the green house is getting an upgrade!

In honor of spring, here is a blog post. We, meaning mostly Nigel, are giving our greenhouse a makeover. The plastic sheeting has all disintegrated after two years. We were given old windows and 2x4's from friends. The paint came from the tip (dump), they let people take the old cans. So far, we have only had to buy screws! We will repay our friends with veggies.   

The greenhouse 'before' photo.

Nigel painting

Me painting according to Nigels
 instructions, he is a picky painter!

Windows going up.

Sun shining, Spring has arrived!

the leeks that were not

A few weeks ago Nigel and I enjoyed the first of our leeks. They were pretty small. But we roasted them up like asparagus and they tasted great.
We thought that we should let them get bigger before we ate them all up.

Yesterday I was reading about how you should never plant leeks so that they are ready to be harvested in summer. The heat makes them go to seed and makes them tough and stringy.


I went out and had a look. Sure enough our leeks were going to seed. I pulled them all up and got a nice pile. I thought I would clean them all up and make a nice pot of potato leek soup.

By the time I finished salvaging what was edible I had about a cup of leek!

I threw it in a quiche.

Apparently it is important to plant the right things in the right season to get the best result.

 For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.
Ecclesiastes 3:1

the spinach marathon

The Spinach was going to seed.
So thought to myself, I will pull it all out and use what little leaves are left to make some spinach dip.
Well, what "little" leaves that were left turned out to be quite a lot!
They overfilled my big pot.
So I made my spinach dip.
Then I used some in a stir fry last night.
I made an omelet with some this morning.
Nigel used some in his salad to take to work.
I still have a mountain of spinach in my fridge!

Sometimes things are not what they seem at first glance.

I have been thinking about this lately, Things not being what they seem, not spinach.

I am living in a small town at the moment. Everyone knows everyone and everyone knows everybodys business.

So when I meet someone new to me, I make my snap judgements, as you do. Well as I do.
That person is mean, or strange, or .....

Then I will inevitably hear something about their life. Not necessary gossip just a bit of history, since your history in this town is an open book.
 And I will think, oh that makes sense, guess I was a bit harsh. Maybe someday I will learn not to put people into boxes.

You never know from looking at someone where they have come from.

And you never know from looking at the spinach in your garden just how much will fit into a pot.

the pods

radish pods I mentioned earlier that we have been letting our radishes go to seed. It has been so interesting to me.
They are such little plants and yet they have shot up 4 times their original size. And they have these dainty little pink blossoms waving in the wind up the top. I have been watching them daily wondering what they will do next. There had been no sign of any seeds. I thought maybe they would show up somewhere when the flowers fell off.
silverbeets gone wild and lettuce blossoms Little did I know!
Pods!
The radishes are forming little pods. Inside which will be the seeds.
Of course! What was I thinking.
I guess we wait until they dry up and then crack em open.

Watching our plants go to seed is a bit of a journey for me.

It is a slow process in this fast paced life of ours. It would be much more "efficient" to just buy some new seeds from the shop and plant them than to wait the months for these plants to produce their own.

Now beside the fact that buying the seeds from the shop is not the best long term. Dont get me started on seed companies!

There is something about the letting the plants go through their natural process.

The journey of planting a seed.
Watching it grow.
Enjoying the fruit from the plant.
Watching the plant grow some more.
Enjoying the beauty of the blossoms.
Watching the plant grow more.
Harvesting the seed.
Planting a new seed.
There is more sometimes in the slow journey.

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the conclusion on toilet paper rolls in the garden

Things are growing around here. We are busy in the green house moving our heat loving plants into bigger pots as it it still too cold to put the outside. We are busy moving not so sensitive plants out of the green house and into the ground. We are busy in the gardens mulching and weeding and putting up things for our climbers to climb on.

I talked about in an earlier post that we were using egg cartons, newspaper pots and toilet paper rolls for our seedlings. I have come to the conclusions that TP rolls are out. I am not sure why but our seeds did not seem to do as well in them. They also dont seem to decompose very quickly in the soil. So after one short season of research this is our preferred method of starting seeds.

