Pages

August 11, 2008

Where we're at

Random downloading of brain ahead...

Not a huge amount of action in the garden this weekend although I did get one bed of onions and carrots sowed today though.

I also got stuck into the frog pond this afternoon and tidied up the hole and lined it with polythene. Haven't yet progressed any further though.

Simon dug the kids a sandpit in the middle section of grass above the vegetable garden area where the swing and trampoline are. So they now have a nice big sandpit, and their playhouse has also been relocated off my deck which will make room for some potted vegetables if I need to.

This evening I've been working on my garden plan and have mapped out almost 100m2 of garden beds! Last years' garden was about 60m2 with the most work being the intial digging of the plots (very compacted and weed ridden soil), so I figure what's another 30m2 of digging this year! Once it's all set up and the planting is done successionally, it's very easy to maintain and harvest. And with our new push mower - it keeps the paths between beds nice and trim.

I have decided to plant tomato plants around the frog pond to provide shade and foliage for the frogs and also takes care of where was I going to put some of my tomatoes as I'd run out of room by that stage.

Need to figure out some sort of system for watering the garden. Last year I found it a bit of a drag carrying buckets of water from the water trough (which is fed by an irrigation hose that runs from our water tank under the house that is filled from roof runoff and controlled with a ballcock valve) to the garden beds. What would be ideal is if we can modify the plug hole of the bath tub/water tough and put a garden hose connection on the end so it can be gravity fed.

This week I plan on digging up the remaining 3 potato plots and get the sprouted bits into the ground.

3 comments:

J said...

Sounds like you all had a pretty eventful weekend. And it also sounds like your garden continues to grow. I like the idea of planting tomatoes around the frog pond as well. If you can, you'll have to take some pictures of the frog pond to show us!

emmani said...

Hey Nikki, check out this site

http://www.greywaterguerrillas.com/

You may get some great ideas on irrigation for your garden, have a look in the "projects from the water underground" section to see how other people have recycled their grey water.

I know from Googling that Australia have a great network of government initiatives for water harvesting too...

Good luck!

Lynda Eichler said...

Nikki - will ask Nige if he has any ideas about your irrigation. We have a system he's set up at Tangimoana from our bore there. Anyway - will see if he can help.