a)Put in a garden for the first time.Aerated soil, sprinkled fertilizer, planted onion, broccoli, spinach, cabbage seedlings as per packet instructions.Watered with blood and bone solution.Derris dusted.Sound okay!Next steps! b) Found previous owners had planted potatoes.Aerated soil.Poked the potatoes I found back under the soil, fertilized, blood and bone watered.Planning to get some compost!and cover over with that.Did the same with the patch of garlic cloves I found. Thoughts!
harrislucinda,
Mar 25, 8:54am
geesteadyonwith all thisbloodandboneYou dontneedtodoitevery timeyouwork thegardenYoumightkill withkindness
glowenz,
Mar 25, 8:57am
Well I watered it and then did a water with some liquid blood and bone solution.The garden has not been used in four years so I thought the soil would be pretty depleted!
lythande1,
Mar 25, 9:17pm
Steady on, there is such a thing as too many nutrients you know, especially nitrogen. You'll have huge leaves at the expense of tubers etc. That should do just fine, just add a bit of compost from now on - say twice a year.Potatoes don't care much you know, friend has wild ones growing out of his kikuyu lawn. No food, nothing, he got loads of potatoes off them.
stevee6,
Mar 25, 9:19pm
Rather than blood & bone, I would have dug it over with added compost - that gives the soil humus and aids water retention. See what happens over winter.
glowenz,
Mar 26, 6:41am
Ok thanks guys.Watering each night.
dibble35,
Mar 26, 7:15am
You shouldnt have to water every night, not this time of year. Maybe every 3rd! depends where you live of course. Just keep an eye on the soil/plants and water when needed.
cameron-albany,
Mar 26, 8:21am
garlic I found to be super-easy and I did very little to it.planted 35 cloves last June in good soil and mulched it a bit with some hay from the sheep's pen and just left it to its own devices.Come December I had 35 enormous healthy bulbs!I plaited them, hung them in my pantry and am about halfway through them now.I plan to plant at least 80 cloves this year.they take up such a tiny amount of space and are exceptionally great value.Definitely worth the small effort at the beginning - just watch the weeds.
Potatoes are a bit the same - a little hit and miss but they are very low-maintenance and the yield can be awesome.even tiny potatoes can be used in salads.
To be honest I could care less about brassicas.I've given up.They're a pain in the neck and by the time you've spent all that effort on raising your individual broccoli and cabbage etc.they are less than $1 a head at the greengrocer.I stick to spinach, kale, silver beet, beetroot and spring onions - a big yield for small effort.And carrots do well if you have nice loamy soil.And a bit late now but capsicum and all kinds of chillies do great in warmer weather and freeze fantastically for the winter recipes.
Sounds like you're doing everything right though and good on you for growing your own stuff.
Do you have a worm farm !the worm wee and castings are great for green veg.You can add it to compost and dig it in.
glowenz,
Mar 27, 9:37am
Thank you.Just wondered if I should dig the potatoes back down or leave them up on top of the soil to sprout.garlic too!
cameron-albany,
Mar 29, 6:08am
Definitely leave potatoes re-sprouting.they seem to just keep going and going no matter what.I haven't actually tried it with garlic though - personally I think garlic needs a little more attention as they are a bulb so best to plant and dig up.Someone may say differently.
medicina,
Mar 30, 1:00am
Garlic chives --just leave and water a couple of times a week. When they die down you can lift and divide for more patches in other places. Garlic --plant cloves in Autumn early winter, water and harvest when shoots die back --around longest day. Potatoes --if you have no frosts you may be okay but it's very late to be starting with new sprouting. Brocolli --you may be lucky and have a resprouting variety that makes multiple small heads after the main one. One of my plants is still giving a meal's worth of small heads every week!
bugin,
Mar 30, 1:43am
Absolutely nothing with what you are doing so far. B& B has almost no Nitrogen in it and is really just a concentrated compost. In a depleted garden this will be helpful to restore soil structure which is the best thing you can do .Do you have a good old fashioned gardening book for NZ conditions (EG YATES garden guide)! If you need to protect spuds from frost ,just put in some wire half hoops and throw an old sheet over them.Clip on with clothes pegs
patsy3,
Mar 30, 5:10am
Hi, New Zealand Gardener March Issue has a 4 page spread on Lynda Hallinan garlic Growing. Well worth the read, as she had a bumper crop after 15 years of ho-hum harvest. (she took advice) Get it from your library if out of the shops now.
bugin,
May 3, 8:53am
OOPS that should say nothing WRONG with what you are doing.
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