Make, Create and Grow

I’m finally getting around to a garden post. There’s always so much happening, but I thought the little tomato cage project was good enough reason to do a post.

The garden has been quite neglected lately, between the rain, then the heat, and just generally difficult to find the time it needs to plan and maintain with a toddler!

I have 4x cherry romas coming along nicely in my no dig/lasagne beds that need staking. I can’t remember where I saw it recently, but someone built tomato cages from bamboo, and it inspired me to give it a go. We don’t have bamboo, but an abundance of lantana. Louis has been clearing it from our environmental zone over the last year, pulling it out by hand and with a mattock. He dragged a big pile up the hill for me and I made the first tomato cage. I still have 3 more to make, but I don’t know how long that will take. There’s nothing fancy about these at all, and they’re a trial. Just 4 thicker lantana sticks, with twine holding the horizontal lantana sticks. I don’t know if they’ll be sturdy enough, or withstand any wind, but we’ll soon find out.

Edit: Ironically, a few days after writing this, we had a few days of crazy wind. A good test for the tomato frame! I’m just glad I didn’t built the rest of them yet! The one I put in the garden didn’t hold up very well in the wind. I’m trying to troubleshoot how to make others sturdier now.

On another note, while going through the dead lantana pile, I had inspiration for some new projects, most likely for Christmas. Watch this space!

Other things happening in the garden

A little update on a few other things in the garden. The cucumbers are starting to climb up the frame I built from acacia branches. A few flowers have even started to appear – a mix of Lebanese cucumbers I plan to pick as baby cucumbers, and some pickling gherkins. The pumpkins, Queensland Blue, are taking over. I’m having to carefully whipper snip around the trailing stems now. The sweet potatoes have sprouted and started to spread – I have both purple with white flesh and the regular orange. I tried sprouting them inside in a glass of water but a few attempts and it just wasn’t working. In the end I just put whole sweet potatoes in the garden and 4 out of 6 have sprouted. I’m keen to try the leaves in a few things in the kitchen.

I harvested our first capsicum – one that popped up randomly on its own. It was only small, but Ruby managed to devour the whole thing, stalk, seeds. This is all I have of her eating the last piece!

The zucchinis are growing well. I’m trialling growing them vertically up a star picket in hope it creates more space, and keeps them off the ground to allow more air flow and less water sitting on them to avoid mildew. Again, I’m keen to see how it turns out. I’m wondering if once they are big/tall enough and off the ground I can plant some things under them and utilise the bed space and the shade they create – maybe some quick growing lettuce or something?

On a less positive note, all my seedlings were lost in the wind. I had a very cheap little greenhouse frame with shade cloth over it that was weighed down by rocks. The wind just bent it and tore the frame apart! Maybe a good excuse to start building a bigger and better one 😉

We’ve had a site dug for a water tank, 6 hours with an excavator with rock breaker later! We will be putting in a 22,700L tank. We’re hoping to get the tank in before all the predicted rain. It’s due for delivery at the end of the month, so we’ll get the foundations done soon.

I also have some fruit trees in pots that I should’ve repotted ages ago, but again, time. I think I’m just going to get them in the ground now. I have been saving them for when we install our food forest, but I think that it will be a little longer than we expected before we’re ready to do that. I’m planning on setting up a dwarf citrus fruit tree guild for now. I have a Ruby grapefruit that was given to Ruby for her 1st birthday, I plan on keeping it pruned to 2m. There is also a patio lemon we were gifted for our wedding I’d love to get into the ground. I’m having a play around with designing a guild, I will share the project when it finally happens!

There are so many other little bits and pieces going on, but I think I’ll wait until we have actually achieved something instead of just listing my to do list!

I’m looking forward to sharing some more completed projects soon.