Next winter plans

- Plant sugar Bon Bon and cover with fine wire immediately, sparrows and snails will stunt or kill it and it will never ever grow.

- Red Russian, curly kale, Brussel sprouts, and purple broccoli. No dino kale or Georgia collard. Only 3 each max except broccoli. And SPACE them out.

- loads of broad beans as green manure. 

- cornflower is adored by the native bees

- as well as radish flowers, they are also pink and edible and the pods are loved by mother and Aunty. Give lots of sun and space out. 

- sorrel will barely tolerate high sun and brown. Borage will shrivel eventually and burn. 

- pick watermelon radish and daikon root young! 

- plant enough beets for 1 a fortnight is enough! 

- try winged bean and purple King bean again. 

Summer Gardening - Pot Compost Potting Mix!

Oh I'm hopeless!
I learned why my seedlings take forever to grow. REPOT THEM!

These seedlings are several months old! 

I repotted the baby tomatoes and the friendly black bird did dig around the seedlings, they find the friable compost topping irrisistable to search for insects, but none were unearthed as i planted them deeply!
Still have the gooseberries to go and quite a few other plants too. Will try get them done before christmas shopping tomorrow!
I'm trying to strike a bunch of plants and the mints are looking pretty crappy.
I had a swarm of these flies i have not identified yet.
I also put a pepino in the soil to see if it faired better than the pots. It's quite a drought tolerant plant i'm finding!
I managed to grow a pumpkin in an ICECREAM CONTAINER! I'm surprised too. Volunteer! I hope it will produce some female flowers though!

POT COMPOST POTTING MIX - Black, Friable, Nutrient Rich!
I also experimented with a cool new trick to make BEAUTIFUL dark soil for plants rich in organic matter- that means its good for pots because it holds water!
I collect banana peels (Potassium) and egg shells (Calcium) and just toss them all in a newspaper bottomed pot (as these are great for tomato season). I also grab plants I am pulling up (Ie the greens for beets, stray sunchoke stalks, broad beans and etc) and any trimmings i will cut up and place in a pot. THEN i put in a shove full of worms from the vermicompost tower and a layer of any dirt, even rubbish clay or sand. I then basically keep adding in clippings (grass or plants) and various scraps, and keep it watered. By the time it is full it is composed enough, nice and black and rich and i imagine my new plant will be really happy! I may need a top layer of soil to plant the seedlings in but that's it.

I'm super happy with how rich this soil came out, and with the edition of vermicompost, i can tell there was also some bacterial decomposition due to how dark it was (and vermicompost is a brownish, compost is more black). It looked so good I was super impressed. I've done this with grass clippings and soil and water in a cardboard box before, it only takes a few weeks to turn to a beautiful black mix.