shiukopuppy's Blog

Salad from the garden
Sep 20, 2007 | 4:19 AM PST
Tags: salad , rocket , arugula , lettuce

Tonight we ate a salad with lettuce, rocket and wild rocket from our garden! It was tasty.. we added virgin olive oil, balsamic, lemon juice and kalamata olives from the farmer's market! When I harvested the rocket, the fragrance that was released was as exciting as harvesting cilantro.. mm! We also ate some fresh eggs from our new chickens today.

Most of the time in the garden lately has involved organizing the coop but I also found time to plant herb seeds for spring - Thai basil, Flat leaf parsley, basil and cilantro.

First weekend of spring..
Sep 3, 2007 | 4:12 AM PST
Tags: green manure , choi sum , pak choi , kai laan , oats , companion planting , organochlorides , pesticide , Bokashi bucket , almond , snapdragon , coriander , mint , spinach , lettuce

After all of my uploaded images were deleted, I lost faith in garden blogging. But I have done my grieving and am going to try again because I've had lots of fun hanging around on gardenguides. How have you all been? :) I've also been busy preparing for Australian spring lately which left me little time for computer distraction..

During the last month, my boyfriend and I bought a cheap greenhouse and set it up in the backyard. There are shelves for his bonsai trees and cuttings and I have filled my side with seed trays that will grow my companion plants, herbs and vegetable seedlings. I've also sown lots of flowers and sprinkled some flower seeds over the lawn.

We sent our garden soil to a lab to test for organochlorides - if that goes well, we will get a couple of chickens to move in. If there are pesticide residues here, we will have to do without them. We also invested in a Bokashi bucket which uses beneficial bacteria to prepare compost, and prepares meat, citrus, eggshells for composting too, so there is minimal waste. Spring bulbs are flowering and cherries and plum trees are starting to blossom!

LOVING UPDATES on my pre-existing plants:

Almond tree: the buds are swelling, and it looks like the flowers will be pink and white!
The snapdragons look like they will also burst soon..
The nashi pear buds are also swelling but I have had to protect the buds with paper bags because the possums decimated all of the leaf growth last year.
Coriander, mint, spinach, lettuce, peas and flat leaf parsley are thriving. Onions are growing along steadily..
Asian greens - mibuna, pak choi, kai laan, choi sum, mizuna etc. are doing very well.
The green manure (oats) is almost ready to be dug into the soil to prepare for the gray water lawn.
And my garlic is growing! So satisfying.. ^_^