Well, yesterday I got out into the garden. I only meant to spend about 10 minutes out there, but managed to be out there for 2 hours - not the greatest idea when you are sick!
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| Camomile seedling - herbal tea coming our way! |
After work I decided to finally go to Bunnings to get a Camomile seedling... but I should know by now that I can't just go into Bunnings and come out with the one thing I planned on buying... so I also bought a small Rosemary plant, a couple of pots to put them in, some more Bokashi spray and I almost bought a pH testing kit, but put it back at the last minute... I want to get one (they are only $15), but don't think it will help with my gardening ventures at this stage.
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| Rosemary seedling |
When I got home I wanted to re-pot the seedlings, so as I was going into the garden I also grabbed the fermenting Bokashi bucket from the kitchen cupboard as I wanted to test out a theory of adding some to the worm farm. Now I promised you guys pictures of the Bokashi, so here it is!! You can see the white mould on top - that's good! that's what we want. You might also see some small spots of green mould, that's not good. That's where I needed more of the EM mix, but overall this was a good bucket!
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| Fermented Bokashi, ready to be planted |
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| Bokashi layered in the pots |
When re-potting the plants, I placed a layer of soil from the garden bed in the bottom, then put a layer of Bokashi in followed by a final layer of soil. In this top layer of soil I planted the seedlings. The Bokashi mix should break down and then feed the soil and plants as the plants grow and the roots go deeper. It worked really well for the fairy garden Nessa and I made at the beginning of winter (I believe this is why the garden isn't dead from the frost). The reason for the layers of soil and Bokashi is that the Bokashi is quite acidic until it is broken down in the soil, and can burn the roots of the plant if it is planted directly.
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| Adding Bokashi to the worm farm |
I also added a small amount of the Bokashi to the worm farm to see if the worms will eat it. I tried to avoid any of the mandarins/citrus as worms don't like it. As I mentioned above the Bokashi is quite acidic, so some people say that worms won't like it, but then others are saying that worms love it, so I thought I would try it for myself. After I added some, I covered it in soil, so that even if they don't eat it right away it will start to break down and they will eat it eventually (hopefully) and if not, hopefully it will just compost lol! I did also add some of the Worm Farm & Compost Conditioner to help even out the pH balance. But I want to go out this afternoon to see if the worms are near it or avoiding it completely, 24 hours later.
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| The new set up! |
The worms seem to be doing really well in the worm farm, and yesterday I moved their home to a different location. When we moved everything was placed in the one spot, so yesterday I rearranged the garden slightly so that things are hopefully in better positions. I moved the worm farm, composter and mandarin tree into a more sunny spot. This does also mean that it is more likely to get more frost, but hopefully more sunshine will help with this.
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| More Bokashi being added to the garden bed |
The final thing that I came across was that my buried Bokashi I spoke of in my last post, wasn't actually all decomposed. Turns out I was digging in the wrong spot. Everything that is left though is basically all of the processed foods like bread and stuff, so would probably take longer to break down anyway. Either way, I am pretty happy with how it has gone. I even buried the remaining Bokashi into the garden bed, so that can all start to break down too.
The only thing is that I am wondering if maybe I should invest in another composter, but this one would be a stationary one (the one in the picture above is a rotating one). My reasoning for this is that when I added the Bokashi to the rotating one it didn't go so well, but this is mostly due to the fact that I didn't add any "brown" material to it either... rookie (which I am!) mistake - one I am still trying to fix. I think that once I can fix this issue, I might try and do it again in the rotating composter, but there is an appeal to just being able to layer Bokashi and brown material in a stationary composter.
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| I added lots of sugar cane mulch and gave it a tumble |
I mentioned that I am still trying to fix my compost, after a bit of research I decided to add some of the Worm Farm and Compost Conditioner to the mix along with a good serve of sugar cane mulch I had left over from previous gardening endeavours. This is apparently good brown material as it generally takes awhile to break down and I don't think it would 'soak up' the wetness of my mix at the moment like paper would (which I was adding in the past to try and fix it.) I am unsure at what point I give up and start again... not sure when compost is considered ruined and to start again.
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| Sprouting garlic! |
Finally, I came across some garlic that I had planted in a seedling tray before we moved, and thought I would plant them out to see how they go. I realise I have probably done this a little too late, but we'll see if they take... the last time I planted garlic they didn't do so well as my soil was pretty depleted of nutrients and wasn't really taking in any water. Hopefully this time around they will do ok!
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| Planted garlic! 13 in total! |
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| Camomile and Rosemary now in the Garden! |
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