Brown thumb status continues…

I have a confession to make… I still don’t know what I am doing in the garden department. The winter proved a difficult one, with leeks, onions, garlic and shallots all being attacked by black aphids. The were completely covered by them! I had to pull them all out, wash them of the pest and replant them. To my dismay, the garlic hadn’t started to set bulbs, but I will check them again in a few weeks/months.

Of course, all my books says that alliums are not bothered by pests. I knew I could prove them wrong. Has anyone else had this problem? The only leeks to enjoy an aphid free existence were near the coriander so I assume this was a protective feature?

Also, do you have an organic spray I could use? I managed a soap/vinegar spray but it also damaged the plants.

Spring!

Six months ago, I was reading, longingly, all the blog posts of fellow gardener/bloggers in the Northern Hemisphere as their gardens, and seemingly their lives, were in full bloom. Now, I can laugh evilly as I do the same to many of you!

Beautiful, sunny, warm, sweet smelling spring is finally here. After a miserable and illness ridden winter, I am glad to throw off the shackles and launch into full garden mode. And that is exactly what I have been doing.

Oh the joy of getting outdoors and working on the garden. Oh the thrill of witnessing new life, new growth, and potential. I can’t help myself. I watch my trees bud with new leaves, watch as the flowers begin to bud, then open gradually at first, and then in a flurry of colour and scent. Already I can see potential crops beginning to grow, especially in my citrus bed. Soon too, the seeds my children and I planted in our new raised garden beds will start to sprout and we will see the miracle of life and growth, and hopefully, production of food.

None of this, however, would have been possible without the hard work my husband and I put into creating the garden in the winter. We have been anticipating this new spring with all its potential in our new home. We had to think long and hard about where our new veggie patch was going to go, and then once decided, we needed to put it together and fill it up. We also needed to ensure our citrus had a competition free zone where they could thrive. We got rid of the tree blocking life giving sun, created an entirely new garden bed at the side of the house, and planted more seedlings to create beauty and a new micro-climate. Considering how unwell we have been this winter, including my one week stay in hospital, we have done a lot.

Photos will soon follow of our seeds starting to sprout (hopefully) and the strategies we take to circumvent our brown thumb status. We still haven’t produced anything edible in the garden, apart from the chicken eggs, but I have high hopes that this season is THE season. Bring. It. On.

For the love of Chicken Poo

So now you know I have three lovely (ie quiet) chickens. Honey (get it…. honey chicken!? ha!) is my youngest’s. Rosie O’Pecker is my eldest’s and is named after our sweet murdered Rosie vonPecker. Ding Dong is my son’s…. guess who named her?

Three chickens equals three eggs per day. It also means more chook poo per day than I thought one would produce in a month. Oh my, I was totally NOT expecting quite so much poo!

There are some problems with having so much poo around. The first one is that each morning, I am collecting three delicious eggs covered in much less appetising dressings. Now I understand that this is to be expected… seeing as both the egg and the poo pretty much come out of the same vicinity of the chook. But really, sometimes its ridiculous. My husband once told me I am not to wash my little treasures, but I figure, seeing as we sell some of them, that it is much more presentable without a layer of poo.

My other problem with the poo is that the chook run also contains my clothes line. Its a little unusual to place my lovely clean, drying clothes in amongst such droppings, and I have on occasion had to re-wash certain items that have fallen on the grass. But the main issue is my footwear. When I need to hang up my clothes, I have to change out of my usual footwear (which is usually something comfortable and warm!) into my garden boots or thongs (aka flip flops for all you non-Aussies!) Not only do I have to change my footwear, but also any guests’, and my children’s when they want to join me.

The children have been quite surprising when it comes to the chicken poo. My son loves to join me out in the chook run when I am hanging out the clothes, or cleaning up the chook poo, or collecting eggs. He grabs a little trowel, a small bucket, and “scoops the poop” (as we call it). He loves to collect the poo and dump it in the compost tumbler – the only place chicken poo like this belongs. It is amazing that such a chore would appeal to him (he’s only 2), but I’m not going to discourage him!

The last problem with the poo has been the flies. It seems that no matter how many chickens you have, flies are going to be an issue and if you don’t keep the poo situation under control then flies will become a point of stress between you and your chickens – which we don’t want. A couple of things have worked for us. The first is just keeping the level of poo in the area at a minimum by continually picking up and composting the poo. The second thing has been a fly trap. We bought our trap from the local hardware store. The bait, however is a bit of a problem. I believe that it actually attracts more flies into the area as it smells SOOOOOOOOO BAAAAAAAD! Although it collects heaps of flies, it is almost excessive. It needs draining two or three times a week – which is NOT a pleasant chore due to the stench. Hubby has suggested that I change the bait to some liquified chook poo. So far, after just one week, I have noticed a drop in the fly numbers in the chook run, and the trap seems to still be catching the odd fly. However time will tell as both the flies and the traps seem to enjoy the warmer weather better, and we are finally seeing some cooler weather here in Sydney,

