Child of the Planet

In the past couple of years gardening, I've made several attempts at controlling the impact of local wild life on my garden. One year on the raised gardens, I tried a couple of things.  The planks between the tomato plants worked quite well. The frost cloth protecting seedlings less so. Break apart a shipping pallet and leave holes for lettuce to grow through. Once the plants are big enough to survive bird and cat meddling, I remove the boards. Nothing slows down birds quite like fence mesh and some planks. This instillation was protecting saffron.     I've cut up plastic milk bottles and made small walls around the base of plants in an attempt to stop slugs. The theory is that they get to the rough lip and turn back. No idea how successful this has been slowing down the slugs but it reduces the smothering of debris from birds foraging nearby .

(Continuing my short series on veg protection. Earlier posts were  Part one  and  Part two ) The first year I had a few small bunches of grapes appear on my new vines, was the first year I didn't get any grapes in my belly due to the local bird life. Some people wrap the whole vine in netting. This isn't practical at my place as the vines are all suspended under a balcony roof. I decided to find a way to protect each bunch of grapes individually. I found some plastic expanding mesh bags on the internet. I place the bag around the fruit when it first appears Slipped over the young grapes as soon as they appear. The bag expands as the fruit grows Works on strawberries too

This week I planted some 'new girl' tomatoes and assorted capsicums. I think these hybrids are a recent innovation. They weren't on the web site last year. I purchased them because they are described as 'fruiting early'. Like the 'early girl' variety, but had a better taste. I don't have a lot of luck with seeds so I'm not getting my hopes up and have placed the tray in a warm upstairs room. [Update 3rd Oct] 'New girls' are mostly all up. Could still be too cool for capsicums and they are old seeds. Planted some zucchini. [Update 4th Oct] My first successful germination of a capsicum seed. [Update 9th Oct] The zucchini are pretty much exploding out of the ground, [Update 12th Oct] It's a rainy ol day today, spring has been interrupted by a cold blast from down south. I think it's getting close to the time when I'll start moving the successful seedlings outside to harden them up. Looks

Now if I can just get them to survive the spring winds

... and I haven't planted a single seed yet. Wanted to buy a single packet of New Girl tomato seeds. While most online retailing gives you the option of 'logging on' or passing through to the checkout, Egmonts forces one to log in. Pain in the bum. Then the postage charged was as much as the seeds, which I thought was strange. Can't they just slip it into an envelope? They did offer me a complimentary pack of seeds which softened the experience a bit. A package completely out of proportion with the purchase arrived today. They have sent me a weighty paper catalogue, which I guess duplicates the web site listing I used to make the purchase. Whaaaa???? If I used the web to make the purchase, why would I want a paper catalogue? So this went straight in the fire box and I get to morn the damn tree that died for this obscene duplication of effort. Also the seeds were wrapped in plastic padding. Whaaaaa????? A bit of paper towel would have done the