So motherfucks what have you been planting in your garden? What do you do you minimise your footprint on the planet?
what do you produce for your family?

-PB

My herb garden looks very tired...

What happened to the other thread with the capital letters?

Not sure.......do you miss the CAPITALS?????

time to plant you Garlic....go through you old garlic bulbs and see if they are striking, bang em in the ground.....

I've been thinking of making a veggie and/or herb garden, any tips on what to do or not do?

I'll 2nd Cromulent's request/advise.....I'm wishing to plant toms/lettuce the usual garb I suppose + herbs Basil and the like.
Where in the garden ? how much sun is required for I have some areas that the arvo sun does not shine for eg.

I have a garden

1/. Do it...
2/. Don't NOT do it...
3/. Raise the garden bed..
4/. Water less regularly but for longer periods to encourage deep root growth
5/. select what you are going to plant from a planting guide...DO NOT....rely on what Bunnings have on the shelf as they will sell it even if it's out of season or coming to the end of a season and the seedlings will BOLT and provide nothing.
6/. Try and utilise companion plantings to avoid pests

growing dope doesn't count....;)

toms and lettuce are usually spring crops....now it cabbage,garlic,cauliflower, brussel sprouts ETC winter crops

full sun always for vegies

Why doesn't growing dope count?

It's been harvesting time at the Morris house over the past few days. Olives, persimmons and oranges.

It can count if you want it to....i guess......

how are you going to process your olives Matt?

what do you do with your persimmons?

Yeah we have something being harvested almost every week.....

just put in my garlic last weekend, those two steer are in the freezer, this weekend i am selling two breeding sows for $450 plus two lambs bowed for the freezer, so now we have pork,beef,chicken and lamb in the freezers......along with the corn i harvested and blanched......pickled onion, rhubarb, pickled artichokes, pickled chillies and plenty more.......

Olives are brining as we speak - should be another 2 weeks and they will be ready for bottling, I gave away half of the persimmons and made the other half into bread for my post-workout meals.

Some tips here that I've found useful in growing my own vegies:

1) Plant them in soil
2) Make sure they are in the sun
3) Some of them like to drink water

:lol: [youtube]aG08mW-2K_o[/youtube]

Batfink = Maurice. :lol:

how often are you changing the water???

sharp as a bowling ball, mind like a steel trap.....](*,) ](*,)

Every 24hrs for the first week, every 4-5 days after that.

ok ...sounds pretty close to my recipe, i will check it out......have you pricked them so the brine can penetrate.

I scored them with a paring knife each side of the pit.

I started another batch "dry" style to experiment, but they went bad and I turfed them.

how many olive trees do you have? usually they don't provide anything until they are about 7 years old, then they can crop around 25 kg for a good tree....what variety are they are they, i haven't had the greatest success with my trees as they are only just starting to crop this season, got like 1 kg off them

Proud that the Macadamia tree I bought for my dad for Fathers day several years ago has finally started producing good nuts.

-PB

Great Thanks mate - gave me more time off prep prior to spring....

2 trees, no idea what variety or how old - we just moved into this place in Feb and they were here already. Previous owner was an old Mauritian lady. I think they are reasonably young, the harvest wasn't massive - maybe 3-4kg across the two.

From looking at variety photos on the internet, I think they are most likely Picuals .

a good gauge of the age of the tree is the diameter of the trunk just above ground level, also you may need to feed the tree and give it a good water, it's all bullshit about not feeding and watering them

Need to find some more herbs for the bed this weekend :-k

Think the hardest part isn't growing them, it's finding new and better ways to use them in cooking so that they don't go to waste.

-PB

agree....i use heaps of them and run out regularly OR they run out of season and i have to do without

Batty, I need to prune back a fuck tonne of roses that have been neglected for a season - any tips? I've never pruned before but have heard that if I prune them back to 1/3 of their current height and completely cut away the diseased/dead sections from the stump it should be all sweet.

not my department my wife has heaps of roses, i don't know much about them to be honest, i will ask her....all i know is there is a correct time to prune, i will ask her and post as soon as i know..

Heather is the true gardener here at home, she keeps 3 acres of gardens, i build them and set them up and then she designs and plants them out with my assistance.

