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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? 





16 comments:

  1. Lots of work but you already have some nice plants. I haven't grown celery it seems to like your beds.

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  2. Funny, we are all getting excited about our gardens. You can feel it in all the posts. You seem to have everything organised so that there is just maintenance rather than structural work. I still need to get my poles up for fruit trees but i think this year it will be berries only. I bet carrots love your red sandy soil.

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  3. Once again, you're winding up down under, and we're winding down up here. lol

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  4. Cheeky hubby! :-) I can see you are still using your ollas, Tania. I only have five on the go so far. One of the overseas forum members just uses one with a saucer glued to the end of it. It is interesting to hear what others are using for water saving. Yes, it is heating up here in SE Qld too and we have 29 forecast for this week. So much for living in a cool temperate zone!

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  5. You sure do a nice garden. Everything is orderly and you keep it in good shape.

    Like Georges said, it's turning cold here and we'll have a first frost before long. This winter is supposed to be rough, like last winter.

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  6. Gee, you have been busy in the past week! Its hard to believe you are getting 35C temps already. We got home and its been quite chilly and it blew a gale here yesterday until late afternoon.

    I need to get into my garden, doing small bits of weeding at a time then adding new bark (which got delivered months ago!). I'm just slack!

    Oh, that shed build, will it ever get done? Tell phil and Syd to get a move on! Haha!

    Cheers - Joolz xx

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  7. You have a good variety planted already,our cabbage and winter veg .are nearly finished here in Perth but I have a lot of self seeded tomatoes with fruit already. Last weekend planted quite a few home dried capsicum seeds so will see if they do any good.
    Ruth WA
    Https://livecheaperdaybyday.wordpress.com/

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  8. Your garden looks great Tanya. It's great to plant the new season's vegies. I couldn't live without a veg garden now. I love to potter around in it after I get my housework done.

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  9. Your garden is looking great and so far advanced than mine. Everything is still in punnets waiting to grow a bit more. I guess with your warmer weather that would push the veges along a bit quicker. I have an old bath tub in the backyard too and am hoping to plant it up with raspberry canes soon. Love the idea of the wicking beds :)

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  10. Your garden beds are looking great! Its getting hot here too and I'm just hoping I got things started early enough that they might keep growing...

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  11. Your garden is looking good again and I'm most envious. I put in some lettuce seedlings the other day and the next morning they were gone, eaten by slugs or snails. I did plant some tomatoes and they appear to be doing better. Fingers crossed.
    Anne xx

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  12. Tania, what a wonderful vegetable garden you have got going again. I do hope it doesn't get too hot for you so you can reap the benefits of your carefully planted crop. To protect from heat use lots and lots of mulch but not near plant stems. Cane mulch is good.
    Alexa from Sydney, Australia
    http://www.Alexa-asimplelife.com

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  13. Hi Tania, I just popped into say hi as I haven't been around the blogging world in such a long time....look at your amazing garden! this is going to be full of life when everything springs away!You have inspired me into looking into growing some sweet potato (or kumara as we kiwis call it :) ) we like to eat a bit of sweet potato so would be great to grow some. I hope you are well, I will come and visit again soon :) Regards, Ruth (MrsW from Come Smell the Roses)

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  14. You have a fantastic garden! I love that you are growing in bathtubs as well. Great idea :)

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  15. You've got lots going on! Gardening is addictive,,isn't it. I don"'to think I could ever give it up either.

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Your comments really make my day. Thank you for taking the time and for being so kind.