Coxys' Garden

November 2010 - Rain and More Rain

2010-11-10T22:40:00.000-08:00

So far in November 2010, the Gosford area has had 168mm of rain in 11 days.

This has provided plenty of water for the vegetables to thrive.Unfortunately the wet weather has also increased the number of pests in the garden. Many of my young plants have suffered from bug attacks. The solution is to ensure that the foliage is sprayed regularly with Pyrethrum (Defender) and that Snail baits are used around the garden to reduce the numbers of snails.

Most of the seedlings planted two weeks ago have survived and the lettuce and tomatoes are going very well. The chili plants have suffered from pest damage and were also being slightly shaded by the parsley growing in front of them.

My next job in the garden will be to add a few more large tubs. I am going to move the chili plants to a tub near the citrus trees. This area gets a lot of sun and will be more protected from ground pests.

The pumpkin plants are getting larger and I will need to remove the wire mesh from this end of the garden to allow them to spread.

Until next time. Enjoy your gardenings.

October 2010 - Chillies and Capsicum

2010-10-16T04:32:00.000-07:00

More seedlings planted into the garden this weekend. I picked up some more bell capsicum seedlings and some chilli bush seedlings from a local nursery and planted these out to replace the capsicum plants lost to the local wildlife (rabbit).

As well as these seedlings I also got some mixed lettuce seedlings which I have planted out. These were more established than the seedlings I have grown from seed and I will use my seedlings for a second crop later in a couple of weeks.

My tomato seedlings have reached the stage where they can be planted out, so I put these in next to the lettuce. I selected the three strongest looking seedlings and planted these. I will probably thin these out to the two strongest in a couple of weeks as they will require more space to grow.

The pumpkins are growing well and I have three healthy looking plants.

October 2010 - Fruit Trees and Rabbit Protection

2010-10-10T03:29:00.000-07:00

Busy day in the garden today. I planted two fruit trees into some large plastic containers. This is a technique I saw used on Better Homes and Gardens and thought I would give it a try. It has the advantage that these plastic tubs are very inexpensive compared to large planters and the only necessary modification is to drill some large holes in the base for drainage.

The trees I planted today are a dwarf lemon (Eureka) and a dwarf lime (Tahitian). There trees only grow to around half the size of a normal citrus tree and can be grown in large containers. The fruit produced are of a normal size.
Along with planting the citrus I also planted some more corn plants. The reason I had to do this is that our pet rabbit has recently been spending more time outside his hutch and has managed to find my garden.

After replacing the corn into a not so accessible part of the garden I also spent some time creating a barrier out of chicken wire and tent pegs to try and discourage the rabbit from nibbling on the seedlings.

The tomato and lettuce seedlings in the planter are going well and hopefully will be large enough to plant out next weekend.

October 2010 - Seedlings Planted into Bed

2010-10-02T21:08:00.000-07:00

As it was a nice cool and wet weekend, I decided to plant out the seedlings I had purchased last week.

I planted Butternut Pumpkin, Sweet Corn, and Capsicum.

Hopefully, I will have better luck with the Sweet Corn this year. Last year I planted the corn in one long row and had issues with the pollination of the ears. This year I planted them in a clump of eight plants. This should encourage pollination.

Instead of the squash I grew last year I am going to try and grow some butternnut pumpkin. It is easier to find recipes that use pumpkin.

September 2010 - Seedlings Ready for Planting

2010-09-29T22:58:00.000-07:00

My second attempt at growing seedlings has been slightly more successful and they are now only a week or two away from being ready to plant out. The second planting consisted of two types of tomatoes and mixed lettuce.

To supplement these seedlings I also purchased butternut pumpkin, sweet corn and capsicum seedlings from the nursery. These seedlings will be planted out this weekend.

Last weekend I prepared the garden beds. The weeds were removed and the soil turned over down to around 20cms. I then put in some cow and chicken manure to improve the soil condition and removed more clumps of clay. The soil has definitely improved from the last year and hopefully will improve further as more organic material is added.

September 2010 - Spring Preparation

2010-09-12T03:39:00.000-07:00

Over the last 3 weeks I have been slowly preparing the garden to receive the first plants of spring. The remnants of the winter crop have been removed and bags of chicken and cow manure obtained to renew the soil prior to planting.

