Urban Farming Oz

Garden Update from Eimeo - Feb10

One month after planting our first lettuce and bean seeds, we planted a second lot of lettuce and beans. Three days after planting the seeds we had another bean shoot! Unfortunately nothing else has sprouted. The new bean has been growing well in the past couple of weeks. I really didn't expect to see flowers on our beans yet but 5 weeks since planting and they are here - our garden is starting to produce! I wasn't keeping a really close eye out, but a few days after seeing the flowers I noticed 2 tiny beans growing. Wait a few more days and I find about 12! And I'd say they'd been hiding under there for a while because they looked nearly ready to pick. It's only a week after I spotted my first 2 beans that I've now picked 2 from the plant, and possibly a few more in the next couple of days. I'll wait til I get a few more before I cook them up, just so that the whole family gets to try our beans. Stay tuned to see how they tasted... :) I have also had to keep my eye out for grasshoppers, they seem to like eating my bean leaves... if I catch them there they won't be alive for long!
 
As for our lettuces, I haven't been very convinced they're doing quite as well. They took longer to grow and seem to be taking a while to bush up. The bean plant seemed to be smothering them a couple of weeks ago so we staked up the plant (it was just way too top heavy for mounding the soil). Since then they seem to be doing a little better, but it all seems so slow going.

Garden Update from Eimeo - Jan 10

6 days after planting our first seeds, we spotted our first bean sprout! It seemed healthy enough, though little Brodie decided to pull it out, so I was hoping I was going to be able to save it. Then two days later we had another bean sprout. As we've been watching them, the first one is definitely growing faster than the second. We put some plant food on them and will continue to do so each week.

 It took a little longer for us to see the lettuce seedlings, as I wasn't sure which ones were lettuce til they grew a little bigger. We seem to have quite a few little weeds coming up as well and I've had to be careful to keep the right plants.  We had a lot of rain just after planting seeds, so I thought some of the seeds would have been washed around the pot. As it turns out I was right, and 2 weeks after planting, I recognised 4 little lettuce seedlings because of the curly leaves developing. I moved one of them, it was really close to the edge of the pot. So far our veges are growing really well. Next week we will plant another lot of seeds. The boys have really enjoyed watching their little garden grow.

Garden at Eimeo Dec09

We'd like to share our first seed planting with you! We went shopping yesterday and bought a pot to put seeds in (hopefully it will be big enough) and then this morning we all worked on getting the seeds planted. We dug up some compost and dirt from the garden to fill the pot, Connor and Brodie filled it up with soil, and then we all had a go at putting seeds in.  We just started with beans and lettuce, and left some room to plant more later.

Hopefully in a week we'll see some little seedlings appearing! The boys had such a great time planting, Connor said that it was his favourite part of the day! Brodie was intrigued by all the little beetles in the compost, you can see him pointing into the wheelbarrow at them and telling me every time he saw one! We're all really excited about our new produce.

Editors Note:
From little things big things grow, plants, dreams, ideas and a way of life.