Seed Stock

A very special delivery arrived today that I have been eagerly awaiting. The beginnings of my seed stock. I browsed through a couple of online seed traders that specialise in heirloom, organic and open pollinated seeds. For me as a beginner, Diggers Club seems to be the best -purely from my standpoint as they have a very large selection of multi variety seed packs - for example, a single pack containing a selection of heirloom tomatoes, or a single pack containing a selection of heirloom eggplants, or pumpkin etc. So overall, I can try out more varieties, without having to buy single packets of each specific variety, which would be far more expensive.

What I plan to do, is plant a couple of each variety, and test them - those that grow best for us and that we prefer we will continue to grow. I especially like the idea of growing food for a specific purpose. -Ie. tomatoes that are good for cooking vs tomatoes that are good for salads, instead of your mass produced non purpose specific, bland hybrid produce you tend to find in a supermarket.

I am really looking forward to the coming weeks as I plant them out according to the relevant moon phase and watch them grow. I am also going to take note of germination rates for the various crops in the different moon phases so I can better get a grasp of the whole moon planting concept -of which I am very much a novice. -I am still having issues with a bush turkey mounding up my garden, so I am going to have to grow the seeds in seedling trays and then transplant them into the garden once they're a little more established. I'd hate to plant the seed direct and then have him come along and turn my garden upside down. (As he so thoroughly enjoys doing) 

In my picture are some other seed types not from diggers - a couple from ebay -which seems to be a great source of various seeds and cuttings -especially of harder to find varieties. I've also got quite a few packs of seeds from various discount/$2 stores. I've already planted up rocket, endive, spinach and lettuce from these, and the germination rate I would say is very close to 100%, so definitely give them a go - they don't of course seem to have a wide variety of organic seeds, although there are definitely a lot of heirloom varieties if you know what you're looking for.

I can tell you right now it was not cheap to buy all the seeds above. However,I consider it to be an investment as I have chosen (for the most part, and where possible) to buy organic and heirloom varieties. This means I can continue to collect and save my seeds for future crops without having to rely on buying more seed, as all the heirloom varieties will reproduce 'true to type'. (With the exception of cross pollination happening between plants of the same species/breed/what ever -ie. diff varieties of tomatoes pollinating each other etc) Hybrid seeds won't do this, they will seed, but the seed will not in most (if not all?) cases produce fruit the same as the original. - that is, they need to be grown from hybrid seed each time -they're not self perpetuating, if anything you'll end up with a stunted plant and fruit with weird mini-me fruit. (Does that all make sense? I've explained it in as much as I understand it myself, its all very fascinating stuff, takes you back to high school biology and Punnett squares and genetics)

Baring all this in mind, and that if stored correctly, seeds will last up to two years many even longer, depending on the variety (some not so long), I have picked up the following tips.

• Use heirloom seed varieties where ever possible as it means you can collect the seeds for use at a later date, rather than having to purchase more seed.
• Seeds need to be kept in cool, dark and dry conditions.
• Paper envelopes are best as the seeds will not sweat as they may in foil or glass. (recycled paper envelopes are ideal)
• Keep seeds in a dark place -I store mine in a wooden box in the house so they're sure to be in a consistent temperature, and stay dry.
• A sealed container is best, as insects (or mice!) given the opportunity, will eat the seed.
• Those little silica moisture sucking sachets that you get with your vitamins etc -stick one or two in the container you keep your seed in to suck away any excess moisture.
• Make sure if you discard the original seed packet label (or if you collect and store seed you've harvested yourself) that you label AND date the seeds clearly.
• Use your old seed first. -if you have a lot of old seed, try germinating them, they may still work but with perhaps a lower success rate. -At least this way you'll get a crop of produce that may have otherwise gone to waste as old seed, and you can of course collect the seed from the new produce to put back in your seed stock.

As I have said before, I am new for the most part to gardening (successfully) so if you have any of your own tips, please feel free to share.

Gardening by way of the moon

As the moon has been such an important part of my life -I chart my menstruation and fertility cycle by the moon, I cleanse my crystals by the moon, I track my mood shifts and energy cycles by the moon, and I recovered from a pretty bad reaction to synthetic hormonal medication, under advice from my Naturopath by sleeping exposed to moonlight. (Another story for another time) And of course the moon being the inspiration for the title of this blog.  Well, it goes without saying that in my foray into the gardening and self sufficiency realm, I would chose to plant and garden by the moon.

