Hot Potato Hot Potato

Yet again this weekend I only got into the garden on Sunday. But that was ok because we had things going on. Lily had her first concert (of her choice). Live music is a very sacred thing in our family. In fact we all went along to this band as first timers and knew pretty much every word. 

This post is more about the spuds I got in the ground this week, but the title is all about the music. We went to The Wiggles live and I saw my little girl become both speechless and motionless as all her favourite songs were played by characters she thought lived in the T.V. So we truely did have a weekend of Hot Potatoes!

I am probably the last gardener to plant potatoes in all of New Zealand. Who said new spuds were only good at Christmas. If the packet is right with four months till harvest, our family will be enjoying yummy spuds in March.

I bought my seed potatoes ages ago on one of my trips to my favourite garden store for a halumi and beetroot salad. They have been in a black canvas bag in the bottom of the pantry for over a month now, feeling all warm and shooty. And Andrew only grabbed them twice thinking they were the potatoes to be cooked for dinner (a funny truck every time).

The actual planting of spuds is pretty easy. I planted Desiree and Agria. A row of each and I am also trying out some spud bags (both 2 x Desiree/bags). I heard about these on the Kitchen and garden radio show that I try to listen to for at least 10 minutes while kiddy wrangling on a Saturday morning. I have put one of the bags in a full sun spot and the other in the corner next to the garden bed of spuds. It will be interesting to see how they turn out.

My mum was telling me how she used to help my grandad plant spuds each year, when she was young. In a trench, handful of blood and bone and a spud every foot. I used worm wees this year as I have so much of it. If my yield is disappointing then next year I will use grandads approach. He owned an orchid and market garden all of his life so I'm sure that my small family plot won't out do his methods. However on the off chance that my dog gets into the veggie patch, I don't want the blood and bone leading to a crazy digging frenzy. besides, I have worm wees, it's sustainable and doesn't cost any money so I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes.

Snail update.

I have been noticing that snails are getting caught in my bird netting around my strawberries and drying up in the sun. 

I have read that snails live and lay eggs in rocky areas and leaf matter.

My solution, I have wrapped left over bird netting all over my rocky boarders and right in under my plants. My hypothesis is that snails will try get out of their homes and onto my plant babies for a munch but will get caught in the net till morning. 

They have three options :

1) somehow free themselves and get to safety

2) struggle to escape, only to be dried out in the hot hot sun

3) remained trapped long enough to feel the wrath of my stone, first thing in the morning when I do my daily netting inspection.

Day one, I got five fat snails. This could be an effective approach.

Ps look at my zucchini!! About 8 flowers and 2 cute wee zucchinis.

I have worms

Out for lunch with the girls from work we got to talking about food waste and how much food everyone puts out with their weekly rubbish. 

I proudly said "we have no food waste, I have worms"

Silence.....akward looks and I clarified

"A worm farm in my garden" 

No one wanted to talk about the other type I worms they thought I had and how that would mean there weren't often leftovers, over our lunch.

I have had a worm farm since 2010. Given to me when a friend moved overseas. He has since came back to NZ and not asked for it back, hopefully he doesn't after being reminded by my blog!

It's such a great way to reduce household food waste, the worms (tiger worms, not normal worms) eat almost anything. Avoid meat (maggots), too much Citris (burnies for wormies), too much bread/pasta (mould), chilli/garlic/onion (must taste yuck), avacado skin or stones (hard on worm digestion).

They even eat tea bags. Until I had a veggie garden I used to tip worm wee anywhere to get rid of it as I kept the farm for its effective food waste management, and didn't care about having good soil. Now I am loving this environmentally friendly by-product.

Their wee is magical fertiliser. Worm wees diluted with water (otherwise it can burn roots) makes all plant babies happy and is what I am topping up my veggie garden with. 

There are thousands of worms and even if you don't feed them for ages they are almost impossible to kill. Although my sister managed it with Dunedin frosts. 

The worm farm has three levels that you rotate if space is needed for more scraps, however our family of 3 plus flatmate struggle to keep one level topped up. Our worms are hungry little buggers. 

Not only wees is handy, their castings (poos) is also great for digging into soil. 

BEWARE worms can't break down tomato seeds.

This means anywhere you dig in castings will most likely sprout unwanted tomato plants, some people don't put tomatoes into their worm farms because of this, I just pull the tomatoe plants out like weeds. Or I sometimes give them a chance and see how they go. I love the smell of tomato plants so I give them a chance to see/smell that tomato goodness.

Auckland city use to run free information sessions on composting, including worm farming, their website is really helpful.

Auckland CC worm farming site

(Lunch was at Zap, a fav with my work mates)

Zap - try the Pad Thai

Garden Update

After the long weekend and a week of work, the garden has been watered but I haven't really done much more. It's so great with even that little effort things are growing beautifully. Although I do have a long list of things I'd like to do and there have been a few casualties but nothing too upsetting.

Today we harvested three very little slow growing spring onions. I planted these on Mother's Day, before winter and I think they have missed their puberty growth spurt so are as good as they'll get. They haven't really worked so we are going to eat them and I can re-plant the row. They added to a yummy sauce for dinner.

I worked in the garden till dark tonight, sounds hard out but I started working in the garden just before dark. It was probably an hour and was great to get out there. It's Sunday and I want to get my potatoes in this week, so I have a few jobs and haven't got into the garden all weekend.

The strawberries in a bag may not be as genius as once thought. One of the plants has dried up and died (although it did occur while we were away on a three day weekend so it was half neglect and half the fault of the bag). But I'm thinking of making so sort of funnel into the bag so I can be sure the water is getting right in. My friend who did this with tomatoes used a drink bottle and squirted right into holes. So now there are 5 plants. I have also got the bird netting up over the strawbs which will disappoint the local sparrows - although the are still loving digging up worms in my other plot.

I didn't think I had it in me, but as Andrew lifted a stone to weigh down the bird netting tonight, I saw a big fat snail and although slightly squashed already by Andrew, I finished him off. It was a bit like how I felt when out fishing with Dad when I was younger. When the excitement of getting the fish in the boat was over, all that was left was the harsh reality of getting it off the hook and hitting it as hard as possible with the wattie (large bit of wood). As a young girl my process was be as quick and kind as possible unhooking, whisper sorry and BAM. Job done.

I have a few other plans for snail management but this week I'm going to head out each night and hunt, I got two tonight. The two I found tonight were in the rocks, which makes for a quick, easy kill, with another rock. The process is find big fat snail on his/hers way to chow down on my plant babies, get in close, whisper sorry and BOOM. 

I have a video that I will work out if I can get on here later :)

Today my 18 mo daughter and I had a great time spotting caterpillars on my swan plants. It probably goes against good gardening but I love monarch butterflies so have planted a couple of swan plants near the garden. We have at least 20 very hungry caterpillars and they are so fat children can easily spot them and even a gentle pat doesn't seem to bother them. I love the life-cycle of butterflies and can wait for chrysalis' to start popping up in strange places.

So this week I haven't got much food from the garden, other than our tiny spring onions. I also haven't put in much work but with caterpillars and setting up netting/ preparing for the potato planting I have enjoyed the garden and that's what really matters.

Ps look at my zucchini, carrots and beetroot!! The spinach is ready for eating this week also!