Child of the Planet

 

Hoping that the Spring winds have blown themselves out so have taken down the ‘zombie defences’. You can see what the garden looked like ( here ).

Herbs such as the thyme and oregano seem to be doing really well. One of the types of lettuce is hanging in there. I had to remove the coriander as it ‘went to seed’ and will try again in the winter. Added some spinach donated from a neighbour. Celery is also going to seed. Will be adding the basil that I successfully germinated from seed this year.

Another regular past failure of mine has been potatoes ( read here ). This time around there is lots of foliage but if it's anything like the garlic, there isn't much indication of action happening underground. Also, I didn't know that potatoes bore fruit!

The lemon hedge looked very sparse after all the leaves were striped by winter winds ( read here ). I'm happy to report that they seem to be making a comeback. Possibly due to the urine/seaweed/comfrey tea that I applied a few weeks back?

Random mat of seedlings that appeared in the garden bed, has turned out to be hundreds of self seeded tomato seedlings I spend so much time nurturing veg that I couldn't just rip them all out. Following the 'no dig' theory, I punched some holes into cardboard that had been laid down to kill the grass, and planted out some of those seedlings. A week later and some of the transplants died. Luckily I have a 'mat' of tomato seedlings on stand by as replacements.

Temp seems to be averaging above 20°C so I'm peeling back the plastic to let the unadulterated environment in ( click here to read about cover ).

Tomatoes are rocking along. These are replacements for some plants that didn’t ‘take’. I didn’t grow from seed, I used the ‘lateral’ cloning that you can read about here .

One last try next year. Looking to change the spacing, grow some out the back, maybe do some companion planting. Also start an extra month earlier.

Read about the garden I established ( here ). These were started in the poly-tunnel.

The spring westerlies have arrived, and my wind mitigation devices make the veg garden look more like fortifications for the zombie apocalypse. I’ve been experimenting for years ( read here ) and I think that I’ve decided that localised demount-able breaks are the best solution. Everything is held together with roofing screws so it’s easy to take down once the winds have buggered off.