Favourite Tools - the Ho Mi

Short handled Ho Mi

The Ho Mi  or Korean Hand Plow is a traditional Asian gardening tool.

It is highly versatile. With a Ho Mi you can:

•  use it to dig holes for seedlings and bulbs
• make rows for seed planting and fill the rows in once the seed is planted
• loosen soil around plants 
• dig out weeds

Chris with Ho Mi in the Sandy Mart

They are recommended for people with arthritic hands. I've had mine for years and have found mine really useful.

At the time of writing the Sandy Mart in Sandy Bay is selling Ho Mis for only $10 which is a great price. Otherwise you can order them from online from Gundaroo Tillers. 

Size Matters! (for container growing)

Chilli Plants

These chilli plants are the same variety, the same age and have been grown under the same conditions except for 1 key variable - container size. You can successfully grow a number of plants in containers but you need to make sure your container is big enough. A container that is too small limits the size of your plant.

The big pot is 35cm across and this is the right size for chillis, capsicum and dwarf tomatoes such as Tiny Tims and Florida Baskets. 

Great Locally Made Products for Chickens

Yesterday we found some really good products for backyard chicken keepers at the Animal Tuckerbox in Derwent Park. As an added bonus they are made by a local Tasmanian Company.

Automated Chicken Feeder

We bought a chicken feeder online from NZ about 4 years ago. It has been one of the best investments we have made in regards to our chickens. A feeder like this one discourages wild birds and rodents and therefore saves you money in food and keeps your chickens away from animals that may carry diseases.

If you follow the training instructions your chickens will learn how to use it quickly. The only difficulty we had with using a feeder is that we needed to shift from a mixed grain feed to pellets. Our chickens would only eat some of the grains included. This would mean that the feeder filled up with food they wouldn't eat. We shifted to pellets and this resolved this problem.

Automated chicken feeders are not easy to find. This one is made by M&AP which is a local company. It looks well made.  The only note I would make is I am not sure if it is 100% waterproof so you may want to keep it out of the rain. While our feeder from NZ is totally waterproof and a bit more sturdy it is also an additional $50 extra before shipping.

Chicken Drinker

 We bought the M&AP drinker. It looks sturdy and is made from metal and glass. We have been looking for a good drinker for our chickens for some time.

Great Gardening Workshops Coming Up

Understanding the roles different insects play in the garden ecosystem helps you to grow healthy plants.Sustainable Living Tasmania is hosting a workshop in July on insects. It looks great and it is only $10/5 (or by donation if you are a member of Sustainable Living).

Tasmanian Insects Pests or Guests Workshop

Permaculture Tasmania is running a full day workshop in July on Spring Garden Planning. It covers crop rotation, bed preparation and planting out. It is $75 and includes lunch.

How to Grow Basil

At the moment the question that I get asked most is "how do I grow basil?"

Here are a few key tips to help with your basil cultivation.

1. Plant in a warm, sunny spot. Basil needs at least 4 hours of sun a day preferably more. The smaller the leaf the more sun basil needs.
2. Fertilise your soil. Basil is a heavy feeder and the more you pick it the more fertiliser it needs. Plant your basil into a recently fertilised bed and provide it with liquid feeds during its life time. If the leaves are going brown fertilise the plant. If planting in a container make sure you add fertiliser to the potting mix.
3. Pick basil often and remove any flower spikes. The more you pick your basil plant the more bushy it will become and the more basil you will get.

Check out these articles for more information

http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s1098637.htm

http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/living/homeandgarden/785356/how-to-grow-lots-and-lots-of-basil

Green Manures

Green manures are grown to improve soil fertility. They are one of the cheapest and most sustainable ways of improving your soil. Typically green manures are planted over winter.

Cut your green manure down and turn in with a garden fork either when any flowers start to appear or about four weeks before spring planting.

Our green manure bags packed up ready for market

Our green manure bags cover around 5 square metres. They are made up of a combination of nitrogen fixing plants (tic beans, blue lupins and grey peas), fast growing winter plants (mustard and oats) and plants with deep roots to mine the subsoil (ryecorn).

