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Recent Entries to this Blog
2012 already it's May. Starting anew for Autumn
Posted: 24 May 2012 Posted: 29 Nov 2011 Posted: 06 Jun 2011 Posted: 18 May 2011 Posted: 26 Aug 2010 All Entries |
Teale Vegie Patch Blog
2012 already it's May. Starting anew for Autumn
Category: general growing conditions | Posted: Thu May 24, 2012 3:42 am Hi again. It's been a long hot summer, and now it's started raining again. Yay. The ground while still not too wet, has lost that dry crunch underfoot. Suddenly it's green across the paddocks surrounding our house, and it feels like Autumn. Freezing in the mornings almost. 3 degrees this morning! ouch. I know it gets a lot colder in other places around the world, but I've found that I don't do cold very well. Time to rug up, and hopefully the heater will go in soon, or we'll end up frozen all day and night. Can't wait. Well, the veggie patch. Hmm. I've sorely neglected it for so long, but it seems very forgiving. I ripped everything up that had died, chucked it to the chooks to pore over, and up comes new seedlings. My plan for this year, let it come. I'm just going to plant in and around what comes up from seed dropped last year, and see how that goes. I can't believe how many have germinated. The guinea fowl are great, however they seem as interested in the vegetable seedlings growing as I am, so bird netting has gone up all over the place. I've lost the charger for my fance new camera, so no pics. (ohh!) I know, but I cant's seem to fine another charger, and I don't want to just buy another camera. That would be a waste. One thing I'm trying to locate are some Black carrot seeds. Only there doesn't seem to be any here. Western Australia does have a lot of carrots, but I want Black ones. Any ideas? Deb This blog entry has been viewed 329 times
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latest info about the patch
Category: general growing conditions | Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2011 4:10 am Well, it's been so long since I wrote about the garden, but luckily it hasn't been so long since I played in the garden! he hee! I love my Veggie Garden. It's been absolutely wonderful this year. Everything seems to be coming together. Years of failures, and catastrophy, and finally it all seems to be happening. Or maybe I've just lowered my standards and decided to be happy with whatever I can harvest. For whatever reason, this is the happiest I can recall being, and I have the joy of heading out to the patch when I get home from work, and collecting food to cook for tea. Neighbours around us have problems with the grasshoppers, but we have so few! The Guinea Fowl I've spent the last few years buying up and feeding, feeding, feeding, are finally making themselves very useful. So far I've only seen a handful, but Rob tells me there's thousands up at the shed, 500 metres away. Yay! Potatoes, huge potatoes, broad beans to die for. Lettuce, sweet lettuce, carrots just starting to get big enough to pick. Beetroot which really should have been harvested before this, cucumber which should start to bear soon. Beans to dry, beans to cook. Kale, which has just got through the catarpillar stage, and survived to pick again soon. Herbs everywhere, taking over. Onion. Amazing onion. (I've never grown big onions before) Spring onions, garlic, sunflower as tall as I am. Just so happy! This is the life. Sigh...... This blog entry has been viewed 1162 times
Damage to new seedlings
Category: general growing conditions | Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2011 4:06 am Well, I'm finding it very difficult to grow my seedlings this year. I have erected a small greenhouse which is basically four shelves, covered with plastic cover. They are available here in Australia from Bunnings. I've had mould, the whole thing got blown over and now dried off! I can't seem to win. So now I'm just keeping it zipped shut at night, and open during the day. Hopefully the latest batch of seeds will germinate, and survive the pricking out process. This blog entry has been viewed 1016 times
Autumn 2011 veggie patch startup again
Category: general growing conditions | Posted: Wed May 18, 2011 11:59 am Well, it's that time again! The rains have returned, and it seems not much survived summer. After removing dead stuff and Rob rotary hoeing the long beds, applying mulch to retard weed growth, it's time to plant winter growing veggies. Bought seedlings of broccoli, heaps of herbs a few roses and today, a mulberry tree! Today I spent the entire morning sowing seeds in trays and the ground. I've done peas, carrots, spinach, celery, silverbeet, beetroot, kohlrabi. lettuce, shallots, onion, Chinese broccoli, and lots of others. I can't wait!!!! The rain will do all my watering for me! Amazing feeling, gearing up again. I love this feeling so connected to the earth, rain, sun! This blog entry has been viewed 984 times
Who knew chooks were carnivores?
