Blogspot - Interia Dezain

It's been a relaxed week in the gardens and as the summer draws to a close the harvest season is upon us with plenty to pick and process as we wind down into the Autumn.   Aponia - The Market Garden  We're irrigating the market garden once a week during the summer. This can be up to 15 weeks in a dry year but this year we have only needed to water 4 times so far, although I expect another 4 weeks of irrigation will be needed. Our irrigation method is somewhat unusual in that we have access to a mountain stream that we can divert into our gardens. We use the paths as irrigation channels and block the end with sacks full of sawdust thereby raising the water level so that the water permeates into the raised beds. Capillary action also serves to draw the water up into the soil. If we can run the water over night this is sufficient to provide water to all of the plants in the bed but the stream is also used by other growers so we'll also water from above with the watering cans...

Another hot week in the gardens, too hot to start new projects but plenty of harvesting, watering and  seed collecting to be done.  If you follow our project you will probably know that I like to name our gardens after concepts and terminology from the classical period of Ancient Greece or at least you may have noticed that the gardens have weird names :)  Ezekiel who joined us last week asked why the market garden did not have a such a name which prompted me to fix that, so from now on the market garden will be referred to as .........drum rolling .....   Aponia - The Market Garden  It's quite amazing how fast  Paulownia tomentosa - Foxglove Tree  can grow. We use these trees amid some of the vegetable beds to provide shade, biomass and the massive leaves make good temporary containers for small fruits and veg. When the trees get too big (within 3 years) we cut them and use them for fence posts or stakes. Multiple stems grow back from the stump t...

It's been a hot and dry week in the gardens - summer has finally shown up this year! We said our goodbyes to Daniel and Emilce last week - thanks so much for joining us and for all of your input into the gardens. We welcomed back Victoria and we're happy to be joined by Ezekiel.      Always a pleasure to observe The European Praying Mantid - Mantis religiosa in the gardens. This is a young specimen no more than 4 cm long. This time of year through to late September you can find mantids in the garden but you have look quite hard as they are often on plants with similar colouration to their bodies. They are predators of many types of insects, including flies, moths, grasshoppers, crickets and aphids (when very young).  Mantids will also feed on some beneficial insect species and female Mantids will often eat the male after mating.  I often find Mantid cocoons on the underside of rocks protected from the rain but warmed by the winter sun. These egg cases can h...