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.

Three ways to test your soil and ensure successful vegetable growing

There are three simple tests you can do a home to find out more about your garden and increase your chances of successfully growing food.  These tests can be done anytime but tests 2 and 3 are great winter jobs as you have time to make changes before the spring and summer growing season.

Test number 1: temperature


A simple soil thermometer is a helpful tool to have in your garden kit if you, like me, grow vegetables. You will find many guides to growing vegetables will give you a temperature range to follow for each plant.  Soil thermometers are easy to find at garden centres or hardware stores. Insert the thermometer well down into the soil. You want it to measure the soil temperature not the air. Its winter here, 12 degrees Celsius in the air, 10 degrees in the soil.

Test number 2: soil type


Do you know what type of soil you have? The soil in Robertson is a lovely rich red and friable. Over the years I have added lots of compost and mulch to my beds and the soil has loosed up.  But how do I know if its clay or a sandy loam?

Take a clean, clear glass jar and fill with water to approximately the 3/4 mark. Take a handfull of dry soil and add to the jar. Shake well to break up any lumps.  Set aside to settle, this might take 10 minutes or so.  When completely settled have a look at the layers that have formed in your jar. Any soil that has settled to the bottom is sand, soil floating at the top is clay. The middle is silt. Which layer is the biggest? That's your soil type.

If you have a high proportion of clay you can break it up by adding gypsum.

Test number 3: soil pH


The pH of your soil is very important, especially for growing vegetables. You can buy a simple testing kit from a garden centre or hardware store. The one I have can be used many times. Your kit should come with easy to follow instructions. Essentially you mix a little of your soil with barium sulphate, the test solution and water.  The mix in your test tube will turn green or orange/red.  Compare the colour against the chart in your kit to find out if your soil is alkaline (green) or acidic (orange/red).  Now you know your soil pH. My booklet has a comprehensive list of the preferred pH for flowers, vegetables and fruit trees" they can vary a lot in preference.

The rule of thumb is that most vegetables prefer an acidic soil between 5.5 and 6.5 pH. Most nutrients can be absorbed at this level.  Now that you know your soil's pH you can either choose plants that suit or change your pH levels. Acidic soils have a low pH which can be raised by adding lime. Alkaline soils have a high pH which can be decreased by adding sulphur. How much you add depends on your soil type and how many points you want to raise or lower the pH. Formulas are easy to find so I'm not going to repeat them here.

Here's a tip that might help you test your vegetable garden effectively. Take an egg carton and mark out by number or description each garden bed on the inside of the lid. You should be able to just make that out in the photo above.  Dig a hole in each garden bed and take a soil sample from 10-15cms down. This should be truer to type that near the top where you will have a mix of mulch and potting mix from seedlings. Your soil needs to be dry before you test it so set your carton aside for a few days, taking care not to tip it and mix your samples.  When you run your test you can take a small sample from a specific bed, test it, record your results, wash out your test tube and move on to the next sample.

I made some interesting discoveries: the soil in my potato beds is completely natural for this area, as in no compost, and tested at 6.5pH. The soil in my other beds has been topped up with compost and tested between 7 and 7.5pH, far too alkaline for vegetables.  I worked out why: my compost had too much wood ash in it. I need to add a whole lot more manure to the compost and add some sulphur to the beds. I will add a little to the potato beds too as I suspect the soil may be a little depleted there anyway. I am glad I tested now so I can adjust the levels before the main planting season comes on.

So there you go, testing your soil is simple. I hope my explanations take out some of the mystique and help you feel confident to do it yourself. Happy gardening.

Early winter gardening

May was astonishingly warm and sunny. An Indian Summer that we all enjoyed so much we didn't want it to end. But we can't reprogram Mother Nature that easily and June has dawned cold.  The weekend just past was stunning, chilly mornings and evenings but warm, sunny days so what else could I do but get into the garden. All through the busy weeks, the lovely weekend away and the time spent renovating and de-cluttering, my thoughts have been on my garden and the guilt of neglecting it.

I missed the warm May gardening weather so really I would have gardened whatever last weekend turned out. The critical issue was that I had the time and gardening was no longer relegated to the bottom of the priority list.  Its sad but I can't get away from the fact that other chores must take precedent and that gardening can only be done when everything else is sorted. Gardening doesn't get us through the working week with clean clothes.   But Nature smiled on me and gave me exceptionally perfect gardening weather. It was not only clear and unseasonally sunny but only a couple of days later its blowing a gale. So its good I didn't waste that perfect chance. Hopefully all the mulch I spread is doing its job and keeping my vegetable beds moist.

So here's what I did:

I weeded all garden beds and pulled carpet grass out of the open areas.

I emptied a big bin full of fine compost. Hard to believe this used to be food scraps, shredded paper from the chicken coop, manure and grass clippings.  Every bed got two buckets of this garden food.

Next I topped each bed up with this straw and soil that I scraped up from the bottom of the chicken yard.  Chicken droppings are a bit high in ammonia to put straight into the garden but this mix was been out in the rain so I'm confident its all quite dilute.

Harvey came to help me.

Benny too.

The finished garden with all beds mulched with a layer of straw to lock the moisture in. This will break down into the soil adding yet more organic material.

