Down time

Around now was when i stopped taking photos for ages, i am not sure why, i guess i just didn't have time. Maybe it had something to do with it being Xmas and all.

Garden Update!

And now for another garden update with your host, Hof.
Hello and welcome to another edition of HoF Garden, today we will see the progress the garden has made over the past month. enjoy.

HoF Garden attracts a lot of local insects.

Sunflower in pollinating mode

In this photo we see the cucumbers are still going strong, also there is some Aloe Vera towards the back and some Broccoli to the side at the back.

The Sweet Basil is off to a good start.

The beans are also off to a good start.

The triplets.

The tomato seedlings are finally starting to grow.
Full album - Garden and Sunflowers Album

Sunflowers in Full Bloom

The next day the sunflowers were in full bloom.


The sunflower creates a crazy pattern within itself.

See full album here - Sunflowers Full Bloom Album

Sunflowers are starting to bloom

In December the Sunflowers decided it was time to startopening up.



After i split up the cucumbers they started to grow quite well.

I decided it was time to split the carrots up a bit so they weren't in clumps anymore.

Even the cucumbers were flowering.


Full album here - Sunflowers Bloom Album

More Garden Progress

Again a large gap between taking photos, over a month this time, here is the progress.

Sunflowers just took off. Carrots weren't going too bad, but they should have been planted in rows not in clumps.

Here you can see the corn, didn't have enough room to grow properly.

Garden Progress

It had been a while since i'd taken some photos, so here is the progress thus far.


As you can see here the corn, sunflowers and carrot are planted far to close together.

Seedlings are craving more space

Another post on the progress of the seedlings.

I should have been at this stage that the seedlings were getting a little too yellow, which meant they were not getting enough nutrients. Problem was i was starting to lose interest.

This is the corn growing, what i should have noticed here is they are planted far to close together.

Same problem with the sunflowers, planted them far to close together.

As you can see here i planted the carrot in bunched, rather then digging a trench and planting through the trench, this stopped them from growing to their full potential.

I had transplanted the cucumber straight from their trays into the garden in a clump in stead of breaking them up and planting individually, which is what i had to do later, as they did not grow at first.
See full album here - Even More Seedling Progress album

Garden taking shape

I thought i may be a good idea to protect the garden from birds and other animals. So a constructed a frame to hold a bird net. This was done with some of stakes, old plastic pipe and some cable ties.

Some of my mates posing for the photo.

At this stage i had planted some seeds straight into the garden, they were:

• Corn
• Sunflowers
• Carrots

Sunflowers sprouted.

The garden complete. It was at this stage i realised it was time to build another garden bed. So my energetic mate decided to dig it for me, thanks Anderman.

Now that the garden was ready, the seedlings also started to look like they were ready to move into their new home.


For the rest of the photos go here - Garden coming together album

Garden Soil Arrives

I finally decided it was time to get the garden soil, i rang around a few places and found a place close by that could deliver that day. I ordered half a cubic meter of loam soil and half a cubic meter of garden soil. This was far more then i needed, but they would not deliver unless i ordered a cubic meter.

In this photo you can see my landlord/good mate in the red shirt and another friend/house mate holding the shovel.

Next we filled the garden to about 60% Loam soil (which for those of you who don't know what this is, is just a very sandy soil, its basically sand.) and the rest with the organic garden soil. This created a nice drainage for the roots of the plants once they were in.

If you would like to look at all the photos in this album go here - Garden Soil Arrives Album

Seedling Progress

Just another Progress update, the cucumbers are almost ready to transplant, better look at getting some soil for the garden.

Cucumbers continue to lead the pack

As the days went on a watched my tiny seedlings grow ever bigger.



Brocolli was also well on its way.

To see the whole album go here - More Seedling Progress Album

Seedlings continue to grow

I continued to water the seedlings and for the first few weeks i covered them with Cling wrap, to create a sort of mini greenhouse. It seemed to work as they seedlings continued to grow.


The cucumbers were still clearly in the lead.

I feel i may have put too many Thyme seeds in these trays.

You can see the full album of these photos here - Seedlings Progress Album

Seedlings have sprouted!

Looking back this was an exciting time for me, as my little seeds came bursting out of the soil.


As you can see in the above image, cucumbers were the clear winner. At this stage i had also planted my second tray of seedlings


Below is a list of all the seedlings i had planted at this stage:

• Cucumbers
• Tomato
• Basil
• Parsley
• Iceberg Lettuce
• Corriander
• Swan River Daisy
• Aster Flowers
• Heartsease Flowers
• Oregano
• Thyme
• Broccoli
• Chilli

As you can imagine far too many seedlings for such a small garden and far too much for my first time ever gardening.

Planting the First Seeds

For some crazy reason i thought it would be fun to grow all my produce from seed, starting right from the beginning, as i find out later, it is much easier to just buy seedlings or already established plants and reap the rewards much quicker.
I bought my seeds from ALDI and some from Bunnings. Seed trays were from Bunnings and seed raising soil from ALDI.

It would soon occur to me that i had bought far to many different types of seeds to fit in my garden, but we will get to that later.

I labelled all the seeds as i planted them, using an old ice cream container cut up into strips. After all the seeds were planted i gave the tray a good water and left outside for the remainder of the day. I made sure the bring the tray inside at night.

Building the Frame

Next step was to create the frame that would allow me to have a raised garden bed. For this i headed down to Bunnings once more and picked up the following:

• 4x 1.8m Pine boards
• A Saw
• A Hammer
• A Packet of long nails
• Drill bit that was slightly smaller then the nails
  

My garden is 1.8mx1.2m, this meant i only need to trim 2 of the boards. I measured these two boards up and used the hand saw to cut them to size. Now it was time to start putting the frame together. I marked on all 4 board where i was going to drill holes for the nails. When i drilled, i made sure to drill at an inward angle, so that when the nails were in they would pull in, see diagram below.


Once the drilling was complete, i put the frame together, with a little help from a friend to hold the frame up.



Now we have something resembling a garden. Next step was to find something to plant in it.

You can see all the photos for this post and the last one here -
The Beginning Album

And it Begins with Digging

First step i took was to get the materials together, in my case i only wanted a small garden to start with. I felt this would allow me to experiment on a small scale and not have everything get out of control.

I went down to my local Bunnings and bought the following:

• A Pitch fork
• A hard metal Rake
• A Compost Bin
• A Shovel
  
  

I then proceeding to dig out the base of the garden removing all the Grass and leaving an area for the woden fram to be placed. The pitchfork was used to turn the clay soil and try and make the ground a little more loose.

The soil had alot of clay in it, as well as the roots from the grass. I left it for a few days to dry out.