Thread: Gardening

Macadamia, last year and this year, Avocado this years crop (part of)and olives.

Here are a few shots of our little cabin in progress, the little top bar hive we made to catch a bee swarm a few weeks back, the stick dome my father made as a bean/loofa trellis to shade our veggie garden and our little nursery and finally some storm lillies, proving it did finally rain!





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Great trellis, Berlin, and the lovely gable roof for you and your bees. Is the hive based on the Warre hive ?

Yes, it's a Warré. We were lucky that we had all the tools and materials to hand so that we could whip a hive box up when the opportunity presented itself. It was a tiny wee swarm the size of a rockmelon so it was easy to catch but we weren't sure it would survive, but it's starting to pick up now. We added a second box, the lower one, and had a peek to see what was going on and they've drawn some nice combs. Nothing smells as good as a bee hive, especially a cypress and cedar bee hive!

The bean trellis is six metres across and three metres high, which may not be obvious from the picture. They look fantastic covered in vines. The shot of our nursery is through another small dome with a passion fruit growing over it.




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Fantastic, Berlin, keep an eye out for ants that resemble jumping jacks, they destroyed two small colonies of bees while we were away for a few days. Even a tray of water under the hive didn't stop them, pesky little critters.
Not sure if you have them up your way though.

Jumping Jacks we used to call them Jack Jumpers, nasty little buggars, I used to live in Tas and we had them there, I haven't seen them here tho so might only be a southern states thing.
Native bees?



Pete

Re-reading Huon's post; we do have a smaller black ant about 10mm long that will give a nasty bite up here, I see a nest about here every so often, I have a native bee hive in a log that so far hasn't been attacked by ants.

I decided to combine corn and Lab Lab bean, I thought I'll plant it in amongst the corn and it will climb up the corn and then when the corn is done I'll pull the lot out and there's a nice bit of green stuff to go into a cold compost pile, however, I think I might have overdone the bean to corn ratio tho as the bean ended up smothering the corn so I pulled it all out, I did leave some bean vines as they are now providing some shade where it has grown up the shade cloth support and into the Mulberry tree.
Some pic
lab lab and corn.jpglab lab roots.jpgcloseup nitrogen nodule.jpg
An interesting thing about legumes is they host nitrogen fixing bacteria on their roots in root nodules, it doesn't seem to worry the plant at all, the bacteria have to be present in the ground or it will come as an innoculant with the bean seeds, the Lab Lab didn't come with an inocculant but I have grown innoculated beans (broad beans)here before so there are probably still some bacteria hanging around in the soil just waiting for a legume. Innoculated versus non innoculated seeds makes a big difference to the amount of nitrogen fixing nodules that end up on the roots, the idea is that the nitrogen is in the soil via the nodules when the bean is finished and there for the next crop.

It also has been interesting to see the Lab Lab climb as I want to grow annual "climbers" that will tolerate the heat, provide shade and then die off for winter, all I have to do is provide something for it to climb on. Sweet potato is another that I employ as a shade provider.



Pete

Not much need of shading in the UK!

I always either leave legume roots in the ground when I clear the vines or else put them through the shredder & spread back on the soil.
Incidentally I am still growing the same gene pool of runner beans that my grandfather had on his allotment 65 years ago.

This was me on the allotment, bean poles in the background.
My main job was de-budding carnations to leave one bloom.
The other thing I was required to do was to whistle while I was fruit picking......

Mark

Great photo Mark.

I just looked at this thread on a computer (not the phone) for the first time in ages - apologies for the huge crappy phone photos, I'm letting the team down.

Pete, it was a honey bee swarm. I looked up the Jack Jumpers and they don't occur here but meat ants can be a problem apparently but I haven't ever seen a nest on our block so hopefully they won't be a problem. Hive beetle occurs here too but although we didn't have time to plan our hive, it's just where the bees landed, it's not too bad for monitoring for them. I've dug some cement through the sand at the base of the rock the hive is on to make it hard for them to pupate and the fact they then have to crawl back up the rock to get to the hive means they're exposed to all the other predators that live around there. Everything we know about bees we learnt in the last month so we'll see what happens.

Matt

Pete, I wish I could grow corn. I've tried. It gets up ok but the amount of water you need to keep the growing is impossible for me to keep up with. Do you water yours or is there enough rain where you are?

Originally Posted by Berlin

Pete, I wish I could grow corn. I've tried. It gets up ok but the amount of water you need to keep the growing is impossible for me to keep up with. Do you water yours or is there enough rain where you are?

If I get the corn in early(end of winter/early spring) there will be a couple of months of watering, from now on we'll get more rain so I won't have to water as much, I'll get another crop in if I pull my finger out sans lab lab.


Pete

Is the lab lab just an annual? A friend in Brissie grow Madagascar beans as a perennial shade crop over his more tender plants. It drops enough leaf through winter to get seedlings going but thickens up again when the heat picks up. I got some seeds off him but a hare ate them

Have you got some pumpkin in with your beans and corn?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three...agriculture%29

Matt



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I planted beans 3 or so weeks after the corn as planted. I've also planted variety pumpkin and squash in between and in betwixt.

Man, I don't know if I should bother with vegetables, both your and Pete's gardens look lusher than I think I'll be able to achieve. I will bother, but I'm pretty sure I'm in for some grief

We need some great big tanks, that much is clear.





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