I am in the thick of the Growing Challenge over at One Green Generation – to grow something from seed that I have never grown before, and in line with my current goal to simplify my blogging until I can get on top of all the this end of year ‘stuff’ I am taking up Belinda (from Belinda’s place) Back to Basics challenge to help me whip up a quick ‘where I’m at post’ when it comes to gardening and sustainable living and all that… so here goes..
Sowing and Planting –
We had two hard frosts last week which took out one of my newly planted zuchini seedlings (it’s cover had blown off) and burn the tops of more potatoes.I am hoping the pumpkins, squash and two sickly watermelons I planted out last week will take off. I have another round of seedlings almost ready to go and will plant directly in the ground some seeds soon.
Still no luck with luffa and bottle gourd seeds germinating. – anyone have any ideas why?
Tomato seedlings are still totally puny – I think I will resort to buying a seedling or two as our goal of seeing tomatoes before the end of January is fast slipping through our fingers.
Harvesting –
Spinach! I needed something green for the pizza and so on it went, even the girls liked it!
Lettuce and lots of it – lucky we are a salad loving family
Planning –
We’ve had problems with crows entering the chook shed and stealing the eggs, that combined with frost and cockies stripping branches of the fruit trees is making us look at netting the whole orchard, sooner rather than later.
Looking at some kind of shade cover for the lettuce, spinach, bok choi and mint.. the bok choi has already gone to seed with our one or two early days of heat.
Working towards the future –
I know I said no more chooks, but we saw the most gorgeous hen to match our new rooster and since Love is in the air Princess died I thought it was only fair that we replaced her with Jasmine. We are hoping the rooster (who the girls have since renamed Aladdin) will do his job and that we’ll have chicks if not this year then next.
A quick update on Aladin – the rooster… he is still with us, not 100%, still very wobbly on his legs but better than he was at the start of the week. We are still heaping on the love and keeping him separate and waiting to see what will happen… I didn’t think he would live if it was Mareks disease.. so who knows?
We are still planning the house renovations with a view to starting early next year – so I am researching wood fired ovens and hydronic heating systems as well as other goodies that I’ve always wanted like an ice cream maker and a dehydrator – with a new kitchen and a proper pantry room we’ll finally have the space for storage!
Sounds like you are coming along ok even with a few challenges thrown into the mix.
Sounds like it’s still going fairly well, even though there’s a couple of things not working out as planned. Just wanted to say that I have seen people tie multiple blank CDs and things like plastic milk bottles to fruit trees to keep the birds away, I don’t know if they work well, but have heard that the CDs can be effective because of their reflective surface catching the light and sort of scaring the birds off. I’m guessing it would be cheaper than netting the orchard, but then again, not sure if it would be as or more effective.
We have loads of crows around here (although I have nothing for them to steal) and they really quite freak me out. Are there more around this year do you think?