beginner fruit/veg garden

Speaking of worms I've noticed a few critters in my jojo tanks that I use to water my garden. What would be the best way to sanitize the water in the tanks?
 
Likely larvae of some sort, quite possibly mosquito larvae. People talk about putting in small fish or else some oil or bleach. None of these appeal to me for gardening purposes so we have covered the overflow pipe with fine nylon net, and that seems to have helped. The inlet pipe goes several metres in our case, so I think it less likely they'd get in that way. Could you put some fine net across the outlet you use? I guess a few larvae in the garden wouldn't cause too much harm, birds might munch them.
 
Last edited:
Has anyone grown mielies? What's your experience?
A few years ago I ate a boiled mielie that was picked fresh from my mother-in-law's garden and thrown straight into the pot .... and it was the best mielie I ever ate in my life.

So...
I planted 30 seeds in toilet paper rolls in early December (Season 2 for my garden exploits) and kept them in a container on my balcony, away from pests and the hot sun. I kept the container always filled with about 2 to 3 cm of water so they didn't dry out. When they grew a few leaves, I transplanted them into my garden, just as they were... still in the toilet paper rolls (that way I wasn't disturbing the roots). That was about the end of Dec. As with all my other S2 exploits, i watered them with the worm water whenever it was available.
I harvested whatever had grown this week (1st week of April 2018).

Results, and my own take on what failed:
- I transplanted them a bit too close together in the garden (about 10cm to 15cm apart), so the cobs ended up quite small in size... none more than 10cm long.
- I don't get much wind in my garden (I live very near to a river bank with overgrown trees and they block almost all the wind) so the pollination wasn't very good and I ended up with most cobs having lots of missing kernels.
- I also harvested them too late cos I was hoping they would grow a bit more bigger, so the kernels were a bit harder than I wanted from garden-fresh mielies. My mother-in-law set the bar a bit too high so I was expecting the same super-tender kernels.
So, I got small, sparsely populated mielie cobs with hard kernels.

That being said ... it was an unbelievable feeling to harvest my own mielies! And I chowed those mofo's like they were the last food on earth! MMMMMMMmmmm! :D


So ... things to do next time:
- try saving seeds from my own mielies (let one of them dry completely and save those kernels)
- stop by one of the roadside "flame grilled mielie" sellers to get a cob of overgrown mielies and try drying it for seeds
- start in August, and plant 10 plants at a time, and then plant 10 more seeds each month later
- try the hand pollination tricks I came across on YouTube
- harvest the mielies a few days after the silks have turned colour to brown
- be ready with my 'garden-hose drip-irrigation' system by September so I don't have to water them by hand for 3 months... It's flippin hard work!
 
What? No pics of the mielies?

Also pics and a write up of your drip system with be great when you get around to doing it.
 
Marsie27 said:
Likely larvae of some sort, quite possibly mosquito larvae. People talk about putting in small fish or else some oil or bleach. None of these appeal to me for gardening purposes so we have covered the overflow pipe with fine nylon net, and that seems to have helped. The inlet pipe goes several metres in our case, so I think it less likely they'd get in that way. Could you put some fine net across the outlet you use? I guess a few larvae in the garden wouldn't cause too much harm, birds might munch them.
Click to expand...

Yes mosquitoes. There's dozens of them in the jojo. Not sure which is the best method to kill them.
 
Inevitability said:
Has anyone grown mielies? What's your experience?
A few years ago I ate a boiled mielie that was picked fresh from my mother-in-law's garden and thrown straight into the pot .... and it was the best mielie I ever ate in my life.

So...
I planted 30 seeds in toilet paper rolls in early December (Season 2 for my garden exploits) and kept them in a container on my balcony, away from pests and the hot sun. I kept the container always filled with about 2 to 3 cm of water so they didn't dry out. When they grew a few leaves, I transplanted them into my garden, just as they were... still in the toilet paper rolls (that way I wasn't disturbing the roots). That was about the end of Dec. As with all my other S2 exploits, i watered them with the worm water whenever it was available.
I harvested whatever had grown this week (1st week of April 2018).

Results, and my own take on what failed:
- I transplanted them a bit too close together in the garden (about 10cm to 15cm apart), so the cobs ended up quite small in size... none more than 10cm long.
- I don't get much wind in my garden (I live very near to a river bank with overgrown trees and they block almost all the wind) so the pollination wasn't very good and I ended up with most cobs having lots of missing kernels.
- I also harvested them too late cos I was hoping they would grow a bit more bigger, so the kernels were a bit harder than I wanted from garden-fresh mielies. My mother-in-law set the bar a bit too high so I was expecting the same super-tender kernels.
So, I got small, sparsely populated mielie cobs with hard kernels.

That being said ... it was an unbelievable feeling to harvest my own mielies! And I chowed those mofo's like they were the last food on earth! MMMMMMMmmmm! :D


So ... things to do next time:
- try saving seeds from my own mielies (let one of them dry completely and save those kernels)
- stop by one of the roadside "flame grilled mielie" sellers to get a cob of overgrown mielies and try drying it for seeds
- start in August, and plant 10 plants at a time, and then plant 10 more seeds each month later
- try the hand pollination tricks I came across on YouTube
- harvest the mielies a few days after the silks have turned colour to brown
- be ready with my 'garden-hose drip-irrigation' system by September so I don't have to water them by hand for 3 months... It's flippin hard work!
Click to expand...
Buy seeds, they are treated against fungus, bacteria and other things that can run your crop or give you an inferior harvest.
 
AstroTurf said:
Buy seeds, they are treated against fungus, bacteria and other things that can run your crop or give you an inferior harvest.
Click to expand...
Good to know... These mielies I grew were from seeds I bought. They were coated with a red substance so they were definitely given some treatment.
Having gone through the experience, i can only blame my own failings... I should have planted earlier, planted in succession, spaced them properly, done some more reading / YouTubing on how they grow (so I might have known about the pollination issue) and harvested earlier.

I can't blame the seeds at all... I just did a terrible job of it
 
The mielie patch (below)
Plants were spaced around 4-finger-widths apart
(picture quality may be poor cos I'm posting from my phone and using a photo resizer app rather than using GIMP on my laptop)
IMG_20180406_150339_BURST001_COVER-600x800.jpg
 
Final stage of curing the olives. They should be ready in about a month. Have enough to fill another 4 of these jars. 20180416_195652.jpg
 
Last edited:
Pruned my hanepoot vine and decided to try and grow some using the cuttings. I planted about 40 cuttings and going to see how many take root. I'm also busy prepping a section of my garden to grow a few vines in 4 rows like you would find them growing in a Vinyard. The area is about 30m².

I also planted 4 cuttings from my curry leaf tree a few weeks ago.20180430_182641.jpg
 
My Checkers My Little Garden had some Cress growing up wildly about 4 days ago. Nothing else has come up yet apart from one other one today. I have like 25 of them. Cool idea though. Even bought some gourmet salad leaves as a side project.
 
Planted some potatoes and done hilling them.

Also need to thin out some of the tomatoes I planted. 20180501_110344.jpg20180501_110916.jpg
 
As much as I like the Checkers Little Garden (and lemme say I really really like it) ... I just wonder if it might have been better suited to a August / September launch. Kids (and adults) are gonna watch these things sprout, and then get excited and then in a month's time when it's ready for planting into the garden there's gonna be frost every morning and it's gonna kill everything :(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X