I ended up getting 5x 65L bags of sheep/cow manure, and 2 big bales of straw. That’s all I could afford this week. At $93 I felt a little ripped off, but it seems to be the going rate in our area. I would really love to get some mouldy spoilt hay because it’s a bit softer and easier to mulch with, and also I feel bad using this good stuff because it’s really clean and edible looking. I dunno if livestock eat straw? Is there a difference between hay and straw? I feel dumb, but the guy at the landscaping place went ‘er, you mean straw?’ when I asked for hay?

I think that next week I’ll order $100 worth of manure, and the week after that, $100 worth of straw, and that way I can do all the fruit trees too and some other parts of the garden (roses, etc). I think I’ll get it from a different supplier though, because at the other place they sell bags of sheep poo only, which I would prefer. The cow/sheep mix is Ok, but it is already quite broken down. For the trees, etc., I think sheep poop would be slightly more ’slow release’.

The chooks got some nice fresh hay in their coop, too, which should keep them nice and cosy tonight.

My garden looks as though I’m a little old Italian lady, I know. I thought I’d misplaced the end of the watering can though; good thing I took a photo! I can see now that I put it on top of one of the fencing stakes!

The darker patch of soil is where I’ve tipped out & raked out the bags of manure. On this side I haven’t planted much yet because I’m going to put some tomatoes in, but in parts I’ve planted lettuce and carrot seeds. I’ll probably pull out the swiss chard plants you can see here, once the silverbeet has germinated – the chard is all wilted and not doing too good. The now-antique spring onions will stay; I might plant some more inbetween them though to make their patch a bit more productive.

In this side I’ve got sugarsnap peas, 4 rows of silverbeet, 3 rows of radishes, 3 rows of mizuna, and 3 rows of carrots. I’ve tried to mulch the already-there plants with some straw to keep them going. Here you can see the gooseberry plant and some capsicum plants from last season. I think I’ll pull out the capsicums eventually and plant some news ones; these didn’t do to well.

I forgot to take a pic of the seed trays and pots, but I ended up planting celery in 3 of the trays, and used the pots for cucumbers, zucchinis and squash. I’ll use the remaining trays & pots to grow some tomatoes, capsicums and chillis; probably tomorrow if I can still move! The garden looks a mess in these pics but I’m still pretty exhausted; probably from lifting the bags of manure – they’re bloody heavy!!

I’m thinking of planting some beans next to where the BBQ is, because they would get plenty of sun there and if I string some wire between the posts that support the grapevines, then they beans will be able to creep up and look good I think. (I know what I’m talking about! lol)

I think too that I might make a few smaller decorative vege plots around the backyard. Most of the backyard is grass; our vege patch is pretty tiny. And the more we spread it out, the less mowing we’ll have to do. I’m thinking I’ll make a couple of rectangular plots to grow tomatoes it, and a few round plots to put up some bamboo teepees for beans.

We’ll see anyway. I really need a new shovel; ours has no handle and getting splinters in my hands everytime I go to dig is becoming a bit annoying. Might pop down and steal one of Dads