Worm Harvest

Last month, we upgraded the worm farm. It now has a catchment box, tap, better-fitting mesh-filter and a hessian covering. While relocating the worms, we thought we would harvest some vermicast as well.

WORM PILES

The worms have only really been thriving for the past 2 months. From what research I've done, most people think harvesting should be done around the 4-6 month mark.

I have put what little vermicast I could find in the worm piles as food for some container plants. Will see if this makes much difference to their growth!

VERMICAST

In relocating the worms, we tried to save as many worm capsules as possible. But worm capsules are tiny semi-transparent yellow things which proved very hard to find. So I'm not sure if the worms aren't producing a lot of capsules yet, or we just couldn't find them to begin with.

GARDEN WORM

Generally the worms in the worm farm are smaller than the ones found in our backyard. I wonder if that's because the local worms have acclimatised to the type of soil in our area.. or maybe they're just different species of worms. The worms I'm farming are Red Wigglers, Indian Blues, Tigers and Gardener's Friends. The last species supposedly grow to quite a length and is the best for soil aeration - hence the name.

Critters as Pets

A resident frog has spawned some tadpoles in an abandoned bucket. We suspect they are offspring of a dark green frog which hides regularly in our collection of empty plant pots.

Mosquito larvae also hatched in the same bucket, but I scooped them out. These are easily spotted as they wriggle in a haphazard, side-to-side fashion, unlike tadpoles which may swim in a more linear style. Tadpole larvae are also bigger and rounder, whereas mosquito larvae tend to be skinny and long. So if you spot mosquito larvae, get rid of them unless you like mozzies hanging around!

BABY GREEN TREE FROG

TADPOLES
I feed the tadpoles wilted lettuce leaves. (Microwaved for about 10 secs.) At first the tadpoles were only eating about half a leaf per day. But now they definitely go through more than a leaf per day. Chinese cabbage leaves also seem to work, although you have to nuke them for slightly longer than lettuce. The tadpoles are SO cute. They surface for air at regular intervals and blow bubbles with their mouths. They often feed while showing off their bellies, which are taking on a silvery-green colour. Evidence that these are frog tadpoles and not the dreaded cane toad.

(CLOSE UP) TADPOLES

We're also farming earthworms - finally! I bought these as juveniles & worm capsules. It has taken two months for them to grow into adults, and another two months for them to start eating worthwhile amounts of foodscraps.

I find worms to be quite awesome. They are the best thing on this planet for plants. We have harvested small amounts of vermicast from them. The plants which I put the vermicast on seem to thrive and have grown new shoots / buds / flowers!

First Fruits

After waiting for what seems like A-GES.. our passionfruit vine has finally started to fruit! We didn't even notice the flowers - we were away for a week - and one day while checking the trellis I noticed a passionfruit almost the size of a tennis ball growing! Very exciting.

PASSIONFRUIT

Our big guava tree has also started to fruit. Just one at the bottomest branch at the moment. My problem now is deciding when to pick it. It's about the size of my fist now, however, it's not showing any signs of yellowing, the skin is still quite green.

PASSIONFRUIT FLOWER

Having never eaten guava before, my boyfriend asked what it tastes like. Guava has the texture of a pear, with a similarly thin skin. However it has many small seeds on the inside. Being a yellow guava, our fruit should grow larger than the local cherry guava. The fruit should also be quite fragrant.. and hopefully sweet.

YELLOW GUAVA

The Last Day

I thought I'd use the last day of the year to recap what 2010 has taught me...

1) Patience. Without it, I would have never discovered that worms WOULD grow in my worm farm. Guavas WILL grow on the Indian guava tree. And eggplants WILL develop when given the proper conditions - after 6 months of trial and error. (They are also extremely thirsty!)

2) Progression. The garden will continue to evolve, and remain in a state of flux. If something dies, it can be regrown. Or replaced. There is never an absolute, absolutely. I will continue to view it as a journey, and not as a final destination.

3) Natural does not always mean Non-harmful. Take the case of Neem Oil for example. Spraying it on capsicum plants caused fruit to rot. Leaves were also affected and appeared 'burnt'.

4) Perseverance. Like some of the plants in our garden, which have amazing abilities to persevere despite my mistreatment of them; I too, must learn to overcome setbacks and keep going.

Full Wet Season

It has been raining just about every day. The Wet is - without a doubt - finally here.

