Garden notes: early summer with fruit flies, lack of pots

Mirrored from The OEconomist. You can comment there or here.

Planted 3 zucchini seedlings (unknown type) from Emily’s mum, who brought them down from their place in the country. They’re in a big tub, and probably too crowded, but I suspect we can give them a few weeks and then pull out one, or maybe two, that is/are flourishing the least well.

Planted butternut pumpkin/squash (AU/US) from seed, in two small pots, 3 seeds to a pot. Will wait til they are coming along then discard the two least healthy from each pot, and replant into a big tub. (We have some big tubs from Emily’s parents, too, but need more potting mix etc to fill them.)

Mulched all the pots with lucerne straw.

One tomato plant has yellowing leaves. I suspect early blight (link comes to most useful page I’ve found about it). Immediate treatment: separate that plant from the others, and make sure when watering not to wet the leaves. If it’s still a problem in a week or two, try the baking soda spray listed on that page.

We also have a bit of an epic fruit fly infestation. Between the council’s green bin, our new worm farm, and the tomato plants (which seem to be like fruit fly catnip, even just the leaves right now) they’re everywhere.

To do:

• Move council green bin out the front to the carport, away from vegie garden and worm farm.
• Microwave worm food before putting it in worm bin.
• Set vegemite traps (it’s recycling night, so I should be able to find some empty drink bottles without too much trouble, even though we don’t much use them). Other web pages suggest mixing in honey and/or ammonia (or urine) so those are options for experimentation.
• Use a deterrent spray, such as this garlic-chilli spray recipe.
• Companion plant alliums (most likely chives) around tomatoes (see below).

Our seeds arrived from Eden Seeds (Australian heirloom vegie seeds, they’re awesome, try them!) Those are the pumpkin seeds I planted. I need to plant chives, rocket, nasturtiums, and other greens (amaranth, warragul greens) but we’re all out of containers to do it in. Or rather, we have the containers but no soil in them. So a trip to the shop for more potting mixture etc seems in order.

We have 4-5 enormous and/or just plain large pots available, and a number of middle-sized ones.

• We’ll need two enormous ones for pumpkin, though that won’t be needed for a month at a guess.
• We need a couple of enormous ones for greens, I think. They needn’t be deep but we do need a lot of surface area.
• One enormous one for nasturtiums, too.
• The parsley needs repotting into a large pot (doesn’t need to be enormous, anything bucket-sized and up will be good).
• The mint needs repotting or transferring into the garden. If it were mine I’d bung it in the ground next to the shed, where it’s reasonably shady, but we’d need a little soil prep first. So maybe wait til the worm farm’s up and running well and we can use the output of that.
• I can grow chives in something small (we have no shortage whatsoever of small pots, then repot into medium sized pots and/or as companions to the tomatoes and peppers we have going. They may help with the fruit flies.

I also need to get some of those little stake-label thingies so I don’t lose track of what’s in what pot. Right now the only unlabelled/non-obvious ones are the pumpkins, in two medium sized pots.

I think that’s about it. Phew.

Garden notes: early summer with fruit flies, lack of pots

Planted 3 zucchini seedlings (unknown type) from Emily’s mum, who brought them down from their place in the country. They’re in a big tub, and probably too crowded, but I suspect we can give them a few weeks and then pull out one, or maybe two, that is/are flourishing the least well.

Planted butternut pumpkin/squash (AU/US) from seed, in two small pots, 3 seeds to a pot. Will wait til they are coming along then discard the two least healthy from each pot, and replant into a big tub. (We have some big tubs from Emily’s parents, too, but need more potting mix etc to fill them.)

Mulched all the pots with lucerne straw.

One tomato plant has yellowing leaves. I suspect early blight (link comes to most useful page I’ve found about it). Immediate treatment: separate that plant from the others, and make sure when watering not to wet the leaves. If it’s still a problem in a week or two, try the baking soda spray listed on that page.

We also have a bit of an epic fruit fly infestation. Between the council’s green bin, our new worm farm, and the tomato plants (which seem to be like fruit fly catnip, even just the leaves right now) they’re everywhere.

To do:

• Move council green bin out the front to the carport, away from vegie garden and worm farm.
• Microwave worm food before putting it in worm bin.
• Set vegemite traps (it’s recycling night, so I should be able to find some empty drink bottles without too much trouble, even though we don’t much use them). Other web pages suggest mixing in honey and/or ammonia (or urine) so those are options for experimentation.
• Use a deterrent spray, such as this garlic-chilli spray recipe.
• Companion plant alliums (most likely chives) around tomatoes (see below).

Our seeds arrived from Eden Seeds (Australian heirloom vegie seeds, they’re awesome, try them!) Those are the pumpkin seeds I planted. I need to plant chives, rocket, nasturtiums, and other greens (amaranth, warragul greens) but we’re all out of containers to do it in. Or rather, we have the containers but no soil in them. So a trip to the shop for more potting mixture etc seems in order.

We have 4-5 enormous and/or just plain large pots available, and a number of middle-sized ones.

• We’ll need two enormous ones for pumpkin, though that won’t be needed for a month at a guess.
• We need a couple of enormous ones for greens, I think. They needn’t be deep but we do need a lot of surface area.
• One enormous one for nasturtiums, too.
• The parsley needs repotting into a large pot (doesn’t need to be enormous, anything bucket-sized and up will be good).
• The mint needs repotting or transferring into the garden. If it were mine I’d bung it in the ground next to the shed, where it’s reasonably shady, but we’d need a little soil prep first. So maybe wait til the worm farm’s up and running well and we can use the output of that.
• I can grow chives in something small (we have no shortage whatsoever of small pots, then repot into medium sized pots and/or as companions to the tomatoes and peppers we have going. They may help with the fruit flies.

I also need to get some of those little stake-label thingies so I don’t lose track of what’s in what pot. Right now the only unlabelled/non-obvious ones are the pumpkins, in two medium sized pots.

I think that’s about it. Phew.

Mirrored from Chez Skud. You can comment there or here.