Fake it: cabbage moth or not?

Spring gardening a photo by margoc on Flickr.

I'm a tad averse to growing Brassicas, as they get destroyed by the very efficient and hard-to-spot green larvae of the Cabbage Moth.

However, I got some leftover seedlings of Red Chard and Red Cabbage from my mother-in-law and they seem to have taken off well.

So, I thought I'd try an experiment as seen on Gardening Australia recently: I've made some fake white cabbage moths out of white plastic for the cabbage patch and over the tomatoes too (we'll see what happens between each of them), as they seem to be territorial - err, the moths that is, not the vegies. :o)



So far, we have seen but one green caterpillar on the cabbages - it's looking promising! Will remain vigilant though as these green monsters are very determined creatures!

If you're not sure about pests in your garden, check out the GA website for lots of great tips, starting with this list from Sophie.

And speaking of pests, how's this for a haul of Slaters? Good work Clancy! :o)



Happy gardening!

Spring gardening for 2013

Spring gardening a photo by margoc on Flickr.

Well, I can't recall a springy-er Spring than this one for some time - Perth is actually having a proper Spring! Lots of rain, warm days and nights, with the odd cold snap in between (well, by Perth standards at least). It's been simply lovely in fact!

So, apart from our renovations and the ongoing mess that it creates, we have still managed something of a vegie patch.

Today, Alfie wanted to plant some Beans, so we used 5 big pots (which recently housed our snow peas) to plant some Dwarf Beans and we scattered some in amongst the tomatoes and flowers (i.e. the top side of the photo here). He was quite chuffed I think.

I picked up some cheap Cosmos and Cornflower seedlings last weekend at the local nursery for some colour and insect attracting goodness. The Cosmos is already about to burst into flower.

At the same time, I found some Chocolate Capsicums, a Diggers Club variety which are small and sweet. Can't wait to try them! (Neither can Clancy who is the chocoholic in the family!).

The potted garden is looking fresh after much rain and the recent sunshine too. I've dosed up some of the larger pots like the olives, citrus and ficus with extra compost and some old sheep and cow manure. They also get a dose of worm juice too, as our worms are doing really well after being devastated following the hot Summer at at the start of the year.

And finally, Clancy's lettuce seeds have taken as well - she has a planter full of them (a mix batch) which will serve her well for her salad making adventures.

What a perfect Spring!

Seedlings amongst friends

Nothing like sharing the odd seedling with others. Thanks to our friend Kels for these lovely, healthy cucumber seedlings. Apparently lovingly reared from the compost heap (as all good seedlings are) ;-)



Now to find a place to plant them!

Happy gardening!

Spring plantings and seedlings

We had a very productive day in the garden today - the first in a little while in fact. Firstly, Alfie and I went to the gardening shop to pick up some seedlings, particularly capsicum and basil, the purple kind too. We found some nice looking yellow button squash too while we were there. After our last zucchini effort though, I'm a little sceptical about squash, but willing to give them another go.

Capsicum and purple basil seedlings.

Also got some aged manure and sugar cane mulch and dosed the garden up, including the lovely looking tomatoes that came up from the compost - I just love these sort of visitors :o)

The lemon and lime also got a dose, plus the olive trees, papaya and guava. The lime and lemon got a good prune too - both have a number of flowers as well, so here's hoping for some fruit this year - although may still be a bit young, but we will see.

Simon also made a narrow bed on the outside of our boundary (to the vacant lot behind us) and transplanted some tomatoes and put in some of the purple basil seedlings as companions. He also popped a couple of the yellow button squash in the middle just to see how they go.

Boundary garden bed with tomatoes, basil and yellow button squash.

Now all we need is to monitor for bugs and nasties, and, more importantly, water regularly!

Happy gardening!

Ah-choo! Spring is here

Ah-chooooo! Okay, it is most definitely spring! The bees are out in full force, flowers are everywhere, there's that familiar haze across the urban landscape that is no doubt full of pollens and other stuff small enough to tickle noses - at least my nose is telling me that!

