Bought seedlings!

I have bought some seedlings - cost me $5 for all these plants (they had been attacked by the chickens at CERES)

From Garden 26/07/09 10:17 AM

I have now planted them
some in the front garden (where I dug up the soil and added straw to improve drainage because the siol is quite compacted)

From Garden 26/07/09 10:17 AM

about 6 weeks ago I chucked some broad ben seeds in the frot garden in the vague hope that they might grow. I have done no soil preparation in the front garden and am not going to water it at all. So if the beans didn't grow I thought fair enough, I thought though becasue its been quite wet recently I might be able to get some things started. (the beans are below)

From Garden 26/07/09 10:17 AM

I have put the seedlings in everywhere and I have put them in little crators these I fill with a bucket twce a week as per the "square foot gardening" book. In some paces I have also muclched them with newspaper (to try to reduce the amount of  weeding I need to do)

From Garden 26/07/09 10:17 AM

From Garden 26/07/09 10:17 AM

From Garden 26/07/09 10:17 AM

From Garden 26/07/09 10:17 AM

SGA Pod meeting

I went to Sustainable Gardening Australia Pod meeting on Nicholson St. I thought it was a good way to share some learnings and seedlings etc. It was the first meeeting of the Nicholson Pod and was a very good afternoon there were some lovely people there and some people with a lot of gardening experience. A few people with be-hives and a few people that are growing food forests (this is something I would like to do in future).

There was a lovely spread of cakes and hot drinks too.

Setting up a square Foot Gardening

KEY LEARNING'S

Need better organization

Need to be better at cultivating from seeds

Need to sort out the ph balance of my soil

NEW THINGS I HAVE TRIED

Bought the "square foot garden" book

DIARY COMMENT

My garden has produced a few items so far

• A small qty of green beans
• 3 large pots of rocket
• 3 basil plants (lasted 6 months)
• A few spring onions
• A few garlic plants
• 2 Silver beet (very small at the moment)

But failed to produce quite allot. I thought it was time to take stock. Part of that was to measure the pH of my soil however my planting has been sporadic and my success planting from seeds has been pretty poor (nearly all died).

-Square Foot Gardening

I bought the book square foot garden the other day and it looks pretty good. I hope it will give my garden a routine and structure - it's all been a bit messy and ad-hoc up until now.

-Killing off My beds

The beans I grew earlier in the year have stopped producing beans and the beds are filled with weeds (this was due in part tom my random way I planted which meant I was never sure if the green shoots were weeds or what I had planted).

I thought it was a good time to kill off the beans and reorganise things along the lines of the square foot garden. I covered all my beds with newspaper and then poured soil onto in.

BEFORE

From Garden 5/07/09 2:29 PM

AFTER

BED C JULY 2009

I have also marked out with string approximate 1 foot squares. Once I have read a bit more I will then start planting.

The soil I poured on is a mix of mulched leaves (that had been in a bin bag since January). 8 bags of star-bucks coffee, and the rest (which would be about 60% by volume) was compost from my heap that has been composting since January and the newest addition was about 1 month ago).

BED B July 2009

BED B July 2009

BED C JULY 2009

From Garden 5/07/09 2:29 PM

BED D JULY 2009

BED G "Not on diagram" July 2009

Check soil PH

KEY LEARNINGS
Starbucks coffee grounds are acid (a pH of around 6-5.5)
Bed C is alkali pH of around 7.5
Bed B is acid 5.5

My compost is acid 5.5

NEW THINGS I HAVE TRIED
Used a pH test for the garden

DIARY COMMENT
Things don't seem to be growing as well as I had hoped I had a hunch that maybe my soil was too acid so I bought a PH test. Below is the chart and the results (the main bed I was testing is the splodge in the middle)

From Garden 5/07/09 2:29 PM

From Garden 5/07/09 2:29 PM

PH 5.5 LEFT TOP- Used Coffee grounds
PH 5.5 LEFT BOTTOM - Used Coffee grounds (decaf)

PH 7.5 CENTRE - BED C

PH 5.5 RIGHT TOP - My compost heap
PH 5.5 RIGHT BOTTOM - BED B

As you can see by the test my soil is quite alkali (not acid as I thought). It seems that most is about neutral (around 7) but spots of strong alkali (8-9). I have also been taking advantage of Starbucks policy of giving away used coffee grounds and been adding to the compost. (see below)

From Garden 5/07/09 2:29 PM

It says on the coffee that the pH is neutral. I heard that coffee is often a bit acid so I tested it.As you can see they came out fairly acid.

So the coffee might work well to neutralize the alkali in my soil. Any thoughts?