Time to rest!

Remember my nematode problem? I can't forget it! I've been trying to 'cure' my vege bed of root knot nematodes. I planted a mass of mustard seed and let it grow for a few months, until it was just starting to flower. The other day I slashed it down. Here is my progress slashing photo:

 

After I slashed it, I dug it into the soil which I will keep it moist while it breaks down. As the mustard decomposes, it releases a gas the nematodes don't like. The slashing and digging was hard work, I'm not going to lie. I also sowed some more mustard seeds, so they can grow over the next month and I will slash and bury them as well. I spread some sheep manure and Piggypost before I covered it all up with lupin mulch.

Today I tried another remedy. Apparently the nematodes don't like molasses. So I mixed up molasses and water in a watering can and poured it over the garden bed:

 

 

 

 

I've read that the sugar can kill worms and good critters in the soils as well. To remedy that, I have some Troforte ready to spread in a few weeks to encourage the good guys back to the soil and the compost in my two compost tumblers will be ready by then as well, so that will help:

 

 

                                               

Anyway, while my garden bed and my compost have a rest, so will I! I'm off on a holidays for a few weeks so my next blog will be from the road... maybe a bit of foreign garden inspiration!

The Beagles are also exhausted from all the gardening and are looking forward to their holiday:

 

 

 



In the meantime...

While I'm waiting around urging my vegetables to grow to be ready for the television show, I started another project in the garden. About a month ago, my wonderful and knowledgeable colleague Jenny invited me around for lunch so she would give me some cuttings of her frangipani trees. She had read about my frangipani envy and has several frangipanis worth envying in her backyard! Here's me with one of my cuttings:

I let the cuttings dry out for a month, leant up against a fence in the shade, while we prepared a new garden bed for them. In the front yard we had a mass of aloes... which prickled the back of your head when you were sitting around the outdoor table and appeared to be the perfect breeding spot for red-backed spiders. And snails. My husband hates them. So he took his chainsaw to them, cut them down and ripped them out. Here's my action man:

It wasn't until the aloes were gone, did we realise just how big that garden bed was. We planted the frangipani cuttings in the bed and are now hoping for the best. Again, I'm trying to cheat a bit, by getting a big cutting, I can have a small tree already and don't have to wait for it to grow. The flamingo looks happy beneath the tree and adds a festive air to the place:

Of course, I planted the whole bed out with mustard seed as well, just in case that darned root knot nematode has made a home in this soil as well. You can't be too careful!

It was like a horror film for gardeners...

It was a hot and still night towards the end of February. The kind of evening in which electricity crackles in the humidity and hairs on the back of your neck stand up making you feel like something is about to happen. Something happened to me. Something very, very bad. This is the story of the nightmare on my street:

 

 

Now, this is a nightmare in two parts... so stay with me here! Above is what you call root knot nematode. Try saying that one five times fast! Soil is full of all sorts of nematodes, little microscopic things that live in the soil and generally do good things. This one doesn't do good things. You can see what it did to the roots of my cucumber, it gets inside them, lays eggs and stops the roots from transporting water and nutrients to the plant. Bad. Very bad.

 

So, apart from sinking to my knees in the garden and shaking my fist at these horrid critters, I sent the photo off to the delightful Sabrina Hahn... who came back and confirmed my not-so-delightful suspicions about the RKN (for short). Unfortunately there's not many ways to get rid of the RKN from your soil. In the old days they used to fumigate the soil with some horrendous and dangerous chemical that you probably can't even buy now. So my only options were to plant out a field of marigold or mustard. Here's my mustard patch:

 

 

Not to bore you with details... the mustard exudes a gas from its roots, which drives the nematode away. Sabrina told me to leave it about three months (I was sobbing at this point, because I was just about to plant out all my Autumn vegetables, being one of the most important seasons in the food garden and I was powerless to plant anything!) then slash the mustard plants and dig them into the soil. As the plants break down, they also exude some gas and hopefully drive those little suckers away!

 

But the nightmare didn't end there. I went through the vege garden and pulled up deformed carrots, ripped out the cucumbers, which were still trailing their way up the tree, and all of the other plants in the bed, ready to sow a mass of mustard seed. Then I got an email. It was from the Garden Guru television show. They want to come and do a profile and film my garden. IN TWO WEEKS.

 

I was back to the sobbing stage by then. All I had was a bed of mustard to show! What was I going to do? I can't plant anything and my garden is barren. Still, they insist it will be ok and want to come around.

 

Here's my confession. I have cheated. I like to grow most things from seed. But with two weeks until filming, I don't have time. I went to the nursery and bought punnets of vegetables. I planted them, but I'm still worried about the nematode, so I have planted everything with rows of mustard in between, to help out. See below:

 

 

So I have spent the past week frantically trying to get my barren patch of nematode-ridden soil looking like a vaguely productive garden. I have been feeding it up with worm castings and seaweed solution, I'm trying everything to spur those plants along! (Apart from using synthetic fertilisers, of course!) So there's my dilemma. I will keep you up to date with how things are going in the lead up to my Garden Guru debut. Hopefully it won't include shots of me staring at my soil, quietly sobbing to myself!