Lets Grow Shopping

19/08/2025

Looking forward to this on Saturday!!

22/07/2025

Galaxy Garden Final Update Mid-July 2025

Another year, another trip around the sun, and a whole year of Galaxy Garden growing is behind us. Back in the depths of winter and very slow growth.

It has been a month since the last update, partly due to time constraints as I’m back working helping others with their gardens, partly due to the backlog of jobs that needed doing and to top it off the whole family had a dose of heavy cold/ flu-ish symptoms for a week where absolutely nothing got done.

This will be my final regular update on how the Galaxy Garden is going, but I aim to carry on making irregular videos on interesting topics as they come up. With the work situation I just can’t commit to fitting videos into a regular schedule.

Relatively speaking, there hasn’t been as much to do in the veggie patch, but the rest of the garden has received a bit of a tidy up and provided a colossal amount of food and composting ingredients. All the pumpkins, sweet potato, yacon, kiwi fruit, lemons and oranges have been harvested and either eaten, stored or processed for keeping. We still have ongoing daikon radish, peas, broccolini, lettuce, rocket, limes and the odd beetroot.

The seedlings in the greenhouse are progressing at a snails pace, just like everything else so I haven’t started a new tray since mid-June. I’m aiming to get some going either at the start of August or mid-August – just waiting until when the weather starts to turn warmer.

Elsewhere, some of the fruit trees are straight into flower and budding. It never fails to amaze me that they detect the extra sun within days of the solstice passing. Just when you are really battening down the hatches for the cold, out come peach and nectarine flowers to brighten things up.

This time of year is about preparing everything for the spring explosion, pruning trees, composting and feeding the soil. I managed to dig up half of the chicken run to feed all the fruit trees and strawberry pots, just taking about 10cm off the floor of gorgeous fluffy well-rotted compost. A twenty litre bucket worth for each tree. Great work for keeping me warm on cold days. All the veggie beds bar one have received a dose of my sieved ‘hot’ compost and I’ve sprayed a dose of compost tea all over the garden.

My last main job is the desk work - revisiting the garden plan for the next 12 months to allow for increased growing of what works, and to try some experiments elsewhere with crops that drive me crazy – such as the brassicas. This is something I’m not especially looking forward to, but because of the lessons I’ve learned over the past year, it really needs doing!

The biggest lesson I’ve learned this year is that there is no substitute for just getting out and having a go. Let nature be thy guide and only go back to Youtube when there are real problems!

If you have been reading and watching all these updates for the past year I really want to say a huge THANK YOU. It’s quite a weird feeling putting part of my life out there for all to see, but it keeps me honest and on track and now I have a priceless record of all the knowledge I’ve gained over a years worth of growing. It has been a pleasure to share it hoping others can be inspired to have a go.

See you shortly and what are you waiting for? Let’s Grow Shopping…..

Another year, another trip around the sun, and a whole year of Galaxy Garden growing is behind us. Back in the depths of winter and very slow growth. Relativ...

15/06/2025

Galaxy Garden Update Mid-June 2025

Wow, almost a year since I started blogging about the veggie patch! I finished landscaping on the Winter Solstice 2024 and christened the new ground with spuds.

Looking back over the year a lot of water has gone under the proverbial bridge. This time last year I was also chopping and dropping, mulching and preparing the place for a spring explosion. The more I do this, the happier I am to realise I’m getting more in tune with the cycles of life. Something I intuitively know is a result of personal experience, despite my usual preference for book learning and research.

With all the chopping and dropping the bush turkey has had more than the usual reason to visit, and he extended his daily routine to the Galaxy Garden for the first time. Mercury and Mars, freshly top dressed with compost, became partially excavated. Happy to say this doesn’t look like it has significantly affected the carrot seeds in Mars, but has got me thinking about hoops and netting. Something I was really hoping to avoid if possible.

The sun is approaching it’s lowest arc in the sky and the temperature has noticeably dropped in the last week or so. It is not a time of explosive life – neither the weeds, or the veggies – and everything has slowed down. I can see that planting two trays a fortnight for April and early May would mean all the beds are packed full and OK to slowly mature through the coldest time of the year. Trying to start seedlings now is hard work – as I found out through July 2024 when the spuds took quite a while to sprout.

I’m also approaching the time when I need to take stock of all those learnings and reconfigure the plan to account for my newfound experience and wisdom. Throughout the year I’ve kept adding to a list of things I need to look at again which I hope makes the job a lot easier!

Harvesting the daikon radish in this episode has reminded me to try out my daikon/carrot kraut which has been fermenting on the kitchen bench for two or three weeks. Hopefully this is a great way of enjoying the 15 or so other daikon radishes that are almost mature. Have to remember to put that in the next video.

Well, looking forward to a few clear starry nights by the fire and a Solstice celebration next weekend. Happy growing!

Wow, almost a year since I started blogging about the veggie patch! I finished landscaping on the Winter Solstice 2024 and christened the new ground with spu...