Star flowers at Lake Monger by margoc

Our garden has been ticking away in the background over recent weeks, so not much to report, except that a jolly good mow was required last week, as Alfie, being almost one and a half, nearly disappeared in the tall grassy weeds!!

The spuds are rocketing along and the rocket has been severly cut back to allow the spuds to do so :o)
They have needed a bit more water of late - we haven't been all that consistent in their watering, but they seem to have produced in spite of the neglect!

Our artichoke has three lovely big flowerheads which can almost be cut - can't wait to make a nice, fresh stew with them!

Artichoke by margoc

The snowpeas have finally finished and we pulled them out yesterday - this year we will plant some capsicums in their place and see how they go. I'm keen to make a capsicum puree for the kids, to replace lots of the tinned toms we go through (in the bucketload!) - it will be a nice change in flavour and sweetness I think.

We have had to water again after recent rains and it always amazes me how quickly the ground becomes quite dry and the sand once again seems to take over (as much as the weeds and grasses).

By the feel of the sun, Summer is just around the corner - it won't be too long before we are complaining about the heat!

Happy gardening!

Goodbye carrots and beetroot

So ends our beetroot and carrots! And a fine display they put on too and kept the kids interested and involved in garden adventures!



Great to see both Alfie and Clancy develop confidence in gardening as they explored whether the vegies were ready to pick or needed more time. And fun too just to pick and eat straight from the ground (or bush, in the case of the snow peas!) - with a quick wash of course :-)

Now we can start to think about spring crops - oh, the choices!

Happy gardening!

Winter plantings

We planted some mini cauliflower seedlings yesterday. Clancy grew them from seed in a big pot.



More potatoes are surfacing as well which is a good sign. I dug up one that was rotten so far, hopefully that's the only one, but the bed, although no-dig, is quite water logged given the amount of rain we've had in the last week. I forgot how torrential Perth rain is!



We also picked a couple of beetroot and some baby carrots over the weekend and the carrots are really sweet - they are a baby carrot variety.

We also fed our citrus trees with the worm castings from our worm farm which needed a bit of a clean out. They've grown heaps in this past month or so and always seem to respond well after a bit of a prune.

Other vegies on the move include snow peas, pak choi, Swiss chard, variety of lettuce and rocket and the herbs too! Who says winter is for hibernating?! ;-)



Happy gardening!

How does your garden grow

We did a quick whiz around the garden in between rain showers and picked some greens for dinner: beans, snow peas and parsley and thyme. The passionfruit are dropping regularly too - yum!




Potatoes are just beginning to poke through the mulch so will keep an eye on them and make sure they have enough cover. Exciting! The mixed lettuce has been a hit too - a good idea to plant over the spuds us :-)

Love this rain but could do without the 100km/hr winds thanks!

Stay safe and happy gardening!

Autumn goodness continues

We've had close to 60mm of rain over the weekend which makes it a perfect time to plant and sow in the garden!

We picked up two olive trees at the local garden shop: a kalamata and a manzanillo.



Kalamata


Manzanillo

We had two half wine barrels from a friend down south which are a perfect size for these.

Alfie and I also planted out our Desirée potatoes on the weekend, plus some mixed lettuce and rocket.



Simon and Clancy planted some purple garlic on ANZAC day which sprung up only about 5 days later with the rain and the relative warmth!


Water (via rain) is an amazing elixir. You can just see how alive everything becomes after a decent rain! It's renewing and rejuvenating :-)

The birds obviously love it too - the Willy Wagtails are such great gardeners too!



What a special time in the year! Happy gardening!

Kids in the garden

Alfie will be one next month - who knows where the time has gone! As he engages more, especially outdoors, I'm reminded of when Clancy was a toddler and how we spent lots of time out in the garden when we lived in Canberra.

