Wicking Barrel Modifications

Wicking Barrel MK II
Have come up with what I think is a better way to set up the reservoir section of the barrels so they will hold more water using the ag pipe...

I am going to trial the new barrel set up by growing 5 different types of heirloom Tomatoes as I have found them to be a very thirst plant once they reach about 4 foot in height...
Have a great one...

 Have a good one...

: )»

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How to make an easy as worm barrel farm for lawn clippings garden scraps

It really cant get more simple that this barrel farm.. I call it a dump & walk barrel as that is how I feed it.. A catcher or 2 or lawn clippings get dumped into the barrels & I walk away, its as easy as that.. The prunings & old plants from the veggie bed in the patch go in whole if they are small enough or get the once over with the lawnmower to chop them up a bit if they are to large..

A great type of farm to have under a fruit tree as any nutrients that leach out will feed the tree.. One like this will be added to a new bed we are making out the front soon..

For more regular updates & pictures from the patch come visit us on our Bits Out the Back Facebook page..
Have a great one All...
R?b..

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Wicking Barrel construction

Made up the Passion Fruit Wicking Barrel today & a bit of a video...

More info can be found on this blog HERE, which includes an alternate way of installing the outlet pipe, & HERE which is an entry on how we made our second bed...

A few sites that got me started on the Wicking systems are Easy grow Vegetables.com & Scarecrows Garden Blog... Both were great sources of information & even got the idea for the Shade structure from the Easy Grow site...
Hope that helps any interested persons...
 Have a great one all.....
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Turmeric Barrel MK II

Got a bit of a surprise when I went to check on the Tree Frog that had made the Turmeric Barrel home... Froggy was gone & the filling pipe was ½ full of water.. We had a couple of mm of rain today & the other 2 Barrels right next to it were draining fine so I decided to bite the bullet & empty the barrel to see what the problem was....When we had made these I had run out of the 13mm joiner so used a 13mm elbow Joiner instead...
Because of the Barrels position next to the Chooks day pen, the drain got filled with dirt being scratched up.. There are now Scratch Guards in place to stop this from happening but the damage was done... I just couldnt clean the dirt out from beyond the elbow...

The other problem I overlooked was the quality of the soil going into the barrels.. The decision was made just to use the  "premium" soil mix from a local landscape suppler with some mulch added in as it had next to no organic matter & looks to be  based, from my limited knowledge, on clay & sand.. Would probably make excellent mud bricks though... ; )»
The mix it was replaced with today is a blend of "Premium" soil mix, bulk purchased "Nursery grade" Potting mix & a litre or so of "5 in1" blended through the top layer.. As you can see it isnt anywhere near as clay like as the original... I have learned not to believe in what people call their products, pity it was the hard way... We have also noticed that the "Premium" mix has formed a hard "crust" where we have used it to top dress some of the other beds.. I keep raking the soil between the rows just to allow rain & air to penetrate into the beds...
The Ginger & Galangal will get the same revamp on the weekend even though they have straight joiners as drains.. Just want to make certain they dont get flooded out & rot the Rhizomes...

I did go down to to plant out some Cabbages & Kohlrabi but got side tracked by the Barrel... I did manage to transplant what we think is a capsicum & a Banana Chilli... They went from Bed # 1 into Bed # 2 to live with the new Tomato & Basil plants.. Will be getting some Celery seedlings to go in between in the next day or so...

The long Eggplants are fruiting well now that B? taught me how to "Diddle" them properly...

Started to see a few more of these guys around again lately... Always love to see the larger Parrots around...





Have a great one all....
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