As well as preparing the beds I have also been attempting to grow some seedlings from seeds. I used the same seed planter from last year and planted lettuce, squash, and tomatoes. These were the most successful of last years crops and I know will provide a good harvest.

Unfortunately, just 2 weeks after the seedlings sprouted I left them on the outdoor table in full sun on the hottest day so far this spring. All of the seedlings bar a couple of the squash plants were withered. Today I replanted the seeds, hopefully I will be able to plant these out by the end of the month.

Next weekend, I will prepare the garden beds for planting.

July 2010 - Winter Update

2010-07-02T22:11:00.000-07:00

It has been a couple of weeks since I fertilized and re-mulched the vegetable garden and this has definitely promoted better leaf growth on the Pak Choy. I have managed to harvest a number of leaves from the 6 plants I have and I am looking into some recipes to use it.

Over the last week we have had some very cold nights and mornings and the temperature has dropped below zero. One morning it was -3 and the ground was covered in frost. These cold snaps caused some leaf burn on the pak choy but the damage was minimal.

The broccoli plants are still growing but probably need more water and nutrients. Over winter it is difficult for me to water the garden because it dark when I get home from work. It is not advisable to water in winter after dark because of the risk of fungus and mould diseases caused by the damp.

The self propagated tomato plants are still growing and do have some fruit on them. At the moment they have not started to ripen but I am still hoping to get some fruit off these before spring.

June 2010 - Winter Vegetable Update

2010-06-12T19:56:00.000-07:00

Been a few weeks since the last update. Things grow slowly during winter and we have had a few weekends where no vegetable gardening was done.

This weekend however I managed to do some cleaning up and weeding around the vegetables. Hopefully, this will promote better growth over the next couple of weeks. I also put some fertiliser on and watered the garden well. Once this was completed I mulched the entire garden with sugar came mulch. This will help with water retention and lessen the affects of the cold weather.

An overview of the garden showing the self-seeded tomatoes at the top of the garden with the broccoli, cauliflower and bok-choy next. We then have the strawberry plants and the plum tomato plant which is still producing tomatoes so I have left the plant alone.

Most of the seedlings planted were damaged by insect attack soon after they were planted but have now recovered and are growing quite well.

April 2010 - Winter Vegetables

2010-04-23T21:44:00.000-07:00

This weekend some winter vegetables have been planted. We have a broccoli, cauliflower, bok choy and parsley. These have been purchased as seedlings. The gardens have also been mulched with sugarcane mulch.

The capsicum plants have been removed and this garden used to plant some parsley. There is further space in this section of the garden for another crop.

April 2010 - Preparation for Cooler Months

2010-04-19T03:44:00.000-07:00

Over the last month we have had some failures in the garden. The watermelon seedlings planted in January seemed to suffer during a cold snap and did not survive. The iceberg lettuce seedlings survived but never really developed a 'heart'. The plant produced many leaves but never really looked like an iceberg lettuce you would buy in the shops. Now that these plants have gone to seed I have removed them from the garden and prepared the bed for planting new seedlings.

What has survived and flourished are the tomato plants and the capsicum. We have harvested 8 - 10 capsicums and about 12 truss plum tomatoes over the last 4 weeks.

The other garden bed where the watermelon and bok-choy was planted will be cleaned up and the garden prepared for winter herbs. This garden bed does not get a great deal of sun and I have decided to use this bed for herbs and other plants that do not require the same amount of sunlight as some of the other vegetables.

Week 25 - Repotting the Seedlings

2010-03-05T21:33:00.000-08:00

Due to some extreme weather conditions last week (over 40 degrees celsius on the Monday), the seedlings planted the previous weekend were almost all dead. This weekend I salvaged one tomato seedling and one capsicum seedling and replanted them into larger pots. Both plants are only around 3cm high and will need some further growth before being transplanted into the garden.

To ensure the seedlings do not dry out too quickly I placed some upturned bottles on them to create mini greenhouses.

Other tasks performed this week were:

Adjusted tomato stakes to ensure the new growth on the plant was better supported. There are already small green tomatoes on the plant and I am hoping for a good crop.
Cleaned up some of the beds and removed a couple of bucketfuls of weeds.