If any of you are considering getting chooks, I must advise you that you need a poo plan. What are you going to do with it all? I was so naive when I first had the chickens, and I just started putting it all fresh on the garden…. well that’s not wise at all! It seems chicken poo needs time to break down, either in a compost, or in the form of a brew. When I heard it could be brewed, I simply placed the poo in a bucket with some water, gave it a stir, and put it on the garden. Also, a bad idea! It needs time to brew, say a few weeks. Since all of those attempts were a failure, I have discovered that composting the poo is the only way for us to go. Just chuck it in the tumbler, give it a whirl, add some other compostable items and some water and Bob’s your uncle. My only dilemma now is keeping the nitrogen levels down, as with so much chook poo it will be quite nitrogen rich. Any ideas would be appreciated!

(the lack of photos in this post reflects the nature of the subject. I just didn’t think you would appreciate a picture of chook poo as you ate your breakfast!)

Christmas Chicken Homocide

It was decided well before we moved that we would have chickens at the new house. They were going to live in the run down garden cubby house which was built by the previous owners and was uninhabitable by children. When we moved, however, and under threat by termites, we decided to knock it down and build a shed there instead.

Chickens were still desired however, so 6 months after moving in I purchased the coop. Not 2 days later, 2 chickens, Brody and Rosie von Pecker, entered our lives.

Brody

Rosie von Pecker

For a while, they lived on our deck but that was too messy so they moved next to the garden bed in the main back yard. They stayed there for a few weeks accumulating pooo and flies until I had a revelation. You see, we have 2 back yards due to the unusual shape of our land. The second yard is smaller and self contained – a perfect chicken run. Hubby made a little fence and gate and voilà the chicken’s space was complete.

The Chicken Run… also good for kids

Brody and Rosie settled in quickly and were soon laying beautiful free range eggs. Lovely!

Eggs eggs and more eggs. Our largest egg was a double yolker! You don’t find them in the shops!

But drama was on the horizon. We loved our chickens but something was amiss. Brody was a noisy chicken! She would strut around the yard clucking her little heart out, wake up at 5am clucking to be let out and demanded her food as loudly as she could muster. Poor Rosie was a gentle girl but she put up with it all.

We’d had the chickens for three months or so by Christmas and really enjoyed having them. Christmas morning was occupied by breakfast and presents and fun, so it was 930am before I went to check on them. Brody was quieter than usual but greeted me at the gate. Rosie however was nowhere to be seen. I threw on my boots and searched the yard. She was no where.  Then I noticed that their feed bin lid was upside down so I went to flip it over, but as I did so I saw her…. dead at the bottom of the feed bin… on Christmas morning.

Poor Rosie von Pecker at the bottom of the bin 😦

Shocked, scared and angry we called the police.  This was no accident. Someone had killed our chicken. We guessed it was the neighbour behind us who’s house was closest to the coop. Perhaps, disgruntled by the frequent 5am wake up calls, they thought revenge on Christmas Day would be the sweetest. So, a visit by a Constable became our Christmas experience,  fear and anger made its presence felt for the first time on what is usually a fun and exciting day. Although our neighbour was implicated, the police could do nothing to find the perpetrator.

We quickly recovered from the shock and set up precautions to keep Brody safe. We also decided to get 3 new chickens as we had already talked about having 4. So, 3 weeks later, Honey, Ding Dong and Rosie O’Pecker joined Brody to form our 4 strong flock. Within hours however, it was clear that Brody was not going to get along with these three gentle chicks. We separated them that afternoon and separated they stayed for 2 weeks. Brody just would not accept them, and a bleeding chick later I decided the stress was too much so we reluctantly gave Brody away.

Brody was a beautiful chicken… but boy was she noisy!

It seemed our first venture into chicken ownership was a failure but we were not deterred. Our new chickens are lovely (ie quiet!) and happily contained in their run. No one is woken at 5am or any other ungodly hour and the chooks very rarely make a noise during the day. Hopefully the neighbour is happy too.

Owning chickens is wonderful and I often wonder how anyone could do without them. They do add a list a daily chores to my list but the kids love to help me with them. Ir seems chickens will be part of our life for many years to come. Sorry disgruntled neighbour!

Gardening on the cheap Pt 1

Let me start by saying I have lost track of how much money I have spend on the garden, past and current. My original idea of having a productive garden that saves money is certainly not a reality. But in our new home, the garden needs more than just a new garden bed or a few new plants. It needs a full makeover.

