Rain ..... Its good for the Garden

Pitter patter, drip, drip drip…. The welcome sound of rain on the roof of the tin shed.  The usual Winter long dry spell now appears to be broken! 

A few days earlier, we had enjoyed the briefly flashy splendour of a fast-moving thunderstorm. But there was really nothing in it.  Just a half-hearted attempt by the weather gods to get us excited over the prospect of rain.

But this is Queensland and the start of the storm season, so we knew that rain would soon be upon us.  And today it has arrived!  A day long steady stream of ground soaking rain, in dispersed with the occasional heavy downpours.

In the morning we scampered out to the orchard to quickly plant a new fig tree. There was no need to use a watering can, the rain soon watered it in.  However, whilst the garden will benefit from the rain, not all creatures are welcoming the weather.

This soaked Koala and her joey, do not seem as impressed as we are!

Jen and Rog

Email:  honeydaleqld@gmail.com

First Crop for Autumn 2018

In QLD we have been enjoying a very mild Autumn, with Daytime temperatures in the mid 20's and night time rarely dipping below 10 degrees.  As a result the garden looks a delight.  Below photo's are of our first pickings - fresh greens and the odd strawberry for breakfast.

Plenty of beans and peas

Ready to pickle

The Okra is starting to flower and we have planted plenty. So soon we will be adding Okra to our Autumn harvest.

A flowering beauty

Planted out - Red & Green Okra varities

Each season we experiment a little - and learning heaps along the way! 

Jen and Rog

Email:  honeydaleqld@gmail.com

What we have learnt about growing veggies

We have had good success in growing tomatoes, lettuce, rocket, peas and beans in Brisbane and so we thought it would be easy to transfer this success to Honeydale.

The previous owners had a small garden and we started by ripping the ground, applied gypsum to break the clay up, spread lots of compost we made using our mulcher and gave the garden a good working over with the rotary hoe.

During our first growing season we had plenty of Zucchinis and tomatoes but no eggplants or capsicums.

We found that growing tomatoes in the shade housed produced a large amount of foliage but no fruit.

Last growing season we had much more success growing tomatoes, eggplant and capsicums on outdoors with a trellis for support.

Our first planting of rhubarb went gangbusters but got root rot and died.  We replanted rhubarb in raised beds and we are have had several good harvests.  The crowns are splitting so we will be digging them up in the dormant seasons for replanting.

Rhubarb

Last year we planted a test bed of broad beans and we had a good crop.  This year we mass planted broad beans and have been rewarded with masses of flowers. Hopefully the flowers will turn into a bumper crop of broad beans.

Our best success appears to come from using heritage climbing beans and peas.  We constructed a trellis and planted older varieties of climbing peas and beans.  The purple climbing variety did not take well the green variety more than made up for the short fall.  We have had four pickings from the green beans and they are still flowering.  The beans are slower growing but they have plenty of pods and we are not too far away from having fresh peas.

Climbing Beans

When the climbing peas and beans have finished we plan to rest the soil, put down some fertiliser and use the trellis for our summer tomatoes.

Climbing Peas

Pea Pods

Okra is a hardy vegetable used in African and southern US cooking.  Last year we had good results with a test planting.   This year we planted a larger garden bead and have been rewarded with sturdy plants with lots of flowers.

Okra Pods forming

This year we planted a test bed of soya beans, soya beans can be used for a variety of dishes but we plan to take the pods and boil them to eat as edamame to have with drinks or as a side dish.

Soya Beans

We still grow herbs and lettuce in the shade house.  However, the shade house is slowly being taken over by strawberries, there are now have two rows of the plants and we get a steady crop of sweet red berries to have with desert or on our breakfast yogurt.

Fresh Strawberries

Last year we over ordered garlic and it got off to a great start.  The year wore on and not a single bulb formed.  We researched the reasons and found that we had planted cool weather garlic, it needs cold weather to form bulbs.  This year we got two varieties, one sourced from far north Queensland and another from south east Queensland.

This year's garlic

One of our resident Koalas on the job!

Nothing beats home grown!



Jen and Rog

Email:  honeydaleqld@gmail.com

A promise of things to come

Since owning HoneyDale we have planted out an orchard, by adding to some existing trees.

In our first six months we put in lemon, lime, orange, mandarin, pomegranate, custard apple, fig, mango, avocado, coffee and a plum trees.  As well as adding strawberries and raspberry canes.

Having nurtured these plants, we are now enjoying beautiful sweet strawberries and the odd raspberry or two.

Our citrus fruit trees all have some fruit on them.  The old mango tree and young plum tree have the promise of sweet fruit to come.

Nothing beats home grown!



Jen and Rog

Email:  honeydaleqld@gmail.com

First Fruit from the Orchard

Last Winter we planted out the HoneyDale orchard.  Twelve months on we are now enjoying the results of hard work - the planting, watering, fertilising and weeding of the young trees. 

Now these trees look established and bearing fruit. Since Autumn we have been watching the green fruit slowly change colour.  

First to ripen was the lemons, which proved to be very juicy. It is now a race between the Pink Grapefruit and the Mandarins, to be the next to ripen.

Juicy Lemon

Pink Grapefruit

Manadrins

Jen and Rog

Email:  honeydaleqld@gmail.com

Update - Garden 2

Today, New Year's Day 2017, we checked the gardens as is our routine and found that the beans and corn we planted on 27 December 2016 had sprouted.

Day old bean sprout

Sweet corn sprout

Meanwhile, the original garden (Garden 1) is still producing beans, basil, silver beet, squash, tomatoes, rocket, carrots and a few other items.

Rock melon and a Roma Tomato

We have been getting a few rock melons, these are very sweet and we have been having them Spanish style, a slice of rock melon topped with a slice of the locally smoked ham as an entree.

We found a "before" photo of the area where garden 2 is now located, compare it with the recent photo.

July 2016

January 2017

The introduced exotic plants (rhododendron and morning glory), an obsolete above ground pool and several steel poles (to be recycled as fence posts) were removed.

Jen and Rog

Email: honeydaleqld@gmail.com

Photos by Roger and Jennifer Holt

First Planting of Garden 2

We arrived at Honeydale a few days before Christmas to the sight of several trees that had fallen during a storm the previous night.  That night we had another storm so the following morning the chainsaw and the woodchiper came out.  

Removing fallen trees was not included in the plan but it had to be done.  We returned to the main task of completing the garden fence which was duly completed.  The tractor came out and we ripped the new garden, given the boring name of “Garden 2.”  The soil pH was tested and dolomite applied as the soil was acidic.  Compost was then spread over the two garden beds that will be planted out.  The ripper was exchanged for the rotary hoe and the compost mixed in with the soil.

Two garden beds were marked out and prepared, slightly raised for better drainage and the reticulation installed.  The new reticulation valve station was completed and the reticulation for Garden 1, the original vegetable garden, was tidied up.  Having prepared the garden beds and a working reticulation system it was time to plant out the two garden beds.

Jenny watering the seeds

In Bed 2.1 we planted four different types of beans and sweet corn.  In Bed 2.4 we planted pumpkins, zucchini, melons and cucumbers.  All these plants can tolerate the heat that we expect to get in January and February.  If things go well we should be harvesting in March and April.

Beds 2.2 and 2.3 have been left fallow so the vines from the pumpkins and melons can ramble without overrunning other plants.

Jen and Rog

Email: honeydaleqld@gmail.com

Photos by Roger and Jennifer Holt