air Pruning Compost plans for the patch 18th Dec 2014

Time for a bit of an update on the veggie patch in our little Backyard Farm now that Summer has well & truly hit SE Queensland..  
Was working on a few clips but they unfortunately got lost when the hard drive crashed so I thought Id give you a quick look at a few of them all in one clip.. 

Will have a follow up post on the wicking beds & how they fare during the high temperatures we had during Spring posted in the next day or so ;-)

If anyone in Australia is interested in purchasing the Root Pouches you can find a tab to our small store under our banner above..

Cheers all & have a great one.. 

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Veggie garden walk through saving a few snake bean seeds 25th December

A bit slack with the updates so shall post the clips as I do them here now..



Hope everyone had a great Christmas with their loved ones..

:)»

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Garden Aquaponics in the UK

Heres a blog about garden aquaponics in the UK. Some pics from their adventures:

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Garden Jobbie update

New Worm Farm...

½ the Worms we harvested on the weekend are now in a new home, the ½ barrel we found at the local nature reserve... We are using an old fly screen frame with black builders plastic in place of the screen as a lid... They appear to be happy in there so all is good... The other ½ were put back in the 3 tiered farm...



Transplants & Seeds...
4 Passion fruits were taken out of the old Sweet Potato bed on Sunday, 1 was planted in the new Passion fruit barrel in the Chook yard as a back up & the others were potted out along with some that we planted a while back to give to family members...
A few punnets of Broccoli, Kale & Purple Cauliflowers will be sown out tomorrow just to cover any failures that may happen & for when we clear out Bed #5... Also planting some climbing Beans on the Cucumber trellis as soon as the seed arrives...  

Walk through Update...
Had to cut this one up a bit as I was rambling on just a tad... Hopefully I shall get better at this so the clips run a bit smoother... 

 
Have a great one all...
: )»

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Here for your reading pleasure is an article from a You Tube friend of mine.. Was such a great article that I asked his permission & have posted it here for your reading pleasure.. If you would like to check out more of Dales clips you can find his You Tube channel Easy Grows It here, & the site that the article come from goes by the same name & can be found at easygrowsit.com .

How to save time and money when starting tomato plants for your garden

By Easy
easy@easygrowsit.com
February 24nd, 2013
If you, like many of us, grow lots of tomato plants for your garden every year, you start them from seed. Starting from seed can be tedious, time consuming and sometimes quite frustrating. You have to plan ahead so your little crop is ready to plant when the time is right. This usually means starting your seeds from 6-8 weeks before it’s time to plant them in the garden.
To start our seeds, some of us use 10? x 20? trays with cells for each seed. Others use anything from solo cups to microwave dishes from their last frozen dinner. It doesn’t matter what you grow them in, you’ll need to make sure they always get the proper amount of water, light and warmth to start them right. It requires a certain amount of attention at this stage and mistakes can set you back to the point of having to start over. Forget to water your little tomato plants and you could end up with plants that are stunted or dead and you could have to start all over.
At some point in the process, you’ll need to transplant the little seedlings into larger containers at least once. Depending on how large you want them at planting time, maybe twice. As I said above, it can get a little tedious and time consuming, especially if you’re doing the same with other plants like peppers at the same time.
The obvious alternative to growing tomato plants from seeds is to go buy small plants from a local nursery or home improvement store just before you need to put them out in the garden. Depending on how many plants you need, it can be quite expensive. If I remember correctly, last year the price of small tomato plants at home improvement stores were about US$3.50 each in 4 inch pots. If you bought a dozen plants, you were looking at around $42 plus tax. How many tomatoes would it take to make up for a $42 investment? That’s assuming all your plants survived to produce tomatoes.
So, starting tomatoes from $1.50 worth of seeds is easily more economical although much more risky and difficult. Buying plants somewhere is much less risky but much more expensive. What if I told you that you could have the benefits of both choices without the huge monetary outlay and without having to monitor dozens of baby plants from seed? Would that be something that might interest you? If it is, please read on.
For those of you that do not know much about tomatoes and tomato plants, let me give you a little background information before I move on. Tomatoes are actually a fruit, not a vegetable. I, like many, was not aware of this fact for quite some time and I was quite surprised to hear that. Tomato plants are actually vines, unlike, say, a bell pepper plant, which is technically a tree.
Vines are interesting plants. Some if not most vines (I don’t claim to be a vine expert or any kind of expert for that matter) will sprout roots when buried in soil. More roots means more water and nutrients for the plant as well as having a stronger base in the ground to support the plant. You can actually plant a tomato plant, with proper preparation, horizontally in a trench leaving just the very top of the tomato plant sticking out of the ground. It will develop many more roots than with the typical planting method and it will be much more strongly rooted in the ground as well. This is called the trench planting method. If you’d like to see exactly how this works, here’s a link to a You Tube video my friend Bobby (Mhpgardener on You Tube) did showing how it’s done…Planting Tomatoes – A Quick Tip
Tomatoes grow new baby plants at the intersection where a branch and the main stem meets. This intersection is typically called a crotch and the new baby plant that develops there is usually called a sucker. I am sure there is probably a more scientific name but gardeners usually call it a sucker because it takes energy away from the main plant to grow this new baby plant. Remember, a tomato plant is a vine and vines like to spread all over. Some tomato growers remove these suckers and others like to leave them on. I’ll leave that subject for another article.

