Birds like strawberries just as much as we do so some kind of protection is necessary for the fruits to survive. I made a wire mesh cage out of chicken wire with small hatches in the sides and on top. Then it’s possible to stick your hand in and grab some of the strawberries as they mature. I used a bunch of plastic ties to keep it all together and 6 sticks hammered into the ground. I’ve put some long grass cuttings between the soil and the fruits to keep the fruit clean and healthy.

It must be a depressing view for a bird :

It takes a while to build the cage but it’s definitely worth it:

Yum!

The conditions at my south facing wall are perfect for food production just like last year. I’ve added 3 new self-watering boxes and supported each plant with a couple of bamboo sticks held together with plastic ties and then again mounted under the roof of the garage. The tomato plants are doing well with lots of sun and water and protected from the wind:

Small grapes are starting to form:

I was excited when I managed to grow tomatoes last year without a greenhouse. Temperatures in this area are normally in the range -3 to 20 deg. C (27 to 68 deg. F) so I didn’t expect it to be easy. This year I bought a couple of cucumber plants from a nursery just for fun and one of the plants is actually putting out small fruits now

I’m looking forward to see if they’ll mature. I’m probably too lazy to put up a greenhouse, at least in this heat. It’s 32 deg. C (90 deg. F) outside as I write this. Kinda unusual around here but good for the plants.

A couple of weeks ago I thinned the fruits on my small peach tree according to my garden “bible”. This is done when the fruits are about the size of walnuts. The fruits are thinned to about 25 cm (10 inch) spacing or else the tree will have a hard time maturing all of them. I removed more than half of the fruits (which was not popular with my girlfriend ):

I also find thinning a bit sad but it’s often necessary in order to have normal size vegetables or fruits.

This is how the tree looks after the thinning:

Luckily there are still no signs of peach leaf curl. Now I’m just waiting for the rain to come. The soil below the peach tree is not well-drained, so when it’s dry for longer periods the soil is compact and any water applied on top just escapes on the surface.

Radish is also known as Raphanus sativus in Latin and is a member of the Cruciferous family. It’s an easy crop to grow making it ideal for kids starting their first garden.

Soil
Radishes will grow in average soil that has been worked down to 15 cm (6 inch) with any stones removed. Fresh compost should be avoided.

Sowing
The seeds should be sowed 1.5 cm (0.5 inch) deep and 2.5 to 5 cm (1 to 2 inch) apart. Rows should be 20 to 25 cm (8 to 10 inch) apart.

Growing
Radish seeds will germinate in a few days. When the seedlings are 5 cm (2 inch) tall thin them to 5 cm spacing. Remove weeds as the radishes grow. They are likely to bolt in hot weather and won’t bulb above 28 deg. C (82 deg. F). If they grow too slow the taste will be bitter and hot.

Harvest
It takes 20 to 30 days before the radishes are starting to mature. Summer varieties takes about 3 to 8 weeks to mature, but winter varieties requires 3 to 5 months.

Storage
Radishes don’t freeze well, so keep them in the refrigerator. Remove the tops before putting them in the fridge to keep the moisture and nutrients in the roots. They can be stored for about 5 days in the fridge.

Okay, I’ll admit that it looks nice with the sharp edge between the raised beds and the lawn. It’s soft on the knees when you sow or weed, but I’m beginning to realize that there are some rather annoying disadvantages by alternating between lawn and beds like this.

First, this is what always happens near the edges of the raised bed, when the grass has been allowed to grow for some days. Water meant for the soil spills over onto the lawn part and the grass at the edges thrives big time. So go fetch a grass trimmer or a pair of scissors, because the lawnmower won’t go that close to the edge.

If there’s no wood and raised bed you’re doomed. It takes a lot of energy to keep the grass out of the soil meant for vegetables:

And these bastards (slugs) are having a great time hiding in the moist grass waiting to attack your vegetables at night:

Then there’s the water issue; as much as half of the water lands on grass making it grow like crazy, extracting nutrients from the soil. So that’s why I’m planning on starting from scratch with a part of my lawn / vegetable garden and buying a truckload of concrete slabs to lay out like this:

Yellow = house, grey = concrete slabs, brown = vegetable soil, green = hedge.

Several advantages comes to mind:

• Easier to fight the killer slugs, and they don’t like dry concrete
• The lawnmower goes on eBay
• The grass trimmer goes on eBay
• Only vegetables are provided with water
• Much easier to walk on the paths in all kinds of weather

Each concrete slab will be 50 x 50 cm (20 x 20 inch), making each bed 1 m (3.3 feet) across and making it easy to reach the middle.

Now make sure you follow up on this because this is going to be hard work and I might get lazy But this would be so good for the food production.

Leave the box dry for now:

The self watering boxes have tubes going all the way to the bottom of the box:

A plastic bag can be put into the box to avoid a mess if the box is somehow damaged:

The grow bags have usually been stacked and if you get a bag that has been stored in the bottom of the stack, the soil inside can be quite compact:

Shake the bag thoroughly and loosen the soil, so the roots can develop easily:

Cut three holes in the top with a knife:

Dig out the soil in each of the 3 holes with a small spade and put the soil into a bucket:

Cut three big X’s in the backside of the growing bag:

Fill the three tubes with the soil from your bucket. Only fill the tubes so there’ll be room left to plant the tomato plants. Plant the tomato plants using the remaining soil:

Water a bit on top of each hole. Fill the box with tap water to provide enough calcium for the tomato plants.

Let the water level drop to minimum level regularly to avoid drowning the plants.

The boxes can of course be used for other crops, like cucumbers, bell peppers etc. Take a vacation and let your imagination run wild. Your tomatoes will be safe until you come back

On half of them I removed all the shoots except one, and put those in one half of my “raised bed” (the soil was apparently very loose when I prepared the bed and later it sunk under its own weight. Guess I have to throw in more compost to justify the name ). In the other half of the bed I put the rest of the chitted potatoes, which had several shoots each:

It turns out that the difference is not that big. Sure the ones with several shoots immediately puts up several stems (lower half of the picture), but the other half with only shoot is not limited to having only one stem. So both kinds are growing at the same speed and are equally robust:

(Notice my experiment with a soaker hose; it’s not working that well in my particular set up )

These are the ones that had single shoots:

And these had several shoots before planting:

As time goes by it’s getting even more difficult to distinguish between the two. It will be interesting to see the difference in yield when time comes to harvest.

Cut an entrance hole for the slugs:

Fold the top of the entrance hole a bit to avoid sharp edges:

Turn the tin upside down, put some slug “poison” under it, and secure it by leaving some weight on top. It will keep the rain from reaching the pellets, so they’ll stay dry:

I’ve set up one trap at both ends of each bed that I have.

And as usual the cat just wanted to point out that I shouldn’t be exercising too much control over nature, so it flipped one of the traps open during the night and played with the pellets. It must be really boring around here during the nighttime

There was certainly a greenhouse effect due to the shield and the tree is now full of small fruits in development:

Some of the leaves that were close to the plastic on the inside of the plastic cover look like they are affected a bit still but overall it seems like I have fended off the peach leaf curl:

Time will tell if the fruits will mature properly. I sure hope so. I took care of the pollination by hand with a small piece of cotton wool at the end of a bamboo stick:

Oh, and I found this little fellow sleeping behind the plastic at the foot of the tree:

Maybe it’s not warm enough for cockchafers yet…