permaculture

The propagators

A few weeks ago I set up a new 'propagator' to raise seedlings in. It's constructed from bricks, laserlite and a couple of metal shelves. The bricks at the side and middle create the frame, the shelves are placed above the second layer of bricks, with more bricks on top, and the laserlite curves over the whole thing. I've put sheep and horse poo, mixed with some straw, under the shelves, to keep the seedlings warm (much to Bruce's amusement). We've also just rebuilt the little shadehouse that blew down last November, replacing the shadecloth with the 'hot-house' cover, and again filling the bottom with manure, so we now have loads of room to raise seedlings in.

Click on photo to enlarge image

Getting organised ...

No photo in this posting - the garden is getting too big to photograph from ground level and its about to get bigger, as we'll be moving the chooks on to circle 5 and planting out circle 4 this weekend. Once that's done, I plan to persuade Bruce to climb onto the roof of the house and take an aerial photo of the mandala in all its glory.
My New Year's resolution is to get better organised, as I just discovered that, in spite of raising masses of pak choi and rosette pak choi seedlings, I have none growing in my garden. This can only mean that I mistakenly gave my entire crop of seedlings away to Janet, my employer. It's just as well that my office window overlooks her veggie patch, so I'll be able to harvest some of the produce anyway.
Happily, among my Xmas presents were a kitchen garden diary and an astrological calendar with exact lunar planting times and dates, so I'll know what to plant when, and I'll be able to keep track of what I've planted. I see that the first 'fertile period' of the New Year - auspicious for the planting of fruiting annuals such as beans, tomatoes and corn - is from 4.03pm on January 1st to 5.00am on January 4th. That should give me plenty of scope for getting seeds planted, without needing to be outside at midnight, planting by the light of the moon (which I think is Bruce's impression of lunar planting).

New seedlings

I seem to have got somewhat carried away with growing seedlings. At the last count (just before planting out circle 3) I had about 150 seedlings planted out into milk carton pots. Here are the latest crop, most of which will end up in circle 4 in a couple of weeks ...

Meanwhile, Bruce, who has been relegated to the pumpkin patch since I took over the main veggie garden, has made the front garden look delightful ...

The shadehouse, before and after

This is the shadehouse this morning, filled with seedlings (including the asparagus seedlings that I've been growing for about a year, and which I had just put into the shadehouse to protect them from the cat, who apparently finds them delicious).

And here is the shadehouse after the gale. Luckily I had just moved some of the bigger seedlings into the garden, ready to be planted out, and most of the asparagus miraculously survived being turned upside down. The main casualty was the Grosse Lisse tomato seedlings that I had been growing for Bruce (who isn't impressed by the Tommy Toe, Brandywine, Burwood Prize, Tatura Dwarf, Prosperity, Roma and Cherry Cocktail that I was already growing) - sadly they were nowhere to be seen when we searched the wreakage of the shadehouse.

Raising seeds

After months of struggling to raise seedlings, the weather has warmed up and everything has taken off. I have been starting them off in a propagator ...

... then planting them out into milk cartons.

Once they are 10-15 cm tall, they are ready to go into the garden.