Picture of a sucker growing from a tomato plant courtesy of mhpgardener of You Tube.

At this point, you might be saying to yourself, “This is all very interesting and good but what does all this have to do with how I get a bunch of tomato plants to plant in my garden?” I appreciate your patience dear reader and now that I have explained enough background information, let’s get to the point.
Suckers, as I said, are baby tomato plants. It’s like a another tomato plant growing out of the main tomato plant, which is called the mother plant. If you would snip off a decent sized sucker (six inches long or longer with a few full sets of leaves) from the mother plant and stick the bottom of the sucker in water, in a matter of three days to a couple of weeks, depending on the variety of tomato plant, you should see roots develop under and at the water line. Once they start to develop roots, those roots will grow at a very rapid rate. This is called “rooting” a plant. It’s also called “cloning”.
After the roots get a few inches long (don’t let them get too out of hand) you can transplant the new tomato plant into soil and it will grow like any other tomato plant in soil. Now, the really amazing as well as useful part of this whole process is that not only does the new sucker derived plant give you a whole new plant to grow, it doesn’t know it’s a new plant. To it, it’s a fully developed tomato plant, not a 6 week old baby plant that grew from seed and is still maturing. If the mother plant is three months old, the sucker is just as mature, just smaller. It’s ready to put on flowers and start bearing fruit right away unlike it’s six week old, grown from seed counterpart.
So now, let’s put it all together. If you needed a dozen or so tomato plants, instead of planting twelve seeds 6-8 weeks ahead of time, you could grow one or two mother plants a month or two earlier than that so they have suckers a few weeks before you needed plants to put in the garden. Not only will the sucker derived plants be more mature and ready to start producing right away, you’d be using less seeds and can still get more suckers later from the mother plant in case something terrible happens to your garden such as hail storm. The mother plant will continue to keep making suckers for you in case you need them.
I almost forgot! There’s another reason to generate plants this way. Not only will the mother plant give you lots of baby plants, chances are, depending on when you started your mother plant, it will also give you tomatoes as well by the time you start setting your new plants out in the garden.


Dont forget to check out Dales You Tube channel & Web site..

Have a great one all

: )»

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Another Garden !!!

Expanding the Farm....
On Saturday, Koo & I picked up an old bathtub from a Life Line "Mega" store to convert into a large Worm Farm.... It will live under the house where it will get full shade during Summer & some sun every day over Winter...  I am now keeping an eye out for 2 more, 1 for some Yabbies & 1 for Pacific Blue Eyes... We had a bathtub of  Blue Eyes at our last house but gave them to the neighbour as a parting gift...


New Seeds...
 On Thursday we got our seed delivery from Eden Seeds so have been out the back planing & planting....
We got, 
Chia
Cumin
Beetroot- Early Wonder
Eggplant- Udumalapet
Cabbage- Red Dutch
Cape Gooseberry- Golden Nugget
Carrot- Dragon
Kohl Rabi- White Vienna
Radish- French Breakfast

The Radish went straight in to some beds during the week, then on Sunday we sowed the Cabbage, Kohlrabi, Cape Gooseberry & Eggplant seeds in some seeding mix... The mix was made with 2 parts potting mix & 1 part Worm Castings.... Separating the Worms from the Castings was fiddly... Some little fingers came & gave me a hand which sped the process up...  : )»

Coffee at the Markets Dear ???

On Sunday we visited the the Ipswich Markets at the local show grounds....
We picked up,
a mix of Green & Purple Basil seedlings
5 bulbs of locally grown Purple Garlic (that shall be kept in a cool wardrobe until sowing time)
Rosemary, which we think is a  Tuscan Blue

 Native Raspberries.....
So happy about the Finding the Raspberries... I used to pick them wild on my Nans farm at Byabarra in NSW when I was but a Wee Tike.....  
**Does small Happy Dance**   
Also at the Markets I found a cheap supplier for the large blue Barrels.... At $15 cheaper Per Barrel, I think I shall be getting a few next weekend... 


WOO HOO !!!!  
 Looks like I will be setting up a Wetpot garden up the side of the house for the Cape Gooseberries, Native Raspberry & a couple of Eggplants... The reservoir shall be kept under the house where it will be close to the tap.....  I am also planing at least 2 more (Yep, Im addicted) wicking barrels for the Veggie Plot... I will be planting out a Zucchini plant in each as they do take up a bit of space in the beds... Some Bee attracting flowers will go in with them as well.... I think there will be at least 1 more barrel dedicated just to flowering plants to help bring in some more bees to the plot as well as some randomly planted around the place...
Thanks for the help   :) (3O>< .......

 Update Shots....

