Garden vs Time

I'm curled up in bed at 1am writing a post about not having enough time to garden. I've been working in multiple jobs around the clock for the last couple of weeks and the poor garden is a bit neglected. The seedlings that I've raised from seed are way too big for their pots and need planting out, the weeds are crawling up where they can, and the grass is so long that my dog disappears from view when she walks across the lawn.

However, over the last year I've developed some great 'time insurance' systems, which means that the universe doesn't implode if I'm absent for a couple of weeks.  Here are a some of my faves:

1. The watering system.

Sounds complex, but in reality it's only hard for the procrastinator.

I buy the 'starter kits', simply because they're usually cheaper (mitre 10 often does '2 for $15' sales, for instance).  Oh and if you buy the kits, you don't have to look like a fool digging though the buckets of miniscule parts for which you have no idea of their purpose.  Just lay the pipe out in the garden, cutting at bends or t-junctions, and then stick in the upright spray bits (I'm not into technical terms).  Just a word of warning on the fitting of the upright spray bits.  There are little nozzle bits about 5mm in size that have to be fitted to each of the 'rigid risers'. Do NOT attempt to do this in the vegie garden. You will cry. Instead, sit inside one night with a mug of boiling water in front of the telly and a large bar of chocolate and/or wine, softening the risers in the boiling water and squeezing the bastard bits into the impossibly narrow pipes. Your hands will hurt, but that's okay because you're on the pretty path to sanctioned laziness.

The kit will tell you to measure the garden, to draw complex plans etc etc. which, if you're anything like me, will terrify you and result in the kit being abandoned in the corner of the laundry, gathering dust for 3 months. The manufacturer will also direct you to a website where you can develop your complex system, however, you have to have a conformist PC. In retrospect, I'm glad I have a mac and never got the opportunity to be overwhelmed by their program, because it's bloody easy just to go with it.  And luckily the system is fool-proof. If you make a mistake, cut the hose, buy a connector or wrap it in gaffer tape and HUZZAH you've a very snazzy-sounding 'watering system'.

If you want to make it even fancier, you can buy a computerised water timer, but a) that requires a lot more money that I can comprehend spending, and b) it means that you have to work out how many litres/hour your garden needs and I'm not really into that shiz. I have manual timers on each of my 3 taps, which means I just use my own judgement as to when the garden needs watering.  You can buy them for around $10.

Dial and walk away. Happy times

2. Mulch.

Until 18 months ago, I thought mulch was just the pine bark peeps put down to give their gardens a certain 'Aussie suburban' aesthetic.  Yes, I'm a fool. 

Mulch is sugar cane mulch, straw, pea straw on the vegie garden; wood chips around the natives; pine bark under the play equipment; gravel around the standard roses (again, I'm thinking of a specific aesthetic with this last example).  Mulch is great for the time poor gardener not only because it helps retain moisture in the soil and keep the plants at an even temp, but if you chuck on enough, it helps prevent a lot of weeds from sprouting.  Those that do sprout seem to come out more easily too, perhaps because they've grown tall at the expense of strength?

Oh and the sugar cane mulch gives the vegie garden quite a 'professional' look if you want to impress the neighbours.

3. Weed matting

I've just bagged out pine bark, and now I'm waxing lyrical about weed matting. Yep, I'm somewhat hypocritical.

Weed matting looks ugly, but if you want a semi-temporary solution to a lot of weeds re-sprouting, as I need in my post-weed seeding backyard, it's like black gold. Hmmm... maybe I should turn down the hyperbole a little.

After valiantly resisting the roll out (ha) of matting in my backyard, I finally decided that to keep weeding the same naked patches around the fruit trees over and over until I came up with my 'grand plan' for the area, was a false economy.  So I surrounded the area with weed matting over Christmas, and I've never looked back since. It's not going to be there forever, but I love not lying awake at night worrying about the evils that will sprout overnight.

4. The ability to go with it and not freak out about bok choi going to seed, grass overgrowing, or a couple of plants dying.

I will now try and sleep on my last point of advice.

Newspaper mulch, weeds and those birds (you know the ones...)

This was going to be a happy post.  I was going to wax lyrical about the benefits of using newspaper as a weed prohibitor and mulch.  But alas, the blackbirds have hatched for the season.

It takes quite awhile to lay newspaper, particularly if it's around those stupid roses in my front yard which are thankless at best, leaving marks on your wrists that suggest that you're not really coping with life (I know I should just rip the pink-flowering devils out, but I feel guilty at the prospect of killing them).  You have to water the ground underneath, lay some compost, then layer wet newspaper over the surface of the compost (it takes longer than you think), and cover it in pine bark, sugar cane mulch, straw or other similar mulch, so that it doesn't dry out too much or fly away into your anally retentive neighbour's backyard.

The newspaper is fantastic for keeping down weeds and will break down readily, feeding your plants.  Excuse my scepticism, but I believe it's also a far more efficient way of recycling newspaper than the council bins.

However, I didn't take into account the blackbirds.  I can hear them making spring babies in my gutters in the morning.  By mid afternoon, they're digging up the newspaper: scratched up flakes of Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull lying in the dirt amongst the hybernating roses. 

The weeds are rebuilding their empire, and so Spring begins.

The first of the fruit trees is in!

