summer Archives - The Desert Echo

Keeping cool

January 25, 2019 No Comments

While extreme temperatures cooked the garden and the power grid we chilled in front of the fan. Despite the heat Ember had one of her best 24 hours of sleeping in a long time, perhaps cosying up to her cot on our futons to catch some fan time made the difference.

We spent a lazy morning with Bub playing in her birthday suit and tasting her first stewed pear. Sweetly sticky we had to wash both Bub and the sheets post pear, but both dried in an instant as the air hummed with heat.

When the cool change hit, we took our first walk for the day. The cool air like silk on our skin after the searing 46C.

I hope you all stayed cool today.

Family, Garden, Permaculture design

December in the food forest

January 4, 2019 No Comments

I’m taking the time while I have Dylan around to shake off the thick layer of digital dust my photo archive has been gathering. I have so many moments to share it’s hard to pick what to tick off first.

Baby is in a feather light sleep next to me which involves a lot of dummy sucking and arm flailing, but let’s see if I can finally post these photos of what was happening in the food forest as spring turned to summer. Today a scorching hot day, so I imagine it will look a lot different when we next visit. So glad we have a watering system!

Things were too hectic with the new baby to capture the apple blossom in all its powder pink glory, but we were organised enough this year to net the apricot and peach against fruit fly and the red apple against the birds. The billowing white nets are actually quite beautiful in a way, they float above the thick carpet of yarrow like a mist of benign ghosts.

Last year the feijoa had its first two, maybe three flowers. Now it is covered in red Christmas bauble blossoms. The jar of parsley seeds I saved from home and lazily broadcast months ago has also come good. The umbels are beautiful under the trees and promise we will have parsley this coming year too without having to resow. The nasturtiums and pepinos had withered in the late frosts, but their massive amount of regrowth following has smothered all competitors.

The food forest was looking a bit grim in November and I thought it just couldn’t cope without my attention, which had been elsewhere while I was pregnant. Turns out all it needed was a good water after a dry winter and a broken timer on the watering system. Drip irrigation operational and some heavy downpours saw the food forest lush and green in a matter of weeks. The weeds also awakened though and we had to do quite a lot of grass pulling.

The silvanberry fruit are ripening and unlike the thornless bramble we have at home birds seem less willing to grasp their stems to feast.

Family, Garden

End of year celebration

December 31, 2018 2 Comments

This year there is an immense sense of achievement in the community garden. The transformation over winter was stunning and now the raised gardens are overflowing with verdant growth. After the long winter the joys of rummaging through the prickly leaves of zucchini to find succulent fingers of fruit evoke a chorus of memories of happy summer’s days both lived and locked away in our genetic memory. It’s pure ecstacy of spirit. A feeling I hope Ember will enjoy one day.

We celebrated with a morning tea and it really showcased the cooking talents of the group. Sarah impressed with homemade lavosh created with a pasta machine, which I can’t wait to try making myself.

Ember sported the turmeric and marigold dyed cardigan that I started before she was born and almost didn’t finish in time to fit her. It paired nicely with the pink cosmos which I think have become the unofficial emblematic flower of summer in the community garden.

After all the hard work we put in we can now look forward to leisurely years of planting and harvesting, grass free and water secure.

Wishing you all the same in the New Year!

Garden

TOMATO CUTTINGS

August 30, 2013 No Comments

easy guide to propagate tomatoes when it is too late to sow

A tomato plant wasn’t born to stand to attention on a tomato stake, pruned within an inch of it’s life to a singledelicate stem. It’s a rambler, and like pumpkins and herbs like thyme all it needs is to touch its stem to the earth for it to sprout roots. This delightful trick can be used to your advantage when it gets too late for any tomatoes you sow to mature in time to bear any significant fruit.

A tomato cutting will bear fruit in a matter of weeks after the cutting sprouts roots.

So I plant all my tomato seeds in True Spring (Southern Hemisphere: September-October, Northern: March-April), plant them out in the beginning of High Summer (Southern: November, Northern: May). Then once these grow multiple stems about 20-30cm long I take cuttings to make extra plants from High Summer -Deep Summer (Southern: December-Mid March).

And here’s the best part! Tomato cuttings don’t actually need to be cut off the parent plant until they have grown roots! “What?!?” you say, here’s how:

ingredients

plastic juice/soft drink bottle

knife

secateurs & methylated spirits for disinfecting

hessian/cloth

scissors

electrical tape

chock

seed raising mix & trowel

chamomile tea

cutting-plastic-soft-drink-bottle-reuse-recycle

step 1

Cut base and top off the bottle. As bottles are wider at the bottom than the top, the top should be cut off at the point where it is slightly smaller than the base.

step 2

Cut hole in base for tomato stem to pass through.

step 3

Chose a 20-30cm long stem and after disinfecting your secateurs with metho cut off all but 2-3 top leaf stems. Also remove any flowers so the tomato puts all its energy into producing roots.

how-to-make-tomato-cutting-plastic-bottle

step 4

Cut a piece of hessian to fit in the bottle base. Snip a cross in the centre for the tomato stem to be threaded through. You do not need to cut the stem from the parent tomato plant! Take the rest of the bottle and place the top end in the base.

step 5

Tape the base to the bottle with electrical tape.

step 6

Fill bottle with seed raising mixture being careful not tpo bruise or snap the tomato stem.

chamomile-tea-tomato-cutting-healthy-resilient

step 7

Chock up on a piece of wood. A brick and timber board work well. Label with name and date.

step 7

Water with diluted chamomile tea.

protect-tomato-seedlings-sun-roots-develop

the next few weeks

step 9

Keep your tomato “cutting” moist for the next few weeks, it’s very important that it doesn’t dry out.

Roots should start forming in the first week, but there is no need to cut in until you are ready to plant it in its new home. It should start developing new leaves as well.

step 10

By this stage you should clearly see a mass of roots through the plastic bottle. Cut the tomato cutting from its parent below the bottle, remove the bottle base cut the bottle along the side to slip it out before planting. A cut bottle can be reused by electrical taping the side back together.

why are bottle tomato cutting best?

Tomatoes are very prone to transplant stress. With an established root system before being snipped from itsparent your cuttings are more likely to survive.

It’s a great way to “clone” any particularly resilient, tasty tomatoes you have in your garden and extend its harvest beyond the life of its parent.

They transport well in their bottle pots.

As your cutting is already around 15cm tall out of the bottle your plant will grow tomatoes much sooner than a cutting taken the traditional way (only around 6cm) or a seedling grown from seed.

A great way of re-using plastic bottles that would otherwise go in the recycling bin. A clear bottle means you can see the roots growing.

step 8

Wrap the bottles in hessian to protect the growing roots from the sun and retain moisture.

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