Post by jack on Sept 19, 2006 5:32:50 GMT -6
Yeah Gidday
I bet that got you wondering. I could have said down under, or perhaps gardening in the antipodes but if you looked at the world like most people do where we are is underneath.
Well if you haven’t figured it out yet I am talking about gardening in the southern hemisphere.
Where I live, in the South Island of New Zealand is a bit of a contradiction. We are only about 30 or 40 miles from the coast yet we have an inland climate. We live on an island, which is quite small by world standards, but often have continental weather also. This is cause by the Southern Alps, a mountain range that runs up the island lengthwise and it all runs south west to north east. This in smack dead in the middle of the roaring 40’s where the winds are normally quite strong and generally westerly.
If the winds are blowing west to north they come over the alps and create the foehn effect, [http://www.answers.com/topic/foehn ] dry out and heat up, something like your Santa Ana wind I think it’s called, or your Chinook.
But if the wind moves slightly south to the west to south west the wind comes around the bottom of the Alps and to get to us comes over some lower mountains, the Kakanui’s which aren’t high enough to create the foehn but still high enough for it to drop all the water so the temperature suddenly drops and becomes very cold.
This all leaves us with a very dry climate like Texas but we have a good reliable river fed from those mountains so have irrigation. Apart from the up and down temperature it is a bloody great place to live, but can be quite challenging to garden in, especially because these winds can happen at any time of the year.
At the moment we are just coming out of a very hard winter but the likes of yesterday there was no frost on the ground but a cold south-westerly overnight the water in the garden hose was frozen, yet today has been north-westerly and quite warm.
Anyway, this is what my orchard is looking like.
And if you promise not to look at the weeds here is a couple of my garden.
These bales have been there since last season where I tried too late to get some carrots and parsnips growing and the frosts put a stop to that idea. I am about to resew them. And the boards in the back ground is my gut garden, I don't know if I have told you about that but it's another story.
Andhere is my broccolli and garlice with some carrots that have been wintered over and almost ready to start eating. You can see the plastic I had over the broccolli through winter too cos I ain't gotten it out yet.
I am also going to try to grow some tomatoes outside this year so have chosen a place by my tank stands. I put old carpet down to stop the couch grass from coming up through the bales. [http://www.answers.com/topic/couch-grass].
I put some bales onto the carpet then thoroughly watered it.
The bale on the left is good Lucerne (Alfalfa) hay, the middle one is new barley straw and the one on the right is old Lucerne that was laying under the hedge for over a year. Let’s see the difference.
Last year I had problems with the barley straw because I think it was baled for stock feed, grain and all, like not headed first and this cause big time problems with barley grains growing like weeds and straw bale gardening should not have weeds at all. Of course that may have been because I didn’t get the temperature during the composting high enough to cook the grain.
Next I got some chook poop,
straight from under the chook’s tail oops perch I mean, put it in a bucket and let it soak over night. I want it as strong as possible to help get the heat up as high as possible. Of course I could do it the non-organic way, which is easier and works possible a bit better, by using sulphate of ammonium instead of chook poop.
I then put a layer of the soaked chook poop onto the bales and watered that in as much as I could. Must keep things damp from now one to help the composting heat up.
Well I have dribbled on probably a bit much now so you will have to wait till my tomato seedling are big enough to plant out. Around here that is not normally till the end of October.
I bet that got you wondering. I could have said down under, or perhaps gardening in the antipodes but if you looked at the world like most people do where we are is underneath.
Well if you haven’t figured it out yet I am talking about gardening in the southern hemisphere.
Where I live, in the South Island of New Zealand is a bit of a contradiction. We are only about 30 or 40 miles from the coast yet we have an inland climate. We live on an island, which is quite small by world standards, but often have continental weather also. This is cause by the Southern Alps, a mountain range that runs up the island lengthwise and it all runs south west to north east. This in smack dead in the middle of the roaring 40’s where the winds are normally quite strong and generally westerly.
If the winds are blowing west to north they come over the alps and create the foehn effect, [http://www.answers.com/topic/foehn ] dry out and heat up, something like your Santa Ana wind I think it’s called, or your Chinook.
But if the wind moves slightly south to the west to south west the wind comes around the bottom of the Alps and to get to us comes over some lower mountains, the Kakanui’s which aren’t high enough to create the foehn but still high enough for it to drop all the water so the temperature suddenly drops and becomes very cold.
This all leaves us with a very dry climate like Texas but we have a good reliable river fed from those mountains so have irrigation. Apart from the up and down temperature it is a bloody great place to live, but can be quite challenging to garden in, especially because these winds can happen at any time of the year.
At the moment we are just coming out of a very hard winter but the likes of yesterday there was no frost on the ground but a cold south-westerly overnight the water in the garden hose was frozen, yet today has been north-westerly and quite warm.
Anyway, this is what my orchard is looking like.
And if you promise not to look at the weeds here is a couple of my garden.
These bales have been there since last season where I tried too late to get some carrots and parsnips growing and the frosts put a stop to that idea. I am about to resew them. And the boards in the back ground is my gut garden, I don't know if I have told you about that but it's another story.
Andhere is my broccolli and garlice with some carrots that have been wintered over and almost ready to start eating. You can see the plastic I had over the broccolli through winter too cos I ain't gotten it out yet.
I am also going to try to grow some tomatoes outside this year so have chosen a place by my tank stands. I put old carpet down to stop the couch grass from coming up through the bales. [http://www.answers.com/topic/couch-grass].
I put some bales onto the carpet then thoroughly watered it.
The bale on the left is good Lucerne (Alfalfa) hay, the middle one is new barley straw and the one on the right is old Lucerne that was laying under the hedge for over a year. Let’s see the difference.
Last year I had problems with the barley straw because I think it was baled for stock feed, grain and all, like not headed first and this cause big time problems with barley grains growing like weeds and straw bale gardening should not have weeds at all. Of course that may have been because I didn’t get the temperature during the composting high enough to cook the grain.
Next I got some chook poop,
straight from under the chook’s tail oops perch I mean, put it in a bucket and let it soak over night. I want it as strong as possible to help get the heat up as high as possible. Of course I could do it the non-organic way, which is easier and works possible a bit better, by using sulphate of ammonium instead of chook poop.
I then put a layer of the soaked chook poop onto the bales and watered that in as much as I could. Must keep things damp from now one to help the composting heat up.
Well I have dribbled on probably a bit much now so you will have to wait till my tomato seedling are big enough to plant out. Around here that is not normally till the end of October.
jack. This will be a very interesting experiance. I now understand why you said no plastic to keep the water in the bales, I thought you would have the bales on their sides not flat. Thanx for the great pics and all the info. 
Thanks Jack for educating us on how you grow a garden in New Zealand. Great pics as well. Thanks for posting them. 