Now Alfie can spread his wings (or should that be green thumbs?) in the garden! How do you best engage the highly physical toddler without unleashing total garden destruction? My answer is pots.




And a big sister helps too! Alfie follows Clancy everywhere and no doubt is learning heaps from observing her and then copying where he can! He was stoked to "help" sow some peas in these colourful pots. If he decides they need not be in pots anymore, well, at least he hasn't destroyed the bigger garden beds! :-)

I've also noticed that Clancy can now focus on the whole process of choosing and filling pots, choosing seeds, sowing, watering - the lot, when she only need deal with one or two pots. This detailed experience combined with the bigger picture experience of exploring the garden in its entirety (we often walk a circuit in the morning to check everything out) is a good overall development process I reckon.

Little jobs, exploring and discovering, pretend plantings (planting cut flowers for example) all help to develop Clancy and no doubt Alfie into engaged and confident gardeners!

And if course it's simply gotta be good fun... Happy gardening!

Working with seeds

I mentioned in our last post that we hadn't yet seen the carrots pop up, but they have since then! Don't you just love their delicate fine leaves?




Will be keeping these moist so they get the best start possible and we also sowed another couple of rows in one of our large planters. That should keep us in carrots for a while. :-)

As for our Okra seeds, we have yet to see these emerge from the soil! Have been reading what others have experienced with Okra and apart from keeping the soil moist and the environment warm I can't see what else could hinder them. So, we will wait a tad longer - they can take up to 3-4 weeks to germinate so they still have 1-2 weeks to surprise us!




Oh, the suspense! Happy gardening :-).

Gardening companions

Clancy decided our garden needed a scarecrow. And he couldn't be happy, he had to be an angry scarecrow to scare the birds away!



The weather has been warm enough to give our seeds a cracking start too. The beetroots are already surfacing, as are the peas and beans planted at the same time. Its been barely a week!

Haven't seen the carrots yet. I have a feeling the seed was old. Will give them a week's grace.

Enjoying Autumn, happy gardening!

It's Autumn, what shall we plant?

Clancy and I are looking at the Gardening Australia Vegie Guide to see what we can plant in our garden beds, now the Summer seems to be over.

We found this article by Millie Ross which shows how to plant out a bean chubby house! Clancy thought that would be very cool :o). As our grapevine is beginning to lose its leaves, it would be good to plant beans at the end of the raised bed that is next to the vine so we can string the beans across to it to provide a tent-like cover for Clancy (and Alfie) to play under. Worth experimenting anyway.

Other things Clancy would like in the garden include beetroot, potatoes (we haven't planted them in our Perth garden yet, only back in Canberra, Clancy says), sweet potatoes and of course some purple, yellow and orange flowers!

Happy gardening!

Our first Okra!

Our first Okra! a photo by margoc on Flickr.

Aint it cute? :o)
Here's hoping for more...!

Happy gardeing!

Zucchini problem

Zucchini problem a photo by margoc on Flickr.

Our zucchini is suffering (poor thing!). Not sure why, so seeking ideas. It's watered every day but was a bit neglected as a seedling.

What could be drying out the small fruit? They get to about 1 inch long then shrivel up!

Help!

A few of our favourite things

summer harvest and budding gardeners a photo by margoc on Flickr.

We harvested the last of our vegetables from our no-dig garden today - much cooler day and conducive to gardening - we've missed it!

You can see our budding gardener, Alfie, is already quite confident and may well be a vegetable connoisseur by the looks.

Beetroot and carrots turned out well in the end, although some are a little bitter, probably from being in the ground for a while and perhaps the irregular watering?

Anyway, looks like we'll be feasting tonight!

I just love the harvest it's such fun and even better is the anticipation of what's new - we're already thinking about what to sow next!

Oh, and we beat the rats in the end by 3 corn cobs! 3 to the rats and 6 to us in the end! :o)

Happy gardening!

