The Greening of Gavin

Seeds in the Mail (finally)

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Not a very exciting day, however, my seeds from the Digger’s Club have arrived via Australia Post, minus the Chilean Guava plant. That should be here by the end of the week.

So, it looks like I will have to make up a big bucket full of seedling mix and fill up the greenhouse to the brim with trays full of seeds. It is still a barmy 20-25 degrees C during the afternoon in the greenhouse (just like a winters day in Fiji, hey Kel), so I am hoping that some germination action will occur over the next few days.

I have made a promise to myself this year that I am not going to buy any seedlings and am going to germinate everything myself. Because last year was the first time I had grown vegetables since I was a kid (under supervision from Dad), I did cheat a little and buy some seedlings for my first planting in May 2007, and again in September 2007. So far this year, I have accomplished my goal, with the entire winter crop being grown from seed. Once you get the hang of it, plan ahead, and figure out when the right times are for planting, it is a cinch. So far in the greenhouse, I have six tomato plants growing well in pots, and two seedling trays that I planted out over the last two weeks, which contain some left over seeds from last year. I have planted two types of pumpkin, eggplant, beetroot, silver beet, capsicums, more types of tomatoes, and some broccoli. Check this previous post for what i will be planting this weekend.

I will wait until the soil gets a bit warmer around the time of the equinox before I sow any seeds direct in the ground. I found that last year this method worked well. Since I found the 6 bags of coco fibre a few weeks ago, I have been making sure that I have been adding it to two of the compost bins, with a sprinkling of dolomite lime, ready to add to the garden beds. The compost looks and smells so good, you could sprinkle it on your muesli (thanks Pete). I managed to prep the beds with the kids help in the first week of September and we let them settle down with all their new organic matter for about three weeks, and then plant around the 21st.

Everything grew fine during last summers crop, but I will do a bit of companion planting this year to try and keep pests away. A few marigold flowers in between the broccoli, and runner beans in with the sweetcorn so that they grow up the stalks and help with the nitrogen in the soil at the same time. I will do a bit of research over the next few days to see what else works. I have already learnt from last year that if you plant carrots and radishes in the same row, the radishes act as pioneer plants and assist the carrots in pushing through quicker. That was a tip from Dad, and it worked well (thanks mate). I also know that if you sow alternate rows of carrots and spring onions, it keeps the aphids away from the carrot tops, so I will be doing that again as well. If anyone has any suggestions of good vegetable companions, please leave a comment. It is always good to seek help from someone who has been successful previously.

I didn’t have any issues with any of the tomato plants with pests last year, and will rotate the beds so that there is less chance of any diseases building up in the soil from planting the same crop in the same bed in consecutive years. The rotation I have implemented is working well, and so far no issues with club root in any brassicas, or nematodes of any kind. Just aphids and caterpillar moths! Nothing a bit of Gav’s home made garlic, onion & chili spray can’t fix!

Looks like I am in for a busy weekend of planting, which will be most satisfying. The kids will have to help, but I know they enjoy spending a bit of time with Dad in the garden. If someone replies to my wanted ad in Freecycle for some chicken wire, I might rustle up some mates and attempt to do some more work on the chook house as well! You never know what might happen.

I wish everyone the best of luck with their spring plantings, and bumper crops.

Making a Difference from Bed

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Some days, it takes a while to think of something to right about, so I don’t try and force a post about something random and meaningless. So, every so often I will skip a few days and do not write, but just do stuff and jot down ideas during the day! Writing about sustainable living is one thing, but actually doing something about it is another.

For instance, yesterday, I had a bit of a small setback with my injury, with my legs aching for most of the day. It was probably all the moving around I did over the weekend! However, the time that I needed in bed to recover was well spent. I finished of a few books from the library, being “Saving the Planet – 52 brilliant ideas for rescuing our world”, by Natalia Marshall, and “Outdoor Kids – A practical guide for kids in the garden”, by Jamie Durie.

The first book is one of those “how to” books of which I have read so many times. I really didn’t find anything new in it, but it would be a fantastic starter for anyone just beginning a green journey. I did find one fantastic quote that I will share;

“If you think you are too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito in the room.” – Anita Roddick (founder of the Body Shop)

What a powerful statement and it helped me get through the day!

The second book was so that I could get a few ideas on how to drag Ben away from his PC (besides turning it off), and get him to willingly volunteer to help in the garden. I got a few ideas, but will try them before writing about them. The one I did try during our winter planting, which works, was to get him to plant his favourite vegetable, broccoli, and help tend it for the season. That way, I noticed that he took an interest in its growth and helped keep the caterpillars off of them. But alas, I planted them too early and the aphids attacked them, so he lost interest in the other vegetables.

