Left is a shot of the tiny Mushrooms from the Video as of yesterday... The Peat is starting to look a bit feral with some green mould moving in so I think it will be retired & we shall chalk up the $ lost as part of the learning curve...The other box hasnt produced any fungus as of yet even though we have been keeping a close eye on it...
We made a start on the Barrelponics system on Monday...
This was mixed around with the castings & worms in the top tray in an attempt to cool the little fellas down.... The shade cloth that is being used to collect any stray worms or castings dropping through to the worm juice collection tray did a great job... A lot of the Worms had retreated there to get relief from the heat... there was also a decent amount of castings there that will come in handy potting out the Caped Gooseberries & Strawberries into their new Barrels/pots...
I couldnt get over the amount of worms that are in the farm... We started up the farm using a 1000 Worm Starter Pack from Worm Affair that was purchased at a local hardware store.. I scooped out about 4 cupped hand fulls during the rescue from the top tray + the poor fellas left behind that should find their way to safety in the tray below & then there are those that found refuge in the bottom tray... I guesstimate that there is over 2kg left in the farm + those that now call all the Garden beds home... That is a big increase from the 250 grams worth we started with...
I had started on the #2 video about a week back, but last week needed to return the borrowed Arduino components to the friend from whom I had borrowed them. The official Arduino Starter Kit I had ordered from Amazon showed up on Thursday. So I now had the parts I needed to resume learning about the basics of microcontrollers.
Here is a bit of a look at what root knot nematodes did to the beetroot that were grown in the barrel before the okra was planted out in there.. These nematodes set up home in the roots of your plants reducing plant vigour & in some extreme cases, suck that much nutriment out of the plant that they can die.. We have had a bit of a problem in a few beds but think that we have them on the run with the molasses mix..
2 new Wicking Barrels were made up for some seedlings in need of new homes... 2 purple & 1 Thai basil (left) were put in a barrel down in the patch & the Bell Chilli & 2 x of our Banana x Chillies (right) were put in a barrel beside the new Spice barrel by the back stairs...
Have been harvesting a few Broccoli flowers (left) for salads & nibbles while walking around the patch.. Will be saving some seeds once they set.. 
The Passion fruit barrel has been overrun by feral Tomatoes & Eggplants that have sprouted from the worm cast that was placed under each of the seedlings... Shall have to thin them out soon but am thinking of leaving the Eggplant in just to see what type it turns out to be... 
Compared to a 6 month subscription from Marin Sun Farms (adjusted for weight differences) more steak--102% less roasts--32% less hamburger--15% more bones--100% more offal--100% | |||
| cost savings of meat per pound (excluding offal and bones)--36% total cost savings--33% final cost per pound of meat (excluding offal and bones)--$5.20 | |||
The Worms are in their new home...Had to remove a wardrobe to make some room first... It was dismantled & the backing ply was nailed to the batons behind the farm to make a sun block with the rest being saved to be used as shelving... The wire frame at the base of the farm was covered with some weed mat fabric..
The castings harvester was a bit of a let down... The castings were still too damp & just formed balls... We ended up going back to the proven method of just fishing them out with our hands...
Got some good shots of the White Cabbage Butterfly eggs yesterday...
The Shallots & spring Onions are being attacked by these little fellas on the Left... 7 were pulled from a square foot of onions... The little bugs on the Right are having a field day on the eggplants, pumpkins & a few other plants... 
Planted out the Red Strawberry & the pot of others we saved from Bed #1 a few months back... They are situated at the end of Bed #4 under the slightly over pruned Lemon tree... The Lemon tree is packed with fruit which is great, & has more flowers appearing on it all the time... There is also a feral Tomato growing through it which is doing quite nicely...
Some of the Rainbow Silverbeet has produced a rather stunning Flower spike... Hopefully we will get heaps of seed as we are looking at planting out the back of the Chook pen with Silverbeet for the Ladys... The Galangal is rather surprising... It has a very delicate sent that is very nice...
Weekly Harvest...
