Garden chat

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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Steps Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Jan 2022 at 9:09am
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Titanium
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I would spend time squashing caterpillars but I couldn't keep up. I guess it doesn't help being surrounded by farmland.

Damn I would love to have open land trees  with far more birds around..
As murphy would have it, brought a broccoli head in yesterday, missus found , for the 1st time in long time a ting little caterpillar.. ans a tiny little slug in one of the iceberg lettuce..
And havnt seen a dreaded stink bug in the beans this yr, come to think of it.
Lots tiny tiny little white butterflies in the evening, always have them around, dont think they are a problem at all, or dont see one.

 Self seeding.. messed with that few yrs back, even selecting seeds from (eg) tomatoes  with good size flesh and strong plants ...and the results quickly became disappointing over couple yrs. When looked into it, most of our veggies are hybrids and dont seed true. And when go thru several generations tend to revert back to original ... which the hybrids now have already improved on..
 I knew this with the pond gold fish, which is why we always took the small brown ones out..
 And the hybrid coloured fresurs (bulb flowers) over the yrs reverted to the wild yellow and pale yellow

I think when get a new garden, its different soil, weather etc, so its a matter of at 1st trialing different hybrids to find what grows, produces best...and what works for different seasons. And trialing grafted sort of confuses things..

And big crap, just as I thought, this rain is going down the side of the country...no big soak, so far lucky to have 2 to 3mm rain in last couple days..

Oh and just to clairffy, so dont give wrong impression here.. yes our old gardens , where on the large side for a urban garden... I actualy measured our current garden , now family left home etc..  its approx 3.5m X 4m and a row up the fence 3.5m X 0.3m
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote smudge Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Jan 2022 at 10:33am
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The tiny butterflies are most likely white fly. A garden that size certainly is easy care.
Best gurnard fisherman in my street
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Reel Deal Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Jan 2022 at 11:18am
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Titanium
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it’s amazing what you can produce from small gardens. My larger size I’m aiming for 80-100% meals home grown and chuck in crays and fish I have a number 100% foraged or grown meals, no chemicals plastic food miles blah blah. It’s good feeling knowing you can feed yourself. Oh I didn’t grow the olive oil in the pan and mashed vege.

Small gardens ive had in the past, I inter plant, for example a row of capsicum, at same time radish around with nonheading  lettuce in between. By the time the capsicums are starting to fruit your lettuces which have been shading their roots will be finishing and a couple of crops of radish. A lot of the seed gathering is from non hybridsland is working well at this stage. But I’ll do a couple of hybrids and see what happens. Heirloom varieties will service you well when collecting seed.and their is a lot of heirloom seeds available these days which is great. I’ve been told the more you seed collect the more adapted your plants get to your conditions.

I get no white butterfly as the wasps are plentiful as my thumb can attest after weeding a flower garden yesterday and grabbed a handful of paper wasps in nest. Looks like 6 stings which have moved from ouch stage to madly itchy stage with swelling. You take the good with the bad😜

How did everyone’s 3 sisters plantings work out? Mine didn’t as soil in paddock and was tougher than I thought. Anyone else get some results?
The gods do not subtract from the allotted span of men's lives the hours spent on fishing - Assyrian Proverb
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Reel Deal Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Jan 2022 at 11:22am
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Titanium
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lease excuse spelling mistakes and grammar. On this site I still have to type in a tiny box that does about a word per line so can’t read back. One day I’m hoping someone knows how to fix after last site update ………….

The gods do not subtract from the allotted span of men's lives the hours spent on fishing - Assyrian Proverb
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Keith C Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Jan 2022 at 12:46pm
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My three sisters - don’t know if this is good or not. Heritage tomatoes are good - average about 250g each. Corn small & few. Lebanese cucumbers and scallopinis plentiful.


Metre rule provides perspective.
My tomatoes got too big and heavy for the corn very early on.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote smudge Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Jan 2022 at 1:04pm
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I tried the three sisters method after reading about it here. I grew 2 x pumpkins, 3 x tomatoes and 6 or so sweetcorn in two plantings. First mistake was planting the sweetcorn too long after the pumpkins. The pumpkin pretty much smothered the 2nd lot of sweetcorn and only a couple survived. The tomatoes are doing ok. I have two different gardens and I didn't set up my water tank (IBC) close enough to the pumpkins so I probably didn't water them enough. The 2 pumpkins I grew as part of the three sisters didn't do particularly well despite having a well prepared mound. The pumpkins themselves are plentiful enough but small compared to the other 5 I just planted in the ground.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Reel Deal Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Jan 2022 at 1:14pm
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interesting results and good work on the Tom’s Keith. 
Thought the 3 sisters was corn for natural stake for runner beans and pumpkin for ground cover, weed matting and water conservation. 

Some interesting twists with cucumber and tomato added. 

Yes Smudge think it’s 3 seeds one hole and walk away.

My pumpkins were small this year in general due to watering. Or lack of it as planted away from garden in paddock. Also soil was worse than I thought so my 3 sisters struggled. Corn hardly got to a foot high!
Maybe I’ve discovered the 3 dwarf sisters planting style!!. I’ll try again next year.
Learnt a lot with new garden what works and doesn’t and what to change.

