Sunday, April 25, 2010

Urban orchard in the city..coming soon.


I saw this very encouraging sign the other day. Seeing the words beneficial insect and companion plant right in the centre of Perth-Northbridge was quite a surprise. It will be interesting to see how it looks when it's done.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Cooler season vegetable gardening.

Perth's gardener's holiday is over and autumn is trying to cool us down. It is a good time to get some vegetables in for the rainy season, meaning we don't need to rely on daily water to get them through to maturity.
We made the mistake last time round of planting cabbages. They take up a fair bit of room and we don't really eat much of them so I am making sure we only plant what it going to be of most use to us. It's only a small patch, too, so it needs best use of the area.
Little seedlings.
I put in some lettuce seedlings (various, as I rescued some from work, too) and broccoli and popped some peas in near the best climbing spots.
The soil is looking really good, too, despite being the end of summer, it is still quite brown and rich. Is it because of the biochar we used when the bed was set up? It's sure to be helping. We also regularly apply minerals, bentonite, various organic manures and composts and it shows.
Soil profile in our veg bed.
You can see the good soil above the line of original sand.