Week 22 - Seed Planting

2010-02-14T01:28:00.000-08:00

Over the past two weeks, it has been a time of maintenance and care of the plants recently planted. The watermelon, lettuce and tomato plants are all growing well and I have been using pyrethrum on the new plants to ensure they do not succumb to the same pests as destroyed my Bok Choy plants. It only took a couple of days to cause the damage in the second photo.

During the weekend I also planted some more seeds to get some seedlings to fill some of the empty spots in the garden.

I have planted some more lettuce varieties. Roma tomatoes and capsicum. These are the three vegetables that we most often use for lunches at home.

The plan for the next couple of weeks is to get the rest of the garden planted out with seedlings and hopefully get some produce from the strawberries and capsicum plants.

Week 20 - Garden Overview

2010-02-01T22:34:00.000-08:00

Last weekend had the first major changes since starting the garden. The squash plants and tomato plants have been removed and some new seedlings planted.

Here are two photos showing what the two garden beds look like now. I still have a considerable amount of space left to plant out. Will spend the next week considering my options.

My other task for this week is to work out how best to keep the pests off the Bok Choy plants. These plants have suffered badly from caterpillar attacks over the last two weeks and a couple of the plants may need to be removed.

Week 20 - New Plantings

2010-01-31T02:08:00.000-08:00

Over the last three weeks I removed all the squash, tomato and corn plants in readiness for replanting these beds with new seedlings.

This weekend I managed to find enough time to go out and get some of the seedlings to plant. With some help from my 5yr daughter I picked truss tomatoes, watermelon and iceberg lettuce.

Late on Sunday afternoon I planted the seedlings out. To minimize the potential of diseases from one crop spreading to the next I swapped the section of the beds I was using for the tomatoes.

I also planted the watermelon in the far section of the new garden bed. This will mean when the vine starts to spread it will occupy a lesser used part of the garden (behind the trampoline) and wont be spilling over into other plants.

Week 17 - New Garden Bed Part 3

2010-01-08T20:13:00.000-08:00

The new garden bed has now been partially planted out. A row of spring onions has been planted along with two rows of Bok Choy (Green Stem).

What is going into the rest of this garden has not been decided. The next couple of weeks look to be a time for additional planting as both the squash and the lettuce appear to have finished fruiting/growing.

These will be dug up and the bed renewed ready for a new crop.

Week 15 - New Garden Bed Part 2

2009-12-29T20:35:00.000-08:00

After a trip to the garden centre, I have edged the garden using treated pine half round edging. I used five of these to give me a garden 3m x 1m against the fence.

Two bags of garden soil, two bags of cow manure and 1 bag of chicken manure we have a garden ready to be planted out with some new seedlings.

I have some spring onion and bok choy to grow in the new bed. I will be getting some iceberg lettuce in the next week.

Week 15 - New Garden Bed

2009-12-28T17:21:00.000-08:00

The new garden bed has been started. Today was the first fine day we have had since Christmas Day and I decided that while the ground was nice and soft from all the rain, I would start clearing the area where the new garden was going to be. This area has basically been somewhere I have been throwing grass clippings and leaves for around 5 years.

Much of this waste material has decomposed and only the top 15cms was still grass clippings and leaves. I moved this pile further down the slope and started to attack the ground with the mattock.

A mesh of fine roots was all the way through the ground and these needs to be broken up and the soil loosened. The roots were thrown into the green garden waste bin. Three quarters of a bin later most of the roots. twigs and grass had been removed from the garden bed.

The next step in preparing the garden is to determine what I will use for a border around the bed. I will be off to the local garden centre to get some supplies.

The following images show the existing garden.

Week 15 - Post Christmas Update

2009-12-27T01:54:00.000-08:00

Well it has been 15 weeks since I started my vegetable garden and the family is starting to enjoy the fruits of my labour. This seems to be a good time to reflect on some of the things I have learnt over the last 15 weeks.

I started this garden using the knowledge I had gained from both studying agriculture at school and watching my mother tend to our garden on the farm at Lisarow. My mother grew almost all of the vegetables we ate as children and had a vegetable garden that occupied around 70 square metres.