A plus is I put kitchen scrap compost around my dwarf watermelon and pumpkins I’d propagated and planted to help them once I saw them struggling. And from the compost the pumpkin, capsicums and toms have sprouted and going for gold. Haha natures follows it’s own path
The gods do not subtract from the allotted span of men's lives the hours spent on fishing - Assyrian Proverb
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Reel Deal Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Jan 2022 at 1:15pm
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Graz Keith just looked at your photo again and your pumpkins etc are pumping!
The gods do not subtract from the allotted span of men's lives the hours spent on fishing - Assyrian Proverb
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Keith C Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Jan 2022 at 1:33pm
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Reel Deal, thanks to the 350mm of rainfall in December, I haven’t had to water anything in my veg patch until I started watering the tomatoes about 2 weeks ago. Some cucurbits have really done well producing from mid-December whilst some, like gem squash & melon, failed and are only coming into flower now.

Been a very different season. Tomatoes have been particularly good.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote lingee Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Jan 2022 at 3:17pm
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its a late season ,but corn needs a lot of nitrogen from the beging ,as collis and brocs potash is great for the head form,egg shells good in the garden for callisum for all veg and ideal for tomatos, they take up to 2-3 months to release the goods in the soil i throw them in the garden all the time. im having large corn cobs and large tomatos ,as above is a goody. but windy and no fishing bummer.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Reel Deal Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Jan 2022 at 3:40pm
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man the amount of fish frames and guts in garden over the past few months! Next year should be a beauty! Yes lots of egg shells from worm farm getting pumped into gardens also put around new planted seeds to stop, we’ll slow down slugs and snails.

My only real destructive pest is blackbirds but they do good as well so it’s a trade off. Quail manly tomatoe munches so net off and their odd dust bath in new plantings so grow on seedlings a little bigger. 
The gods do not subtract from the allotted span of men's lives the hours spent on fishing - Assyrian Proverb
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote lingee Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Jan 2022 at 3:58pm
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yep mate i have tomatoes covered ,i leave 2 plants for them,i have 16 plants in ,make sauce and have nice fresh tomatoes . seedlies are coverd till a bit bigger. thats gardening ,the good thing is fresh veg.we eat out of our garden in the summerand winter its butternut and brocs callis etc. pump the goodies in the garden all year mate.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote smudge Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Jan 2022 at 6:52pm
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With 12 tomato plants the birds aren't a problem. Yeah tomatoes are doing especially well this year. I've never had much luck with black krims but they are doing really well this year and are now my solid favourites.

It is also my best year for my bogey plants the aubergine (eggplant) I am getting some beauties but only have three plants. I water them every day and they get tons of mulch and chook/sheep poo and tomato fert.

What are the best/most reliable producers for you guys? Mine would be beans, silverbeet, capsicums and the ever reliable courgettes. I also do well with rhubarb, basil, parsley, mint, rosemary, sweet corn and when I grow them - kumara, spring onions. I get varied results with spinach, lettuce (gets bitter if not watered enough), garlic, celery, carrots (I think I need to work the soil more), water melon (WATER melon) & spuds can be hit and miss. 

What is easiest/hardest for you?
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote MATTOO Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Jan 2022 at 7:22pm
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Titanium
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You guys have some impressive plots.
I'm struggling to see how you utilise all that produce.
Big families, lots of pigs, good street stalls or large families.

Either way thumbs up for your successes.
Just cruising in my now sweetas pimped out Southern 755 HT0!
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (1) Likes(1)   Quote smudge Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Jan 2022 at 10:49pm
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A fair bit of mine goes to my animals and to family. It's great to have a choice though!
Best gurnard fisherman in my street
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (1) Likes(1)   Quote Reel Deal Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Jan 2022 at 7:27am
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Mattoo yeah sometimes some crops come on at once and you are flooded but preserving for winter like beans , parsley etc I freeze into meal bags etc. pumpkins potatoes etc I store dark and cool. I have a a group of locals who have same interests and we share excess and my family eats to seasons so if tomatoes are the go a lot of ways to use them. Also with successive plantings you can manage most excess crop issues. Eg small amounts of plants planted often. My carrots I have large mature on the verge of bolting as well as mature bed as well as young carrots coming on as well as half way there beds as well as just planted beds. So not an overload at once but always on hand. Chickens and dog eat rough leaves. Missus cooks up a huge pot of veges for dog to mix in with his meat 50/50 each week.we eat mainly plant based with seafood and the odd bit of gifted wild kill meat cuts. All works well.👍
The gods do not subtract from the allotted span of men's lives the hours spent on fishing - Assyrian Proverb
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Keith C Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Jan 2022 at 6:35pm
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Not pretty but absolutely delicious.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Reel Deal Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Jan 2022 at 8:14pm
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holly!, RESULT.

It’s all about the taste !!
The gods do not subtract from the allotted span of men's lives the hours spent on fishing - Assyrian Proverb
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (1) Likes(1)   Quote lingee Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Jan 2022 at 6:35am
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thats a goody, my beefsteaks are around 250 ,doing a lot of tangy relish,ideal for winter,yum.
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About to start building a 5.2 mtr x 3.6 mtr timber green housein the back yard, just ordered 20 x Dutch Buckets and Nft rails and tubs, recycle systems same as I had on the farm in Aussie . Will be 100% chem free...  Thumbs Up
"It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled” Mark Twain
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