ATOM feed
Bloglines
When I first moved into this house, back in 1997, I made a decision not to garden! Over the years I have moved about a bit. And in quite a few of the places I've lived, I have tried to create some semblance of a garden (more of mothers influence, I've worked out..) and every time, or so it seems to me, that the garden has reached the time when I could sit back and enjoy, I've had to move again!
So, when I came here, I thought, no way, let me just leave the trees, keep them trim, and cut the grass; I wouldn't have called it 'lawn' back then, the previous owners had fenced in a big dog, so there wasn't really any ground cover left. Let me see if I can find a picture to put in here.
Then it started - 'I'll just put this little plant in here, and another one over there, oh look, that would make a good place for a little bit of bushie stuff..'. Things grew, most things, others went in; I took out one of the big trees to bring in more sunlight, and lo and behold... a garden...
But we CANNOT grow vegetables! We have tried everything, tomatoes of course, and lettuces, capsicums, silverbeet, all the salad stuff that I love to be able to pick fresh. Each year we would try a new tack, figuring all the tree roots were a problem, we bought and planted big tubs of things. We moved the garden; into the sun, out of the sun, face east, face north, but nothing would work.
The plants got a start, we've even had quite large tomatoes at different stages; but then everything wilts and dies. The tomato plant leaves go yellow then brown and fall off. The fruit falls off and the plants die. So we gave up!
But this year, because I have no landscaping to do, and I find it hard to sit idle, I have been thinking about ' what if I grew things when it wasn't so hot?' - and so I germinated a couple of seeds and got them to 'transplant' stage, and then I didn't know what to do next. Somehow it didn't seem right to put them out in the cold hard ground to fend for themselves; so I put them into a pot and out where they get sun for plenty of the day - but, nope, they haven't done a thing, not a single extra leaf, and they lie down quite a bit...
And so about the glasshouse/greenhouse... I am almost convinced that I have to have something like this for my 'salad' garden. A place where I can grow through the months that aren't really hot - but I don't know which one I need; glass and/or clear plastic? or shadecloth and sun protection? I've been doing some research, and watching eBay for a bargain, but not knowing what I want makes it hard...
I've ordered a book - hopefully it will help me work it out...
Barkley Blah!
The first time I started a blog, it was because I had something to say, hence the turningsixty blog was born.
Then I started the MyBookBlog, an ongoing project to help me write 'The Book'.
Now, this one looks like being a "Sometimes Journal", definitely a reflection of the current pace of my life.
3 Comments
Hi Della. That's the secret planting when it's not so hot. If you've got a sheltered spot like a patio that gets the morning sun, put your seedlings there. They should do quite nicely.
After being transplanted, they do sulk for a while, but give them some fertiliser, water it in well and they should perk up within a day or two.
Good luck!
Hi ozkatt, thanks for visiting, and thanks for the tip - I really do need this sort of advice.
:-)
Della
Try Beans as a winter crop,they introduce nitrogen back into the soil and will be okay in the cold unsheltered. Best wishes
Post a Comment
<< Home