Backyard Update

Hello, and welcome back to the Vandemonian homesteader. I hope that you are all doing well. I know it has only been a few days since my last post, but as I said, I plan to return to a regular posting schedule now that my life is finally back in order after the move.

So today, I thought I would give a quick update on what has been happening in my back garden since I started it back in early October. I started by refreshing and preparing the three beds that were already established, and I dug up two new ones. I mixed in some fertiliser, compost, gypsum, and a few bags of pre-prepared garden soil for good measure. Anything to help fix up the clay that is all through this yard.

I had put everything that I thought would help into the garden. With that done, I sowed some seeds and began to wait for spring to work its magic. The final garden layout and placement of the seeds looked something like this.

As it turns out, not much of that layout remains the same. And I believe a couple of reasons prevented my garden from growing and developing as planned. Firstly, there is an old saying around southern Tasmania: tomatoes shouldn’t be planted until the Hobart Show weekend in late October. I have known a few people say that they will hold off most of their sowing until then as the last of the frost has passed and the weather starts to get warmer and drier. In my rush to establish a garden, I may have started sooner than I should have. The first few weeks of October were cool and wet, and I suspect this may have held things back a little.

Pests were another reason things didn’t turn out the way I had hoped. In the past, while living here, I had a dog running around my backyard. She loved to chase birds, which meant the birds never had the chance to hop around the garden and steal my seeds. Now that she lives elsewhere and isn’t here hunting birds in the backyard, the birds are free to do as they please. Interestingly, a local possum has also noted my dog’s absence and decided to move in, taking advantage of the many trees along my back fence for shelter. When I first heard the possum screeching and moving around the backyard at night, I thought it was pretty awesome. It had been a while since I had seen one, and having one live in my backyard sounded brilliant. I was pretty happy with that.

That was until I realised that the possum was coming out of the trees during the night and enjoying an all-you-can-eat buffet from my garden as soon as something had sprouted and grown to a decent size. My entire bed of tomatoes and zucchini suffered this fate. I was happy to see both the tomato and zucchini sprout and grow, checking on them every morning, and then one day, as I went to look at the garden’s progress, I noticed they had gone and in their place was a small pile of possum poo. There is even an established rosemary bush in my garden from the last person who lived here. After a good look at it, I noticed that the possum was also eating any new growth the bush had. My father joked that should I decide to catch and cook the possum, he would already be pre-seasoned with the rosemary he had eaten, and it should taste quite nice. Catching and relocating the possum is a good idea, but I also thought I should try to live with it and use this one possum as practice for when I move out into the bush. If I can’t handle this possum, how could I cope with an entire bush filled with critters looking to chow down on my crops?  

From the original diagram above, the Brussels sprouts are still going. I have lost a lot of them. Not even half of what I had sown has sprouted, and the possum has “sampled” some out of that. Apparently, they are not to his liking, so I have a handful of plants left. Thankfully, they are growing well and look healthy.

As I mentioned, the bed of tomatoes was pretty much destroyed. Any growth there was quickly devoured. I have since grown more seeds indoors and transferred them outside when they got large enough, and of that second batch, half have survived so far. Fingers crossed, I can get them through to maturity.

Surprisingly, the possum has shown no interest in the potato plants or their leaves. This meant the peas and beans I had sown in amongst the potatoes were protected and are still growing strong. I erected a basic climbing frame using some scrap timber I had in my yard and some gardening twine.

I am looking forward to being able to harvest some good green beans. They are a favourite of mine, and the quality offered at the local supermarkets has been pretty appalling recently.

As for the bed with the daikon, nothing there happened at all. I don’t know if I had sown those seeds too early or if they were dud seeds. But nothing has grown there. I have since planted cabbage there, and it has also become the possum’s favourite. At the moment, that bed is empty. I feel it might be too late in the season to try anything.

The bed of zucchini, as I mentioned earlier, was also picked clean by the possum. He had this mean trick of letting the seedlings grow to a good size and allowing me to get my hopes up, only to eat them up as soon as I thought he had lost interest. I have sown carrots into that bed and am waiting for them to sprout. But on a positive and somewhat random note, some old silverbeet seeds in the soil have been activated, and I have roughly half a dozen silverbeet plants popping up.  

As for the larger garden bed containing the kale, silverbeet and potato. The kale and silverbeet took longer to sprout than I had first thought. They are doing really well and thankfully they are of no interest to the possum. The potatoes in that bed are also doing well. With any luck, I should be in for a good harvest of potatoes this year.

The post I made earlier this week was where I used alternative containers to grow seeds. As you probably know, I took a while to type and post it. During that time, the seeds I used in that demonstration sprouted and were transferred into the garden. To accommodate them, I ended up converting an empty garden bed for the sunflowers and just next to that, I dug a new bed for the corn, pumpkin and beans. I thought I would try a little experiment I have been reading about called the three sisters. In an upcoming post, I will go into that more, so stay tuned. Below is my new garden layout to help give you an idea of what I have put where.

Next to the corn, beans and pumpkins, I added a small row of sweet potatoes. I thought that given how well my normal potato plants were doing, I might see if a sweet potato would do just as well in there. I am also curious to try their leaves. Apparently, they can be pretty tasty.

And finally, I have added a compost heap during the past month and a bit. Although it’s rather basic right now. I believe it has had the additional bonus of helping reduce the damage done by the possum. With all the fruit and vegetable offcuts I have been getting from work each day, he has had his pick of fruit and vegetables. Given that I now find a trail of fruit peels leading back to the trees each morning, I suspect he approves of my offerings and has since left my seedling alone.

And with that, you are now up to date on the journey that is my garden and backyard. As with any garden, I still have a lot of weeding to do. It’s endless really. And it is getting to the point where I will need to mow soon. But I  enjoy all that, any reason to spend the day out in the garden is a good one as far as I am concerned. It has also been that long since I have had a garden to care for. I am finally enjoying being able to care for, work on, and potter about in my own garden again.

So, until next time, thanks for dropping by. Have yourself a good one, and I will catch you later.