The Organic Home Garden

Well the end of the year is upon us and it is amazing to thinking that in a very short time it will be 2010.

The garden has been a wonderful supply of fresh organic food this year – I have learnt many new things about the management of a home garden to produce food!
I hope what I have shared has brought useful ideas and encouragement to the many organic home gardeners out there – my encouragement to you is to keep at it and you will succeed!

Growing our own food will have a big impact on our carbon footprint and it is a very efficient way to contribute to the improvement of the environment. Home grown food, especially organic food saves the planet on so many fronts.

This Week In the Garden

So much is happening this week as we prepare for Xmas. I have huge plants growing in all the beds and I am very excited to see corn towering nearly 2 meters high, tomato plants starting to bud up and the cucumbers zucchinis loving the new shade cloth.
Beetroot in my sandwiches, lots of lettuce and the broccolini has proved to be a real bonus – even on the hottest days it has shown no signs of bolting or wilting!

As for the fruit – over 20 apples on the two dwarf trees so far, apricots starting to ripen and figs just delicious!
The pawpaw has shot away and is now nearly a metre tall! Bags of mulberries in the deep freeze – ready for cold winter afternoons next year! The grapes are filling up and getting fatter everyday!

I could go on, but I won’t! Here are a few shots from the yard to give you a feel for the bounty we have out there this week!

Lettuce, Tomato, Coriander bed. Garlic Too!

Eggplant, Beetroot and Onion Bed

Carrot, Capsicum and Beetroot Bed

The Corn Forrest!

Eggplant, cucumber and zucchini bed.

Moon Flower

2 years ago I was given a cutting from a “Moon Flower” and last year we had 1 flower. I was in Adelaide or Melbourne at the time and missed it but this year we have three flowers that have budded up and burst into life. I have searched the web for a picture like this one but no luck so anyone who can give me a botanical name please live a message here on the site.

I have taken shots over the two days and you can see the progression – we went out last night and came home to find the house full of this cinnamon scent and three enormous and dazzling flowers!

After all that glorious scent and wonderful flowers this is the way they look the next morning!

Merry Xmas everyone!!

The Organic Gardener

We are well into spring here in Perth and the organic garden is warming up and the soil is just right for preparation for summer crops.
Seeds are in the trays and germinating so the next step is to prepare the ground.

Step 1. Complete the Harvest of Winter Crops

I have picked the last of the turnips and onions and also found a few beetroot.
The organic Garlic are going well but no where near ready for harvest yet.

Step 2. Weed the Beds

With the extra rain this winter and spring I have actually had quite a lot of clover growing in the beds.

This has not been a problem since it fixes nitrogen in the soil and makes good compost too!
So I have weeded these all out and turned the soil over.

After all that the compost heap is looking huge.

Step 3. Add compost and Blood and Bone

Next is the addition of blood and bone and compost to revive the tired soils that have produced wonderful winter food like cauliflower and turnips.

I also add some germs – this are granulated bacteria that kick off the soil activity when you add them with the organic materials.

Step 4. Mulch the Beds

This year I am trying something new – cane sugar mulch!

Garden straw has become very expensive over the last few years so I have tried to find alternatives but most are just as expensive. I spotted this sugar cane mulch last week and though I would try it this summer. It comes in a compressed bale in a plastic bag so the bag covers 7 square meters at the depth I need. Very convenient and easy to handle.

We will see how this goes and I will report back next year.
I give it all a good watering – completely soaked and ready for the plants.

Step 5. Plant out the Seedlings

I have bought a few seedlings as well as grown my own to get things moving and to space out the plantings.
Today I have put in cucumber, yellow zucchini, egg plant (3 varieties), coriander (in tomato bed for pest control).

So there we go the crops are in and the only thing to do now is to keep an eye on the pests and keep the ground moist.

Now Keep that Dog Out

Now blood and bone has a nice smell if you are a dog and so if I don’t take precautions the red menace will be into the garden in a flash. This is why you can see the galvanised fence around each bed.

Here he is chewing his raw bone looking very happy. I can tell you he would also be thinking how that freshly dug garden bed will be a great place to bury this bone later today!

The black pipe is the recycled tyre material that I bury below the soil as an underground water system. The pipe weeps and effectively maintains good moisture levels with little evaporation.

Protect Seedlings From Heat

In Perth we can get some real scorchers even in spring so I prepare for the odd day by placing my beach umbrellas in each bed.
I have placed steel stakes deep in the bed and then tie the umbrella base to them. Top of the umbrella can be removed in very windy weather but usually I can just leave them down and tied.

This one is in the broccoli bed and last year enabled me to grow and pick the vegetable for almost the whole of summer!

Here it is in it’s full glory doing a great job protecting my dinner!

I actually have two stakes in some beds one for early summer and one for late summer. This can compensate for the changing tilt of the earth as the season moves on.

That’s it then all ready – now I just keep an eye out for bugs and deal with them as the weeks progress.

Have a great week and may you have success in your garden as well!

Spring has Sprung

Hi everyone and welcome to spring in Perth Western Australia. IT is still raining and we are enjoying that plus the sunny days in between!

I have been very busy working so not much time in the garden this week – but I can still pick food to eat and here is the lovely organic vegetables we are munching through!

The carrots are coming along nicely now and we are enjoying the sweetness they bring to the dinner table!

This lot is fresh and yummy and will be part of the roast dinner we plan at my daughter’s this week!

The cauliflower is the second last one in the garden and is still quite sweet and growing well. The onions are strong and helping keep the sniffles away.

How Onions Saved a POW

Margit’s grandfather ended up in a Russian prisoner-of-war camp during WW2 and survived in large part due to the onions he ate. He swapped his Red Cross cigarettes etc for the onions of his fellow prisoners. He ate them raw and stayed healthy the whole time he was in prison.

Here is an extract of the happy reunion after the family had been refugees:

Very early in the morning, mother, who took only Udo with her, went to the “Junkersiedlung”, where Tante Lotte had found shelter with her sister Alice. When Lotte came to the door and saw Mother, the first thing she said was: “Your husband is searching for you. He was here 2 weeks ago!” Mother nearly stopped breathing when she heard the good news and Alice had to repeat it a few times. Father had left an address with them, where we would find him. Aunt Alice came to the guesthouse to fetch the rest of us children. We heard from them that our Father had been a P.O.W. but not for very long. He was lucky enough to fall into the hands of American soldiers, who released him after a few months. He had been able to find work through a friend in a small town called Bosdorf near the city of Leipzig. We only stayed one night with our two aunties, as we could not wait to see our Dad again. So, the next morning we got on the train to Leipzig. It was late afternoon when we found Dad, who looked at us with disbelief and then he took all of us into his arms.

The whole story is a heart wrenching account of how the family wandered and survived attacks from Russian soldiers. Members of the family did not survive and hunger was a constant companion!
My mother-in-law never wastes food and loves to receive my organic vegetables!

Until next time

Stay Well
John