01/06/2025

Galaxy Garden Update June 2025

Loads of rain – over 200mm – now sunny skies and getting crispy cool at night. You can see the growth in some of the plants now that the soil is really damp and the sun is out.

Our garden does pretty well with the rain because we are effectively on terraces which act similar to raised garden beds with well-drained soil.

Most plants, particularly veggies and fruit trees hate waterlogged soil and keeping their surface roots out of the deluge is key. Designing ways to harness all the water but also keep surface roots out of waterlogged soil is one of the key aspects of a thriving garden.

Believe it or not great soil needs to have about 25% air gaps. When these gaps are filled with water, problems start. Possible solutions include swales, French drains and mounds all in the right places using the slope to direct the water where you want it, and let it drain where you don’t.

Harvesting pumpkins, potatoes, basil, peas, leafy greens, lemons and a few beetroot. Trying to cram as much of that as possible onto the dinner table with varying success as usual.

I’ve decided to try out a different strategy with plants I’m struggling with. After dedicating quite a lot of space to brassica’s for very little in the way of success, pots might be the go. Experiment with marginal crops elsewhere and get some bulk food out of the prime real estate. Yacon and Jerusalem Artichoke are two crops that will give me a reliable output and are well worth the little effort I need to put in.

Hope the water didn’t cause too much havoc with your place, and happy growing!

Loads of rain – over 200mm – now sunny skies and getting crispy cool at night. You can see the growth in some of the plants now that the soil is really damp ...

16/05/2025

Galaxy Garden Update Mid May 2025

For the first time in 10 months the rest of my life has received the priority and I missed an update!

This update has been in progress for nearly two weeks as I couldn’t block out the time needed to get it done. Increasing work commitments during the week have meant a whole raft of chores are behind the eight ball. A reminder that a veggie garden is not just for Christmas, but a whole way of life.

I spend a lot of time thinking about the renting out of our time and skills for paid labour, and the fact that pretty much every job we do or anything we purchase for money also destroys the planet somewhere directly or indirectly. How to get back to gifting locally and slowing down to the point where we just don’t need so much stuff?

The weather has been excellent for growing with almost daily showers and sunny spells. It hasn’t escaped my notice that watering the garden would have been impossible with everything else I’ve been doing.

We are getting stuck right into the pumpkins and need to work on combining them in the kitchen with leafy greens and various flavours. Peas are coming on, garlic also, and the tray of seedlings from mid April was fantastic - although you will have to take my word for it because I was in such a rush I didn’t even take a photo of it.

Happy growing and see you in June.

It's been a month since the last update - the rest of my life is taking over! But the growing still goes on. The garlic is getting on, pumpkins are ripening ...

18/04/2025

Galaxy Garden Update Mid-April 2025

Glorious weather and I’m writing this on a very Good Friday – Happy Easter!! We’ve had the kind of days that make you glad to be alive, blue sky, cool mornings and green veggies.

We have had family staying for the past couple of weeks and so they have been harvesting the last of the cherry tomatoes whilst we have also had quite a bit of lettuce, leeks, beetroot, spinach, basil and tons of beans. I also cut down another load of bananas that were starting to ripen on the tree.

I got quite frustrated with a lack of bean action early in summer, even our trusty purple beans didn’t really come up to much. Friends gave me different kinds of bean seeds and I cannot for the life of me remember who gave what, but this one variety which I haven’t recorded anywhere have succeeded. Looking at the good old web I think they are Rattlesnake beans and I’ll absolutely be saving seeds for next year.

Big news this fortnight is that the garlic is in the ground – two varieties, Wilde Jack and Spanish Roja. Previous years I have just bought organic Italian garlic from the market and planted that. Whilst we got a good harvest, the cloves were all small and fiddly when cooking. This year I did a bit of research and bought varieties that are more suited to Sydney conditions and will hopefully give us fat cloves.

I’m also getting very frustrated with the amount of real estate I’m devoting to brassicas that don’t produce. My yearly review is coming up in a couple of months and I’m likely to keep them on the periphery and concentrate the prime real estate on crops that really come up with the goods without much effort. I’ll keep you posted on the new plan when it happens.

Each fortnight teaches me something new about seedlings. Last update I had a pumping tray of veggies from mid March that I thought “let’s leave them another couple of weeks and they will be bursting out of the pots ready for transplanting”. How wrong I was, they have gone backwards. Seedlings that are looking great need to be planted out in order to keep the momentum of growth going. Most of them were plagued by slugs/ snails and looking very second hand. The tray I planted at the beginning of April however looked fantastic and so I’ve got them in the ground quick smart.
I’ve decided to put the new seed tray in the greenhouse now so that the cooler nights don’t hamper germination.

Onions and chives still aren’t germinating yet – possibly still too warm - so I’m relying on spring onions at the moment to fill the gap in the Galaxy Garden.