Category: critters in the patch | Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2010 3:24 am An interesting thing happened today. I was just going to top up the water in one of the chook pens, when I noticed that the water was mucky. I tipped out the water, to run clean water in, when I noticed a hole in the ground under where the water tub had been. Hmm.. Snake, or mouse? I had a running hose in my hand at this point, so decided to just fill the hole with water, keeping a close eye on what might come out of the hole. I was prepared to drop the hose and run! It took a heap of water, so the hole must have been plenty deep, when a head appeared out of the water. A mouse, followed by several more. They were all adult size, so either no babies, or they didn't make it out. I jumped, and called the dog. She didn't come. Guess what? One of the chooks ran over and grabbed a mouse in her beak and banged it on the ground several times, then ran off to eat it! Amazing. I had no idea they would do that. The rooster who was in the same pen ran over, but didn't see the other 4 or 5 mice huddled by the side of the pen, and they ran off under a small hole to the outside and freedom. I'm still shocked and amazed that a chook would eat a mouse! This blog entry has been viewed 384 times
homemade glasshouse/seed raising area
Category: general growing conditions | Posted: Thu Aug 26, 2010 5:49 am Well, today I decided to make use of an old window I bought years ago from a salvage yard. I propped bricks along the wooden edge of one of my garden beds, and bricks along the sides and front edge of the window. Now the side edges are higher at the back, sloping down at the front, so that I can have the glass window facing the sun in the morning. It has plenty of drainage, as water would just run through between the bricks and away, and plenty of air able to move through . I lined the bottom with old bags which originally had sheep manure in it, and will cover that with Blue metal rocks, and a couple of bricks inside to keep the heat in. After I washed the window to help with heat transfer, it heated up very quickly, so I may have to watch it doesn't get too hot. I may have to put another row of bricks in to raise the glass up another level. I also waited for a couple of eggs to be laid, rather that come back and find the crow had beaten me to it. I was watching the proceedings with interest, and the second chook laid a broken egg. Weird, huh? It obviously needs more egg shell and grit, because the shell was broken inside her, and the laid the white, then the yolk, then the broken shell. (it's like skin until air hits it, then it hardens up outside. Lucky, isn't it!) I've quarantined her in a clean cage, given her food and water, and shell grit, and we'll see how she goes. She didn't look as healthy as most of the others, so maybe she's not getting as much of the food as the others. Now there's no competition with her, maybe she'll pick up come condition. 
from the side, with strawberry patch ( photo / image / picture from debbieteale's Garden ) 
homemade seedraising area ( photo / image / picture from debbieteale's Garden ) Now I've just got to line the bottom with blue metal, and it's ready to go! Last edited: Mon Aug 30, 2010 3:52 am This blog entry has been viewed 711 times
new again to gardenstew
Category: general growing conditions | Posted: Fri Aug 20, 2010 2:46 am Wow! It's been ages since I've been on Gardenstew. It's been a hectic few months, with a lot of changes. I haven't had time to get out into the garden for months either. In the meantime, the weeds have taken over completely. a lot of plants have self seeded, and gone wild. The Guinea fowl have grown, started laying eggs, but once you find them, they never come back to the nest. Silly sods! I put them under two different bantams, in two different cages. Same result. Upset hens, not sitting. Cold eggs. Very cold eggs. Oh well. I built a temporary fence from the gate to the chook pen (which is completely bare of weeds. Poor chooks are competing for every leaf.) over to the vege patch, and back. Now they get let out every morning, and have access to almost half the vege patch. They have to get locked back in at night, or the foxes get them. The silly things have heaps of large green leafy things available to the, but they don't seem too eager to get out there and do their jobs yet. This morning I got out there and started pulling weeds, then moving along and calling them. they love the newly weeded areas to scratch in. Hopefully they will keep it up for a while before going back in. the upside is, the eggs are HUGE now. Kind of which I'd thought to do this sooner, and then their pen wouldn't be quite so denuded. Well, it's probably the end of a very mild winter here in Australia, and it smells of spring. The bees are loving all the trees in flower, so hopefully we'll get some honey soon. I haven't been back into the hive since my last disastrous foray in where I got so many stings. Ouch. Hope to hear how everyone's Summers are going. Deb This blog entry has been viewed 2054 times
two new chickens!