After I finished reading, Kim and I ordered our seeds from the Diggers club for our summer crop. We still had a fair bit of seed left over from last season, so I did a quick stock take of seed stock, and we ordered a few different things this year. Here is the list;


  • Lazy Housewife Beans
  • Capsicum Mixed Italian Fryers
  • Eggplant Heirloom Mixed
  • Melon African Horned
  • Spring Onion Red (grew last year)
  • Silverbeet Five Colour Mix (grew last year)
  • Tomato Elfie
  • Tomato Broad Ripple Yellow Currant
  • Tomato Mortgage Lifter (grew last year)
  • Tomato Tigerella (grew last year)
  • Tomatillo Purple
  • Chilean Guava


We are both quite excited about all the new fruits and vegetables, especially the Horny African Melon (did that come out wrong?), and I don’t think we will have any trouble finding anywhere to plant them. The total cost including postage was $49.80, which is fantastic value for money, especially when the Chilean Guava is a perennial. That amount used to be our fortnightly fruit and vegetable bill, and now it lasts a whole season and then some when I preserve some produce with the Fowler-Vacola kit. The annuals should last me for two seasons, even though I did plant far too many tomato seedlings last year, and half of them died because I didn’t re-pot them soon enough. Not bad for our first summer of growing though. We had so many tomatoes, that we ate them nearly every day, and had to preserve some near the end of the season for pasta sauce, because the plants just kept producing!

These seeds are not the only ones I will be planting. I will still sew most of what I did last year, especially the cucumbers, chilies, salad greens and different types of tomatoes, and of course the sweet corn that is now destined for the front yard. I also had a breakthrough yesterday. Kim is starting to go off the ornamental in the fruit tree side of the garden, so I am going to ask Adam to rip out one of the jasmine vines and we will prepare the soil for a couple of black passionfruit vines I have been nurturing for quite a while now. It will be great to see edibles growing, even though jasmine does look fantastic in the spring. But, we are starting to realise that if you can’t eat it, then we are just wasting our time, water, and money on a non-productive garden.

I also caught up on my blog reading and left quite a few comments on my usual reads, and found a few new green blogs. All good reading, and many thought provoking posts as usual.

I have managed to cook dinner two nights in a row now, without too much pain, both meals being simple, hearty fare. Last night, I added to the chicken stock I made on Sunday night from the leftovers from the normal roast chicken, to make our usual Monday night chicken soup. I added a little curry powder this time, and it was very delicious. Home made stock is definitely the best tasting stock I have ever tried. It beats that stuff you buy in a tetra pack or stock cubes any day! Tonight, I cooked up a very easy creamy mushroom sauce that I ladled over some ravioli. I bought the ravioli from NQR, and never again, as it was terrible. At least the sauce gave it some substance.

Tomorrow, our friends Phil (Wombat064) and Stacy are popping around for morning tea, so we can catch up and have a good chat about all thing environmental, and the recent WWOOF’ing (Willing Workers On Organic Farms), that Phil did for a few days locally. It should be a good catch up.

It is amazing the green things you can get up to in bed!


Animal Pharm

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Kim and I watched a disturbing documentary on Tuesday night that screened on ABC1. It was Animal Pharm, which highlighted the wonderful world of selective breeding and genetic engineering. If you are really interested, the next episode screens on Tuesday 10th June @ [8:35] pm.

You were led through an imaginary farm that had real examples of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO), selectively bred offspring, and cloned animals. From the Belgium Blue cow which looked like the bovine equivalent of Mr Universe, to the featherless chicken engineered to keep cool in the tropics and reduce production time by not having to pluck the feathers off, to the super salmon that had a gene removed to make it grow in all water temperatures, and the glow in the dark rabbits that have a jellyfish gene inserted into their root DNA (I couldn’t remember why you would want a glow-in-the-dark bunny), cloned cattle and sheep that all have the same genetic make up, pigs that absorb phosphorous in their diet (however real pigs do), and GM golden rice that contains Vitamin A from mouse bacteria. All in all, a human made freak show showing the beauty of these Frankensteins, with little consideration to the ramifications of letting GMO loose on the world.

While it is all well and good to tell people about these futuristic breakthroughs, at the beginning of the show, the presenter mentioned that it was going to have a balanced view. They attempted to do this by having a scientist, Dr Olivia Judson (pictured with the featherless rooster) describe the benefits of GMO and a journalist and food critic, Giles Coren argue the dangers. The main problem with the format was that the scientist domineered the entire programme and the journalist looked weak. Maybe it was their personalities, but it came across as just plain wrong to me. The GMO point of view was touted as the brave new world, which I personally think, it is not. If GMO gets released into the general farming community, then cross pollination will occur with both flora and fauna, with the natural state of thing thrown out of balance. And therefore, goodbye organic farming. I like organic farming! It is as nature intended. I am a firm believer in organic food, and if you want to learn more on the subject have a look at the Diggers Club site, who are big advocates of organics and very anti-GMO.

Why can’t we humans just leave well enough alone! Very few of us, it seams, learn from our past mistakes. I will leave you with my quote for the day which sums it all up;

“There is nothing to be learned from history anymore, We’re in science fiction now.
– Allen Ginsberg”