The last couple of weeks have been a frenzy of activity - moving out of our Farrer rental property and into our new house in Waramanga.

Projects completed this week:

1. Built a wicking bed from the old bookcase I was using in Farrer to grow some radishes and cabbages. See Scarecrow’s Garden for more info on constructing wicking beds, because I couldn’t find my camera while constructing it.
2. Planted in the wicking bed approximately one dozen Purple King climbing bean seedlings that I had previously sowed in toilet rolls, and one dozen seeds of Tongue of Fire, (a red-specked bush bean variety), three small tomatoes on the corners (so that I can stake them if they grow), one Black Russian tomato that I bought as a healthy plant from Woden trash and treasure on another corner, and some rows of watermelon radishes and black spanish radishes.
3. I ran out of space in the wicking bed, but planted three zucchini plants (if they all survive I’ll be eating a lot of zucchini!) in some beds that didn’t have very nice soil, so we’ll see how they go.
4. We added a cat flap for Tabatha to the back door (she approves)
5. In my roaming around the property I have found an almond tree stuck between an overgrown shrub and the back fence receiving no water and little sunshine, but still forming some nuts. There is also a developing tree that looks like maybe a plum next to the water meter and it looks like its survived there without any water or care for a little while. Unfortunately though both the almond and the tree next to the water meter have some kind of leaf curl - maybe a fungus? Out the front I also found a Meyer lemon tree and another tree that looks like it could possibly be a fruit tree, but I’m not sure yet as it has only started budding. I also found a twiggy-looking annual in the back yard which turned out to be a rocket that had gone to seed. Got plenty of seed pods from him!

Tomorrow is a public holiday so I’ll see if I can find my camera and add some photos.

PS. Didn’t have too much luck with the lettuces in the move. Two that I potted in ordinary pots keeled over and died. To be honest I didn’t have much faith in them because they were limping even when I was watering them once or twice a day. The lettuce in one of my three polystyrene wicking boxes is is going gangbusters, but recently I started noticing a lot of ants hanging about, and lo and behold I have aphids living on them. I thought that aphids only lived on unhealthy lettuce but apparently not. I’ll try again with some heirloom cos variety that I bought. Time to make a second wicking bed! (aargh, digging up the back lawn in clay soil is like digging up concrete).

In our current rental house we have only a tiny paved courtyard - not so useful for learning how to grow vegetables. So to solve this I found two pallets, drilled some holes in the back of an unused bookcase and then put that on the pallet.

It’s been working quite effectively actually - I grew a whole crop of radishes in there quite successfully and in the spring sunshine some lettuces and cabbages have been coming up. But the setup is far too heavy to move so I have started potting up all of my little plants.

I noticed that when I potted my lettuces one of them started turning a bit yellow on the outer leaves. Otherwise it looks quite springy and lively so I’m hoping it will return to the usual green shade. I sprayed some seaweed liquid on it yesterday so now I’ll just leave it alone. I might have to eat him soon anyway because this is the first time I’ve grown a vegetable and I accidentally planted two of them very close to each other.