My garden is only around 6 square metres and obviously we do not derive all our produce from it but we use it to supplement what we buy. For this reason I selected vegetables that we use regularly but do not store well.

The vegetables we now have in the garden are:

Tomatos
Lettuce
Capsicum
Squash (Mixed Varieties)
Cucumber
Sweet Corn
Strawberries
Mint

Now for the lessons learnt.

Squash and Cucumber plants require a great deal of space. They should also be spaced out at least 70cm to allow space for the plants to grow. Next year I plan on creating a new garden bed on the other side of the backyard to grow these type of plants. This will allow me to grow more vegetables in the existing bed.
Tomato plants can grow to up to 1 metre in height. When I first planted out the garden I planted a row of sweet corn behind the other plants. In most cases this was OK, but the three sweet corn plants that were planted behind the tomato plants were completely overshadowed within 6 weeks of planting and have only grown half as high as the other corn plants.
Sweet Corn plants should be planted in a block (3 by 3 plants) to aid in the pollination of the plants. It also will ensure that the plants are not overshadowed by other plants.

I am sure there are more lessons learnt I will expand on these over the next couple of posts. I will also document the creation of the next garden bed on the northern side of the backyard.

Keep on gardening!

Week 12 - Harvest Photo

2009-12-09T22:01:00.000-08:00

Midway through Week 12, I have harvested a number of the squash that were on the vine.

The squash here are: Yellow Squash, Yellow Button Squash and Autumn Cup Squash.

All were as a result of hand pollination. When left to the bees and insects I have not had much success and most of the squash fruit withers on the vine.

Week 12 - Harvesting and Growing Continues

2009-12-05T16:00:00.000-08:00

The harvesting of produce continues, the various lettuce varieties have been a great addition to lunchtime wraps and sandwiches.

The squash fruits have been slowly getting larger and the hand pollination appears to have been reasonably successful as the plants are producing quite a few new fruits.

The tomato plant continues to produce flowers and hopefully this signifies a good crop. It will need to be re-staked again next week as it has outgrown the stakes I put in a couple of weeks ago.

The capsicum plants look like they are beginning to flower. I will be watching these over the next couple of weeks as I have not grown these previously and am interested to see the flowering and fruiting process.

Week 10 - First Harvest

2009-11-24T19:39:00.000-08:00

In the next week I am hoping that we will be harvesting the first of the fruit and vegetables from the garden. The photo on the left shows the squash which will probably be ready to eat shortly. There are also more female flowers blossoming which I am trying to pollinate. These should start to fruit in a couple of weeks.

The other thing that is ready to pick is a single strawberry. This photo shows the strawberry. One or two days and this should be ready to eat.

The photo below shows the current garden and plant growth.

Week 9 - Comparison of Growth

2009-11-16T08:00:00.000-08:00

The image above shows the amount of growth in just 20 days of growing time. The image on the left was taken on the 24th October 2009. The image on the right was taken on the 14th November 2009.

Week 9 - Hand Pollination

2009-11-14T03:18:00.000-08:00

Lots of rain over the last two weeks, which has resulted in more plant growth. The squash, tomatoes, cucumbers and strawberries are all starting to flower.

I was given some advice regarding the pollination of the squash flowers. For the fruit to appear the female flowers need to be pollinated. It is possible to let nature take its course and let insects perform the pollination but this can be a little hit and miss due to the short time the flowers are blooming.

This article describes the process of hand pollination and includes pictures to show the differences between the male and female flowers.

Other work performed this weekend was to fertilize the bed using a seaweed fertilizer and replenish the snail baits as they deteriorate after rain. The baits are required as the number of snails has increased dramatically since we have had so much rain.

Week 7 - Lots of Growth

2009-10-31T20:12:00.000-07:00

During the last week we got over 100mm of rain. Including about 20mm of rain in about 15min on last Sunday.

This meant that we have had a great deal of plant growth over the last week. The tomato plants have almost doubled in size in 7 days.

The lettuce have grown quite a lot and hopefully in a couple of weeks we will be harvesting some lettuce.

The squash plants have thrived and are now starting to produce prolific shoots and leaves. They are very healthy plants and I am expecting to get a good crop of squash.

The strawberry plants have started to flower and to protect the fruits from birds I created a wire mesh screen to place over the plants.

