Beautified and fortified

Man can not live by veggie patch alone...Okay, well, maybe he could, but I sure can't! I adore my veggie patch, and the beautiful old fruit trees on the land here, but I need some flowers and greenery to make my heart go pitter-pat.

There's no real shortage of non-food planty goodness in our plot, but it can always use a little help. We just started digging up what will eventually be our patio (spawned by my randomly digging a big hole in the lawn while fed up waiting to have enough money to hire a Bobcat-digger), which meant three things for the hot-or-not rating of our garden.

1. No dirt means homeless bulbs. Dozens of them. At least 10 canna lillies,
piles of irises, and some random pretty flowers we can't identify.
2. No pretty green-and-floral view out my kitchen window. A real bummer when
you hate washing dishes.
3. No protection from the cruel Aussie sun which pours in our dining area
window all. day. long.

So, we got to work. Strong-man hubby dug up the bulbs and rosebush and, with no small amount of blood and sweat, we replanted the poor old rose, crossing our toes that it survives a mid-season move, and he got busy lining our side of the neighbor's ugly fenceline with sun-loving bulbs. Problem #1 solved! But still no pretty view and lots of blinding sun for the window-gazers in the family. Now it was my turn to work.

For around $30, we bought three coconut-lined green wire hanging baskets and nine sun-tolerant seedlings including grasses, prostrate thyme, native ferns, evergreens, and a couple random ground covers. I potted them up with our own garden soil and a bit of mineral rich fertilizer, et voila! Two birds with one stone. The plants (theoreticallly) will grow and drape and help shade our brightest windows, all while providing me a gorgeous view as I scrub the daily dishes. Bang, pow! #2 and #3 down for the count! We're so pleased with the hanging pots so much that we're going to do two more and finish the full length of the house.

We've been slackers the last two days, but tonight the boy will get back to bulb planting, and I'll finish up the spring veggie/herb sowing then go back to digging up the back yard. Busy times ahead, that's for certain.

Near-instant Gratification

There are few things, I've discovered, more satisfying than growing beans.

I planted these climbing lovelies in our "three sisters" garden on October 10th, and only a few short days later they began to sprout. Just days beyond sprouting, they've unfolded their hunched little bodies and grown nearly as tall as the corn, planted two weeks prior. It's a small pleasure, perhaps, but a beautiful one. I think there's an aspect of enlightenment in watching such things grow.

In other news around the plot, it was a pricey grocery week, though mostly due to buying tons of meat to freeze. However, I nearly fainted when we paid $1.60 for a single lime for this week's pad thai recipe, and that led to heightened discussions of planting our own lime and lemon trees. Hopefully the upcoming scary-birthday and holidays will fulfill our citrus dreams.

The big excitement at home today was the Grand Bee Exodus of 2008. I was out on the porch, grabbing a smoke, and heard a low buzzing din from the roadway. Thinking it just a gearhead revving his heap, I started to sit in my comfy porch chair, then I saw a bee fly by...and another...and another.

This, in and of itself, is not a terribly unusual sight in our incredibly fragrant, floral yard. But the din grew, and I looked out to the patch of road beyond our little green gate. Bees. Lots and lots of bees. Little horrific yellow dots of beedom buzzing in cloud formation only a few paces away, heading down the road in a southerly direction.

I promptly sealed myself inside the house and phoned my husband to inform him I'd be smoking inside the rest of the day. Then I rang up the council and reported the swarm. Shudder central! Yes, that's right. The City Mouse is a severe bee-phobic gardener! I hope they find a home far, far away. Simultaneously, I hope they left a few friends behind to polinate my tomatoes.

What is the Suburban Plot?

plot n.
1. a. A small piece of ground, generally used for a specific purpose: a garden plot. b. A measured area of land; a lot.
2. A ground plan, as for a building; a diagram.
3. The pattern of events or main story in a narrative or drama.
4. A secret plan to accomplish a hostile or illegal purpose; a scheme

This blog exists in response to each of the four above definitions of plot. Sure, in simplest interpretations, this is a chronicle of my little family's efforts to work the soil of our small chunk of Suburbia, but there's more to the story. More to the plot, if you will.

What is the great suburban plot, then?

Making money. I know, catch your breath, that was a real shocker, I'm sure. The great suburban plot is to make money from providing goods and services for a population that's forgotten the skills to provide for themselves. And that, more than anything, is what has motivated us to grow our little garden.

To be fair, my husband has quietly daydreamed of constructing a veggie patch in the ample back garden since he bought the house three years ago. And again, in fairness, I have a touch of inner hippie that requires a good bit of dirt digging to keep the peace-sign-flashing demons at bay. But truly, it is a mercenary thing that brought us to this place of gardening goodness.

We're broke! Yep, that's right. Broke. I mean, we pay our bills (mostly) and we've not been late on the mortgage even once, but still...we're broke. This is, in no small part, due to our terrible, unfortunate habit of liking to eat three times a day...sometimes four. Our food expenses ranked second amongst all our spending. Something had to be done.

If you've read back a bit, you'll know that in my past life I was an analytics specialist, deciphering patterns of data into solid trends. In other words, I'm a spreadsheet junky. So, naturally, I applied the trusty tools of MS Excel to our grocery problem and began tracking common purchases at several different local stores over a period of twelve weeks.

