Preparing for changeover time

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Tuesday 05 May, 2015 by Uncle Spike

A few weeks ago we were still at the tail end of ‘winter’, as far as the veggies were concerned. All five veg areas were full of, or had the remains of the last winter crops. Since then, everything has been harvested (except for the broad beans; next week perhaps), and the big clear-up and changeover to our ‘summer’ mode has happened. But before that, this was the scene in a couple of places… you get the drift.

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Then it was a matter of ripping all the weeds and old veg out – which created quite a pile in itself; all for the compost of course. This was about a third of it 🙂

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Then the land was flooded from the two-tonne tank (artesian fed), and the next day it was out with the pick axe and steel fork to dig over the soil and remove any remaining large winter veg roots. Note the addition of goat poo (of course) before digging in. In this shot just the far end had been done; adding one wheelbarrow per three square metres. I added a second load two days later before the second digging over. Call that my ‘exercise week’…

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That same week I moved some six week old chicks across to the chook house; leaving the roosters in the external pen, now that winter shelter is no longer a requirement for them. Before moving the chicks, I cleared out, cleaned and disinfected the hut (lovely job). And one wheelbarrow piled full of chook poop mixed with straw cut from the orchard in a previous year, was removed, which happens to be brilliant for fruit trees or of course, growing veggies.

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Using a garden fork and a heavy iron short hoe, the poop was smashed up for use in the area we want to plant tomatoes – as they are notoriously hungry plants. That took a whole hour – quite a workout, but I reckon you’ll not see THAT on many $5 workout videos 🙂 

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Which resulted in four large containers of excellent high-grade ‘au naturel’ fertiliser, ready for use!

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Next came the clearing of the greenhouse, with the peas picked, podded, washed, blanched and frozen. Then this too was dug over and ‘fertilised’ ready for some cucumber plants. Almost ready for the next crops to go in…

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