December round up & Goodbye 2011

Well what an interesting year the weather has defiantly created some challenges in the garden, but if nothing else it has made me more aware of the importance of being able to manages the variations and extremes. To me it even enhances the benefits of growing with the Autopot system.
Back when I first moved to the Bay I battled with trying to have a garden, poor soil, scorching heat meant all my time was spent at the end of a garden hose trying to keep things alive, now I feed more than one home and have so much fun doing it not to mention the number of people I have been fortunate to meet while promoting this great product.
Over the year I have experimented with a few varieties as well as a few mediums one of the big changes I have made is I have stopped using the Searls Premium potting mix in favour of an organic soil produced by Osmicoat it is a Superior product and the seedling just bound with it. I just feel it goes well with our Nutrient and does not have the high content of wood fiber that is in most potting mixes, this is just a personal opinion I know you all have your own ideas but I just try to share as much info as possible based on trials carried out under real growing conditions in our climate. I also use My Perlight and Vermiculite 50 / 50 mix.
I am about to trial Clay balls in the next few weeks as well as growing in Scoria.

Here is a look at what is growing at the moment.

Black Russian Tomato's Loaded down with fruit

Hybrid burp less  Cucumber

Darwin Lettuce ready to move to window box unit

Purple capsicum second flush

Celery thriving in the system

A nice herb selection

Acorn leaf lettuce, Silver beat and many more fresh delights

Beet root my second crop

A beautiful double petunia just starting to develop

Sunny the sunflower 

My New "Grow House"

At last I finally got my new tunnel house built and relocated all my plants.
I have been talking about this for a while and set my self a time limit to have it done before Christmas.
The trick was to turn the half tunnel into a full tunnel utilising all the existing material and at the same time extend to 6 meters so let me show you it taking place.

Some of the material laid out to begin

I am using 2 inch Agriculture water pipe to form the tunnel and  metal roof bracing, I also had to use a smaller sleeve inserted into the bigger pipe to extend the 3 half hoops from the old tunnel.

Extension sleeve to add other half

I have used small Star pickets to slip the pipe over, the tension on the natural curve holds it in place I suppose if you where worried about lifting you could put a bolt through to secure.

Bracing up the hoops 

The bracing comes in 6.2m length so this worked out well. Note my little helpers feeding away with out a worry in the world.

Ready to cover

The first brace up from the ground is placed at the height to take my existing shelving which is recycled pool fencing. The main cover is 50% white horticulture shade cloth just to kill that midday sun and control the wind. As far as I am concerned wind will do more damage than anything.

The cloth  comes in 3.6 wide so 12 meters cut in two works well, I have just over lapped at the join.

I have also joined 2 clear tarps together, they come at 4x3 I just tied them at the eyelets with cable ties.

I have permanently attached at one end and only secured it by rope to pegs at the other so I can roll it back at any time. I am planning to just have it folded at my work end as a little protection if need be and not effecting the plants. I have found it very important to be able to control the weather.

Cover on and plants shifted.

I have relocated the tanks as well until I can move up to a Smart -Pump in the mean time we are still gravity feed, My main line is a 13 ml. with T join reducers to 4 ml. for the Hydro trays naturally with this number of pots its important I have enough water flowing to support them. I need to add more shelving but we are up and running and I can now have more fun.

The plastic tarp comes down to the bench level so works well. I had just finished the installation when it started to rain and by this morning we had 10 ml with every thing looking well this morning.  When the sun comes back I will just roll back the rain cover and have another great day in the garden.

How good is this!  bring on 2012

Yea! its raining

Its been a long time coming each week the weather man promised a change but every one else got it but us. I let the plants enjoy a wetting last night but now it has set in so it is time to see how my ingenious roll up roll down pulley system works.
Bingo works like a dream, I will roll up again when it stops.

This is the clear plastic tarp I talk about.

I know its pretty simple but it just lets me be in control with weather changes and to celebrate the rain I have moved SUNNY into his new home, he looks a little lost at the moment but it will soon reach for the sky

Sunny's new home.

While I am talking about reaching for the sky the Celery I planted 5 days ago has reached the top of the surrounds that I put around to create nice white crisp stalks so they are racing.

My Celery experiment