About Me

My photo
Life on two acres of arid dirt, on the edge of the Australian outback.

Sunday, September 28, 2014

What's Happening in the Veggie Garden?

I think it is time for a garden update.  

I spent quite a bit of time last week, pulling weeds and tidying up the garden beds.  

I did want to make the beds deeper this year. I am pretty sure that will help with the problem of the beds getting too hot and drying out quickly. Only problem is, hubby hasn't had time to do it for me as the shed build has taken priority.
 But never mind, I will still plug along and hopefully most of the veggies will be scaled down by the time the real heat gets here in January.


The carrots are looking good.

The bed looks dry as this was taken just before I watered them.
Rogue celery plant in the corner.

Spring onions in full flower

Rhubarb and last years celery.  There are lots of new little celery plants that have popped up everywhere throughout the garden.

Silver beet or chard

I have planted our zucchini plants. This bed and the one above are buried in the ground and made into wicking beds.

Topped up this bed and planted some potatoes.  
Another wicking bed.

 Tiny tomatoes that I managed to get through the frosts of winter.  They did get burned, but I chopped them back and they shot to new growth. I have replaced the broken olla and will fill this bed up with soil.

 The sweet potatoes are just starting to shoot again. 
These are so easy to grow. I have bought some organic mushroom compost to go on top of this bed.  I paid $10 for three bags, quite a good price I thought, so I purchased twenty one bags. I am waiting for a nice calm day to do this. We have had quite a bit of wind here lately and I don't want to breathe that stuff in. I do wear a mask and gloves.

Into this bed I have planted out two punnets of kale.  We use a lot of this in our green juices. I have trouble with aphids eating the kale but have read that onion will keep them away.  I will chop up some of the spring onions and put around the bed and also plant some into the soil.  I also topped it up with more soil.  This is a mix of soil, chook and horse poo.


The potatoes have started to grow. 
I have put my first lot of homemade compost on the top.


 The capsicum are slowing coming to life. 
I also added some of my compost onto the top of this bed.

Green burpless cucumber seedlings have gone in. 
Chives in the background.


Chive flower

 I have added more soil to this bath which contains more sweet potatoes.  I love these roasted or made into chips.

I have moved the strawberries to this bed. 
Hopefully they will do better than where I had them.



In this bath bed I have planted mixed lettuce and baby spinach.

 I need to keep it covered over with an old curtain as the temperature has started to rise over the past few days. Today was 35C (95F). I will put this cover on until the young plants establish themselves.

 At a glance, 
you can see bags of mushroom compost ready to go, and some of my compost in the wheelbarrow.  Hopefully I can get to that tomorrow and spread it on another bed, probably where the cucumbers are planted.

All I need to do is get some lucerne hay for mulch and I am all set. I know I said I wasn't going to worry about having a garden anymore, but I would miss it too much. I love getting my hands dirty and producing healthy food for us to eat. 

I had to plant some more parsley because the heat cooked mine last year. I have also put some tomato and pumpkin seeds into punnets.

Some of the weeks pickings.

 I still have more to do, but finding the time at the moment is proving challenging. 
Hubby is unable to help as he is busy with this J


How is your veggie garden growing? 





Friday, September 26, 2014

Feeling exposed

Look!


Uh oh I have been sighted...


I'm out of here!




Go away with that camera...


I don't like being photographed...



I'll stick my tongue out at you!



That's enough already!



 You cant see me...






If I don't move, you might go away...


The sleepy lizards (shingle back) are out and about with the warm Spring weather.  They do like to keep under cover and every now and then a human wants to photograph them. These lizards are harmless unless you have them latch onto your finger. Apparently their jaws lock and they may prove difficult to remove.  I don't know how true that is and I have no desire to find out. So it is a good idea to keep away from the mouth area.  When picking them up, we carefully grab them just behind their head so they cant bite. They are very gentle slow creatures...

I nearly stepped on the second lizard as he was laying (hiding) behind a stray weed in the main yard.  He frightened the life out of me because I thought it was a snake.  Yes they are about too!



Friday, September 12, 2014

Come Walk With Me

It was a nice day for a Sunday stroll at Flinder's Lookout Port Augusta


A commemorative plaque marking Matthew Flinders exploration of our area


 Railway bridge in the distance at the top of the gulf

Redbanks cliff face

 Willy Wagtail

 Wildflowers

 Hubby

Vast barren country

Mt Brown

 Cliff edge

Looking back

Shingle Back Lizard on the run

 Tiny daisy wildflower

Getting closer to the railway bridge

 We discovered these were some of our friends walking down below

 Billy Button wildflowers

Billy Buttons

 Native pigface

 We reached the Railway bridge

The Flinder's Ranges

Top of the gulf

Bush track

Redbanks.
 These cliffs show beautiful colours at different times of the day. The morning is the best time, when the sun is shining on them.  We didn't go until the afternoon.  


  

I found this video on Youtube showing an aerial tour of Port Augusta if you want to check it out.  This is where we live, and it shows Redbanks and lots of other attractions :) 



 Heading back

Flinder's Lookout car park 

 Wattle

 Pretty

 Train leaving the junction

Genesee & Wyoming Australia 


I discovered that my camera was on the wrong setting after taking these photos, so some of them appear a little bright J

Spring has arrived!

xTania