I acquired seeds from various sources over the past six months or so that are all due to be planted about now. Lou bought me a bulk packet of various flowers and herbs so I’ve planted a whole tray of each in addition to the veggies for the Galaxy Garden. With our Introduction to Permaculture workshop coming up in a couple of months I’m hoping to have a host of plants I can give away to participants. They also come in really handy to swap and gift to friends, not to mention stock up the shop!
We haven’t had a drop of rain since the 15th August and I’ve been watering every day to make sure the soil doesn’t dry out, especially given the wind.
What I’ve noticed in the past fortnight is that the more recent seedlings are outperforming the ones from the depths of winter. The increased sunlight and temperature really make the difference.
The video shows exactly what it looks like at the moment – still not really cranking like I had hoped, but it is progressing. There are multiple reasons things could be stalling – the soil being brand new, the fact it is almost all decayed woodchip and not much compost. In short there isn’t much soil diversity at the moment. I console myself with the fact that apart from the ‘landfill’ soil, the growing medium has all been created onsite with no factory produced ingredients in plastic bags. In time, and a couple more cycles of compost, home made liquid fertiliser and decomposing roots from ex-crops it will be as good as gold.
The only new seeds that have gone into the Galaxy are sweet corn in Neptune. There is something really exciting about growing sweet corn for me, maybe because I can’t remember seeing it grow in the UK as a kid. It’s even more exciting if the rats don’t beat us to the ears!
As well as the Galaxy Garden I’m stocking up the wicking beds with direct seeded bush beans, kohlrabi, carrots and turnips. Other crops that have been direct sown in the rest of the garden are:
- QLD Blue and Butternuts. The Blue’s are in the back garden and the Butternuts in the front so that there is less chance of them being cross pollinated. Each seed is stuffed into a handful of home made compost and then put in the garden bed. Pumpkins are far and away our most successful bulk food crop and they store all winter.
- Rockmelon, Honeydew, Watermelon and ‘Delice de la Plate’ all in separate parts of the garden, again to reduce cross pollination chances. Despite planting loads of these in the past I have had miserable success rates. I’m really hoping this year with my increased focus on week in week out food I can keep up the water to them. Each seed was put under a dripper outlet to mitigate this issue.
Whilst there has been plenty of action sowing seeds, I’ve not transplanted anything this fortnight. Those delicate new plants don’t deserve to be exposed to the high wind and full sun we are experiencing at the moment. They will be happier staying in the greenhouse for the time being.