The buckets I have strategically placed about the garden are doing their job and I have plenty of rainwater to water the undercover plants with.

The passionfruit trellis has sufferred a setback; the vines are so vigorous they have collapsed the archway! Hmm... I'll have to motivate myself to do something about it soon, but have been busy entertaining a visitor from south.

A strange thing has been happening to the capsicum plants. The capsicums are growing and ripening, but when picked, they are soft and rotten. I have a feeling it may be the Neem oil I have been spraying to deter mealybugs, which are everywhere in the garden.

Although deemed organic and has been used for centuries, Neem oil is also harmful to certain plants. It seems to kill mealybugs ok, but may also be responsible for the rotten capsicums. So I have stopped spraying Neem and am now just waiting for a good capsicum. If I'm wrong about the Neem, then it must be a rotting disease - heaven forbid!

Oh, and the zucchini plant has well and truly died. It had blossom end rot. The rot starts at the flowering end of the fruit and spreads, rendering malformed lumps on the fruit and eventually the whole fruit decays - from the inside. The zucchinis looked almost normal except for the external lumpiness. I guess the rot spread throughout the rest of the plant and the leaves started wilting and eventually the whole plant died.

I REALLY hope this is not the same thing happening to the capsicums... The chillies are going strong though. Brilliant yellow colour. When will they turn red? It's been at least 6 weeks already...

Passionate Trellis

My ever-helpful boyfriend has brought another one of my ideas to fruition.

I said to him the other day, "Wouldn't it be good if we had a passionfruit trellis?" as I showed him what I meant while we were in the garden.

So, using the existing fence as one side of the trellis, he constructed a curve with chicken wire, and attached it to three star pickets, which formed the other side of the finished trellis.

Now we have a nice arbour in which to provide some shade and cool. It also breaks the monotony of the garden, and adds some height.

The passionfruit vines are flourishing too, with no sign of disease or bug infestation. Which is a relief, after the pruning given to it by a neighbouring possum! I just wonder when it will fruit?

Heartbreaks

Still no change in the worm situation. I have emailed the supplier to see what other advice/tips they can offer.

The worms are hardly eating the food. As it is quite warm here, I am not sure whether the foodscraps in the container is breaking down due to the weather and moisture. I have also poked my fingers around the container in the hopes of finding worms, but there are no signs of them. I don't want to keep poking, as it may stress the worms. Imagine if you're in your house and a big hand comes crashing through the roof trying to see where you are!

Another sad thing is the state of the veggie garden at the moment. My brassica bed has been under attack by small green caterpillars (Cabbage moth). These green grubs have eaten their way through my Chinese cabbage, buk choy and are now chewing through the cucumbers and bananas!

I have looked up several organic options for killing them, and apparently chilli and garlic spray seems to do the trick - provided the caterpillars are in the early stages. But there is also a bio-organic control, called BT. Bacillus Thuringiensis is derived from naturally-occuring soil bacteria. It works by paralysing the caterpillar's digestive tract, and they die from starvation. Bad for the caterpillar, but good for plants and other helpful creatures like bees, ladybirds and earthworms as BT doesn't affect them. Will be applying this onto any caterpillar-infected plants soon. Watch out!

BT is effective on caterpillars such as TOBACCO HORNWORM (Manduca Sexta)

The two cucumber plants in the large bed have also shrivelled into yellow-nothingness. I'm not 100% sure whether this is due to the hot weather, the mealybugs (which are ALL over the plants) or the caterpillars. Maybe a combination of all.. but apparently cucumber plants only grow in the cooler months of the Dry. They were still fruiting up to about a month ago. The lone cucumber in the middle bed is struggling on. It's still fruiting sporadically and producing some huge female babies! I have never seen the female buds this big before, probably because the plant knows the game is almost up. I haven't fed them anything else that's for sure.

My lemongrass has also fallen victim to its home relocation. It was moved to a different spot, along with only half of its roots. The other half are probably still in the ground from where they made their way out of the container and got ripped up.

Still.. the zucchini is doing well. (Except I've learnt not to plant them in beds anymore - they just take over!) So is the basil, pumpkin, Ceylon spinach (not that we eat it!), most of the chillies, and the marigold. I now have golden moss in a hanging basket. The cosmos have also bloomed! And our "watermelon" is thriving. Turns out it is a chilli plant! My boyfriend still has no idea how it got into the pot where he was growing a watermelon seed.