New Summer plantings

So far December to January hasn't been headsplitting hot -- yet! Am sure February will turn it on for us here in Perth, as usual.

We received two Papaya trees from Simon's grandmother which we've put in the terraced garden bed for a bit of protection, particularly in the Winter months as they don't like the cold wind and weather too much - hopefully that corner will provide a bit of residue heat and protection (borrowed a bit from the large Macadamia tree next door. I'm just hoping the rats don't take to the fruit like they do to the nuts!!)

Two Papaya trees and Okra seedling.

We also have a large Okra seedling growing and are hoping this does better than our previous two!! I love the gumminess of the fruit too. :o)

Thanks to Simon for cleaning out the garden bed in the heat and dosing up the bed before planting these babies in their new home!

Happy gardening!

TLC for our tomatoes

We look like having a bumper crop of tomatoes this year, starting with our Beefsteak variety. Also growing are Romas and Gross Lisse varities plus numerous compost-derived specimens - all doing fabulously!

However, we've had a lot of blossom end rot plus fruit worm through them - the Romas have taken the biggest hit by the looks. Given their hybrid background the compost tomatoes are the least affected. We've done a big clean out and given the toms a dose of calcium nitrate in liquid form, hoping to remedy the remainder of the crop, which is looking decidedly healthier after two weeks of TLC! :o) Next year we will need to dose the soil more with gardening lime I think - not enough in ourno-dig bed it seems. Might also be worth tracking down some powdered or pulverised rock minerals to provide more trace elements.

Beefsteak tomatoes with fruitworm.

In the other bed, our second planting of dwarf beans and the purple king beans are coming to an end - the warmer drier weather has meant a smaller crop, but my affection for them has not diminished in the slightest!

Purple King Beans in flower.

The cucumbers are flowering with little cucumbers on the way as well. Our corn is growing taller everyday too - we love corn, but again will need to keep an eye out for fruitworm as I've heard they love corn.

Burpless cucumber in flower.

The Perth weather is surely getting hotter and the days longer, so we are being more rigorous with watering and regularity is the key. A regular dose of liquid seaweed (or fish) emulsion seems to push the vegies along nicely too. A dose every fortnight seems to be having a positive effect.

So, bring on Summer and happy gardening!

The water's rising mamma!

Yeah baby yeah! Garden is loving this rain! Our timing on connecting up our water barrels was good too - that's 400 litres we didn't have before!





Thank you forces of nature and happy gardening!

October Update

Excuse me but where is October going??? We've had a busy month - some of it in the garden and the remainder dealing with life generally I suppose!

We scored some half wine barrels from our dear friend Phil and now have a lovely Eureka lemon and a Tahitian Lime - both doing well. A third barrel will support one of our Ficus trees and provide some much needed shade in the Summer heat.



We've planted another lot of dwarf beans after our success with the first lot (still going if getting a little woody!), and the purple king beans have lovely purple flowers heralding the impendng arrival of purple beans! The garlic are drying out and due to be pulled up very shortly.



A question mark over the carrots and beetroot at present - slowed down in their growth and seem to be affected by the little bit of heat we've had so far, especially the beetroot - will keep an eye on these and check the water is getting to them...

Tomatoes are flowering very well (see pic above) and the passionfruit vines are on a race to see which one will make it to the roofline first! The strawberries in the hanging baskets have lots of flowers and some green fruit already - will top them up with some seasol solution.



We have done a heap of pottting as well - some natives and annuals for colour and coverage. It helps in bringing some colour to the back patio which is concrete (and hot in summer!).

Finally, the grapevine is fast covering the new white frame and Simon added a swing to entice the kids to the sandpit space a little more. Hoping to get enough coverage as the weather warms up. Next big job is to put up the lattice along the boundary and get some covering vines going to futher provide some summer relief (you'll see the old lattice behind the grapevine in the photo below...)!



All ticking along nicely :o)

Happy gardening!