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Saturday, December 8, 2012

Yates Vegie Growing Challenge - Part 3

Well it was feeling like I wasn't getting anywhere with this challenge. What little I had planted just wasn't responding.


Of course the hens go into the garden a lot and when walking on the netting frame were able to pick at ground level. I had omitted to watering the garden too so growth wasn't very tremendous at all. Mind you as the saying goes, "you get what you paid for," and if I wasn't prepared to pay the time I shouldn't expect a huge crop.


The only thing that has grown from my first sewing's were  the beetroot, some carrot and radish - I always have radish. Radish is so quick and easy to grow you just have to be careful to only sew a few at a time. I don't use any chemical product on my vegie garden so it would seem that slugs or something have had a bit of a nibble on the radishes. There was absolutely no sign of any beans so they had been eaten by something. As they were right at the edge of the net it could have been anything.

By this stage I had also attempted to grow some cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli seedlings from seeds on my window sill in the kitchen so I felt game enough to plant them out too.

To protect them from being scratched out of the ground I have learnt to cover them and use large juice containers with the tops cut off as little glasses houses. Needless to say those hens certainly weren't taking much notice of why they were there and would sometimes knock them over while scratching around them.

I really was beginning to think that those hens were going to win this battle and well so much for winning any competition. I do love gardening and there is such satisfaction with going out into the vegetable garden, harvesting what you want and cooking it fresh each day, that you don't get from going to the shop to get what you need.
But I kept at it, you never know I may well win the battle if not the competition.

I did harvest the old carrots and although some were gone to seed a few were quite nice and when roasted straight from the garden were sweet.

1 comment:

  1. I got a nice surprise from my garden yesterday .... lots of lovely beans, zucchinis and I'm still getting strawberries.Carrots are on the way agin too. Shame about your little failure, you've always had a good crop in the past. Maybe a good dose of cow poo will help. I soak mine in water and then feed it to the garden. Sue

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