Vegetable Garden

The vegetable garden is of great interest - it's the first that I've ever truly had.  

There was a small patch already in situ.  It was heavily overgrown with a variety of plants, largely grasses.  When I tore them out and placed them in a pile to compost, it didn't really do anything for all of the seeds that were left behind.  We did try putting the chooks in there for a wee while but they didn't like being caught twice a day for that purpose.  So, for now, I just weed and eventually the seedbank should decline.

The soil is not so dark.....much yet to be done.  

First planted out.  A trial run, really, dealing, too, with frost (I like, as you can see, using commas).  

Those beds are too small and it's difficult to get around them....

They grow quickly, n'est pas?  Bottom left: carrots, beetroot, onions, leeks.  Top left: broccoli, kohl rabi.  Top right: peas, swiss chard, broccoli.  Bottom right: leftovers (this bed becomes the tomato bed).

Another view.  Notice the bed along the fence in the background....this becomes the sunflower patch (post tomorrow, I hope).

Look at that!  Two months from first planting....

There's still much to learn.  For example - did the broccoli not taste so good because it went in at the wrong time?  And, there's so much more improvement of the soil required PLUS the addition of perhaps 4 times as much space as this.  

Pigeon Pea (Cajanus cajan)

My latest interest: rhizobial nitrogen fixation in plants.   

The soil analysis came back with the result that, amongst other things, more nitrogen is needed.  With plenty of nitrogen available in the atmosphere - it's there for the taking.  Lightning can fix it into a form useful for plant life but even more extraordinary are bacteria in symbiosis with plants.  

Rhizobia species can infect a plant at germination and persist in the roots.  Specific strains are used for specific species of plant.  When they properly infect a host, they are housed in root nodules.  Within well infected crops they can fix (and it varies with the particular plant species) many kilograms of nitrogen/hectare.   In the case of Pigeon Pea, up to 80 kg/ha.  That would be the equivalent of delivering approximately 1600 kg of Dynamic Lifter to each hectare.  

Pigeon Pea is my first sowing of such a crop.  Pigeon Pea peas are used to make dahl; for us,  they'll feed our chooks (that was the original intention) and the sheep will be allowed to partially graze the foliage.  In the particular patch given to this planting, after the soil has improved with mulching, feeding and biological activity, it'll become the berry patch. 

Planting bed - north facing (that is, the fence runs east-west).

Closer...(one male kiwifruit vine is beginning to flourish).

Long view: the female kiwifruit is much stronger.....  The chickens are in their foraging yard (it was once used as a holding yard for stock work) behind this fence.  

The interesting, scientific part.  Cajanus cajan: the seed on left and inoculant (I thought that the strain was meant to be 'I')  from Green Harvest (mail order company) while the seed on the right is from a kind donor I had contact with on a discussion website.   They should yield different varieties, obviously.  The seed was soaked overnight.

Now with just a small touch of water added...(only a few drops at a time), stirred, the inoculant turns into a very sticky (there's some type of vegetable glue added) slurry that coats the seeds effectively.



For ease of handling and to provide the rhizobium with a slightly more alkaline environment, agricultural lime is stirred in and the clump of inoculated seeds gently pulled apart.  I found that adding plenty of lime and quickly coating any exposed slurry worked best.  Most seeds kept a very thorough cover.  

Orchard beginnings....

For delectable fruits, we managed the task of planting 12 fruit trees in one paddock alone.  They include plums, apricots, apples, nashi pear, pluots (plum x apricot), peaches, cherries and, nectarines. 

Orchard 'before' shot, looking west.  The next yard is part of the chicken run.

Digging into a soil that has many pieces of gravel, some large rocks (crow bar required for excavation) and a very shallow (10-12 cm) layer of topsoil, means extra physical preparation.

The girls inspecting the finished works.  Photo out to 'Telstra Point' (SE).

Photo through the orchard (S).

This dwarf peach finally finds a decent home.  It's survived being uprooted about 5 times and living in less than ideal (very shaded) conditions.  Now it gets all the sun it could possibly need.  It is even carrying 3 fruits.  When once, in Sydney, it carried 2 fruits they were snatched by a rat just as they turned colour ready for picking.

With help....planting of Persimmon 'Nightingale'.