Today I planted the first of my fruit trees: a Greengage/Golden Drop Plum combo.  While the cherry, apple, apricot, plum and nectarine trees are going to be planted along the southern fence in my backyard, I thought I'd plant the mini plum tree out the front for a bit of variety (plus I kinda ran out of space along the boundary fence in the backyard but still wanted a greengage).

I read quite a bit about planting fruit trees - many of them say things like 'start preparing your soil early, 6 months is best' (!).  Despite my best intentions, I haven't had time to even so much as weed the area out the back and the front year patch has only had a bit of minor digging in of mushroom compost.  However, I've spoken to a few v successful gardeners since then, and they all say that as long as you mix some good compost or well-rotted manure into the soil when you dig the hole for the tree, that should be more than enough.  In fact, if you believe some of Peter Cundall's recent articles in the local paper, fruit trees are pretty resilient and can actually benefit from a little neglect!

I mixed in some compost with the soil, and planted the tree in an earth mound for drainage as I have very dense clay soil and plum trees appreciate good drainage apparently.  I then laid wet newspaper over the soil and spread sugar cane mulch over the top.  I've got a lot of crazy little annoying weeds in the area and the newspaper coupled with mulch will stop the weeds from making home in the area and also keep soil damp come summer (that's if the black birds don't dig it all up like they do the pine bark).  I'll also extend my front yard watering system next weekend to include the tree.

I did a wee bit of remedial weeding as well.  As a result of my 3 week leave, I've got a mini weed jungle in the back yard including some very irritating, quick-spreading weeds that have a clover like leaf and a root that stems from a bulb like thing at the bottom.  It's quite hard to pull up the plant without leaving the bulb.  Additionally, if you leave it more bulbs grow on the root stem, and so it spreads.... ergh!

oh the joys of mushroom compost

So after light-starving my inaugural three garden beds (shown in the previous post) in the hope of killing any stray weeds left behind, I uncovered them (hazaah!) and started mulching them with mushroom compost.  Now, at this point I should point out that before my vegie garden course, I didn't know what mulching was, or what mushroom compost was (in fact, I'm pretty sure I didn't even know of the existence of mushroom compost).  Luckily, the course has been jam packed with compost theory and mulch obsession, so I feel that I know a bit more now  (did you know that there's a difference between dirt and soil?!)

Anyhoo, I mulched, then decided to stick in a couple of tomatoes, one of which was given to me by my garden loving neighbour, who has millions of seedlings in his backyard in various yoghurt tubs, plastic cups and bottles.  He just passes them over the fence.  Sweet.

broad beans

I also planted a couple of his broad beans, and I'm hoping that the broad beans that I loathed as a child turn out a bit nicer in adulthood.  I transplanted a passionfruit from the rhubarb bed, which I'd temporarily stuck there, and also put in a few cucumbers (although I now know that cucumbers grow a little differently to how I thought - across, not up - so I may have to move them).

I had sat down originally with my Lost Seed packets to plan out a vegie garden.  I had my companion planting list, my crop rotation diagram which should, theoretically, determine what I plant together as well, and my entire garden map that I drew up a couple of weeks after moving into the house.  Of course, the companion planting and crop rotation groups were totally contradictory, and so I decided to plant things as I went, just as I always have done.

Just a quick note: Lost Seed are a Tasmanian company that make non-hybrid seeds (yes, something else that I learned in my course). Apparently if you want to grow things from seed the following year you're best off getting non-hybrid seeds.   They've got an amazing array of weird seeds.  Luckily for me they have companion planting summaries on each seed packet, listing a plant's likes and dislikes.  I tried to comply, and ended up following the companion planting far more than the crop rotation.  What does that say about me?

The images below show the three beds, with a weedy one in the foreground:

On the top bed, to the left, I have planted some 'Tigerella' tomato seeds.  The stakes make me look a lot more optimistic than I actually am.  They are simply marking the spot where I planted so that I can identify if they don't come up.  Of course if they do come up, the stakes can have the joyous job of holding Tigerella, the stripey (yes!) climbing tomatoes.

Oh, I should point out, on top of the tap thingy, there is a punnet of parsley that my earlier mentioned neighbour passed over.  I must remember to plant so as not to offend, for one of the major disadvantages of having a neighbour who can look down into your backyard  is that they can identify if you haven't planted their carefully raised seedlings.

Next to the Tigerella are some spinach seeds, the cucumbers (to be moved), and then 2 rows of lettuce.  I managed to show some restraint and only sow 2 rows, following the advice on the packet that wisely suggests staggered planting.

On the middle bed, there are (from left to right) the passionfruit plant, celery, some basil and the tomato seedlings planted a couple of weeks ago (this post actually covers about 2-3 weeks activity).  Along the eastern end of the bed are sown more tomato seeds, this time 'Gardener's Delight' of the climbing variety.  You can see more overenthusiastic staking. 

Then on the bottom bed there are the two mystery broad bean seedlings, a heap of dwarf bean seeds (as a gift from my mum), and some cauliflower.

With the exception of the spinach, tomatoes, celery (which was disasterous!) and basil, I've not attempted to grow most of these plants  before, so I'm quite excited to see what a cauliflower looks like, and I'm almost wetting myself over the Tigerellas.