19 February, 2009

Extreme Vagaries

Drought, followed by flood, followed by locusts? After the scorching weather, the rain was extremely welcome, however 300mm later and even the zucchinis are refusing to grow bigger. You can see in the picture to the left that the leeches were having a field day! With a bit of sun this coming week, we're expecting to see some rapid growth, however there will be a bit of a reduction in Imago produce until this happens.

14 February, 2009

Weeds work again

With all the hot and dry weather lately, it was really obvious to see what works well in retaining soil moisture. Beds that had lots of tall growth, including weeds, were growing thick and lushly.
Whereas where the plants were sparse, the sun had got to the ground and dried it out. So again, keeping weeds in the garden has filled a useful role. This is contrary to the usual thinking which says that weeds take water away from your crops.
Of course it now all a moot point as we've had 120mm of rain over 4 days! The dam is coming right up to the spill way again and we've got the fire going in the middle of summer to stay warm. Gotta go, the lasagna is almost ready.