As I mentioned in a previous post, termites literally ate away $4K of our garden fund, as well as leaving monitors all around the house. As we stand now, that $4K would have been a nice start, but there is so much more to be done which needs more money than I am willing to put into the garden. Meanwhile, we are left with dirt patches, unfinished projects, unrealised dreams and a frustrating reality that there is less money coming in than we need to get it all done in a happy time frame. To have it all done in no less than 10 years would be a miracle.

So, with that all in mind, hubby and I have set out to do our gardening on the cheap… or as hubby likes to say, we’re being “thrifty”. Its probably a good mentality to have when it comes to the garden anyway, as ultimately, a garden just needs to have a lovely feel, and that can be done with or without thousands of dollars.

Our first point of thrift has been that where-ever simple man power will do the job, then we will do it ourselves. It is so tempting just to pay someone ludicrous amounts to do something in a tenth of the time simply because we are too lazy or time-pressed. As a young family with 3 kids, we are extremely time-pressed, and the thought that we would be putting in 100% of the man power is a little daunting, however I have discovered that our kids actually love digging in the dirt, to grab shovels, look for bugs and play in the displaced grass. It also doesn’t hurt for them to see us putting in the hard work to get it done. Yes, I’m patting myself on the back for being a good role model!

Our next area of thrifty-ness was where we were going to source the essentials that would make up our hard scape. There is no running away from it, hard scape resources are EX-PEN-SIVE! I was looking at at least $1000 alone for pavers that would replace our dirt patch. And that’s only a guess. We were in the process of looking for some second hand pavers when a friend of our said that they had a pile of them they were trying to get rid of… and all in the colour I was hoping for! Score!

Free pavers AND free man power… hubby placing some of the pavers at the bottom of the stairs.
Who says that doing all the man power means the kiddies get ignored? Exposed dirt make great tracks for monster trucks!

Even my daughter got involved, getting her doll to jump off the pavers. Fun for all the family!

The pavers were placed beneath the stairs we had installed in 3 different parts of the deck, as well as covering that foot dirtying dirt patch between the deck and the garden bed.

Speaking of the garden bed, it is in the process of being dismantled as planned. Due to its complete incompetence at creating anything edible, it was decided that the wood could be better used elsewhere, the dirt could help create another garden bed, and the space could be paved over to create a hard scape where the kids can play.   The paving is well on its way, as is the dismantling of the garden bed.

The wood, it was decided, would be used to make a sandpit for the kids.  Sandpits have always been a hit with our kids, but somehow, at the new place, we couldn’t seem to find the right place for it, or it was always getting flooded by the rain, or filled with leaves, dirt or insects.

Making a sandpit had always been the plan, but placing it was another problem. It seems there are not many sandpit friendly places in our new garden (why wasn’t this a criteria when we bought it!?!) As a consequence, I have spent a lot of brain power (more than a sandpit would usually require I bet) considering the best place for the pit to go. Finally, my “aha” moment came when considering the slight predicament of a finite number of pavers. Perhaps I could leave a gap in the paving next to the deck where my planned sandpit can go? And so, voila, momentum began to build, pavers were placed around the border, garden bed was dismantled and 2 hours on a Saturday later, my sandpit was built.

The sandpit being enjoyed by my son… although, we are still missing one key ingredient…. sand.

So far, we have saved a fair chunk of money, although it is a drop in the ocean really. Sandpits, pavers, man power. This is just the beginning.

The Original Garden Bed

There is a twist to this story, but it does not end with beautiful, edible produce. The new house came with a garden bed in the backyard. It seemed, at the time, a perfect place to start our veggie patch. It was long, raised, in a sunny spot and right up against a fence.

How wrong I was.

First things first, this raised garden bed came ready packed with 4 tall privacy screen trees. I say privacy screen trees because that was their only purpose. They were not particularly pretty, they dropped funny red berries on the ground, and their branches were sporadic at best. I don’t know what kind of trees they were, but it didn’t matter. They were gone before I could even be bothered to discover their name. (okay, well I kept the two that were most useful screeners, and also they happened to be the healthiest, and kind of out of the way)

Next, I got to work experimenting with what might work there. I threw in some worm castings for good measure, but managed to plant small tomatoes, carrot, thyme, mint, basil, corn, garlic and zucchini. Okay, so I went a bit overboard, but this was exciting stuff for me!

Everything died.

Everything.

My favourite story is that of the corn. It is supposedly easy, so I planted it with high expectations. I knew it grew tall, I knew it needed LOTS of water and Nitrogen (yay for chook poo!) and plenty of sun. I gave it all of that, but it only grew to be 3 feet tall. 3 feet! I kept willing it to grow taller, but it stunted, as did the resulting corn. In fact, I was digging in that garden bed again today and discovered a tiny little corn ear, all mouldy and grey, with a dismal little cob inside about the size of my little toe. Oh the shame!

part of the garden bed, showing my stunted corn

So I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. I had looked into what were the easy crops to grow in my many garden books and on Pintrest, but I paid no attention to the soil, to enriching it, and ensuring it was ready for such an influx of vegetation. Not only this, but the bed also unfortunately lays in the unrelenting path of the late afternoon sun – not a very nice place for any aspiring vegetable to be.

