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Finally time to prepare the front garden

JungleRain said:
Great job MM, how are the babies growing now, got any pics for us?
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Yep, been travelling heaps for work so haven't had a lot of time to post up on here.

Man, how much do I love these garden beds. Apart from fertilising, I don't even have to water the things even on hot days. They drain easy given how much lucerne hay I used, but they hold moisture quite well with all the mulch I've used.

I've already got pods on a few plants, most notably the Jalapenos are already fruiting big time. Asian Birdseye are flowering all over the place, and its pleasing to see a number of Chinense are fruiting, especially the second year plants that I saved from last season.

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You won't be able to see it in the pics, but I've currently got some Cacao plants under the canopy of the Asian Birdseyes to see how they go. They are in pots, and I know they'll outgrow the height of the chillies, but its awesome to be able to use the shade of the chilli plants for the Cacao.

P.S. Just realised you can see my reflection. Lucky I was wearing clothes when I took that photo ;)
 
What a difference a month makes in the world of pepper growing.

I'd say this is now a pepper forest, and not a pepper garden. Annums are podding up all over the place, Chinense are flowering and should have pods soon.

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Wow they are growing big... wish mine looked like that. From the look of the first photos you are using straw or something like it for mulch? Any sort of special soil in the beds, what nutrients are they on? And do you have them reticulated or water them manually? If you are travelling I'm guessing it is automated, or you have a very nice "other" to help, like an unusually generous wife or servant child.

Hope you don't mind the questions but I'm trying to learn what works for people, especially in Australian conditions, so I can do it.
 
megamoo said:
Wow they are growing big... wish mine looked like that. From the look of the first photos you are using straw or something like it for mulch? Any sort of special soil in the beds, what nutrients are they on? And do you have them reticulated or water them manually? If you are travelling I'm guessing it is automated, or you have a very nice "other" to help, like an unusually generous wife or servant child.
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Automated watering? No way! Everything is hand watered ;) In fact, I had some compost tea brewing on Saturday, rolled my ankle that night, and still woke up the next morning and hobbled around the front yard to water the plants.

The "straw" is actually sugar cane mulch. Lucerne mulch is meant to be better, but it breaks down quicker. You could use pea straw mulch, but Bunnings were trying to get rid of some sugar cane mulch that had been removed from their stocklist so I bought about 4 bales.

There is hardly ANY soil in these garden beds. Seriously, there is like 3 bags of soil in each garden bed max. What I did was use the no dig garden technique, also known as lasagne gardening, and that's where you do a layer of hay/straw and a layer of manure alternated until it fills the top. Because I started this in July, the chicken manure had time to settle as it would normally burn the crap out of plants when fresh.

As for nutrients, well it's been a bit of a mixed bag this season. I'm currently using a Guano based product called Phos-Life, but it's pretty expensive. I also built a compost brewer and make some compost tea up every 3 - 4 weeks with worm castings that I have from my 3 worm farms. I also used some stuff called Gogo Juice that you can get from Bunnings, that has a similar principal to compost tea. If you are going to use these microbe based fertilisers you'd be wanting to use rain water, or tap water that's been de-gased so you aren't killing the microbes with the chlorine.

My theory is that these garden beds are nowhere near their peak productivity, as it's going to take another year or two before all the hay & manure is broken down. Just wait until next season!

Hope you don't mind the questions but I'm trying to learn what works for people, especially in Australian conditions, so I can do it.
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Go ahead, ask more questions, it was the only way I was able to learn!
 
By the way, apart from the 130 odd chilli plants in the front yard, here's what else I am growing:

Raspberry
Blueberry
Blackcurrant
Strawberry
Nectarine
Nectarine x Plum
Lemon
Lime
Mandarin
Blood Orange
Coffee
Cacao (Chocolate)
Bananas
Zucchini
Pumpkin
Watermelon
Broccoli
Carrots

And, Frangipanis! My first one flowered the other day:

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your plants look so lush and healthy...I wish we had only two seasons...spring and fall...
 
Thanks for the info. I have seen the layering thing done with newspaper before, it sounded a bit kooky at first but your plants seem to be loving it!! With all the chicken manure don't the plants get overloaded with nitrogen or is that the burn you were talking about when it is fresh? I have seen the Gogo juice in Bunnings but everytime I try to fertilise my plants I seem to overdo it do more harm, so I passed that one by. I'm still learning about how to feed them just right. There are a lot of products out there and they all seem to say that their stuff is the miracle growth stuff and all your dreams will come true if you use it etc.....

I guess the only way to get a grip on it is through experience and trial and error. That's what I'm doing. One of my plants is in a big pot that was layered with a rich mushroom compost potting mix and coco chunks and it is huge now, far above others started at the same time. +1 for layered soil.
 
Did the eWood cost you $1152 or did you find somewhere cheaper? We're looking to do the same but didn't know of a supplier until I read your thread.
 
Photo updates!



Plants in the garden bed are growing great, not many pods on the chinense though. I suspect the first year with all the chicken manure I used meant lots of nitrogen. Hopefully next year the manure will be processed by the worms and I should get more pods in the beds. I don't plan on cutting the plants down, will see how they handle the Melbourne winter.



All these plants are loaded with fruit. I just picked 750 grams of Bhut's to use in some sauces:

 
Wow looks great. Did you ever switch over your fertilizing from nitrogen focused to potassium focused feeding?
 
Excellent crop. For all of us other pepper growers, we need to bookmark this thread. when the spouse starts complaining about our overindulgence in growing peppers, we can show them what a real addict is.

Another good point is that it saves gas for the lawn mower.
 
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