While on holidays we stayed with my wife's parents. They live in a small saw mill town southwest of Gladstone. They have had no rain for over 10 months and the ground was rock hard and had 25mm cracks, it was so dry! While we were there they had over 125mm of rain which was good, however they still need over 250mm in one event to get the river to run again.
Grandma's vege patch had to be sacrificed to make way for a new car port a few months ago. Grandma and Grandad are 70 and 80 years old so I thought I would make them a garden where they don't have to bend too much. The good news is that off the car port a 10,000 litre tank is being installed just for using on the garden, it is so important to be able to make a water commitment to the garden, even more so when you are relient on tank water for your house.
When I arrived I noticed the packing sheets for the roofing iron were still there (you don't throw out anything when you in the middle of nowhere) I check to see if I could use the sheets and hunted around for some timber, I found some 125mm x 50mm hardwood that was part of the old tank stand. Grandad had all the tools I needed, I planned back the hardwood, trimmed the sheets of iron to the right height, cut the timber to length, drilled and bolted the timber together to make the corner supports then screwed the iron to the corners. Grandad had a great idea to use an old hose split down the side and placed over the sharp edge of the iron so you wouldn't get hurt while gardening. These cost hundred of dollars at large hardware chains and don't look nearly as stylish as my scrap heap one. The dimensions of this garden are approx. 3000mm x 1500mm x 750mm.
Into this I made a no dig garden, being in a saw mill town wood chip was easy to get, the farm up the road had a few bales of straw we could have (fodder was scarce due to no rain) and there was manure galore down by the roadside a couple of minutes drive out of town.
See my blog on No Dig Garden info :-
My coffee beans are ready to pick, I had a look on Google to find out how prepare them, it takes about a weeks work to make a cup of coffee... I'll let you know if I make it that far.
My Cherry Tomatoes haven't stopped growing, the kids usually get them before they get to the plate.
I've tried growing Zucchini's in spring and I only get a few before they die off from powdery mildew on the leaves. This year, mid winter in a north facing garden, I have been eating these every night for over a week.
A friend of a friend was giving away heaps of Bok Choy seedlings. I got hold of about 30-40 of them and I've planted them in any spare spot I can find.
This is Mustard Greens, the leaves are great in salads and stir fry. The leaves taste like old english mustard, I must try them on a hot dog one day. I had these growing last year, come spring they went to seed, I just let them go and the seed scattered. The Sweet Potato grew over the top of them etc. Come winter and hey presto they are back.
