SOWING GUIDE AND OTHER STUFF

To help people know when to sow all the seeds we keep getting from each other and elsewhere and which have no sowing instructions on them, I have put a link to this planting guide that Deb put on the blog for us ages ago. It is a rough guide and not specific to Adelaide but at least to 'temperate Australia' . If you need some more advice please put it on the blog or send me an email.

http://www.gardenate.com/

I am starting so much stuff in trays because my garden is still overflowing with produce and I am not pulling it all out yet. By the time these seeds have germinated and grown to a plantable size, the garden will be finished and I will be ready to transplant in before it gets too hot. Oh for another acre or 2 ! As you can see, the call for besser blocks was a success - thanks - and it is in full operation. Further modifications will include a proper lid and, hopefully, another whole setup. Also I will make up a shaded lid, covered in that white cloth that I love so much, for summer.
Seeds I have sown a couple of weeks ago, in trays:
Purple artichokes, various okra, capsicum.
This is what I have sown in seed trays this week(I couldn't wait for the full moon !)
Cath's capsicums, more artichokes, Brett's beetroot, baby cos lettuce(excellent summer luttuce - loves the heat), Peppermint, Basil spice(particularly good for pesto), I think that is all I had time for.
In the next few days I hope to sow (maybe Sept 25th - 2 days before the full moon if not before !)
More comfrey(mostly to give away now that I have Deb's plants going so well),fenugreek, 2 different amaranth (for us and for the chooks during summer),Barb's red orach etc etc.
Other seeds that should be sown now too:
Kale. (If you sow it in autumn it will go to seed in spring. If you sow it in spring it will go to seed next spring , so you get much more value.)
Here are the things I will direct sow when I have some space:
Cucumbers, squash and zuccini, pumpkins, beans - lots of varieites and others I can't think of now.
Some I don't bother growing from seed:
Eggplant (the long, thin ones), usually capsicum, tomatoes.
Something new to try:
This year I am going to follow an idea I read in Eliot Coleman's organic gardening book that Diana lent me recently. It suggests that, as a way of adding green manure to a future crop, without having to have that section of your garden without any crop growing for months, it is a good idea to sow eg clover between and around eg tomatoes. When the tomatoes are finished, or earlier - before the clover goes to seed, you can dig in the clover and plant or sow autumn veg , having the goodness of the cover crop added to the soil. Of course you must be careful to choose cover crops that do not compete with the root system of the 'real' crop and he gives a guide to what goes with what. Actually, maybe we should buy some books , such as this one and a few others I know, for ourselves and share them around, like a perpetual library. I will make (yet another!) link and people can put ideas for books we could buy and share.



Now I have spent way too much time writing this and have missed my morning gardening session as I now have to go out. Whose idea was this darn blog - I will kill them !!