In My Garden - Ross May 2020

In My Garden - Ross May 2020

Ross and Elizabeth have an amazingly productive garden in Lindisfarne, that has delighted us on a Food Garden Visit a few years ago. Here Ross takes us for an inspiring look at some of  their plants and projects currently on the go.

Three compost bins made out of old pallets. I try to recycle as much as I can, as you can see by the use of cut down water tanks in this and other photos. Another old pallet is the base for our worm farms.

Very busy bees preparing for winter. Note that half of their entrance on the bottom of the hive has been blocked off to help the guard bees repel the marauding wasps from entering the hive and stealing “my honey”.

Yet another cut down water tank. This one grew potatoes last summer and is now keeping my winter carrots growing. The wall of the tank seems to absorb the daytime heat helping to propagate the carrot seeds and pushing them on continually despite the occasional  cold day. Cut down water tanks work better in winter due to the heat factor as opposed to summer where LOTS of water is needed to ensure continued growth.

Inside my small greenhouse we have lots of continually ripening chillies and capsicums. We should have these right through until June/ July.

The greenhouse with a very healthy banana plant almost blocking off the entrance, courtesy of FGG member Karen.  It has now produced 5 healthy babies to take the place of this adult tree once it produces the fruit for us to eat. Our dog Mollie, head chook babysitter, can't wait as she is hooked on bananas.  The white, recycled of course, polystyrene box in front of the greenhouse  is successfully growing winter lettuce. I did an enormous amount of research before deciding what brand of greenhouse to buy.  This one  has coped with  120 km gusts of  wind, we live in a gully facing North West, and survived. Being extremely strong I would have no hesitation in recommending the SproutWell  brand.

Ah yes, yet another recycled water tank. This time it contains our very healthy Brussel Sprout plants. The recycled netting  was destined for the tip until I saved it to cover our brassica plants. Being  double woven it prevents any white moths from entering so we can eat them with confidence without any fear  of consuming green protein,  aka caterpillars. 

My big mistake.  18 years ago I built these garden beds BUT I ran them down the slope instead of across the contour thus all the nutrients and water made its way to the bottom of the beds. Lady Corona gave me the opportunity/time to fix this problem. With the help from my mate who drove down from Brisbane to house/dog/chook sit for us and got stuck when we couldn’t get out to travel and he couldn’t get back home, we have started . OMG why did I start it in the first place.  So much work and effort. All that dirt has to be shovelled, beds made level, sore backs to be eased back into place etc.

        

   

An experiment.   Brassica seedlings, Chinese cabbage, Buk Choy grown in 200mm (8”) sized pots in soil direct from the chook pen.  Should not work right, pots too small etc. 

The main three types of liquid fertilizers I use in conjunction with worm wine. I purposely grow stinging nettles just for this purpose and banana skins are never wasted. 

The experiment shouldn’t have worked BUT…….. just 6 weeks later !

To sum up we are growing enough vegetables to feed Lindisfarne for all of this winter and next  .  The chooks will get all the greens they need as will most of our neighbours until spring arrives and Lady Corona has departed.  Stay safe everyone and use this valuable time wisely.