Hello all!
Crazy windy day out there! Hasn’t let up tonight either. Thinking of Jeff out there in the wilderness!! As long as he managed to get to the hut and is snugged up warm in his sleeping bag!
I went and stocked up on seaweed and was lucky enough to find lots of kelp too!
I noticed a lot of it as we drove past the other day – I had to hunt for it today as most had been covered by the seaweed grass. Still – I got three bags full (great – now I have a nursery rhyme running about in my head)
One I gave to Ruby and the others went into a barrel of water to make kelp juice
I filled a good number of bags with the seaweed grass – a painful job today with the wind. I had planned to put it out on the area that David and Ruth weeded for me with a newspaper underlay, but with the howling gale I could only imagine that ending badly.
Since I wasn’t spreading seaweed around I thought I might prep an area for the cabbage seedlings I have that are more than ready to go out.
And no matter how many people you have digging potatoes – you never get them all!! I think I managed to stab half of these! Most annoying.
I put a generous amount of mushroom compost on top of the area and put the arches in ready for the netting to go over.
I use the fine mesh netting on brassicas while the weather is still warm to stop the cabbage moths getting to the plants.
I uncovered a lot of massive worms today! Clearly the soil is doing well
With no help from me this patch has started to produce a nice amount of tomatoes. Yay for the self seeded plants!
I picked a few cucumbers, but left some of the really big ones which I will collect some seed from
Now that I have a little time, I figured I should pick the chillies as I can probably squeeze in some chopping/deseeding time!
And a stroll throughout the whole garden got me another swag full of tomatoes. I did make the new batch of relish today but too lazy to go back and snap the final result! I am just happy I am restocked!
Midweek done!
Cheers!
Re your massive worm find. Here we are dealing with Asian Jumping Worms invading our gardens and forest land. Do you have them? One of the negative things about them is that they don’t dig down to help aerate the soil, so their castings aren’t deep. Rain runs the nutrients off the soil, instead of helping them into the soil. Until I read this, had no idea there was an issue. But then we US gardeners also have to deal with killer horse/cow manure too.
Here’s a link to the worm issue in the US.
https://awaytogarden.com/asian-jumping-worms-what-we-know-with-uw-madisons-brad-herrick/
Wow – I had never heard of this worm before and never realised that some worms were problematic! Such an interesting read!
Whats with the horse and cow poo? I tried googling but wasn’t finding anything of note?
From what I could see in my brief google, the jumping worms haven’t made it here.
You have been one busy little beaver!! Love the artistic design in tomatoes!!😊😊hope your Jeff is doing well and enjoying his walk!! Thank you for all your posts. They are soooo good!!
Hi Linda! Glad you are enjoying the recent stories! Nice to have a little more time up my sleeve for the usual things.
I really hope Jeff is enjoying it up there – wind rain and all!
Its windy and off and on again raining today… not the most inspiring outdoor days.
Time to slice some apples for the dehydrator?? 🙂
Linda, I hadn’t heard of the worms before either, that’s why I’ve been asking around about it. Sometimes “the sky is falling” articles are just that and I wondered if others were dealing with the issue. Apparently here in the US its most likely going to be a major issue.
Killer horse/cow manure. Here is the layman’s version of the issue. Apparently US farmers are putting weed killer [chemical] around the edges of their fields of horse/cow food. While tests have proved that the poison passes through their bodies without issue i.e. no tainted milk, it apparently passes through their poo. Now it is known that manure is wonderful for garden soil. However manure that has these weed killer chemicals still residing in it will kill all plants attempted to grow in it. It apparently takes a few years of sitting/cooking to rid/dilute the manure to usable state if treated properly. That’s how it got it’s name of killer manure.
Such great news I bring here. Have a wonderful day, and hope Jeff is not too wet and too cold, but just enough to make this trip unusually memorable.
Interesting! (re poo) Haven’t heard of that problem here, but I can see it not being an unlikely event with all the chemicals we love to use in this day and age.
I even heard of a place that had all these lovely free range chickens who laid pretty much contaminated eggs. The reason? The people had bought a place that had a big orchard where they let the chickens roam but the previous owners had sprayed the whatsits out of the fruit trees – so many leftover chemicals.
🙁
Looking forward to picking up Jeff (hopefully Sunday!!!!) and hearing the stories. I know it has been miserable weather up there pretty much all week but hope despite the trials he is enjoying.
Lisa,
It’s amazing what the same chemicals, who help so much in many ways, can do such damage.
Celiac disease [gluten intolerance] is a big thing here in the states. Now there’s thought that the significance rise in the disease is not really caused by wheat, but an issue of a chemical which is used in the wheat fields to kill non-wheat plants. The theory is that that particular chemical is in the wheat, thusly causing the digestion issues. While not consuming the wheat ends the issue, its not the wheat that really causes the problems, but it is the carrier. Ah chemistry and biology…
Both my mother and one of my sisters developed Celiacs. So many people seem to be affected by it now. It would be interesting to grow some wheat and go through the process to get it to ‘bread’ stage to then test it on them!! 😀 (At least I would know I was not using any chemicals)
We do accept way too many unknowns into our diets.