My Productive Backyard
Turn your backyard into a productive food-growing paradise
Freezing fresh garlic.
This year I miss timed my garlic harvest and the mature crop was hit with rain. The bulbs were fine but the tops had disintegrated which meant I could not plait and hang them as I usually do. There is something about leaving the dried tops on the bulbs and hanging...
Preventing fruit fall in Finger limes and other Citrus.
Although we may think that fruit trees produce fruit for our benefit, the reality is that the reason for fruit production is to protect and nourish the seeds within. Production of seed ensures genetic variation and the survival of the species. For plants, survival of...
Keep your garden flourishing with your own fertiliser tea.
If you are harvesting food from your garden every few days then you are removing nutrients from the natural system and these need to be replaced. Buying manure or other organic substances that will replace these nutrients can become an expensive exercise if you...
Growing asparagus from seed- A cheaper alternative to buying expensive semi mature crowns.
If you have been following my Facebook posts lately you will know I have had a great crop of asparagus this year. I have 12 mature plants cropping at the moment and I get about 2-3 spears from each plant twice a week. This gives my family several feeds of...
A bit of sage advice on what to plant when in your productive garden
What to plant when I am often asked “What do I plant now?” Not an easy question to answer as regional weather varies greatly, all areas have varying micro climates and every garden is slightly different. All these variables affect when you put various crops in....
CELEBRATING 1,000 LIKES GIVEAWAY
To celebrate having reached 1,000 likes on Facebook, I would just like to say a HUGE thank you to the little community that I have built up - and what better way to do that than by sharing some of my favourite things! The competition is pretty easy - share or...
Dividing your Rhubarb Plants
In my last post on " The Joys of Organic Rhubarb" I talk about how it is necessary to divide your plants very three or four years. I also showed you the wonderful red stems of a new plant I had purchased last season. I was anxious to have more than one of this...
How to look after your Herb Garden
Having a productive herb garden is such a joy and a great addition to any productive backyard. Being able to access fresh herbs at any time is a real privilege and once you get used to having ready access to a wide range of fresh herbs and enjoying the fabulous...
Propagating Herbs from plant parts
By far the easiest and cheapest method of growing herbs is by propagating your own through vegetative propagation, or cuttings. Here are a few certain ways of increasing your herb collection on a budget. The plant parts required to propagate herbs can be obtained from...
How to grow herbs from seed.
Herbs are one of the easiest of all productive plants to grow, but as with all plants there are various ways of establishing plants. Growing them from seed is a cheap and effective way of getting lots of herb plants. Most Herbs can be grown from seed, and in fact it...
Why grow your own organic Herbs
Herbs are one of my favourite productive plants, they are cheap to purchase or propagate, will grow just about anywhere and will reward you with lots of produce. I could not imagine cooking without fresh herbs but to buy bunches of fresh herbs every week would be very...
Building a chook house door mat to ensure clean eggs.
I do not free range my chooks as they wreak havoc in the veggie garden. To compensate I have them in a 20m x 3m run with trees and forage plants and I feed them lots of greens, bugs and caterpillars from the garden to supplement their grain and pellet diet. The...