The final work done this weekend was to put some snail baits down in the garden bed and re-mulch the beds where the mulch was washed out during the torrential downpour last Sunday. I also sprayed the leafy vegetables with pyrethrum spray to protect them from pests.

Week 6 - Extending the Garden Bed

2009-10-23T19:16:00.000-07:00

This weekend I spent some time and extended the garden bed to allow me to plant some more seedlings. The garden bed had previously had been a flower bed but had been let go. After cleaning up all the grass and leaves I used a mattock to break up the heavily compacted soil.

Once the soil was broken up and the larger clumps removed, I added cow manure, chicken manure and some slow release fertiliser. I mixed the soil thoroughly and planted seedlings purchased from a local garden centre.

My experiences with growing my own seedlings were varied and the lettuce and tomato plants grown from seeds do not seem to be maturing and I am going to supplement the seed grown plants with seedlings.

This week I planted the following new plants:

Tomatoes (2 plants)
Lettuce (cos, butter)
Capsicum (6 plants)
Sweet Corn (7 plants)
Strawberries (2 plants)

Once the seedlings were planted I watered them thoroughly and mulched using sugarcane mulch. This should prevent them from drying out as quickly.

Week 5 - Mulching

2009-10-16T18:41:00.000-07:00

During the last week, we had some fairly substantial winds and I noticed that the seedlings planted into the bed had started to dry out. On the Friday night I gave both the bed and the seedling tray a water with diluted sea-weed fertiliser solution.

On Saturday morning I weeded the garden bed and placed some straw mulch around the plants. This should prevent the soil from drying out so much in the wind.

Next week, I will be planting the tomatoes and lettuce out into the garden bed.

End of Month 1 - First Seedlings Planted

2009-10-10T19:40:00.000-07:00

It is the end of the first month since I started the garden. The seedlings grown in the seed planter were reasonably successful and it was time to get the larger seedlings (squash and cucumber) into the garden bed.

After a week of cold and wet weather, the weather on Sunday morning was clear enough that I could spend some time planting seedlings.

There were a small number of weeds in the garden bed that required removal and once this was done I worked out the required spacing and planted out the squash and cucumber seedlings.

It was at this point that I realised that the space was small and that if I planted the seedlings at the recommended spacing I would not be able to fit much in this bed.

I made the decision to plant them closer together with the idea that I would thin them out to the strongest growing plants in a couple of weeks.

The tomato and lettuce seedlings I left in the seed planter. They need a couple more weeks prior to planting in the bed.

The final step was to water the bed with a diluted mixture of seaweed fertiliser. Shortly after completing this the rain came back.

Day Twelve - Seedlings and Garden Bed

2009-09-24T17:30:00.000-07:00

Due to unforeseen circumstances, a couple of days after planting the seeds into the planter, I needed to go away for 10 days. I gave the seeds a good watering prior to leaving and hoped for the best. To my surprise the seeds germinated and the seedlings survived both the warm spring days and the freaky duststorm that the Central Coast got on the 23rd September 2009. In the first and second photos are the seedlings that germinated. The only seedlings not to germinate were the Capsicum.

I have also included a photo of the garden bed where these seedlings will be planted in 3-4 weeks.

Edit: new photos of the Sydney duststorm

Day One - Growing Our Own Vegies

2009-09-13T00:34:00.000-07:00

Over the past 4 weeks, I have been preparing a little used raised garden bed to allow it to be used as a vegetable garden. Previously it was the location of a large hibiscus tree and weeds and grass.

Two weekends ago I removed the hibiscus tree and cleaned up all the grass. I also loosened the compacted soil with a mattock and tried to break up the larger clumps of soil and removed any further weeds and leaves.

This weekend I bought two bags of cow manure and one of chicken manure. I mixed these into the existing soil to prepare the bed for planting.

To give my first batch of plants the best possible start and let the bed settle in I planted a batch of seeds in a seed planter.

I have chosen the following plants as they are foods we eat on a regular basis:

Tomatoes
Squash
Lebanese Cucumber
Lettuce (various varieties)
Capsicum

Over the next few weeks I will post updates on how the plants are progressing. I will also include some photos of the bed and the seed planter.