It's a beautiful thing: Heat + Moisture

Last Friday morning after a night of rain (and just before the big 20 inches of rain) I planted a good crop of seeds: corn, beans, beetroot, carrot, lettuce, zucchini, and cucumber. The soil temperature is perfect with plenty of moisture - there is no better time to be planting. And now just four days later, the sweet moment has arrived.. corn and beans planted last Friday morning are coming up. Lettuce is up as well. All this after 20 inches of rain! Here I was thinking surely they would of washed away!

Beans emerging - it's a beautiful thing

If you live on the Eastern side of Australia right now conditions are perfect - now is the best time to be planting heaps of stuff!

It’s one of the special things in life planting a seed and watching it sprout – just take a minute to think about it..

Below is a small selection of what can planted with success just now, so go get planting don’t leave it another day it could be germinating by then!

The corn shoots through

Beans (all kinds)

Beetroot

Carrot

Chives

Cucumber

Kohlrabi

(I am having flashback of this plant from a not so pleasant Israeli dude that treated us like slaves!)

Lettuce

Mustard Greens

Parsley

Radish

Silverbeet

Sunflower

(cool to look at plus chooks love to eat it)

Sweet Corn

Zucchini

Weed Control

Our old vege garden has now been transformed into a citrus orchard, incorporating the existing trees, and planting a couple more. Part of the area was grassed which we don't want competing with the trees so we are mulching over. But before the mulch goes down, a good layer of newspaper is essential - half a dozen sheets - alternatively cardboard.

We are reminded of the time we rocked up at one of our Wwoofing farms in Washington State, US. It appeared to be a series of ramshackled humpies and a yard strewn with litter.

We were tempted to turn around thinking 'what the heck have we got ourselves into.' Thankfully, the address we came to was actually the 'old farm' and we stayed up the road a little ways. However, this place was still well and truly the working 'farm' were did a few days pruning and weeding. 

Our host Lorna was one of the most down to earth, genuine and resourceful people we meet on our journey.

Her raspberry orchard strewn with litter was actually her way of keeping the weeds at bay - anything from old jeans, fertiliser bags and sheets - nothing got wasted and most recycled for use in the garden. Appearances were a low priority here, but a lesson for all in being resourceful.

And it just gets hotter!

We have had a few 40°c days around here with good amount of humidity, enough to burn of any self-respecting plant at ground level let alone a seedling!

Our New Year heralds the start of a new, bigger garden for us! Yippee!

spot X for new garden

We have built a new garden because we just couldn’t grow enough food in the old one. It is a bit more than 3 times bigger in area, on a slight slop and in a north-west facing position.

onlookers checking out the 'digger'

Making it was a big job as we had to remove a half dead tree with an excavator. While the excavator was there, we had the garden area marked out and got the guy to “scratch” the ground down about 100mm then after all that was done added a good layer of cane mulch and manure then more cane mulch.

Put some wood sleepers around the edge to contain the whole thing, built the fence by using most of the old stuff from the old garden.

now the hard work begins...

Is kind of neat having a blank canvas to work with, and important to get the layers right, once its moist we can plant and cultivate parts of the garden, at least the micro-organisms will start to work with some moisture.

On the weekend we installed the irrigation this was easy, we just used “knockers” - more about this in a future blog.

So new garden is ready to go but nothing is planted because the earth that we worked up is so dry deep down, so once we get good rain – we’ll be out there after the first shower!

front garden posts from trees
we cut down in our backyard

starting to come together, just the fencing to go

In the meantime we haven’t just been watching the heat - I've been busy planting some seeds into seedling trays that will save some time after it rains - presuming that happens in the next month…

Weak Egg Shells

We've had a few slipped yolks recently with a weak soft shell lurking in the coop. With no 'grit' provided, I thought I'd try the home ('frugal') remedy of feeding them back their shells. I figure why buy it when the chickens are already providing it to us...

It seems this problem is worse in summer - something to do with the calcium being retained by the hen and not putting much into the making of the egg.

So quite easy really and best done when you are about to use eggs for cooking as firstly, you are breaking the egg for a reason and secondly, generally you are about to heat the oven anyways!

Pop them on a baking tray and into the oven for about five minutes at medium temp. This will harden any leftover membrane still attached which makes it easier to crush up. 

Next smash them up using a mortar and pestle - well I think that is the easiest way - until they are quite fine, but not powder.

Then hey presto - ready for feeding - just added them to their daily bucket of scraps.

I'm going to start doing this at least twice a week and see how things improve. Tony is a little sceptical of chickens eating their own eggs but from what I've also read sometimes they eat their eggs because their body is craving calcium. 

January Heat Waves

The heatwave is continuing here in South-East Queensland and our gardening enthusiasm has hit an all-time low. I guess every gardener goes through these lows, and we should be resting ahead of busy year with the new garden just waiting for rain before it's first planting.

I came across this article from Aussie Organic Gardening and it has given a little inspiration to at least do 'something' outside...

"January and February can be tricky months for gardening in Australia, and gardeners will have to adjust their planting to suit local climate conditions. If it is too hot to grow things in your area, use the time to do a good job of preparing beds for strawberries, leeks and winter vegetables early in the morning or in late afternoon when temperatures are lower. Many parts of Australia are experiencing extreme conditions and the vegetable garden will appreciate some temporary shade.

Before the Full Moon, silver beet (pre-soak seed), and sunflower can be sown directly into beds, as well as a green manure crop of adzuki bean, cow pea, lablab, millet, mung bean, pigeon pea, Japanese millet, or sorghum. Leek can be sown in late January.

During First Quarter phase, eggplant, rockmelon, summer squash, tomato, and watermelon can be sown, also cucumber in late January. Bush and climbing beans, and sweet corn can be sown directly into beds.

During Full Moon phase, lemon grass, mango, pineapple and watercress can be sown or planted out. Beetroot (pre-soak seed), carrot, parsnip, potato and radish can be sown directly into beds."

As our new garden is divided in two, we are considering a green manure crop as ironically suggested above. It will basically provide more organic matter to the soil and/or if we grow legumes (i.e. cow pea) will also provide nitrogen via the root nodes into the soil.

Check out this forecast for the week ... ouch!

Gympie 7-day Weather Forecast

Summary	Sun Jan 6		Mon Jan 7		Tue Jan 8		Wed Jan 9		Thu Jan 10		Fri Jan 11		Sat Jan 12
	Possible shower		Possible shower		Mostly sunny		Sunny		Late thunder		Mostly sunny		Possible shower
Maximum	31°C		32°C		32°C		38°C		38°C		37°C		36°C
Minimum	19°C		19°C		19°C		19°C		21°C		21°C		21°C
Chance of Rain	70%		50%		5%		10%		60%		30%		80%
Rain Amount	1-5mm		< 1mm		< 1mm		1-5mm		5-10mm		< 1mm		1-5mm
UV Index	Extreme		Extreme		Extreme		Extreme		Extreme		Extreme