There are lots of 'greens' growing: silverbeet and this red mustard komatsuma.

My last task was to pop my trusty Diggers Club snail traps in the brassica beds and under the passionfruit vine with its lacy leaves shown here on the left. I don't do poisons but hopefully the soapy water in the trap will do the trick. A good weekend's work!

Sunday chores in the garden

After weeks of rain we had sunshine for most of the day. The fog has rolled back in now and the drizzle is watering my plants. I was able to use some of the sunshine to catch up on some gardening chores.

It is early Autumn so I have planted cauliflowers, broccoli and brussel sprouts.  I put in leek, spinach, bok choy and pea seeds. The vegie garden is weeded and mulched, the compost turned and capped off with a thick layer of damp used straw.

Th chickens have had a wet old time of the past week too.  Now their coop is clean and filled with dry shredded paper and straw. They have fresh green pick and lemon balm strewn through their egg box.  I dug up a couple of wheelbarrow loads of old muddy straw from their yard, which is being recycled through the vegie garden, and gave them clean dry straw to scratch around in.

I have been gradually creating a fernery in one shady side of the garden. So today I did some work on that too. I put in two purple fountain grasses and five small ferns.  I estimate about 6 more plants, a huge amount of mulch and its all done. Its been a big project as we naively let the chickens in and they destroyed many, many plants. Its all coming back now and looking good.  I will feel a lovely sense of accomplishment when I have finish that area. Don't worry there are plenty of other projects to move on to.

Comfrey in flower

Gardening jobs 2 - The compost bin

I recently posted about how much my chickens have helped my compost along.  I thought I'd share an update on how its going.

I have just emptied and spread a whole bin through my vegie beds.  It turned into compost more quickly than usual thanks to the added carbon matter and manure. So here's the story of starting again.

As it is best to layer your compost, first gather your raw materials.

As you can see you don't need a lot of space.

I started with grass clippings. At this time of year they have the added bonus of chopped up dry leaves which add to the carbon component.

Then I added some ash from the fireplace, some horse manure and a layer of kitchen scraps.

Shredded paper and mulch from the chicken coop on top. I will keep going with layers of scraps and chicken coop bedding. The grass is slowing down but I will add clippings when I have them. I topped it all off with some left over compost and soil. A drink of molasses and its all ready to start breaking down.

For more on composting the homespun way please check out my earlier post or leave me a comment.

Happy composting.

Making compost the homespun way

Since we brought chickens to live with us we've created quite a system for dealing with organic waste. I thought I'd share some notes on my system and how it all is working.

Chickens eat kitchen scraps, scratch around in straw and mulch and sleep and lay in waste paper. Chook poo is very high in ammonia which is too strong to go straight into the garden so I process it through the compost. My vegie garden has been a bit neglected of late and is in desperate need of compost so I'm eagerly anticipating the next batch. This production line seems a little complicated but is turning into wonderful, life giving rich compost quicker than usual.

The experts talk about carbon to nitrogen ratios of 30:1 for perfect compost. Carbon is supplied from sawdust, straw, paper, ash, wood chips = brown materials. Nitrogen comes from kitchen scraps, weeds and manures = greens. I have always been low on the carbon but the paper, straw and mulch now being pushed through the system has changed the balance for the better.

1.  Our garden waste, hedge and tree prunings, leaves and twigs are turned into mulch by "the beast", a large petrol run shredder.  Some of this goes straight onto the garden (flower and fern beds not vegies) but we have kept a large bag aside.

 This forms a scratch layer in the bottom of the coop.

 

 2. All of our paid bills, receipts etc are shredded. We've started to bring shredded paper home from work as well as we can't keep up with demand. This paper becomes a dry, springy bed for our chooks and prevents eggs from getting cracked.

 3. I scrape up both the bedding paper and floor mulch once a week and layer into my compost bin.

4. I keep kitchen scraps in a cute little bucket in the kitchen. I put things like egg shells, tea bags and gross things from the fridge into this. Peelings and green scraps I throw into a stainless steel bowl and feed to the chooks fresh. Fruit scraps tend to go to the worm farm as that is their favourite.  See my earlier post about the worms.

I add the scraps and other green material including cut green grass and weed clippings to the compost.

The scraps that I givet to the chooks contribute to what I scrape up each week ;)

5. Maintaining the compost.  It is important to turn and aerate your compost regularly to prevent it compacting and becoming inactive. As you can see the compost is full of worms.

 I keep a garden fork and bag of horse manure handy to add to the mix. When we empty the wood burning combustion stove I keep the ashes in a bucket near by to the compost. Sometimes you don't have quite the right materials on hand to add when needed. Turning can help with this. I have two bins (although only one lid sadly). Sometimes I tip the whole lot out and re-layer.

Tip: Here's a free tip to give your compost a boost.  Add a drink of molasses once in a while.  As you know molasses is very sticky and stiff. Mix with a little bit of hot water until runny and then top up with cold water. You don't want to scold the worms.

 Make sure its cool and then pour into your compost. This keeps the mix moist and attracts all those little micro-organisms who make your compost. They seem to have sweet tooths!

Benny and Harry watched the whole operation from the verandah.

I'll let you know when I start to spread the compost.