Here is the produce I've grown in the last year to keep us up to date! ( Keep in mind I'm a total noob, and feel recipes are just a guideline (this is not so with plants, I've learned- but I can't help my rebelious ways!)
WHY?
Because I was contemplating one day, how can I really make a difference and save the world? And the biggest way is to make our own food. We need food, shelter and clothing to survive. As we eat multiple times a day, this is a very important third of our needs met. Every item we grow, is an item we didn't pay to have chemicals pumped into the earth to keep pests away, and poison bees - an item we didn't pay for fossil fuels to pollute the atmosphere to transport it to our homes, and to run a refridgerator for storage for it to become stale. Why do this, when we can eat it fresh and free. It's a chain reaction. You plant food, that needs food itself, so you recycle any bit of organic material into compost to feed it. Pretty simple! It's amazing for the earth, our bodies, and every fellow human and future generations- by making that much smaller a carbon footprint- to save our Earth!
Homemade gluten free Lentil Bread with garden fillings
Gardening lesson # 1. Plants love sun...and if you don't give them enough, they will be "me" versions of plants (10% of their supposed height)
Gardening Lesson #2: Plants like water, if you don't water them, you will cause a deficiency of calcium causing leaves to curl and blossum end rot everywhere, as well as literally burning your plants to a crisp. Talk about solar DEHYDRATOR, and virtually no yields!
Also, powdery mildew, blight, and all other mouldy/fungus nasties, and pest insects freaking suck.
In "short":
1- Plants need sun...but not australian sun. So, give them like 6 hours of cool sun, but on hot days give them a shade cloth.
2- Plants need water. So water them....not like me....and let them dry to a crisp
3- Plants need good soil. Also, don't ever put clay in pots...STUPIDEST THING EVERRRRRR.
4- Plants that are super delicious need to be covered in a fine net to keep out the butterflies/moths etc. My beautiful tom thumb lettuce is only alive because of this.
5- Maybe don't prune your tomatoes so much....and stake them well, and burry them deeply.
6- Pots kind of suck for growing most edible plants. Also, sun and pots suck. Pots and clay suck....Basically only plant mediterranian things in pots with clay in the sun. Everything else will suffer.
7- Pick often for encouraging more harvest...and only so much as you can eat in that time or else think of preserves or sharing.
8- Don't spend all your money on seeds....
9- Plant in batches, this way harvest isn't all on the same day! Also don't put all your eggs in one basket. Plant in different areas to see peak area for each plant.
10- Don't cry when your plants die because you never watered them and you put them in clay in a pot in the sun. That's your fault entirely.
11- Catch the pests early (powdery mildew....harlequin beetles) or else you have no chance.
12- Plant things when you're meant to, or else they will grow and die before they produce, just depleting your soil for no reason.
13- COMPOST EVERYTHING!!!!!
14- Mulch. - Which blackbirds love to dig around in.... *woe*
15- For the love of God, LABEL YOUR SEEDLINGS! (and use a soil that you know has no seeds in it, not like me who tries to compost the birds wasted seed and ends up sprouting it everywhere)
16- The best seedling pots are folded newspaper placed in a stairmaid tub, filled from the bottom with seasol water, and topped with fine mesh to keep out leaf miners and other pests, but let sun in. Plant the whole thing in the soil but make sure the top doesn't stick out because it will wick the water out drying the plant! You can make a lot of seedlings, and have a few trays going in batches, they get the best start, and it costs nothing if you have the tub lying around (I did). This being said...
17- REPOT ASAP. Plants will stunt and pause in a miniature state if you do not repot. If you are wondering why it is growing so slow, repot and see the transformation in a week. Truely-truely even if you think, "but there is so much room it looks so small" JUST REPOT!!!! I waited a total of 2 months for my "seedlings" to take off, only to discover planting out a few made those selected ones grow 3 times the size while the others didn't budge an inch! Simple. No growth = stunted, don't think it is growing, it has stopped. No fertilizer will fix lack of root room!
Autumn batch
My Attempted Sows:
DEAD: Strawberry Spinach, Capsicum,
DYING: Chia,
SURVIVNG: Borage, Marrow (1 fruit), Stevia, Sunflowers, Tigerella- Australian yellow stuffing- Pepino etc Tomatoes, Persimmon (2), Turnips, Compost Heap, Vermicompost Tower, Lemon, Basil, Dark Opal Basil (1), Zucchini (3 fruit), Sweet Max Corn (3 and 3 mini ones), Dinosaur Kale, Lentil, Fig (1, the bird took the rest), Cornflower, Black Nightshade, Dill (meh), Snow Peas (handful), Purple Kind Bean (Handful), Rosella (no flowers yet), Eggplant (3 mini fruit- with worms inside, ew), Mushoom Herb (Only a few small harvests), Mushroom- (just a few).
THRIVING: Mouse Melon, Grape (leave only, birds ate the rest), Boisenberry (Few handfuls), Silver Beet, Olive Plant, Southern Wormwood, Apricot (WAY too much!), Nectarine, Lettuce (Just enough!), Nasturtium (just enough!), Olive Tree (Plenty for canning!), Purple Broccoli (half as what we need), Sunchoke, Chamomile, Mints, Strawberry, Mimosa (finally!), Chinese Celery, Rocket, Oregano, Pineapple sage, Purple King Bean, Parsley...
I'm not very good at this gardening thing yet...
My Garden in the Summer (It's always organic and messy, I like to confuse the predators that way, it works!)
PROBLEMS:
Blossum end rot took most of the tomatoes, zucchini, marrow, mildew took the marrow and zucchini. Watermelons were planted too late. Same with corn, began to mould had to pull early. Lots of harlequin bugs all over the place sucking at the sunflower and tomatoes. Not enough sun for the eggplant at all. Not enough watering either. Caterpillars and mostly leaf miners decimated my greens. Only greens under a net were good enough to eat. Also the fact that I saw very few bees compared to my childhood worries me deeply- So next time MORE FLOWERS!!
PESTS:
Summer Enemies: Leaf Miners, fungus, birds and caterpillars, Winter Enemies : earwigs and snails!
YOU CAN NEVER AND WILL NEVER WIN THE WAR!
Autumn, Winter: Slugs and sparrows and caterpillars.
Summer and spring: Earwigs and leaf miners, harlequin beetles, powdery mildew, blight, mould, fungus.
SOIL:
Heavy thick clay, which has been improved on the last year, with vermicompost, and mushroom compost (introduced many weeds as well as i assume the mildew that's covered my silverbeet and black marks on grape vine as never had this issue!), kitchen scraps and shredded paper. The other areas of the garden are like a rock. It's a miracle the plants grow, the first 1cm is a rich hummus, and under that is thick clay with a surprising amount of worms!
SUN:
Due to a shallow yard, tall trees and south facing house, we surprisingly get very little sun, on the smallest portion of vegie patch. The areas with the most sun is lawn or concrete, I have moved pots and containers to some of these areas where I can, which has rectified, somewhat, the situation.
WATER:
I would LOVE a rainwater tank, but alas this cannot be. Instead I water minimally with the hose, feeling guilty for every drop I use.
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