Squeaky Greens

25/10/2023

10/09/2020

MICROGREENS

We all know how beautiful microgreens look in a salad or as a garnish. But I didn’t realize just how much nutrient is packed into these tiny injections of colour to our food. I have started growing Microgreens. I’m experimenting with Coco core and rock wool mediums and fertilizing with home made worm tea. watch this space to see my results

Growing
Cress
Sugar snap peas
Long Island sprouts
Mexican mix x2
Beetroot
And I forget the 3 .... I will update my post

Ready steady grow 🌱 🌱

10/09/2020

HOME GROWN SPUDS

Yesterday was really fun! My children helped to harvest my 1st crop of Potatoes (from store bough potatoes that were soft in my veg draw, to healthy home grown food for our family.
I must say I need to have a few veggie patches with potatoes on rotation to make it sustainable for a regular feast ( something to think about). But it was amazing watching them grow and to see the suprise hiding under the soil.

Next time I will do potatoes in a few containers and spread out planting times to stager harvest. And I will grow them with bean/peas on the same pot as peas put nitrogen into the soil and potatoes are heavy feeders as well as soil cleansers... so Iv read- learning a lot 🥔

Next to try sweet potatoes. Iv already started growing the slips. Wish me luck 🙏🌸

03/09/2020

Worm Bins

I started my 1st 2 worm bins late December 2018 using make it yourself design adaptation. Which in theory was a nice idea but really did not work.

I based the idea on the Australian design ( I will find the link an post below) It basically becomes smaller area the deeper you go, like a funnel in the worm bin. The idea being that the tighter compact of the soil the more the worms will work upwards to the top where all the fresh kitchen food waste is so they can eat it all up yum yum.

I used this until about Dec/Jan 2019 where I re assesses my home made design and decided it was too hard to get the soil out of the bottom push through area. I went back to the traditional 3 layer pre made from our local Stark Ayers Garden centre which I’m really enjoying using.

I used both worm bins compost in the garden with amazing growth result for the plant that you will see shortly.

BIG MISTAKE

I should have researched this a bit more......but long story short Do Not add fruit or veg seeds into a worm bin. No Potatoes skins, No Tomatoes with seeds, butternut etc. i has a lot or awesome growing plants but I had no idea what they were so I left them to re compost in the bin as they could not get light. I will add a link on what to add to you compost bin good and bad kitchen scraps.

Wait till you see my tomatrophe below 🤭

03/09/2020

Hello!!!
So I notice that my last post was Jan 2019 and I can tell you a lot has happened since then! You are going to laugh at some of my gardening what were you thinking 🤔 trail and errors.
I took a step back for a while as my daughter Emberly-Rose was born 4 April 2019 and I have been doing lots of Mum daily tasks and planting/ growing trial and error, plus experiments. I am a complete beginner at gardening but I’m excited to learn more and grow yummy food for our family to enjoy

06/01/2019

The walls are in for the deep water culture. Can’t get anything more done at the moment as everyone seems to still be closed for the holidays 😳

It’s really starting to take shape 👍🏻

27/12/2018

The extra sand has been removed. Leveling out. Crusher dust floor base put down and water tanks in the lowest point.
We are thrilled with the progress and I’m glad we will get an extra meter in our aqua culture 7m x 1m floating bed.
We plan to have 2 drums halved to make 4 media beds for the food bacteria’s microbes in the system and 4 x 6m Hydraponic piping wall profiles.

27/12/2018

Ever since I have started using organic worm tea ☕️ fertilizer for my garden my plans have prospered 😍

27/12/2018

Has a new shade net that has helped the wilting and soil evaporation tremendously.

So my Christmas parsnips harvest went well. I think they would have done better with more water to swell out ( but we still have water restrictions) and a bit longer in the ground. But Christmas Day had arrived.

The purple bins you see are my worm bins with red wrigglers and are producing amazing worm tea as a natural organic fertilizer for my plants all from the food home food waste.

I’m still happy with my 1st ever parsnip harvest 👏🎄👍🏻

27/12/2018

Our root vegetables garden.
Beetroots, parsnips, cabbage etc

27/12/2018

It all started with a few potato skins grown in a plant pot that progressed to tomatoes 🍅 in my stoep plant pots. They took over and I was made to promise after the harvest to move the tomato 🍅 plant 🌱 not in our plant pots again.
Hehe oops. Iv got the growing bug 👍🏻😜 experimenting

27/12/2018

Water restrictions in Western Cape. There was been a bad drought so we are saving ever drop of water we can!
Sink water goes on the grass and washing machine.... which is still not enough. It’s dead 💀
Shower under 2 mins and water is used to flush the toilet.
We have installed rain water tanks to capture all the rainfall from the house roof.
Every drop of 🚿 💧 💦 is important