My department is: breeding cattle, pigs, meat/food production, large vegetable garden(2 netball courts), tractor works, manure production( yes i hear you say i am excellent at that!!!) building, maintenance, management, run the business, firewood, fencing, seeding paddocks for free range pigs grazing,and all that stuff.

Heather department is: domestic engineer, chicken breeding, goose breeding, gardening, small vegetable/herb garden (half a netball court), food preserves and all that sorta stuff.....she is very clever she picked up 13 ribbons at the Sydney Royal Easter show this year and has won several national titles for her chickens.......

No dramas.

I would much rather rip them all up, but would feel guilty. The previous owner still visits from her retirement village the next suburb over to visit her neighbours, pick up mail that hasn't redirected yet and look at her old rose garden.

how do the roses look????

Heather said time is now to August to prune, prune 2/3 off the tree's and fertilise heavily now, say a litre of dynamic lifter per rose bush and in spring you will awesome roses.....

if they are very old roses they will be worth the effort and nice for your dinner table

They look pretty old and woody to me, I mainly want to get them back away from the driveway.

Will go do some snipping and report back.

Heather reckons you can run amok and they will rebound

I'm a gardener myself. On Sunday I will be planting beetroot, red onion, leek, mixture of types of heirloom carrots, peas, kale and parsnip. I will also put my first lot of compost in the garden from my new compost tumbler I bought from bunnings. I will post a photo of my garden on Sunday

What's it like growing things down south in the cooler climates?

Do you get longer growing/picking periods out of fruiting plants/herbs?

-PB

Kale chips ftw.

So jelly of people in cooler environments being able to grow shit that won't die in the sunlight haha.

-PB

Speaking of which, buying my Dad a new axe for his birthday soon.

-PB

This is my dad's first garden i helped him build.

The passionsfruit vine growing on the chicken wire is going amazing only just planted it about 6 months ago and has roughly 30 fruits growing on it.

Edited by vincenzogold: 16/5/2014 01:13:15 PM

YIPPEE......we love the heirloom stuff as well the carrots are great as they come in white , purple,orange,green, yellow and look gr8 on the plate.....also do heaps of heirloom pumpkins

well we are Sydney so 45 in summer to 0 in winter so no real difference i guess....where are you

fuck that i have a petrol driven hydraulic wood splitter, we split about 5 to 7 tonnes a year

good start, the passionfruits love being wee'd on;)

I forgot to mention garlic i will planting lots and lots of garlic. I have grown purple carrots before that was funky, Im a member of the diggers club so i get all my seeds from them.

Townsville lol

-PB

lol well for a personal fireplace that'd be overkill.

Getting him one of those new Finnish axes.

-PB

yeah diggers are ok........took my wife to heronswood years ago, was very nice........there are plenty of heirloom seed companies on the net now......

we collect a lot of our own seeds.....we grew heaps of garlic last year and same this year have just started planting last weekend....

Yeh i also save seeds. Its good knowing the seeds you have are quality and are the seeds from some of your best crop.

I havent been down to Melbourne to see there gardens yet but i would love too.

you in sandy loam up there, problem with drying out could be more to do with lack of mulch and humus in the soil....

We had a passionfruit vine when I was a kid. We used to piss on it because how it grew hit us from the house and the plant would thrive. Anyway after a while mum worked out what was going on and banned us from doing it. The plant never bore fruit again :lol:

This http://i.imgur.com/eiDyrVn.jpg is what a lot of the plants looked like - on the verge of death and widespread disease.


Have pruned them all right back, fertilised, soaked and mulched.

Edited by notorganic: 16/5/2014 04:16:35 PM

planted 160 garlic, heaps of caulies, cabbage, chinese cabbage, brussels sprout and broccolini so my back is shagged and i need another weekend to recoup.......

The best gardening / cricket book ever. http://www.bookshops.com.au/book_search_details.php?seller_id=3116&sku=0215496

Not that there are many hybrid books of this type. (Gardening advice segueing into cricket anecdotes.)

Hilarious, off the wall / weird humour in this book. (Thommo being a landscape gardener and all.)

I used to be a real green thumb until I was about 15... Lost interest in my later teens up until now.
This thread is making me keen to get do my old herb and veggie garden.

DO IT...!!!!! nothing more rewarding than growing harvesting and eating your own produce.....and it tastes heaps better not to mention the health benefits.......also save money ;)