You don’t have to say goodbye to your capsicums when the winter chill sets in. I have had a lot of success with overwintering capsicum plants in my garden! The capsicum plants that are currently growing in my garden were planted from seed during spring 2013. At the time I never expected them to be still growing 3 years later! The first year I was a little disappointed that the plants took until the end of the summer to really get going. In fact it was early autumn when they were at their … [Read more...]
How to Tell When a Green Apple is Ripe
We have a couple of apple trees in our garden; a green apple which is a Granny Smith plus a red variety which is a Jonathon. So far we have had a fairly good harvest of apples this year. The Jonathon apples were ready in late February and it was great eating them straight from the tree on a summers evening. They are all gone now! The Granny Smith (green apple) matures a bit later so that tree is loaded with fruit at the moment. We have had it covered with bird netting for the last few weeks … [Read more...]
Cucumbers: Storage Tips to Keep Them Fresh
Summer is officially over but nobody has told our cucumbers; they are producing better now than they did all summer! It is probably because we had such a hot summer this year. In contrast early autumn has been warm but not too hot so the vegetables are very happy! We love eating fresh cucumbers but sometimes there are a few too many to handle. At the moment we are picking a couple of them every other day! We have had an oversupply of cucumbers other years too and we have found it hard to keep … [Read more...]
Humming Tape for Fruit Trees
Keeping the birds away from your fruit trees over summer can be a big job! I find it helpful to use a combination of nets, shiny objects, and humming tape. If you have fruit trees in your garden then you probably have had to worry about birds getting your fruit before you can! Often the birds don’t even eat all the fruit, they just peck holes in it to test to see if it is ripe. This is an annual battle in my garden! A couple of years ago I shared a post which suggested ways to try to … [Read more...]
Controlling Purple Oxalis Weed
I know that there are some pretty ornamental oxalis plants that exist but in my garden the oxalis plant is hated. I have talked about controlling the soursob variety of oxalis in the past but in this post I am focusing on my other arch enemy the creeping purple oxalis! It is such a horrible weed, you can control it by digging it out but because it has a mass of stems and roots under the ground it is hard to get it all. If you don’t get it all then it just re-shoots again! We have got some of … [Read more...]
Organising Garden Irrigation Supplies
Whether you have a large or a small garden having some sort of garden irrigation set up can be handy. Things like drippers and sprays permanently set up in a garden bed make watering the garden so much easier. For most of our garden beds we just have to either turn on a tap or connect a hose to one point and the entire garden bed is watered. When you have a garden irrigation system you inevitably end up with lots of spare bits and pieces. Such as different types of spray heads, spare … [Read more...]
My Garden: How I Plant Carrots
I got sick and tired of pulling up funny shaped carrots that are all twisted and hard to cook with so I worked out a better way to plant my carrot seeds! When I was a kid I used to love eating carrots straight from the garden. Sometimes they would be funny shapes, a bit twisted and bent, but they always tasted way better than the bought ones! When I got back into growing vegetables a couple of years ago a carrot patch was one of the first things that I planted. I tried to plant the carrot … [Read more...]
Growing Bulbs in Containers
You don’t need a large garden to grow lots of beautiful bulbs. Try growing bulbs in containers to bring some spring and summer colour to your home! We have most of our bulbs in containers dotted around the garden close to the house. Personally I find growing bulbs in containers very easy and quite convenient. You can place the bulb containers around the house in positions that suit their needs. Also you can position them for maximum impact. During spring, over the last couple of years we … [Read more...]
Hi, I'm Kaylene, and I'm a keen gardener,budding baker and wannabe DIYer!