But the poor soil and poor positioning were not the only problems faced by my poor plants. Every night, the little darlings were attacked without resistance by snails who hid between the bed and the corrugated iron fencing. Let me make myself clear here. I hate snails. I’ve always hated them. As a child, we used to collect them from our garden and thrown them under the wheels of cars passing in the street. Oh, what fun we used to have!

This was like Revenge of the Snails, because as I soon discovered, on a cool evening, you couldn’t walk two steps without stepping on one of the little blighters. If I shone a light on them, it was all out war against my plants.

What is an aspiring gardener to do? I tried the old beer trap trick. I caught one. One measly little snail.

Next, I tried some salt on the rims of the garden bed. I managed to get a few with this method… maybe a dozen or so in a couple of nights. But still, the infestation continued.

One wet morning, after inspecting my poor, miserable excuse for a veggie patch once more, and being confronted by dozens of snails lazily eating the grass, something clicked inside me. I grabbed a milk carton and began collecting them in it. I filled the carton. They oozed, fizzed, mated and generally grossed me out. But they were off my garden. The next day I did the same thing. Overall I think I collected about 200 snails in 2 days. Gross! Funnily enough it was the most effective method. Since this mass murder of snails, I only ever see the occasional snail. The chooks also loved to eat them…. but that’s another story.

So what is my solution to the garden bed situation? Here’s the twist. I’m dismantling the garden bed. I hate the garden bed. The garden bed is the devil. It must be gone! Fortunately I have a new job for all that wood, and a new plan for all the new space…. but more about that later.

For now, I maintain my Brown Thumb status.

My budding brown thumb

So my husband tells me that calling myself a brown thumb is somewhat misleading, thinking instead of a brown nose. Well, I’m not a brown nose-er, and certainly don’t want to get the two confused! I am a brown THUMB, as in, the opposite of a GREEN thumb.
I call myself this as I invariably end up killing anything I put in the ground. I don’t know what gives me this talent. I suppose you might call it a gift.

In pursuit of trying to live sustainably, organically, and above all cheaply, I have, on numerous occassions, attempted to plant fruits and vegetables in my many gardens. I must admit, I exaggerate my brown thumb status, as I have in fact had some successes. Mainly in the area of herbs, and pumpkin. If I couldn’t get that right, then God help me!

My love of gardening started when I was young. I spent a lot of time in my parent’s back yard looking after my guinea pigs and enjoying the outdoors, and I couldn’t help but notice the lack of productivitiy of that garden. The weeds, the unused compost, the enormous gum tree blocking the sun. My mother’s attempts at growing anything were always dismal, and so, I never really grew up knowing how to grow produce. This did not stop me from trying!

I started with herbs and had some success…. although its hard to fail at growing mint – especially when its already established a territory. However I also tried basil with great gusto, but failed again at parsley (seriously, who KILLS parsley?!)

Next, we began planting small tomatoes, and this was a roaring success, especially with our two year old. She would pick them and eat them before they reached the salad bowl, but in my eyes, it was a wonderful thing to witness.

Next, we tried out hand at pumpkin, which actually happened by chance. We transplanted a seedling from our worm farm into a heap of compost hoping for the best. What resulted were 3 healthy butternut pumpkins. Yum!

Along they way, however, I have killed blueberries, broccoli, tomatoes, potatoes, garlic, zucchini, carrots, beetroot and more. I always attributed my failures to the fact that I had little to no control over my garden beds – we were renters for most of my attempts to date.  But now, garden books and Pintrest in hand, I am ready to have a go at turning my brown thumb around! Alright garden, lets get cracking!

A New Garden, a New Beginning

Less than 12 months ago, my husband and I embarked on a scary adventure called…. owning our own home! Our dream had finally come true. No more rent, no more white walls, not more pulling up our attempted veggie patches as we moved onto the next house.

One of our pre-requisites was that the new home had a garden, not only for the kids to run around in, but for us to have a place to plant our dream veggie patch and maybe some fruit trees if we were lucky.  It needed to be a clean slate, ready for us to do our bidding. No ready designed or established gardens…. just grass if possible.

We were lucky enough to find what we were looking for…. and some! We found a perfect 700m2 block of land at the end of a cul-de-sac. The unique shape of the land and the size of the house created a range of spaces that we could use in any way we wanted. Our minds buzzing, we began to plan. We started small, but have since expanded on our ideas in the hopes to become a little self sufficient.

This blog is about our journey. Our successes, our failures, our questions, and our eureka moments. Hopefully it will be a momento of our hard work.