Week 17 in the OMG

Nick and Ashar picking peas

It is said Christmas is about children – and what nicer thing than picking peas with your son on Christmas Eve. As a Brit this is still something that I cannot get used to even after 10 years in Australia – Christmas time should be cold. But hey ! ’twas a lovely thing to do on a fresh rain-washed morn down in the OMG !  It was a family affair – parents, grandparents and friends all gathered for the harvesting …

(L to R) friend Sophie, Ashar, Kirsten (behind), Nick - and our new WOOFer Baz

Meanwhile it has been a week of sowing brassicas into soil-blocks, pulling out salad gear that had gone to seed, preparing those beds and direct seeding them with more beetroot and spring onions.

Erin preparing soil-block mix

Soil-block maker plunged into the mix

Mark unloading the soil-block maker into a bread-tray

and Voila! - the perfect batch of soil blocks

Erin sowing brassica seeds into a fully bread-tray of soil blocks

A little later, down in the OMG …

Mark gets busy with the Broad-fork opening up the bed that had previously grown Endive, Spring Onion and Lettuce

Sowing Beetroot seeds directly into the ground ...

In the first 2m of the bed the seeds are being sown into the soil through a layer of rice-hull mulch (an OMG adventure!) and in the next 2m they have been sown into bare ground.  The metal grid is a piece of steel mesh with bars at 10cm intervals.  This is an alternative method to using a Row Marker as in this case the seeds are quite large, and this 10cm spacing at 4 rows per bed is the intervals we are using. The grid has been cut to 1m length.  Future sowings are being done in 1m lengths so that we get a regular succession of produce throughout the growing season.

Meanwhile the mild weather and good rain is bringing on many crops – and weeds (but their days are numbered)

Lettuces

Capsicums

Beans

Peas

White onions (planted the Eliot Coleman way)

Red Onions (a la Eliot Coleman)

The Tomato Spaceship with bush tomatoes going bananas (forgive the mixed fruit metaphors ...)

Developing San Marzano tomato (interesting form !)

The OMG at the end of Week 17

The Potato Patch at the end of Week 17

Finally may we all at the Milkwood OMG wish all of you joy and happiness and restful holidays, and the hope that the New Year ushers in a fantastic, fun and adventurous 2012.  We look forward to reporting more organic adventures as the weeks roll by.

Take care – good luck – enjoy the New Year.

 

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