Well, that’s about it for now, have a great holiday season and I’ll be back in May.

Glorious weather and I’m writing this on a very Good Friday – Happy Easter!! We’ve had the kind of days that make you glad to be alive, blue sky, cool mornin...

31/03/2025

☀️Organic Gardening Services ☀️

🌻I have been told more than a few times that I could be helping people out with garden maintenance as a way of earning a few bob.

🌿 It’s taken a while, but now I’m finally at a point where I’m agreeing with that wisdom. Thank you to all the well-meaning advice givers out there! All that inner personal growth and listening to what the universe is trying to tell you eventually reached its natural conclusion….

🍂 In addition to all the services listed on the flyer, something I’m in the process of trialing at home at the moment is aerobic compost tea brewing a la Elaine Ingham and the SoilFoodWeb. If this is successful I’ll be offering this as a service in the future. Let me know if you are interested – I would love to hear your thoughts.

🌷If you would like any help with the plants in your life feel free to give me a bell and I’ll try my best to help. If I don’t answer, please send me a text and I’ll get back to you ASAP – 0429172736.

29/03/2025

Galaxy Garden Update April 2025

A couple of days early! Must have an autumn in my step.

Very glad the rain has decided to visit with some gusto. The garden beds were overdue a good soaking.

My attention this last fortnight has been taken up by all the rest of the garden, pruning fruit trees, bana grass and tidying up unruly cherry tomatoes so we can at least walk down the paths. The chicken run is wall to wall compost in progress as the official compost bays are nowhere near big enough.

Great weather for growing, but also great weather for pests such as the cabbage whites, various birds and my favourites the slugs and snails. It’s time to get the head torch out after dark again I think.

I didn’t get around to actually harvesting the pumpkins that are ready because of the rain. We are psyching ourselves up for pumpkin with everything for the next six months – one staple food that does us proud in these parts.

We are just at the end of Permaculture Week and International Permaculture Day is coming up on the 4th May. Look out for gardens to visit and get inspiration – I know Margaret at Moss House in Denistone intends to open. Unfortunately we have visitors from overseas so are otherwise engaged.

Happy growing and see you for the next update in a fortnight.

Very glad the rain has decided to visit with some gusto. The garden beds were overdue a good soaking.Great weather for growing, but also great weather for pe...

25/03/2025

This video is chock full of insights into reducing our impact on the planet. Particularly love the exercise gym.
Well worth a watch.

In the heart of Paris, an extraordinary experiment in urban living is taking place. Welcome to the Urban Biosphere, a one-of-a-kind apartment designed to pus...

22/03/2025

Pests & Pollinators

We are seven weeks into an eight week Introduction to Permaculture course at Edgeworth David Community Garden in Hornsby. I’ve been taking everyone through the basics of permaculture and this week we had a look at welcome and not so welcome visitors.

Integrated Pest Management is a wholistic strategy for minimising the havoc pests can cause, whilst also maximising the chances of attracting pest predators and pollinators.

Growing a diversity of flowers, smelly herbs, and decoy plants through the veggie patch, whilst eliminating the use of chemicals as far as possible. Keeping the life in the soil is key to growing plants that can handle a few gatecrashers.

After a pest invasion has been discovered the first course of action is to observe exactly what is happening, identify the offender, and discover as much as possible about their lifestyle and habits.

• What is their complete life cycle through all their different forms? eg Egg, caterpillar, butterfly.
• How do they get around? Flying, wind?
• Breeding, where are the eggs? Soil or leaves?
• Life span? One year, a couple of days?
• Which stage of the lifecycle does the damage? Larvae or adult?
• What time of year is each stage of the life cycle active in?
• What exactly are they feeding on?

I’ve had enough discussions about dealing with pests to know that the questions are endless! With that in mind I collated a load of information from the web and made these handy sheets for common pests and some beneficial insects so that there was some solid information to go on.
https://letsgrowshopping.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Pests-and-Pollinators-booklet-Formatted.pdf

Looking at the information in these sheets you can start to put together a plan on how to deal with an infestation.

By far the best preventative measure is to design habitat for as wide a variety of insects, mammals, birds and reptiles as you can so that the abundance keeps everyone in check. One of my most common thoughts upon realising my crops are being swamped by hungry intruders is “what else can I add nearby that will help this situation?”

When you have a plethora of diversity and you are still getting problems, then it is time for considering interventions and barriers. Depending on the pest, mesh, netting, crushed eggshells etc etc. As a completely last resort, organic pesticides applied as specifically as possible. In my own garden, I don’t use any pesticides at all, but at the community garden, the lack of day to day attention means desperate measures are sometimes needed.

Special mention: In collating this information I got up close and personal with the lifecycle of Fruit Fly. Wow. I’m now fully briefed on how difficult it is to grow anything with this un-welcome guest around. Nets, nets, nets. Not something I love doing, but about the only deterrent that works.

Hope the sheets are of some use.