The Great Garden Adventure

Blimey, it's been a while

2008-04-12T14:20:00.004+12:00

I've just realised how long it's been since I updated here. I've not really been near the garden for most of the summer, life seems to be taking over. Tareka has been dropping in a couple of times a month for weeding and sowing, and Liz drops the harvest round now and again.
We're now pretty much into Autumn here, so the weather is cooling off, and the apples are falling.

We got some chillies growing that seem to play russian roulette with your tongue, some are not hot in the slightest and some are painful! Here they are growing upside down (well we are in New Zealand!)

The piggies have reproduced! So Liz and Jason have some gorgeous piglets running around (not in the greenhouse fortunately, as they are now hemmed in by an electric fence). I'd love one, but we're not allowed a pig in town :(

Oh joy! A quantity of overgrown radishes!

2007-11-19T14:02:00.000+13:00

They are as big as ping pong balls!

Here are some pictures of the garden and the NEW ORCHARD! None of the radishes I'm afraid.

Tareka has put up the bird netting as we've got our FIRST RASPBERRIES! Mapera spotted them soon after the pictures were taken, so they've gone now :)

Protection from raiding birds and babies:

Greenhouse in need of a hoe:

The new orchard!

New beginnings

2007-10-10T15:05:00.000+13:00

Well the majority of the greenhouse is gone, so we are re-locating the permanent planting outside, but we still have a decent plot to put this years veggies in.
Tareka has been doing most of the work, bless him, as it's a little more difficult for me to help with a toddler and an infant to look after.
We've got potatoes, carrots, cauli, cabbage and broccoli in, as well as beans and tomatoes. Definitely not growing so many courgettes this year (I still have loads in the freezer from last year!), but we need a lot more carrots.

Berry patch!

2007-09-07T16:14:00.000+12:00

Starting from the far end of the garden we have: Gooseberries, lime tree, redcurrants on the left, blackcurrants on the right, rhubarb then raspberries and hybridberries on the left and blackberries and hybridberries on the right.
Rasps and blackberries with a couple of hybridberries (like boysenberries)

Rhubarb!
Currants
Tahitian limes (yes, yellow limes)

Updates

2007-07-31T20:50:00.000+12:00

Well, Tareka and Jason dismantled the collapsed bit of greenhouse, so we now only have 1 bay left in which to plant undercover, but we were thinking a lot of the stuff we want to grow will be fine outside, so we're not losing out on much. We've all been really busy with other things lately, and with new baby on the way it's looking likely that the garden will be taking a back seat for a while.

The berry garden back at our house is finally all in though. We have 3 gooseberry bushes, 2 redcurrant, 2 blackcurrant, 3 raspberry, 3 blackberry and 2 hybridberry (which are a bit like boysenberry). Tareka is constructing a frame for the bird netting now, so come summer we should have a decent crop and jam making will ensue!

Pictures of the berry patch to come.

Destruction!

2007-07-13T16:43:00.000+12:00

We've had a night of high winds and rain over in the Land of the Long White Cloud, and it's done some serious damage to the plastic houses where we're growing the veg. One side of one of the bays has completely collapsed and is utterly knackered! T and J are planning to take it down on the next free weekend, but it looks like we're losing half the space we had planned for veggies! It was going to be the permenant bed area, so we may still be able to do that, just out in the open.

Here's a picture finally!

The menagerie

2007-07-01T19:21:00.000+12:00

OK, so I finally got around to taking some pictures of the beasties at our mates' place where we're growing our garden. They have 3 kuni-kuni piglets who are a great form of waste-disposal and 3 chickens who don't seem to lay much! We're planning to get some sheep in too, and when the orchard is planted, the piggies will be able to run around in there and clean up for us!
Here's a few pics of the beasts and one of the garden, which is back to pretty much bare land now that we're in Winter once again.

Better late than never!

2007-06-22T11:08:00.001+12:00

Ah well, it's been almost a year since I started this thing! The garden has provided so much food that Liz and I have been bottling, pickling and preserving til our head's span.
BabyM loves the garden and likes helping to pick (and eat) the cherry tomatoes best of all!
We're into winter now, so we're clearing beds, digging over ground and getting some new plants in the ground - mainly brassicas at this time of year.
Hubby and I are also in the process of creating a soft-fruit garden in our back garden, and so far we have 3 gooseberry bushes and 2 redcurrants.

Photos as soon as I have some!

It's all starting to sprout!

2006-08-20T15:10:00.000+12:00

Well, it's been almost a whole month since we started the garden. The first row of beds have been dug and planted, or sown. The first plants are growing well and the seeds are sprouting.

We have had a few casualties though, the peas didn't germinate at all, so have been replaced with Dwarf beans (I'm growing Dwarves!!), and the parsnips don't seem to be appearing yet, but I am keeping my fingers crossed.

We've planted according to a rough plan of companion cropping, so we are sowing plants that don't compete with each other in neighbouring beds, and we are also planting flowers and herbs in amongst the veggies which will encourage specific insects for pollination, or deter pests.

We have enough room in the poly tunnel to move the entire garden each year, so we're not worrying about crop rotation, however, we are making sure that one area will be left to rest every year, and keeping a note of where we're planting each type of veg.

A few pictures:

How it all began

2006-06-27T20:45:00.000+12:00

My husband, two friends and I have decided to grow some vegetables together. Our friends - Liz and Jason - have 2.5 acres of land, and a goodly chunk of it was contained in large poly-tunnels. They decided that it would be too much work for just the two of them, so invited us in on the project.

In order to create our herbivore's utopia, Liz and I began by sending the men out to do some demolition on the broken bits of poly-tunnel, creating an open area which will eventually become the orchard, and possible rooting ground for a pet pig.

Then Liz created a detailed plan of what we were planting where - one quarter of the space will be sprayed off and left to rest under black plastic; one quarter will be where we dump the manure, and eventually will become a permenant bed for asparagus, rhubarb, and various herb shrubs; one quarter will be beds for things that take a lot of space - such as pumpkins - and the last quarter will be the rows of veg.

Liz and I are keen on the idea of companion cropping, where you plant various herbs and flowers between crop rows to encourage beneficial insects, and discourage pests. Liz took a guide to this away and drew up our planting scheme for the veg rows.

Tareka and I went over today to begin the preparation. We had the vague plan that we would uncover a section at a time (it's all covered with black plastic to retard weed growth), irrigate and plant.
We didn't realise quite how dry the soil was, so we set about fiddling with the irrigation system in order to wet the soil enough to plant into.

The irrigation system did not take kindly to the tweakings of an untrained hand, and promptly popped a pipe.

Tareka discussed the issue with Liz and she and Jason will look into the irrigation system over the coming week, so Tareka and I can get stuck into some planting as soon as possible.

Once the beds can be prepared, we will be planting cabbage, silver beet and cauliflower. It's midwinter over here, so brassicas are the order of the day.

As you can see, baby Mapera was assisting Daddy by eating all the unwanted soil!