General

Transplanting Seedlings

October 28, 2011 Ben General

A Biodynamic gardener once had a row of broccoli plants. Only two plants had aphids, but both were quite infested. The two plants were dug up, and the gardener discovered that the plants had experienced root damage during transplanting. The healthy broccoli, which had experienced uninterrupted growth, were untouched by the insects, while nature eliminated the [...]

Whats in your freezer?

June 27, 2010 Ben General

It wasn’t anything to do with global warming and it is winter here, but today we had the big thaw. The frost build up on our chest freezer was getting too much, so out came all of our frozen goods and in came the ice scrapers. In the aftermath I found that we had quite [...]

Why I don’t use weed mat

June 9, 2010 Ben General

After moving into our new house, we spent a couple of hours over the weekend looking around my new garden. What we found was a lot of poor soil and what seems like an acre of weed mat in the garden beds! My past experiences with weed mat have not been good, and this one [...]

New House – time for a new garden

June 5, 2010 Ben Garden, General

What a big fortnight it has been! Moving house has really taken it out of R and I, but the enthusiasm to garden is coming back. Below are some photos of our new back yard, there is some framework for a huge tropical oasis garden. I think I counted 11 palm trees in the yard! [...]

Introducing the Family

June 2, 2009 Ben General

Since the birth of this blog there have been some mentions of my family, so here they all are (except my wife, she’s shy… that’s what she says anyway…) Maggie, or Margret when she’s in trouble, is a three year old cat. Not sure what kind of genetic line she comes from, but she is [...]

Aquaponics

May 24, 2009 Ben DIY, Garden, General

What do you get when you cross a tank full of fish and a vegetable garden? You get a very productive food producing system called Aquaponics! Over the weekend I ducked down to my local nursery and ordered a Balcony Kit aquaponics setup. I wish I had the balcony to put it on, but the [...]

4 aquaponics, vegetables

Compost Tumbler

April 19, 2009 Ben General

On Saturday morning I saw a Tumbleweed Compost Tumbler on special at the local garden center, over $50 off the original price so it came home with me. After opening the box and reading the instructions, the contstruction was simple. Only needed a 10mm spanner, a phillips head screw driver and a shifter to put [...]

Potato Bin – Build Stage

April 19, 2009 Ben General

After reading Lifehacker the other day, a little motivation crept in to build a new bin and grow my own potatoes again. This will be a multi post project that will document all the stages from planting to growing! Years ago I grew many kilograms of potatoes in a stack of old car tyres with [...]

My Garden Survived

April 5, 2009 Ben General

After three weeks away getting married and on our honeymoon, my garden has survived an average top temperature of 35 degrees C. There have been a couple of casualties, but nothing that was not expected, and a couple of nice surprises. My Arrowroot plants have been belted around by the wind a fair bit and [...]