Category: critters in the patch | Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 2:30 pm It's so exciting! Chickens. I know it's very late to be hatching chickens, but she's done it. Our dear little bantam hen has been sitting on about 5 Guinea fowl eggs, and two have hatched out. Unfortunately, a couple of chook eggs also got laid under her, and she's been sitting on them as well, but chickens are chickens. It's very exciting! The kids are enjoying them too! I'll post some pics later This blog entry has been viewed 1887 times
Hot, dry and grasshoppers!
Category: critters in the patch | Posted: Wed Jan 13, 2010 1:18 pm I was so looking forward to a bumper crop from the Vege patch this year. Sadly, it was not to be. From the first grasshopper emerging from the sandy soils here, it was doomed. We've had wave after wave of grasshoppers devastating most of the crops I planted. I haven't the heart to spray, and it would seem to defeat the purpose of having organic foods grown at home. We've let the chooks roam pretty much whereever they want, and while they do a great job, they also scratch up most of the beds as well. They seem to prefer worms to grasshoppers, and where better to find them? Compost, mulch etc from the beds. Still, I have found that some plants aren't on the menu, and it seems to be those plants whose leaves have prickles. Something to remember. The potatoes had almost matured to a big size when all their leaves went. I decided to dig over the bed to save what I could, an it wasn't a bad harvest. Washed and stored in the pantry, I'm very proud to have grown enough to last a couple of months for the family. Some interesting shapes, too. Cucumbers, pumpkins and some varieties of tomatoes don't seem to be attractive to grasshoppers, so I'm remembering them (definitely not the grosse lisse) to replant with those next year. Although the leaves have been eaten off the carrots, they don't seem to eat the roots(which of course, we do!)so they can be left in the ground to be harvested as we please. They did have a go at my beetroot, as the forono variety seems to poke up out of the ground, and subsequently got eaten right off. They don't seem to like onion, leek, strawberries or watermelon. And when it's all over, I'm going to go right out and buy some Guinea Fowl hens to live here. Hopefully next year we'll be having that bumper crop..... This blog entry has been viewed 1899 times
teale garden update
Category: general growing conditions | Posted: Tue Nov 17, 2009 11:33 pm Another day in paradise. It's raining here, and very blowy. As I look out at the dark morning (it's 7.26am) I think of all those who live in snowy or misty areas this time of year. The beauty of Gardenstew is that I can appreciate this area for what it doesn't have. Snow. Much as I love to look at it, I'm glad I don't have to deal with it year after year. I've decided to rearrange my vege patch. Well, perhaps not rearrange, but to cut out the pathways between some of the beds. What I'll end up with (when I can find edges the right size!) will be just 3 long beds, instead of 6 with walkways between. I've been giving some thought to watering systems for the beds, and it seems to me that I'd just have to step over the black poly pipe I'm going to use to water down each bed. So, I'm digging up the little bit between each long bed, and planting right down the long beds now. I may have to put down a block to step on when I want to go across beds, but that's easy. I've had trouble finding time to write anything on gardenstew. I've been reading other's posts, making the odd comment, but then gotta go. It's a juggle. I have three children between 12 and 16. We run a fulltime custom car business, a seasonal transport business during the grape season, and I have a weekend job at a video store. Add to that that the family own a caravan park, and it's spring cleaning time before the christmas rush of visitors and I'm very busy! I'll post some pics when I get my new camera, and the time to work it out! Happy gardening. This blog entry has been viewed 1857 times
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