The weekend before last was a fallow time in as far as the cycles associated with the moon go with the moon being in an earth sign -A time to till the earth and prepare garden beds - mulching, digging, turning and airing the soil.

So, thats what we did. We put in a garden bed out in the backyard, made from besser bricks we scrounged from my dad. The bed measures about 2m across by just over 4 meters long and 20cm deep. All up, in soil, mulch and manure, (baring in mind the bricks were free) it cost $46.87 to make.

We have root grubs in our yard, nasty little grubs that look like lawn grubs that come up under your plants and eat the roots out from under them! So we laid down weed mat before we built the garden bed. I am hoping that the weed mat will also prevent some of the soil acidity leaching upwards into the soil as our backyard is covered by about 50 years worth of composted pine needles which make the ground acidic - hence why we went with raised garden beds to begin with.

To fill the bed, we layered sugarcane mulch, then a layer of stable manure, then a layer of organic soil we bought from a landscape yard.

Each of the little brick sections that form the garden border, I filled with dirt and planted them up with Nasturtium seeds - which have edible flowers as well as Calendula which has medicinal properties - both of which will attract bees and other pollinating insects to the garden.

I had planned on sewing my vegetable seeds straight into the bed, once they germinate, I will lay down another thick layer of straw to compost and insulate as well as keep the soil moist. WELL, that WAS the plan.

Right up until I got home tonight. A Full Moon. An awesome Full Moon for planting root crops -my Rhubarb (which is grown from a rhizome) my Comfrey (ditto) carrots, garlic, ginger, Galangal (a Thai gingery kind of plant) etc.

Probably the best Full moon of the year in so far as root crop planting goes, as not only is the moon full, but it is in its descending phase as well as in an earth sign constellation. (This = 3 phase awesomeness to Moon phase gardeners)

So off down the yard I trotted and THIS is what I found.

What is wrong with this picture you ask? Well as of this morning, all that straw was on the BOTTOM of the garden bed. And all that dirt in the middle was evenly distributed and level, ready for planting!

The culprit? This sly bugger. Well, not him specifically, he's just an example of his kind I found here for those of you unfamiliar with a Bush Turkey. The same bush Turkey that's been teaching my chooks bad habits and recruiting them to his sordid little harem has turned my garden inside out and back to front and upside down!

I did manage to plant up my Rhubarb and Galangal at least as I was planning on planting them in pots anyway as they need a deeper root base than my garden currently allows. (I will be planting up an old upcycled bath tub for my deeper rooted plants, hopefully next weekend)

On a positive note, look at these babies...they're a kind of chilli/pepper/capsicum, I am not entirely sure which kind (If anyone knows, please do tell!) I got the plant from a guy at the markets for $1. I have eaten what (I hope) are the same kinds of chilli and they're luscious blistered in the oven -they have a sweet creamy flavour -kind of like a capsicum, but not as...CAPSICUM....as capsicum. Anyway, ignore the rotten one, I must have missed his ripeness while he was hiding under the leaves -He's too far gone now, so I'll let him rot down into the pot, hopefully he'll resurrect himself in another plant.

These little babies are a heritage variety of tomato...I can't quite remember the variety -I have Black Russians flowering as well, but they're yet to fruit.

Then my mushy farm has started to throw little balls of fungally goodness - we're keeping them in the old car port out the back of the house (that we don't use) and they to like the dark and spooky conditions. 

The ones at the front are your standard button type variety - cost $1 a bag! 

The box at the back is a commercial variety, this box cost $20 They're swiss browns. I've been told Swiss browns don't produce overly well in QLD, preferring cooler climes, but check out this mumma!

I think in a few weeks time we'll be up to our ears in mushrooms.

I am glad that the turkey decided to blitz our garden while the only things in it were flower seeds in the borders -which were essentially untouched. At least we know we've got to fence it off before I plant the bulk of my seeds in the bed..... another job for the weekend! I've got a fortnight to get it done before the next optimum moon phase for above ground crops.

Our first Harvest

A salad of perennial lettuce, rocket, endive, spinach, sage, mint and parsley. 

All planted from seed and raised in pots. *Nim in the back ground on the 'roosting trunk'*

Humble beginnings

The beginings of my urban garden. Everything I grow is in pots at the moment. I have an old bathtub, which make awesome planters for raised veggie patches ready to go once I build a frame for it to make it look a little prettier.  These pics are actually from a couple last week.