Update

The snow peas have been hit by the frost, but most look like surviving.

The mass of green is cress. Growing fantastically well. The mustard is popping up.

Even though we've been eating the spinach and silverbeet leaves every 2nd day or so, more just keep appearing like magic.

Just planted some basil.

Karena, Meika and Zekie enjoying the frontyard. The brocolli is powering along.

Update

There's a lot to update, and a proper post will follow in a few days. We've been very sick over the past week, and a bit distracted as the Cowra Blues AFL team just made it into the grand final to be played on 2nd September. But for now, a brief summary;

We've been eating loads of home grown spinach, silverbeet, cress, mustard and some celeraic leaves. The broccoli is coming along very well, and lots of other plants are growing well too.

We need help though. We've contacted a friend's dad who once featured on ABC TV's 'Gardening Australia' and we are hoping he can help us plan out the fruit trees ( a very difficult process in a small area), and another friend's dad who is a chicken expert! The challenge is to build an integrated chicken run that can serve multiple functions, such as espalier trelliss for fruit trees. It has to be cheap too.

More vegie garden beds need making as well, and a couple are ready for planting.

Some of the seedlings are growing well too, and some failed completely.

There's a picture above of our house taken from a train. We recently went on a short trip (20 mins each way) with Wendy and Angela from Sydney.

Another blog will be set up soon with family pics.

Composting

A really pleasing part of this project is re-using kitchen 'waste'. It is amazing how much food we throw away. Not any more though. A bin is in the kitchen for food scraps, which gets taken out to the compost bin every couple of days or so. Lot's of coffee in this bin!

The outdoors compost bin was left by the previous owners. It's not the greatest bin in the world. It is falling apart, and it's hard to turn the compost over in. Nonetheless, it's a good start. We've just borrowed a book on composting from the library so we should be able to work something out for the longer term

You can see the plants that have sprung up next to the outdoors compost bin, thriving on the extra nutrients.

Toxic Logs?

As well as the pots I found lot's of logs in a council clean up. I hoped to use them as the barrier for a no-dig garden. When I brought them home I was doing some research on no-dig gardens and found that these logs may have some toxic chemicals in them.

Most have been treated with a rot-resistant chemical which may be toxic. From what I have read so far it seems that although the chemical is toxic, it generally doesn't leak far. Anyway, it won't be used in this garden.

They way to tell is to look for the yellow / green colouring to the logs. The picture doesn't show it well, but the logs on top and bottom right have that distinctive colour. The larger rounded logs may also be toxic, but have been weathered so much it's difficult to tell.

It's got to go

The former owners had put a lot of the time into the garden. Only problem is that most of it was just ornamental. We haven't had much interest in looking after it and it's all overgrown. Besides, it's taking up prime land for veggies.

Karena is perfectly attired for fashionable gardening.

We'll be able to use the plants for mulch.

Laying cardboard

After thinking for a few weeks about whether or not to lay newspaper as a grass barrier for the no-dig garden, we eventually went for cardboard.

We lifted the mulch to lay cardboard directly onto the grass. Then the mulch was put over the cardboard. Lot's of worms were found in the process, and if the worms like it the veggies surely will.

A bag of 'Bi Lo' potting mix ($3) was then put on top.

Strawberries

Surely one of the great dissapointments in life is the appalling state of supermarket bought strawberries! Big, tasteless, and a waste of money. I'm sure these strawberries will be smaller, but much more valuable. These were bought as seedlings and transplanted.

Cress

After the success with mustard, we hoped for a similar result with cress. It's popping up really well so far and some should be ready for eating in 2-3 weeks.

Going Potty

We've got lot's of things growing in pots; beetroot, parsnips, capsicum etc etc.

The only thing is, someone moved the pots before I got around to labelling them. We've no idea what is in what pot.

We've got lot's more pots from hunting around at the Epping Council Clean Up when we were visiting Karena's sister & family.