Permaculture Living

The rockmelons were slow to fruit, running all over the garden festooned with flowers, but now that they have set fruit they are doing it with a vengeance.

And the biggest one so far…

There are about four capsicum plants in my vegie garden, all from the same punnet of seedlings. One has only flowers, two are throwing fruit that all look like chillis (without the heat), and one is producing standard capsicums like you’d see in the shops.

I was keeping a close eye on the first watermelon on the vines, which was growing nicely, from this…

To this…

Then the day I hoped would never come arrived. The possums have figured out how to collapse the top of the fence and get to the fruit growing on the wire.

Sigh. I guess more fortifications are in order.

The first edibles from the no-dig garden, not much more than two months after planting. Basil, two cherry tomatoes, a capsicum and a cucumber.

The cucumber just before it was picked.

Another customer question from my time working in the nursery.

Question: The top layer of my worm farm is full of food scraps and won’t fit any more in. What do I do now?

Answer: The short answer is that you need to wait until the worms have eaten all the existing food scraps before you can add more.

The longer answer: you can also increase the rate at which the worms eat your scraps. The slower way is to increase the number of worms. They will breed and grow more numerous the longer you have the farm - they might only eat a small amount when it’s brand new, but as the population grows they will eat more and more.

The second way is to blend the scraps in a food processor or blender before you put them in the farm. The worms are tiny and seem to prefer slightly rotted food, so if you blend it into into a vegie smoothie it breaks down faster and they eat it much faster than if you were to throw in entire potato peelings or fruit rinds.

Whether it’s Midsummer, Yule, Christmas or the Holiday Season.. have a happy one.

I wish I could remember what variety this is; I’ve never seen such a large number of flowers on the one stem.

ETA: It’s a variety called Sweetbite.

Some more instructions and photos on building your own instant vegie garden…

How to make a no-dig garden bed - From Go Greener, Australia

Fact Sheet: No dig garden - From the Gardening Australia website

Building a no dig garden - From Suite101.com

Sabrina’s ‘No Dig’ Garden - From Overnight’s Horticulturalist

In late October I found a spare space in the backyard to expand from growing in containers to a proper vegie patch. Just five weeks after planting, it’s now looking lush. Along the way, I took a few photos.

The finished no-dig garden. I started by digging a brick perimeter slightly in the ground, then laying wet newspaper straight on top of the grass. That was followed by a bale of lucerne hay, a bag of composted chicken manure and a bale of sugar cane mulch. The fence of animal wire was the last part but most necessary if I wanted anything to grow; it keeps the possums out.

Now, it’s lush and green and starting to show fruit. The afternoon storms and odd spell of rain have been keeping the water up well (it rained a lot just after the seedings went in, conveniently) and today was the first time in weeks I’ve had to water.

Four days after installation, 28th October

Planting the Seedlings, 8th November

Tomatoes (two types), basil, capsicums, rockmelon, watermelon. Two pumpkin seedlings at the bottom right which are waiting to go into the ground elsewhere.

Beginning to fruit, 13th December

The tomatoes have set fruit (and there should be a lot). The capsicums are covered in flowers, as are the rockmelons, the watermelon has just set its first fruit. There’s now also snake beans and a cucumber in the jungle.

This watermelon vine is growing about 20 centimetres every day.