July 2006

17th Jul

y **What I did this weekend:

Planted out my seed potatoes and covered in a thick layer of lucerne hay, if the potatoes emerge before the last frost, I will cover them with more hay. Planted my tea camellia in a semi shaded place Planted my chilean guava next to the kids swing - so they can eat and swing (and hopefully not rip the tree out in the proccess Potted up some raspberry canes for a friend Planted some carrot seedlings - I will now wait and see how they take before planting out hte rest Planted most of my onion seedlings as well as scattering some extra onion seeds Scattered pak choy, beetroot and rocket seeds and covered with lucerne Also: One of our young hens started laying - and she lays BLUE eggs! How cool is that?! I also discovered why our home grown hen (we had a rooster briefly and managed to get some chicks as a result - one of which we kept) kept breaking into the vegie garden - she was laying in the couch grass at the back - it looks like egg season may be starting again! ______________________________________________________________________

24th July

**This weekend I....

Got out all my seed trays and planted poppy seeds (the ones you buy from the supermarket to eat), green manure lupins, sunflowers and a whole bunch of seeds from the grain I feed to the chooks (it included lupins, sunflowers, wheat and a little red seed) I also transplanted the rest of my carrot seedlings and planted out a dozen lettuces in the shade of the josterberry, some were red iceberg and some were cos verdi. TIP: We get a LOT of snails and after reading The Permaculture Home Garden, I have started using milk cartons to protect seedlings. The theory is that snails are lazy and they won't climb something if they can't see if it's worth it or not. So far this has worked (both myself and a girlfriend of mine are testing this theory). All you need to do is save your 2 litre milk containers and cut off the top and bottom, you are left with a hollow tube which is placed around the plants and pushed into the ground a little. I haven't lost a single snow pea this year using this method - and usually I lose half of them. ______________________________________________________________________

31th July

**This weekend was HECTIC! We helped a friend set up a vegie patch and helped her with a bit of painting. Then yesterday I cleared blackberries - Yuck! The blackberries have invaded our Raspberry patch, and really we should never have planted anything there until we had erradicated the blackberries. We had a few small blackberries creeping up from under the fence. Yeah - we can maintain that we thought to ourselves. Little did we know! A cautionary warning for anyone who has wild blackberries - Never EVER establish a garden bed until ALL your blackberries are gone, and have stayed gone for a year. We've learnt this the hard way. And there are not many foolhardy ways to get rid of blackberries.

The best methods would be:
1. Get a goat - I wish, but we're not allowed one, not even short term.
2. Spray - I have now got to the point where now that I've hacked them back, I will be spraying this year. That will be the first time ever that I have used sprays on anything.
3. Constant cultivation - I don't have the staying power for this one - that was my theory last year, but miss a week of vigilance and it becomes a battle again.

Now I'm off to plant my broccoli seedlings and currants that I didn't have time to plant out on the weekend. ______________________________________________________________________