Update on "The yard'

In the last few months since my last post we've planted the raspberrys (see post on raspberrys 27/7/1 )  and did lots of work in the garden, we planted some tomatoes, lettuce, watermelons, rocket, capsicum, chilli, beans, carrots, beetroot, and mangle-wurzel. We also harvested our wheat , pumpkins, onions, garlic, and some of our corn, tomatoes, and beans. In the holidays we mulched our native garden and fruit trees, then we made three pens for our sheep.

The Raspberrys

Just planted tomatoes

Watermelons

Mangle-Wurzels

Corn

Potatoes

Here are some pictures of the potatoes I just dug up. The ones on the left are from the first plant I dug ( from the end of the row). And the ones on the right are from the second plant in the same row. The family and I will be enjoying some nice hot potatoes tomorrow night.

Pontiac potatoes

 They are Pontica potatoes  and weighed in at 1.65 kg from one plant. 7 large potatoes per plant. Our largest individual potato weighed about 360 grams.

Some of the small ones that did not grow

 The next lot of photos are of  Nicola potatoes and averaged 14 medium potatoes from one plant and they weighed in at 1.026 Kg for one plant.

The Nicola

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More Potatoes

We're doing a staggered planting with our potatoes, we planted some a month and a half ago (See post on potatoes 21 July )and they are growing well so I mounded some dirt around the lower stems just leaving the top leaves out to make more roots.

Dirt mounded around potato plant

 Today I planted some Kipfler and Desiree in the same fashion as the last ones (See post on potatoes 21 July.).The rest of the garden is going well and we will be digging in the green manure on the 13th.

Before back filling

Raspberrys

While looking for more plants to expand our fruit trees a friend told me about  Raspberrys, I looked them up and found them to be good size, produce a lot of fruit and multiply by sending out suckers from there roots.
I convinced Paul they were good and we started to prepare the area.
We decided that in stead of using poison to get rid of the grass we would dig up the area and move the chooks over it for a week to get rid of the new grass sprouts and put some manure in the ground in the process.
We hope to be planting them on Saturday.

Potatoes

Our crop rotation sheet (see last post) potatoes under the month of July so we got 2 bags of seed potatoes from Bunnings and got ready to plant. Paul hoed up the patch and made two furrows 10in deep. We cut each potato in half and dropped them in the furrows 12in apart stepping on them as we went to make sure they were imbedded in the soil, then we covered them with soil and watered them in.

...It is now 3 weeks later and there sprouting.

Crop Rotation

Crop Rotation is good because it reduces disease and stops the necessary elements for each kind of plant being starved out of the soil.
We were having some trouble making a crop rotation plan till Fiona found a plan someone had made of Peter Cundall's rotation so we adapted it to suit our 8 beds instead of his 6 and it seems to be working out ok.
Garden Plan

Onions

We looked up the month of May in our crop rotation plan and found that we are supposed to plant Onions etc. So we put dolomite in the soil (because our soil is acidic and onions like lime soil) and planted Onions, Garlic, Leeks, Shallots and Chives. We also had some space left so we planted the Onion family's natural companion plants, Carrots

Garlic

Leeks

Peas and Beans

Our Bean and Pea patch

 According to our crop rotation plan we are supposed to plant Beans and Peas in May. A friend told us that beans wouldn't like the frost so we only planted a few.
The first problem we came across was frames, Jerry from Gardening Australia uses bamboo lattice frames but we found that they cost to much and thought that they probably wouldn't last very long,so we used steel mesh instead ,We also found some cheap bamboo poles so we got them and made tepees out of them with wire.
We also did an experiment by soaking half the seeds in water to boost germination and were going to see which ones come up best.

Steel mesh frames

Bamboo pole frame

NEW GARDEN!

Our "New Garden"

Here we are again, four years later with news from "One point Five". 

We have begun a new garden in a new position, implementing a lot of new things we have learnt from friends, family and DVD's .

We have watched a Gardening Australia DVD explaining crop rotation using 6 beds. Nathan , aged 13, has been very  keen and industrious in applying many of the suggestions. ( see details on each post for specifics on bed preparation and care for individual crops) 

Our current total garden area is 300 sq m , 20 m x 15 m , including paths. Each bed is  8 m x 2.5 m .

We have 8 beds and are using a 6 bed rotation as mentioned above with an additional 2 bed rotation.

(mainly because we dug the beds before watching the DVD and will probably adapt this further in the future.)

We are finding that as with previous gardens GREENS grow well - Kale , Silver Beet , Pak Choi and lettuce. 

This has been great as I have been able to develop and enjoy GREEN SMOOTHIES. ( check the topic on GOOGLE and start enjoying Green smoothies yourself ) :)

The "New Garden" looking to the House

New Gardens

Hello!
We have been having a lot of success with our Garden (see Success! First Season's Fruits)and have even finished our first season! About a week ago we dug up the gardens again after the chooks being on the top one for about a week. They had previously been on the bottom garden for about a month. Improvements include wider paths and more evenly spaced veggie rows. Here are some photos of the gardens: