Permaculture Living

After a few weeks of hot dry weather, the last week has been a little kinder to the garden and it’s had a good soaking again.

I’ve been harvesting handfuls of basil and the odd tomato, capsicum, and snake bean but mostly I’m waiting for the rockmelons to ripen. There are at least five in there, ranging from tennis ball size on upwards. This is my first time growing them and they are surprisingly easy and tolerant of variable condition compared to finicky plants like tomatoes.

I appear to have won the ongoing battle with the possums. The answer, which was kindly provided in the comments earlier in January, is mosquito netting.

Enclosing the whole garden in a double-bed size net has kept the possums from climbing the fence and from eating any of the vines that are growing along it. It also filters the hot Queensland summer sun a little.

The one caveat to covering your garden in netting - remember to open it up during the day, otherwise the pollinators aren’t able to get in and the harvest may suffer.

I just love how fruits and curcurbits look when really young.

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.

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.

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.