early morning

A couple of shots of the garden in the early morning. Best time of the day!

garden creatures

We garden with permaculture principles at the community garden, and there are lots of benefits. We have visits from beneficial insects, like these sweet lady bugs on the camomile.

 

 Unfortunately we have also been visited by cabbage moth, and before we could net the Brassica  they took hold. Staggering to see how many grubs we found on one plant. It is a lesson for next season - plant the seedlings and set up the netting at the same time.

 

successful seedlings

One of the great things about being involved in the community garden is learning from others. This spring Lee-Anne has been raising seedlings for the garden, with great success. On the other hand, I've been raising seedlings for my own garden, and struggling to get them to grow once the initial "seed" leaves have come through.

I've spoken to Lee-Anne about this, and her tips for growning strong healthy seedlings are:

• Use small pots or tubes rather than seed trays, so there is no need to thin and pot-on the seedlings.
• Fill the pot with compost almost to the top. Fill the rest of the pot with sand or seed raising mix. This gives the seed a chance to germinate in the sand and send down roots to the compost, where it will get nutrition.
• Keep the pots moist. This may mean a gentle spray several times a day. The roots are very short in the initial stages and will dry out very quickly.
• Once the seeds have germinated, use a seaweed tonic to promote root growth.
• Once the seed leaves have formed, use a fish emulsion to promote leaf growth. (This is where I was going wrong!).

 The seedlings Lee-Anne has grown have been fantastic, and we have a mix of tomato plants growing onto the produce table for sale this morning. If you are in the area drop by.

seedlings underway

The days are getting warmer and we are starting to think about spring planting. The September produce swap will include planting out seedlings and seeds that the garden members have been growing. Lee-Anne has been busy nursing these seedlings through. They spend the night inside by the fire, and are put outside every day.