 The egg cartons are great for starting smaller seeds. They need to be kept moist. It seems that one of those pressure mister sprayer bottles works best. We tried a normal spray bottle and it took FOREVER. Once the seedlings get about this big you will notice their roots are starting to come through the bottom. Time to transfer to the newspaper pots.

The newspaper pots are great. I watch a you tube video to get the jist of it. Just don't use the glossy paper. Bad chemicals! They are good for planting bigger seeds like pumpkin and for moving small seedlings from the egg cartons into. When you plant them in to ground you can put the whole pot in but we have been carefully unfolding the paper and planting them without the pot. The paper seems a bit thick to me.

After the paper pots we have been moving some things into the ground into the green house, some things outside, and others into plastic pots. Whey need more room to grow but cant go outside yet, It seems a shame to use plastic now when we have avoided it thus far but I have yet to come up with a cheap alternative. Any ideas?!

the potato tires

We are trying to grow potatoes in tires this year.
The tire method seems good for a few reasons.
1. You dont have to dig around for your potatoes. They will all be in the tire.
2.You can harvest them one tire at a time.
3.The black tire keeps the soil nice and warm which means we were able to start our potatoes early.

You start out with one tire. Put your seed potato in it and cover it with soil. As the potato starts to show its green leaves you cover it with more soil adding more tires as needed.

We are stopping with three. We heard of a woman who went six high!

We also have some lettuce planted with the potatoes and some beans. The beans will give the soil some good nitrogen. The potatoes will give the lettuce some shade. And everyone's happy!

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the radish trees

We are loving having a garden. This is the first time since we have been married that we have been in one place long enough to plant and watch grow and enjoy the fruits or vegetables of a garden!
Spring is slowly on its way and we are waiting a bit impaitently to get stuff into the groud. There is still a bit to keep us busy.

We have let some of our winter radishes go to seed. It is interesting. You dont usually see vegetables in their flower/seed form. I have yet to see the seeds, but the little pink flowers are pretty. And they are so tall! Little trees.

Nigel built us a pea wheel for the circle garden. I think it is going to look great once the peas start climbing.
 We have tried some mulch on the onions and carrots. After a bit of research we have decided to use dried pine needles from the paddock which have the added benefit of being laced with sheep poo. Nice right? And on top of this we have sprinkled coffee grounds which I collect from the cafe. I found a blog where this woman tried a bunch of different mulches. I might do some testing of my own!

the green little green house

Aprons are out and gardening is in at the moment. Okay who am I kidding I have been slack on the aprons for quite some time.

I have however been up to some new projects. Nigel made us a wonderful little green house. The frame was already here stuck under some trees. He found some thick plastic and got to work.

It is so great. We pretend it is our own little conservatory and have breakfast out there together when we are both home in the mornings.

I have been doing a bit of "green" reading the last couple years. I have been inspired by Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and No Impact Man and slightly freaked out by Plastic Free (I haven't yet finished this book, I got too scared!)
So with all that green info in my back pocket we are trying to grow veggies from seed and take care that we are thinking about what is going into them right from the start.
We found a place not far from us that sells heirloom seeds, and have been getting our seedlings ready in the greenhouse to go outside when the last hint of frost has passed.
Some cool ideas we have found out and put into practice are growing our seeds in egg cartons, toilet paper rolls, and making our own newspaper "pots" for the bigger ones.
It all seems so much nicer than starting our seeds in plastic pots that may or may or be leaching who knows what into the plant!
Also nicer for the plant since at planting time they can just pop straight into the soil in what ever paper pot they are in at the moment.
 PS I am aware of the irony of trying to have a plastic free garden in a plastic green house!

the kale

We got to enjoy some of the fruits....ah veggies....of our winter garden yesterday. Some very large radishes, cabbage and a colander full of kale. That kale grew all winter long and didnt really get too big, but it is enough for some veggie soup. That is Luna in the background wondering what I have done with her kale patch. I often found her sitting in the middle of it chomping on the kale, might be part of the reason it stayed so small! Our cute kale eating cat.