heirloom vegetables Archive

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Vegetable Beds September-November 2012

By
Ness
– August 22, 2012Posted in: Featured Posts, Gardening, Planting Planning
The current plans for the next season of growing. Some of last seasons plans did not even get off the ground. I did not do any of the carrots or...

The current plans for the next season of growing.

Some of last seasons plans did not even get off the ground. I did not do any of the carrots or beans. And I attempted to grow the globe artichokes but they died after they were transplanted.

This season I am taking it easy and growing only stuff I have previously grown. Apart from the garlic, but that does not get harvested until November anyway. I also plan on growing a bunhc of the mexican sour gherkin along the front fence.

Most of the seed has been sown in trays for these plans. The lettuces and spinach are already in seedling stage and will be planted out in the next day or so.

 

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Seed Saving – Lettuce

By
Ness
– December 15, 2011Posted in: Gardening, Seeds, Seedlings & Seed Saving
It’s been hot here. We had the driest November in recent history. So my garden really didnt stand much of a chance, and ALL my lettuce took the opportunity to...

It’s been hot here. We had the driest November in recent history. So my garden really didnt stand much of a chance, and ALL my lettuce took the opportunity to bolt.

I told the hubs what was happening and what that meant and why I would be pulling it out and planting more seedlings and he asked a simple question. “Why don’t you save the seed?”.

At first I got all defensive ‘I don’t know? It’s hard and I can buy it?’ But I actually thought about it for more than half a second. Why WASN’T I saving the seed? Why did I have to buy it? Why not allow it to bolt and then start gathering the seeds?

So I culled a few of my duplicates and left one of each, and let it grow and flower. It has reached the stage the seed are ready to fly away. So I went out there today and spent 10 minutes pulling off the dandilion like buds into a different bag for each type.

These are my celtus. All picked and sorted. They have a slightly heavier, almost meatier seed, and are dark black. So this also makes them very easy to sort from the buds and hairs.

Stills its very fiddly. Also don’t do this and then sigh heavily. If I spill water on my keyboard I will be growing lettuce between the keys.

It took about an hour to separate out the three batches of seeds. I saved about $12. But I don’t know if that was the motivation.

It almost felt powerful. From one seed, I now have 100+ seeds, which could be exponential in the amount of seeds I can have when I collect them.

Also that is COMPLETELY the point of heirloom vegetables. Seed saving. Seed saving, seed swapping, seed trading or seed gifting. Sharing these varieties of seeds so they live on for further generations.

And the amount I picked compared to what is still left on my bolts is astounding in my mind. If I picked it all, and grew it all, and bolted it all, and kept going, it would be a universe of lettuce seeds.

Either way, I don’t plan to stop with my lettuces. I think the only trouble I will have is with some varieties of tomatoes that don’t seed much. Or my root crops. But the universe is the limit!

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Planning an organic vege garden from scratch

By
Ness
– August 11, 2011Posted in: Construction & Tools, Featured Posts, Gardening, Home Projects
So since the last post, a few things happened. Possums ate and destroyed most of my seedlings We sold that house We brought a new one I now have lots...

So since the last post, a few things happened.

  1. Possums ate and destroyed most of my seedlings
  2. We sold that house
  3. We brought a new one
  4. I now have lots of space

The new house we chose for a few reasons. The layout was better, the house smaller and the space in the yard larger. I knew that I would have a great amount of space to grow a vege garden. Proper, large, cyclic, fantastic. The front yard we have is fenced in and gets full sun all year round. The perfect spot for a vege patch. The layout is rectangular and has this figure 8 in the middle done with a concrete edging. So initially the idea was to dig out the figure 8 and put a walking path in the middle and grow in there.

So we started digging it out and found large roots through it, even though it was all grass it looks like it housed some large trees that were just removed and stumped.  But it also gave us an idea just how hard it would be to dig up, and an idea of the space, which seemed to waste all that fantastic room. My goal is to sustain our fresh vegetable needs all year round. I live in Queensland, sub tropics which means this should be possible. I WANT to eat and use seasonal produce and I WANT to grow heirlooms.

So in the end we found that the figure 8 would actually be a waste of the full potential of the space, and due to the root system we would actually be better building raised beds. So that is where we are right now. We are going to level the area, dig up the concrete edging and put in raised beds.

The design is really simple. 6 3x1m beds 0.4m high. I did some research on what to build it from, and there were many options but we ended up going with untreated hardwood that is naturally resistant to termites. Its really heavy, and average cost for what we received and the amount of wood needed.

Last weekend we spent measuring, cutting, routing, drilling and moving a tonne of hardwood sleepers. This weekend we get a digger in to level the front yard and finish prepping the wood to build the  beds. It is starting to get really exciting.

Of course I have to end with some gratuitous dog photos. They helped both weekends.

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