Vegetable gardening on a clear autumn day under the falling leaves

A mid week flex day is a wonderful luxury - I wish I could drop to 4 days work and make this permanent. The bonus was that despite yesterday being a wet, dreary day, today was clear and fresh. A perfect late autumn day. So I spent it in the garden.



Last weekend I planted two beds full of garlic.  Today I planted some winter vegetables.

In this area of New South Wales, Australia we plant the following seeds in May:
Broad beans
Garlic
Lettuce
Onions
Pak choy
Peas
Radish
Spinach
Silverbeet

And seedlings:
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Leeks

June is the same.
When I topped up all the garden beds with compost last weekend I covered them in lucerne mulch. Now its easy enough to poke seedlings down through mulch. Seedlings don't always germinate and push up through all those layers however.

This is the solution I came up,  I pushed the mulch back to provide a barrier between different seeds, it will still keep the moisture in.

5 week break - Days 9 and 10 Mulching garden waste

The rain has let up so we're out in the garden, pruning, trimming, weeding.  As they say, autumn is a lovely time to garden and it is indeed.

On Sunday (Day 9) we spent hours trimming the front garden, making things neat. I feel like we have neglected the garden for months, but I find once established it can be put back into shape with just a few hours work.

By the end of the day we had piles and piles of garden waste.

So our big job today (Day 10) was to turn all the garden waste into mulch.

Meet the mulch monster:

This monster machine turned all our trimmings into bags and bags of super fine mulch for me to spread throughout the garden as I continue my weeding. It chops it so fine in fact that it always makes less than I expect.

Howard is the expert in using this monster, I'm merely the fetch and carry girl.  Here are some tips to making mulch:

Tip 1 - a big petrol mulcher doesn't like moist, fleshy materials so no grass or weeds. Alternate between woody material and green twigs and leaves to keep it working.

Tip 2 - keep your pile dry. If it gets caught out in the rain it may be weeks until its dry enough to mulch.

Tip 3 - be safe!

Enjoy your mulchings, your garden certainly will