Grow your Own Veggies at home - in an autopot

Currently growing in coconut fibre in an autopot,, tomatoes, one pepper, basil and a chinese cabbage.  The tall green object is the  resevoir and holds hydroponic nutrient and the autopot tray has a valve that regulates the flow - just set and forget once you plant.  Check out from time to time to make sure everything is going fine and nutrient is flowing to the plants and still plenty in the resevoir.  

Microgreens -Fiji Feathers

Fiji Feathers ....Microgreens growing in a takeaway container with holes made for drainage.   Cut when a couple of inches high and leave to grow again for second picking. 

One Day's Harvesting and this is what was left after I picked last night !

The Best Reason to Grow Your Own Veggies - Fresh organic smoothies

 

One of the best reasons to grow your own veggies - freshly picked spinach, organic limes make a healthy and delicious smoothie with water and a small amount of sugar - use Kale or silverbeet if you have it or all three for a healthy boost to your day 

Home Grown Organic Veggies

Grow your own Silver Beet  - pretty easy, pop the seeds into seed raising mix then transplant into soil with  compost added  - best homegrown but OK to buy if you don't have your own and voila - your own greens with minimum effort 

Hay Garden  in its first season, produced beans, rhubarb, zucchinis by the mile, herbs, silver been, strawberries, lettuce and potatoes 

The second garden build on newspapers and hay has produced all summer, a mix of herbs, flowers and veggies, notice the recycled drawers in the front - these have produced  a constant supply of lettuces and spring onions all summer 

   

Mixed garden - this is the most sheltered section with herbs, bromeliads ( there to keep sheltered) silverbeet and a lemon tree 

Growing Seedlings At Home

No Dig Hay Garden on Newspaper

Hay garden on newspaper, rhubarb in the front left, nettles at the back, spinach and silverbeet (young) and Zucchini on the right hand side.  

Organic Heirloom tomatoes - same no dig principle

Another no dig garden on newspaper with hay to start it off 

Idyllic spot to garden ?  Tranquil and serene - looks it now but when the winds blow even the fleece on the sheeps back almost blows away !

Newly cut stack of coriander, harvested for the seeds

Side garden with mix of flowers, herbs and plants

Herbs, flowers and lettuce grown in tubs and pots

Absolutely Gi- normous Rhubarb leaves as large as Gunnera leaves !  We had some of these stalks and even 3 lasted us for days !

Homegrown Organic Coriander Seeds after harvesting

How to Grow Herbs From Seed - only got a small space ? No problem

Parsley from seed in the background, Betony in the left hand side and seeds sown in the rows in a small home garden bed. 

Ever buy herbs  that are lush looking, brilliant green and absolutely tasteless ?  Need to travel miles to pick up that essential herb for your cooking and find the rest of the bunch wilts almost immediately ?

If you cook you need to get your hands on fresh herbs, the fresher the better and growing your own herbs from seeds is so easy and you will get such a buzz out of using your own freshly picked herbs and you can have an ever increasing supply that will never die out on your kitchen bench.

If you want to know how to grow herbs in small spaces click here 

Its pretty easy. You can grow your herbs in  the ground or in pots.  If you choose pots just add drainage in the bottom using old broken up bricks, old broken pieces of flower pots, stones then fill up the pot with potting mix.  Do not use garden soil if you can help it or you will get a big mud pie when it dries out and your herbs will die.   If you have light, loose soil with lots of aeration you might be able to get away with it but why make things harder for yourself ?

If in the ground, prepare your ground first before you get your herb seeds.  The garden in this photo has already been prepared and used for other crops so the soil is nice and airy.  Herbs usually like the heat and like well drained soil.  If you have only a small space or even a tiny space you can still grow herbs, just a tiny patch is all you need to get started.
Use fresh seed - if its old it may not germinate.   Use seed raising mix as it is especially designed to help seeds germinate and it is looser which is why garden soil may not be the best thing to use. I put sawdust or something similar on top but this is normally only to mark the rows so not necessary.

Basically keep them damp and wait for the results, herb scissors at the ready - it really is that simple.
More info on growing your own herbs from seed here 

Home grown Galangal in hydroponic unit

We grew this galangal in a hydroponic unit - the kind that just slowly drips the solution into the pots - it grew so well that when we moved it and forgot about it it still kept on growing without the solution  and we had to cut it all out of the pot in a tangled mass - no need to use solution on galangal it will grow easily anywhere  but if you want to get it off to a head start in colder weather then hydroponics would be a great way to go as it comes from the tropics and doesn't like the cold. 

We have grown basil, mint and parsley and chives successfully in old yogurt containers with the hydroponic solution and the plants produced all winter long on a sunny window sill.  

Rivervalley Garden - moving a garden and why would you want to ?

We have just moved from an established garden (Rivervalley Garden)  to a brand new one with nothing in it.   Garden helpers came in pretty handy and human became supervisor !

The garden has grown everything we needed for three years so the next one needs to be set up real quick. 

We didn't want to leave our barrels full of well rotted compost or the other full barrel of comfrey "tea" so ended up decanting them into old milk bottle containers to move to the new place and moved the barrels over and poured them back in at the new place.  

Compost was also well rotted down and ready to use  - well no point in leaving it there was it ?  this has been bagged up and moved over too and is now layering the hay garden - still bemoaning fact that we had to leave at least a third that wasn't ready ! 

Start of one of  the new hay garden - layers of  animal manure, compost, and hay  and just several rhubarb plants have been put in.  My nettles are still in the bag we transported them in and are doing so well we might just leave them there for a while.  


Established hay garden starting to grow and produce 

Companion planting link

http://www.kings.co.nz/Growing+Guides/Companion+Planting+Chart.html

Organic Homegrown Butternuts - rich and full of flavor

These butternuts practically grew themselves - I just added some seeds to a pile of compost that was left in a small heap after moving it someplace and up they came - prolifically too, we have eaten quite a few of them before I remembered to photograph them.  They were all very sweet and had  a much richer flavor than shop bought ones and I didn't do much extra to them - no extra feeding, not extra watering and we had a long dry summer with hardly any rain.  
Save the seeds of any pumpkins and butternuts or squash that that you have enjoyed eating for next season as they grow so easily if they are open pollinated or heirloom seeds. 
Get your seed from a reputable organic source to be absolutely sure you are getting heirloom seeds and not some hybrid mix.


  

How to Grow Vegetables and Herbs in Your Home Garden

How to Grow Vegetables at Home

Seedlings after being transplanted from seed trays

German Chamomile and Lettuce seedlings after being transplanted to grow on in small seed punnets until they grow big enough to plant out.

    
 Search Amazon.com for oak leaf lettuce seeds