Getting Those Bugs

The bottle pictured below is ideal for spraying under leaves where insects hide which makes it great for pest control. It has an adjustable nozzle that allows you to spray in all directions. As far as I know in Hobart you can only get it from Chandlers Nursery in Sandy Bay. A must for all serious gardeners.

The Eco 360 is the bottle on the right.

My Garden March 2011

Just wanted to show you how my garden is looking this year especially my tomatoes.

In the background of this photo are our climbing tomatoes. The tomatoes are supported by 100mm x 100mm grid mesh from K&D. As they grow we have been feeding through the mesh. It has been able to support them even in strong winds. This year we planted Black Russians, Grosse Lisse, Soldacki, Camp Joy, Black Zebra and Snow White but quite late in the season. We have yet to harvest from these plants but they are all setting fruit well currently. In the foreground is my lettuce bed. You can see that the smaller seedlings are protected by wire baskets.

Unfortunately I have not been having massive success this year with my eggplants and capsicums.

Generally we have lots of lovely eggplants by this time in the season. Due to the cold our plants have been quite slow and have only got flowers quite recently. Eggplants won't survive frost. I think this cold summer and autumn means no eggplants.

My capsicums have grown really bizarrely. I have had 2 and may get a few more. Not a great year for solanaceae family plants.

 Luckily my bush tomatoes are a much happier story. Our bush tomato bed is full and we have already enjoyed a large harvest this season. The tomato hanging over the edge is a Burpee's Quatre Century. This bush has a number of tomatoes on it that we are looking forward to harvesting soon.

The real success story this year has been Waltham Tomatoes. The Waltham Tomato bush has taken up most of the bed and has produced large numbers of extremely large cherry tomatoes. We have had a good yield from our Tiny Tims as well.

Here is today's harvest which is made up of Walthams and Tiny Tims.

Growing Melons in Tassie

The last melons right at the end summer. At this stage the vines have all died back and are putting all their energy into the fruit.

One of the big surprises over the last 2 years is discovering that we could grow rockmelons, honeydew melons and watermelons in Moonah. Home grown melons have a superior taste to store bought melons. This is because melons only ripen on the vine. Once picked the melon does not improve in flavour.

Yummy rockmelon ready to eat.

Melons need a sheltered sunny site and should be planted in November, December or January and will provide you with a crop about 2 months after translpant. Our first crop of melons grew really well but was in a windy spot and got horribly blown around. Last year we had a lovely warm and sheltered site and our fruiting vines were much more successful. 

The melons, pumpkins and tomato area is almost finished!

Melons are heavy feeders and need a similar amount of space to pumpkins.  The amount of sugar set in melons is closely related to the amount of magnesium in the soil. Prepare the soil with 125 -250 grams of dolomite lime per square metre to provide needed magnesium and calcium.

In cooler areas you may want to grow in a greenhouse or with cloches. In most areas of Hobart you should be able to grow melons without these aids once you are past the last frost. 

Little Sugarbaby Watermelon. Small but sweet.

Perpetual Spinach

One of the great things about gardening is that each year you discover something new. One of my discoveries last year was Perpetual Spinach.

Perpetual Spinach (Beta vulgaris) is a type of Silverbeet or Swiss Chard. Its taste is milder than Silverbeet and very similar to English spinach. It is a perennial. 

I planted this last summer. It has been picked so heavily that the leaves miniturised but you can see that it is returning to full size. I should be able to continue to harvest from this plant for throughout summer. As silver beet it is tough and easy to grow and doesn't bolt.

If you pick it heavily it will need to be fed with liquid fertiliser. I give this plant some fish emulsion every month as we eat from it almost everyday. Perpetual Spinach seedlings are vulnerable to birds and slugs. I solve this problem by using physical barriers such as upturned waste paper baskets.

Best of all Perpetual Spinach is good for you and is high in vitamins and minerals. It is great with eggs, in curries or in spinach and ricotta pie.