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Who has a green thumb?


ImaginativeName

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I've always been a keen gardener, which eventually turned into my profession. Still love it every day (well, most days..lol)

 

What do you have in this veggie garden exactly? Is the veg a seasonal variety? Is your soil new and rich in nutrients? What is its PH? Is the soil/dirt compact, or hoed? You need to keep the soil in a vegetable garden moist all the time, how often is it being watered? Have you used any fertiliser recently, if so, which type? How much sun is the garden receiving every day? Answering these questions can give an indication of what might be happening here.

 

 

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Ok, it's a raised bed, corrugated iron staked in, I dumped a pile of sugar can mulch in the bottom, and covered that with bags of soil, the cheap stuff from bunnings, and a couple of bags of some other type of mulch.

 

I figured it was too free draining, I pulled out most of the sugar can mulch, added more bags of soil and some manure, water retention seems much better.

 

I've put a bit of seasol in, doesn't appear to be helping, I just threw on some other granulated all purpose stuff.

 

I have cucumber and zucchini, parsley, some onion and capsicum.

 

I've had some other stuff in here and nothing has really done any good.

 

It gets a good amount of sun all morning until around 2-3pm

 

I'm thinking just keep fertilising until I get some kind of reaction........

 

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Nice work. May I ask: Is it the zucchini struggling the most?

 

That cheapo Brunnings potting mix isn't the best but it's certainly much better than any old clay soil. The liquid Seasol's are excellent for veg but most likely run through that soil and into the hard soil :( I'd get some Dynamic Lifter organic fertiliser or blood & bone for feeding. The soil is neutral and could use some organic feeding matter which won't run through so much. NPK granular fertilizers are ok but in this instance vegetables are hungry (and thirsty) feeders. Zucchini also require lots of water, and water does more for plants that simply providing direct assistance. It's required for healthy microbiological fungi's and stuff which provide plants with the nutrition they require to thrive. Once soil dries out plants suffer this deficiency

 

A brief overview http://sesl.com.au/blog/the-role-of-soil-microorganisms/

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Seasol isn't really a fertiliser, it's more of a soil conditioner. I would caution against just keeping on fertilising though.. you might end up putting too much on which will do more harm than good.

 

Other than that, I don't have any real experience growing vegetables except tomatoes years ago, but they're fruits anyway. tongue

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It really is across the board, nothing is doing well.

I figured the bagged soil would be far from rich, I just thought I could fertilise a little, manure, decomposition of mulch etc.

 

This stuff should be easy, but it's not happening for me.

 

I'll try the dynamic lifter.

 

I grew some tomato plants Kelsey, at least that's what I told my dear old Nan when she came to visit....

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I also have raised beds. I started with a "triple mix" I made myself of peat moss, commercial top soil, and marine compost. Every spring I add a scoop of lime (but check your pH first) and rock phosphate, and a couple of bags of composted manure, as the organic matter gets used up. Sometimes manure/compost takes a while to integrate into the soil. Initially the nitrogen can be locked up and unavailable. Good idea to mix it in the soil about a month or so before you plant.

 

Now, two years out, the soil is a bit exhausted so I also mix a handful of slow release vegetable fertilizer pellets onto the soil around each plant, which the tomatoes especially need. Once the plants are established I mulch with a deep layer of shredded newspaper, which I weigh down with scraps of wood to prevent from blowing away. The nice thing about the newspaper is that it contains no weed seeds, it is light coloured and reflects the sun and, like all mulch, it keeps in moisture and smothers weeds.

 

Young plants have high nitrogen needs, as they grow rapidly; mine often go through a yellow stage when they are young. A good and free source of nitrogen (and phosphate) is urine. Pee in a bottle and mix it with 10 parts water. Water your seedlings with it. Easy for guys to do. lol

 

We get a lot of rain so a trickle feeding system is not necessary, but it is probably the opposite in Australia. Some gardeners in dry areas will get a PET soft drink bottle, screw the cap on, poke few small holes down the side facing the plant, cut the bottom off, and bury it, bottoms up, in the soil beside a plant. No doubt it can take a bit of trial and error to get the number and size of the holes right. Fill up the bottle and the water trickles out at root level. Some gardeners get more elaborate; they don't drill holes in the sides but rather make a larger hole in the cap, shove a strip of J-cloth into it as a wick, and set under the root area at planting time.

 

Cheers,

 

Christina.

 

 

 

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I love pissing in the garden biggrin

 

The neighbours might not appreciate it, so I'll have to bottle it I guess.

 

Some good ideas to try there anyway.

 

 

It's sugar cane country here, monoculture is a terrible thing for the environment, they have to grow a "between crop" of chick peas, that gets worked back into the soil, probably for the nitrogen.

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  • 6 months later...

Hey imaginative,

Dependant on your type of veges yellowing could be a magnesium deficiency. Mostly the case with say citrus trees from time to time. Epsom salts is good for that. You can get it cheap as chips from ag stores and the like. Follow direction on the packet or use about two tbs to 9 litre watering can. If it doesn't work on the garden, you can always have a refreshing bath with it in it.

 

A good seaweed solution is the Eco seaweed from OCP. You can get this in Bunnings.

 

I grow a lot of veges and fruit in my backyard. I find building the soil makes for good veg. Compost, blood and bone, compost, worm wee, compost, rock minerals, compost, manure, compost, seaweed solution....

Have I mentioned compost.

 

And look after your soil, chemicals and sprays can cause adverse effects on soil life.

 

Might sound all hippy and tree huggerish but this is what I do and I don't have issues with growing basically anything.

 

Happy gardening imaginative.

 

 

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If you need any grass advice I'm your man....by that I mean lawn :)
I did an apprenticeship in greenkeeping on a golf course straight out of high school. I don't work in the field anymore but I still use some of that knowledge gained for keeping my own lawn looking good biggrin
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If you need any grass advice I'm your man....by that I mean lawn :)
I did an apprenticeship in greenkeeping on a golf course straight out of high school. I don't work in the field anymore but I still use some of that knowledge gained for keeping my own lawn looking good biggrin

 

Spent 10 years in the game got the home lawn looking good.

 

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