Month: February 2010
Onions in three colours
These are the last of our onion harvest. In all we harvested several dozen onions, with a mix of red, white and brown varieties.
A reasonable haul, but I was hoping for many more. Looking back, I made several mistakes:
- Uncharacteristically, I planted too few. Unlike plants like silverbeet which I consistently over-plant, I could easily have fitted in twice or three times the number of onions into the available space.
- I planted them too early. Only afterwards did I read that onions should be planted after the shortest day of the year, so many of the onions peaked too soon, at a small size. No matter, these were treated as pickling onions, and were wonderful in beef stews, etc.
Taking these lessons on board, I’m going to allocate more space to onions this year, and hope to have a bumper crop!
Seedballs: from Fukuoka to Green Guerillas
Milkwood Permaculture have posted a great piece on creating seedballs, for guerilla gardening or just plain efficiency. To quote:
The poetry of the Seedball concept is simple, yet immense. Encase a seed (or seeds) in a protective jacket of clay, creating a Seed ball. Distribute Seedballs across ground, not worrying if this day, or this month even, is the best time to ‘sow’. Protected from insects, buirds, heat and sunlight until the time is right, the seedball activates with a rain event which is sufficient to soak through the clay coating to germinate the seed. Which incidentally is the sort of rain event that you want to have directly following the perfect seed sowing day. And that’s it. But that’s not all.
I picked up some seedballs at a local event recently, and I’m trying them out in our garden. I’ll report back.
Our native stingless bees have just arrived!
Very exciting! Our native stingless bees arrived today via courier. I ordered them from Tim Heard of Sugarbag in Queensland. I thought I would have to wait several months, but it was only a few weeks before they arrived via courier.
I’d already picked out a place for them, on the side fence beside the house. This gives the hive morning sun (useful in winter), and keeps it out of the strong afternoon sun (vital in summer). Over the weekend, I constructed a small platform for the hive to sit on (with some help).
Then it was just a mater of putting up the hive, and removing the plug from the front entrance, and the one from the ventilation hole at the back. Immediately they fly out to scope out the neighbourhood, and to find their bearings.
So why bees? The native stingless bees are much smaller than European bees, and as the name suggests, don’t sting. This is a good thing. The main reason for having them is to improve pollination rates for my vege patch, and for the fruit trees planned for later.
They’re not going to produce much, if any honey. If they do, that’s a bonus. I just like the idea of them flying around, tending to our plants and bringing a little bit of the bush into Lewisham …
Beetroot!
Over the past few months I’ve been growing beetroot in the herb garden. It has taken a while because the first time I planted them, I didn’t realise there were 2-3 plants clumped together in each mini-punnet which hindered their growth. When I realised, I then separated them out so they each had space to expand.
The label said these were baby beets, but as you can see from the photo below, they grow large if you allow them to!
James pickled four of the beets with vinegar and some spices, yum 🙂
Four beets made three jars of beetroot, which is tastier than the tinned supermarket variety.
The beetroot leaves taste similar to spinach so we’ll be eating that later in the week.
The tomato harvest
We’ve had a reasonable first year for tomatoes. Plenty of fruit, but we were hit hard by fruit fly and caterpillars (who decided they preferred eating the fruit from the inside out, rather than just munching on leaves). This wiped out most of the Grosse Lisse (the first to fruit), and half of all the rest. In the end, it was the yellow tomatoes that were the star, juicy and even sweeter than the red variety.
Once we’d eaten them fresh, there was still 5-6kg of tomatoes left over. Having collected four different preserving books, I created:
- Roast tomato passata (orange and yellow, referring to the colour not the taste)
- Tomato ketchup (superb, a real crowd pleaser!)
- Tomato chilli pickle (also a winner, wonderfully fruity flavour)
I’ve cut back the plants, and hold out some hope for a second crop of fruit. We’ll see.
Many lessons learnt this year, including putting out the fruit fly baits from the outset. Next year I’m aiming for at least 10kg of tomatoes.
Garden snapshot: summer 2010
I’ve had a few comments from blog readers asking for a view of the whole vege garden. So here it is!
As mentioned in earlier posts, all our vege gardening happens at the front of the house, as this is where the sun is. It also makes great use of the odd triangle of land beside our house, even if it means working on a slope. The best thing, though, is the conversations it generates with other local residents, or general passer-byers.
These are our main garden beds, mostly corrugated iron dug into the slope. Starting at the front of the photo working back towards the fence:
- potatoes (not sure these are working well)
- fallow bed (getting replanted on the weekend)
- tomatoes, basil and pumpkins
- tomatoes, basil and sugar snap peas
- tomatoes, basil and broccolini
Beside the fence:
- cucumbers
- climbing beans
- raspberry
- passionfruit
- citrus trees (2x oranges, lemon, lime)
- silverbeet
- herbs, various
We’ve also got a series of smaller beds tucked in under the eaves. Starting from the front:
- common mint
- thai basil
- silverbeet
- spring onions, carrots and cabbage
- more of the same
- pumpkins
As a novice gardener, I’m still getting the hang of timing, so I don’t feel that the space is being fully used yet. (I seem to have at least one fallow bed at any given point.) Still, not a bad collection for a tiny suburban space!
New super-efficient hot water heater
When we moved into our house, I was “pleased” to discover that our hot water system dated back to 1988 (a new record for our plumber!). A Rheem gas hot water system, it mostly worked, but it was clearly just a matter of time before it failed.
After doing some research, our new water heater went in today. It’s a Bosch 26eco+ instantaneous gas system, with a whopping 6.9 star rating (out of a possible 6 stars). By comparison, most houses seem to be putting in 5 or 5.1 star systems.
Why we choose this:
- We looked closely at solar hot water, both conventional and evacuated tube systems. Two big problems: we’re really short on sunny roof space, and these systems cost $4k+.
- In the end, we decided that solar power (PV) would be a better use of our available space (this will be installed in late March, watch this space for a blog post).
- Installed, the Bosch system cost $2k.
- As we we’re moving from a gas system, there are no Australian Government rebates available to us.
- Staying with gas (as opposed to a heat pump) seemed to make the most environmental sense.
It’s a marvelously small unit compared to our old 1980’s hulking beast. I’ll look carefully at our next gas bill, and will report back…
Part-time permaculture course
I’ve just signed up for the Milkwood Sydney Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC). This runs for 12 weeks, one day per weekend, and should cover a huge amount of ground (pun intended).
The things that made this course attractive:
- It’s in Sydney, and not hours of driving out into the countryside.
- It has a specific urban focus (I don’t have a lot of use for skills in creating earthworks in inner-west Sydney)
- The Milkwood folks have a great reputation, and seem to be doing good stuff.
- It’s part-time, so I can do it without having to give up my holiday time (keeping me in the good books with Miss P!)
Hope to see you there….
Lewisham House and Farm 