Hot weather = perfect Tomato & Capsicum growing weather

Tomatoes and capsicum love the hot weather, plenty of sunshine and water and handful of complete organic fertiliser at planting, jam a stake in as well and bring it on...

So far I've done a punnet of tomato seedlings (Pear) - with a followup planting due in 4 weeks. Plus I direct sowed seeds (Roma). My pre-planting fertiliser was blood and bone, plus a bit around the drip line of the plant once in. In about 3 weeks I will put some pelleted chicken manure fertiliser like Dynamic lifter around as well - or I will try and rake up a good amount out of the chook house!

Make sure you're planting some beetroot, corn, carrot and lettuce to have in your summer time salads as well now hey! Another day delayed, another missed opportunity!

Happy planting :)

Okay so the 'stringline' is a bit of an overkill for lining my stakes up ...

Working with seedlings can be a great opportunity for kids to get involved!

Clucky Chooky

We've just encountered our first 'clucky chook' ... rather a surprise considering this hen is barely 5 months old! She had been on the nest with her feathers puffed out, looking very cosy for a couple of days. Our nest box is a rollaway type, so she isn't even sitting on eggs!

A few growls and shrieks when we went near her was the other indicator she was nesting on her non-existent eggs. So we don't have a rooster (to fertilise the eggs) and rely on them for eggs (they stop laying when clucky), so obviously this situation is not good. 

Before we had a chance to google more info, I happened to see the kids hairdresser, Judy, who had  experience with 'clucky chooks'. Seems their body temp needs cooling (gives another meaning to animals going on 'heat') and the best way to do this is firstly remove them from the nesting area; preferably in a cage; raised off the ground to get the air-flow under their broody body. They also need to be made 'uncomfortable' - no where to lay as such.

One google site also said that with some hens, all they need is a few times of being physically removed from the nest and carried out to the yard where their flockmates are ranging - that seems like the 'softly softly' way.

Opting for the cage approach, fully stocked on food and water we will let her out in a few days and see if the 'broody buster' cage works.

Side view - she is not looking to amused by the whole situation!

Top view, old saucepan for water works well - secure and full

Free Mulch

Now this is the best idea I think I’ve ever had… So we had the spud crop etc in one section of the garden now the broccoli is nearly done, and I was a bit slack once the spuds were harvested, I should have planted some rye grass straight away for “green manure crop” but I didn’t now I’ve got soil that looks lifeless, it needs organic matter digging into it.

So I’ve been thinking what’s around here that I can cut up/ cut down for mulch to dig in, don’t really have anything at the moment, and I don’t want to buy any; then while looking at the lawn, I thought PERFECT… I always cut our lawn quite high in parts (nice and soft to walk on) no grass seed present etc. I thought I’ll just get the push mower and take the grass down low and put the clippings in the garden – note the grass is basically dead at the moment cos of no rain in long time so this isn’t like putting extremely green clippings in the soil causing heat.

So I scattered the clippings over the top of soil; left for few days to really dry out; then dug in, beautiful!

Best part is I didn’t go somewhere and fork out cash.. done deal!