In the beginning, the trends showed that, no matter what we bought or where we shopped, we were averaging $140 (AUD) in total weekly grocery spending (food, supplies, personal care, etc). Through some creative shopping and planning, we've knocked it down to $100-110. This is for a family of two adults with no pets. That may not sound like much, but when non-grocery bills total around $1950 per month, and one's total income is about $2600, monthly...well, you do the math. Inspired by curiosity, I also conducted a little poll of an online Adelaide community and discovered we were all in the same fleet of expensive little boats, with average food-only spending for a family of 2.2 (yeah, yeah, I know.) people at $118.24 per week, not including take-out and restaurant food, nor that occasional cappuccino at the corner cafe.

This is an Oz-wide—likely Worldwide—problem, which even led the government to attempt some pitiful semblance of price monitoring, though I think one of the morning talk shows does a better job of it. We don't even have unit-based pricing (ie price per kg/lb etc) here! So, while I'm not a conspiracy theorist by nature, one does have to wonder how anyone, shy of a spreadsheet-obsessed immigrant with too much time on her hands, is supposed to save on food at any of the whopping three main grocery chains.

The easiest solution when faced with near-monopolistic food-peddling empire and lackluster government policy? Grow it yourself. So we are.

More on this rant later, no doubt!

DIY Drip Irrigation

Drip irrigation is an excellent water-saver, and it's good for your plants too. It allows precise, measured delivery of water to the roots of the plant, helping to prevent watering nearby weeds, or encouraging bolting on certain plants which respond badly to being watered from above.

Bunnings (the Aussie Home Depot) currently sells pre-drilled 30 metre drip irrigation hoses for around $37, and that's just the beginning. Add in fittings and stoppers, timers, and all the other things their project books insist you need, and you could easily drop as much as $100 on just one length of watering hose for your veggie patch. Here's how we cut the total cost under $7.

Supplies:
30 metres of black, UV tolerant poly tube - $4.95
1 stopper fitting - $0.60
1 tap-attachment fitting - $0.60
1 small, sharp metal nail - Free from our hardware stash
A dozen or two metal tent stakes, or similar - Free, but others might not have these laying around.
Tools:
A hammer
Potentially a saw or metal grinder of some sort, but we'll get to that.

First, stretch out the full length of tube to straighten it as best you can. They come coiled, and they like to stay coiled. Next, step back from your garden and get a real visual plan of the best route for laying your irrigation. Remember, one end needs to attach to a water supply, or the project kind of ends there! Bonus points if you can hook it to a rainwater collection tank, or greywater system if you're irrigating established, non-food plants.

Grab a friend and start laying tube, with the goal being to get the base of every plant exposed to some part of your irrigation system. Use a hammer to nail tent stakes into the soil, with the crooked end acting as an anchor for the tubing.

TIP: If, like us, you don't have enough tent stakes, or your soil is too soft for stable anchoring, make your own anchors. We had excellent luck cutting up an old, unwanted, rusty metal trellis "gifted" us by some previous homeowner. The hubby cut them into a large U-shaped bracket and they worked like a charm!

Once you've secured the tubing to the ground put a stopper fitting into the far end of the tube and, you guessed it, join the tap attachment to the tube and the tap. Now, grab your trusty (but not rusty) nail and get to stabbing! Start with one hole for every plant or clump of plants you'd like to water. If there are just too many, sparsely perforate the tube as needed. If there's nothing planted along a section of tube...don't poke it! Save water where you can. For planted mounds, I prefer a low "rainbow" of tube overtop to trying to wind the irrigation around the whole damn thing.

Once everything is stabbed and poked, turn on the tap. But be careful--Your peaceful little drip irrigation system can easily become a geyser if the pressure is too high. And if you feel you absolutely need a two-hour timer for your tap, that should only bring the project total cost up to $16 or so.

Congratulations! You just built your very own drip irrigation system! Now that you know how to do the basics, on the cheap, you can experiment with adding offshots, T-joints, L-corners, everything you need to flawlessly water your entire patch.

How not to grow carrots

Photo by Rob Friesel

In our naivete, as previously explained, we assumed life wouldn't ever interfere with garden glory. In our poorly worked carrot patch, I had sprinkled an entire packet of seeds in rows occupying a space little larger than a square metre. Fools!

Our carrots grew, miraculously enough, though at the most ridiculously slow pace imaginable.

Now, some may ask why this was a problem at all. Well, it's not, really. Not if you are diligent in your tendings and once your carrot-tops are about an inch high (3-ish cm) you remember to go back and thin them to finger-width apart. Then a few weeks later, thin them again, harvesting the in-betweens as baby carrots, leaving the rest, happily spaced, to grow into big, strong mega carrots! We did none of the above.

I say we...It was my job, and I got heavily distracted by life not long after planting in Feb/Mar. In that time, I got married, experienced a bit of life drama, and hid from the winter chill quite a lot! This led to fifty thousand little carrots vying for what tiny bit of nutrition they could suck from the soil.

The upside? We planted in Aussie Autumn, and we finally harvested our last sad little carrots in October. The downside? The aforementioned sad little carrots.

This season, we'll do better.