When growing our own organic fruit and veg we naturally want to try growing our own seedlings at some point. I'm not religious about this, my main desire is to have something to crop and eat! no matter how I achieve this so I often grow bought seedlings. I know one really good gardener who grows nothing but bought seedlings.
My seed comes from different sources - gardening friends, theft, Diggers (no longer a member as I wasn't buying enough to warrant paying the membership fee), eBay (will keep this to a minium as didn't feel I had good results, but to be fair, that might have been other influences like the weather), Green Harvest and even an American company Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds
Seedlings I buy from Caboolture Markets mostly - there are quite a few particularly good outlets selling quality product at a great price. No doubt there are other farmers markets around doing the same in your area, but the Cab. Mkts are well worth a visit at least once. Huge and with great variety of plants, produce and lots more. Come early for a good park - no later than 7.30am. I've never had trouble.
I found when I was growing my own seedlings in the beginning that I had a hard time keeping them looking healthy. None looked like the beauties I bought commercially.
They need watering every morning, without fail. I water all of my plants in the morning if possible as it helps to avoid fungal infections and I think it just sets them up for the heat of the day. Water is vital - if you don't have time to water in the morning then do it later in the day as any water is better than none. DO NOT let them dry out for any length of time.
They need to be placed in a position which gets good light but not too much direct sunlight during the day. If you grow them in a shady spot and then try to plant them out into direct sunlight they may burn and die. You will need to harden them off. Best to just grow them in good light from the beginning.
They need nutrient. They're only growing in tiny amounts of soil with limited nutrient added. I find I'm not particularly fond of commercial seed raising mix but haven't had enough experience to suggest alternatives. The weed tea seems to give it the boost it needs.
I treat all of my seedlings like babies...you wouldn't leave your baby lying in the sun all day with no shelter, water or food. Don't do it to your seedlings!
I did heaps of research trying to find a stand to grow them on - most were hugely expensive or too hard to bring home - and ended up with this from Deals Direct for about $30 on special delivered. It's lasted for well over a year but will need replacing soon. Good enough for the outlay, but I keep my eyes open for something more permanent.
Weed tea has been a big success for me keeping my seedlings healthy and thriving. I've used a large bucket (bought on special - I always look out for the specials lol) with shade cloth covering held on with elastic strap (both the latter from Bunnings) - and a nod to Elaine for giving me the original suggestion :)
I was at a compost workshop yesterday and the speaker was talking about non-aerobic compost made in a similar way, but with the air excluded. Noone there seemed to have success with this method - may as well just do this.
Ingredients for the tea....water and then I add whatever is to hand, usually: a handful of Organic Xtra (love the stuff and it's made locally), about a cup each of molasses, seaweed extract, some epsom salts, perhaps some potash if I have it and then of course some "weed" - whatever is to hand but usually stuff which is leafy (Comfrey is great) along with any fallen fruit which has caterpillars etc in it (give me great pleasure to drown these and use them as nutrient for my plants) .
I do not get all technical about these things - I don't measure anything out.
In the beginning I asked many people how they went about their weed teas and many had firm beliefs about what should and shouldn't be done. For instance, "use it all up in a week". It's true, it can go smelly if you keep it too long but I don't believe it loses any of it's nutrient value if you do . I often refill the bucket with water if there is still plenty of organic matter going on.
Occassionally I will get complaints from visitors about the smell when I tip out the contents into the garden ready to start again. I am blessed (?) with a poor sense of smell and can't appreciate the aroma ;) I leave that to others. Maybe I should be feeling sorry for my neighbours...nah.
Use this concoction to water your seedlings each morning, making sure that you give to each little plant and each is thoroughly drenched.
I've been gardening since I was a tiddler in one form or another - helping Mum by collecting pebbles out of the driveway for drainage in the bottom of pots was my introduction.
One of my earliest memories is admiring a neighbours plant and asking what the name was (it was a geranium) and knowing that I wanted to grow one too! My Granddad died when I was 5yrs old, which was quite a loss (for both of us!) as he was the only gardener in the family. I still regret not having the chance to learn from him.
