Seed Raising And Summer Planting

Here in Australia we are technically in the last week of winter but because I live in the sub-tropics we are actually in spring already and only weeks away from summer if I had to guess since strawberry season has started.  You see we really only get a few weeks of spring and autumn, about 3 months of winter and about 7 months of summer.
In the past few years I have been caught out and one minute it is winter and the next we are into summer temperatures and I do not have my summer veggie seedlings ready.  Because the nights are still cool it is hard to get summer seeds like capsicums, tomatoes and eggplants germinated in time for the warm days so this year I am trying a different strategy.
I am still raising most of my veggies from seeds but I have also purchased a small number of more advanced seedlings that are already about 15 cm high that I have planted out this week.

Capsicums, eggplants, lettuce and basil with a whole
lot of self seeded coriander at the end of the garden bed.

The last of the winter veggies coming on are now sharing the garden
bed with lettuce, capsicums and zucchini.

When raising seeds I find the easiest way is to raise then in a foam box with a deep layer of seed raising mix which you can rad about here.

We have had some great rain here over the weekend and so It looks like I got my seedlings in just in time on Friday.  They have all been well watered in and now I just need them to grow as fast as they can because I can't wait to eat some tasty beefsteak tomatoes.

Are you thinking about summer veggies yet?

Using Worm Castings

Recently I added another tray, tray number 3, to my worm farm.  This meant I had an empty tray on top, a full tray of castings and partially eaten food scraps, and a tray absolutly full to the brim of pure worm castings.
Because I had waited until I had 2 full trays there were no worms living in the lower tray at all.  That made it really easy to harvest the castings.  I plant to add most of them to my garden beds but I also like to use them for planting out seedlings.

Lovely worm castings, you can see on the right that the castings were packed all the
way to the base of the next tray.  I dug out half a bucket full and they were packed so
tight you could hardly tell I had even taken any.

The way I use my worm castings with seedlings helps give them a nutrient boost, helps protect to roots and makes them easier to plant out as there is more mass to hold onto and push the soil against.
First of all I take a handful of worm castings and I flatten it out to be a flat disk and lie your seedling on top and wrap it with the castings disk.

Once you have your seedling wrapped in the castings it makes it much easier to plant.

I find that the seedlings I plant this way do really well.

Do you use worm castings? How do you use them?

Potting Mix - Is it worth Paying More?

Ever wondered why your potted plants or seedlings are not thriving?  It could be that your potting mix is to blame.
I did a bit of an experiment with some seedlings that I had far too many of.  These are Queensland Blue Pumpkins that I raised in foam boxes from seeds before potting them on.  We did not need 8 plants that is for sure.  So 4 of them were potted into Searles premium potting mix.  The other 4 were potted into a mix of cheap potting mix mixed with some good quality compost.  We use the cheap potting mix instead of synthetic kitty litter for our ageing cat which is why we had some on hand.
All the pots were watered the same amount and sat side by side in the shade house but look at the difference.
Well the proof is in the pumpkin in this case.  I suspect that the PH is way off and there is not enough organic matter to hold onto the moisture.

Look at those pitiful plants on the left.

 And no gardening is complete at our place without the number 1 garden helper.

Having a lie down after a big day in the garden

Have you had issues with cheap potting mix?