Left : The Wombok have been replaced with some Silverbeet & the existing has rad a radical pruning but is bouncing back nicely..
Bed 3, Right : Beans, Beetroot & Sliverbeet are going great... The Eggplants have shot & Radishes have been planted.. 

Bed 7, Left : Turnips are going great guns & the last of the Climbing beans have shot after being sown again....
Bed 5, Right : Carrots are thriving, some of Lettuce has started to seed & the beetroot will be pulled over the next few weeks.. The sweet potato is trying its hardest to survive so we are going to train it to grow around the front of the bed........

Bed 4, Left :  The Eggplants are growing crazy her & look very Impressive... Only problem is, No Fruit.... We are trying to fertilise them ourselves so will just have to wait & see...
Bed 1, Right & Below :   The Kent pumpkins are looking healthy as is the Chilli.... The fruit appears to be double the size of last years which we can only put down to them being in the wicking beds....  I am saving this Marrow/Zucchini for dinner some time this week.... The last Stuffed Zucchini was so nice & I cant wait to do another...

Left : The Mutant Zuccumpkin has grown a little this week.... (right is from last week) I do fear for its health as the rest of the Butternut has been covered with Powdery mildew & I dont really want to risk infecting the new Kents popping up in the Pumpkin Bed...

 This weeks harvest....
Beetroot leaves, 3 Beetroot, lettuce,  Zucchini, Beans, last of the Kale, Silverbeet, 6 lemons,  A Strawberry, Kaffir Lime leaves, Mint & Shallots....
We also got  18/21 possible eggs due to Crows & 1 of the ladies going off the lay mid week........

 Have a Great one All......
: )»

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How to make an easy as worm barrel farm for lawn clippings garden scraps

It really cant get more simple that this barrel farm.. I call it a dump & walk barrel as that is how I feed it.. A catcher or 2 or lawn clippings get dumped into the barrels & I walk away, its as easy as that.. The prunings & old plants from the veggie bed in the patch go in whole if they are small enough or get the once over with the lawnmower to chop them up a bit if they are to large..

A great type of farm to have under a fruit tree as any nutrients that leach out will feed the tree.. One like this will be added to a new bed we are making out the front soon..

For more regular updates & pictures from the patch come visit us on our Bits Out the Back Facebook page..
Have a great one All...
R?b..

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Veggie garden walk through Pineapple turmeric okra nematodes chooks

Have been meaning to do a clip for the past week but just havent gotten around to it... Today was a sick day for the girls (dreaded cold/flu has set in here) so I went for a wander with an umbrella..

Root Knot Nematodes..

Here is a bit of a look at what root knot nematodes did to the beetroot that were grown in the barrel before the okra was planted out in there.. These nematodes set up home in the roots of your plants reducing plant vigour & in some extreme cases, suck that much nutriment out of the plant that they can die.. We have had a bit of a problem  in a few beds but think that we have them on the run with the molasses mix..
Molasses mix for root knot nematode..
1L/1quart of molasses
4L/4quart of water
Mix well together & water into 2m²/2yrd² of infected garden bed.. Once this mix was applied to the barrel the warrigal greens bounced back surprisingly quickly.. I was extremely impressed to say the least..
Hope that helps anyone else trying to battle these tiny pests..

Hopefully there will be more in the next walk through clip in the way of winter plant starts
For more regular updates about the patch come visit on the Bits out the Back Face Book page..
Have a great one All...

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Update on the vertical garden and compost tea experiment

It now has been almost 2 months that I built the vertical farm ! and things are going along pretty well ! I have some parsley growing, a few green onions, 2 collard green plants and swiss chard. The parsley that got burned by the light bulb that was too close almost made it, but I pulled it out to make space for the seedlings to come. A few weeks back Ive planted the core of 2 collard greens and one of a swiss chard, just to see, and last weekend when doing a bit of cleaning I pulled a bit on one of the collard greens and was happy to see a few tiny roots that where growing out of it ! The collards, swiss chard and onions are all "salvage" from the kitchen scraps.

I just seeded a few seeds last week end : Cilantro, Parsley, Roquette, Letuce (black seed simpson), Swiss chard, Summerlong basil, and Spinach. I hope to be able to plant all of that - to see how many plants I can put in there.

I have kept adding 2 mL of NH4OH to make sure that there is enough nitrogen. I have kept increasing the amount of compost I use to make the compost tea, so far I am at 1 cup - which is 240 mL - of worm compost for 2 cups (480 mL) of water. Depending on the volume in the tank I am either using "new" water, or water form the system, and "brew" it for about a day and a half. After that i measure if there is ammonia and nitrate in there. Given the coloration from the compost (of course filtered) its really difficult to tell, but so far, it does not seem that there is large amount of it. Possibly, the different compounds of the compost interfere with the kits reactions. I may get these strips to see if the results are different form the API kit I have. The systems water has some ammonia (the one i add) but no nitrite or nitrate accumulating. The Ph seem stable around 7 ish : the ammonium hydroxyl I add probably buffers the acidification due to nitrification, as well as the compost tea.
Also exiting things are happening at the school I volunteer, but there will be more about it in a little.

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