When my children were young, in the days before the internet when we all had to learn everything from books, I attempted to grow fruit and veg as time allowed but usually with sad results. I had bought Esther Deans No Dig Gardening book amongst others and still follow the easy method she used. Before this I used to turn the sod which was very time and energy consuming. We moved a lot which meant I had lots of practice :( I did study propagating quite a bit and had numerous pots filling my porches with all my efforts.
Due to all the failures to produce any good veg crops, I pretty much gave up trying to grow anything but ornamentals for many years, then we had the 7yr drought and I gave up growing anything at all as nothing would survive on the little bits of water I could find the time to dish out. This was a sad time with no gardening...felt like an amputation.
A couple of years ago the rains came back - always being a bit of a health freak and coeliac I felt the time was right to start learning to grow fruit and veg seriously (I already had some fruit trees planted that survived the drought) and bought some custom made raised beds from KISS Products http://www.kissproducts.com.au/ at the Caboolture Markets. I decided to go with the raised beds after quite a bit of research.
I chose the height with the notion that it would be easy on my back as I aged...but I still have to bend forward over them. A shorter depth and sitting down would have served the same purpose I think, but I love the depth of rich soil now building up in each bed.
Now the fun starts...
12.12.09 The beds are delivered and placed to (hopefully) make the most of the sun over the year. The backyard has an easterly aspect. They were very light and easy to manipulate empty - I was aware of the need to place them carefully in the beginning as once filled, it would be a huge job to move them. Here's two of my dogs, Freya and Gretel, showing off the new empty beds. You can see how sad and brown everything was at the end of the drought.
Each bed is 4m long, 1m wide and 60cm tall. I bought the huge roll of sugar cane mulch from a charity fund raiser for $50 delivered. Rough, but good stuff to start the whole process off. All the really rough bits ie lengths of cane, went into the bottom of the beds for drainage.
Just for comparison here's the same beds now 2yrs later:
Each of the beds has been filled and refilled numerous times with organic matter and plants and the contents are now rich and full of worms.
I use whatever comes to hand - mostly grass clippings by HUGE amounts thanks to the mower men I had at the time, garden clippings of all descriptions, animal manure of whatever type I can get my hands on, sprinklings of dolomite (calcium), basalt (calcium and iron), granite/deco (potassium), potash, blood and bone, Organic Xtra and anything else I come across.
I do not follow any scientific method of composting - everything gets thrown on the pile you can see on the right side and left to it's own devices until I need it. I do tend to put the rough stuff in the beds first and top it with the more broken down material.
In the beginning I had enough composted material that I could plant directly into this. On other occassions I just top off the organic matter with a layer of garden soil bought by the bag from Bunnings. PH for these is good and this works well. By the time the seedlings/seeds have sent down roots the material below is being consumed and turned into soil by the huge amount of worms who have moved in to their lovely new high-rise.
I do not worm farm. I have tried, at great expense and time, on a number of occassions. The last being an expensive hanging thing that was to consume all the dog poo in the yard. I followed all directions to a tee, but the poor worms wouldn't touch the poo and eventually all died off. The hanging thing was given away for someone else to try.
Why bother?? The worms already live in the garden and do the job with no help from me.
I do bury all my kitchen scraps - my rule here is nothing cooked goes into this as it will attract vermin. I have always kept a bucket under the sink and put all raw veg scraps in this, including onion, garlic and orange - and place it in a shallow depression under a different fruit tree each week with a bit of mulch thrown over the top. My dogs love avocado and will root around looking for skins to lick, so no point in going to too much trouble. I just come back and cover it over again when they have finished. The worms reduce this to nothing in no time at all - perhaps a week or two. The onion, garlic and orange is no good in a worm farm but fine out in the general garden.
Here's a link to my Brisbane Local Food Group blog containing full information about that first growing season, Winter 2010 http://brisbanelocalfood.ning.com/profiles/blogs/winter-2010-first-attempts-at
