Desert Gardening

We are now entering our third month with no significant rain!  The garden is looking amazingly good considering but given our resolve not to use mains water to water the garden with we are very dependant on the well we dug out.
   The techniques  we use for dealing with this climate are evolving:  

• Planting in the autumn and early spring under protection - plastic cloches, polythene and fleece is essential and not expensive if you use recycled materials.
• Mulching everywhere makes a huge difference - we use grass cuttings supplied by a few professional gardeners who are keen to have an alternative to the recycling centre for them. Because they cut the grass regularly we get little problem with seed in the cuttings.
• Learning which plants can cope and need little watering is also essential - for instance leeks are able to survive on very little but squashes need the water.
• Every drop of water from the house is used either by pouring it from the bowls onto the plants or via the reed bed and of course we harvest all the rainwater we can if it does rain.
• We use deep beds and add lots (and I mean lots) of compost and rotted horse manure to the beds.
• We pray for rain!!!

Recycled polycarbonate sheeting is great!!

We have just eaten our first courgette and peas of the season thanks to recycled polycarbonate cloches and old glass doors;

Peas in a glass door cloche (overwintered with a row of carrots)

Polycarbonate cloche

First courgette from a plant in a polycarbonate cloche

Compost from the sky!!

A miracle!! The people next door are having their roof pressure washed!!!  The process has produced many wheelbarrow loads of moss and soil (as well as using huge quantities of water!!).  Of course I wasted no time in asking for the spoil.  Must be as good as peat as a garden ingredient?  The guy asked us to allow him to use our water supply as the flow from next door wasn't fast enough - I reluctantly agreed (all our water saving habits wiped out for a month or two!)  They are going to spray the roof with something to inhibit the growth if new moss - something I am also uneasy about and will keep our fungus growing logs covered for the day in case of over spray.

'We sow the seed, nature grows the seed' (apologies to 'The Young Ones'!)

Sowed the first seed of 2010 yesterday.. Now spring really is just around the corner.  I sowed seeds of the plants i intend to grow in the green house and poly tunnel.  Tomatoes - Gardeners delight and Moneymaker, four different kings of sweet pepper and (mild!) chili pepper and  aubergine all in the propagator. Alpine strawberries and greyhound cabbage in the green house (not in the propagator).  I will sow leeks and calabrese in the green house soon and some more salads.  I have lettuce in the poly tunnel ready to plant out under cover.

Lady Godiva rides again!

No, really, that is the name of the pumpkins we grow for the seeds. The seeds of Lady Godiva pumpkins are hull-less like the ones you can buy from whole food shops. I harvested some today, cutting the pumpkin in half and squidgeing out the seeds from the pulpy insides. The seeds I will dry gently next to the stove or in the solar dryer (if the sun shines) The flesh isn't great to eat but can be made into curry's etc or in our case cooked in the oven and fed to the poultry. The seeds are said to be high in zinc and very good for you!

Processing our quinoa

Our quinoa crop is one of our experiments that seem to be successful. We had a good crop in spite of very dry weather. I sowed a main crop of Temuco sold by The Real seed Catalog and a few plants from a bag of organic quinoa from a whole food shop. The Temuco cropped well but produced smaller seeds coated with a yellowy substance that requires the cooking water to be changed a few times to wash it off. The whole food shop seeds produces a better quality of crop of larger seeds without the yellow coating. Needless to say I am saving seed from the white ones to sow next year.
To harvest the crop I first rubbed out the seed heads between my hands to remove the seeds then sieved them through two sieve. The first sieve (made from a sky dish reflector) allowed the seed through and the second a finer sieve retained the seed and let through any dust. A slow process!

Weather for ducks

Oh no! the weather forcast for the Green Fair day tomorow is wild and wet. Lets hope they are wrong.  Maybe Colchester folk are hardy and will turn out whatever the weather?

Here the duck experiment is progressing: We have put them (4 large ducklings)down in the vegetable garden in the hope that they will do less damage than chickens (chickens will scratch the soil off the deep beds and eat the brasicas and salads).  So far they have nibbled the spinache and I have put low barriers arround the beds with rape and rocket growing.  I hope they will concentrate on eating slugs and other pests hiding around the deep beds and keep down the grass. 

Last sunny day for planting?

What a beautiful day, took advantge to sow some rape (seed scrounged off the road at the farm my bees are at!) as a green manure that the hens will apreciate in the spring.  Should grow ok if the weather doesnt turn too bad in the next few weeks.