Our final episode for 2021. 

In this episode I share tips that will help you learn how to have something to harvest from your vegetable garden every day with succession planting.

Flowers are an integral part of a thriving organic vegetable garden. 

In this post I talk about why should you grow flowers amongst your vegetables and our favourites to grow and why.

One of the first fruits I started to grow whilst renting was a blueberry. Many years ago blueberries used to be so cost prohibitive to buy here - around $8 for a 125g a punnet. I always thought they were a cool weather fruit after seeing them sell dirt cheap in huge punnets when we were travelling in Canada, but failing to realise that blueberry farms surrounded me in my home town growing up.

In this episode I share some blueberry growing tips. 

If you're a seed hoarder like myself, there is nothing worse than trying to propagate seeds and they are no longer viable even if the date says they should be good. Seeds do have a shelf life, but environmental influences (aka the way you store them) have a massive affect their viability.

In this episode I talk about methods for storing your seeds. 

I have so many people say to me that they are terrible at raising things from seeds. I get it, it can be pretty easy to kill seeds if the conditions aren’t right. Too much water, too little water. Too much sun, not enough sun. 

In this weeks podcast I wanted to share some tips for seed raising. 

Powdery mildew can be devastating to many crops and it is highly infectious so can spread quickly in your garden if you don’t get control of it. 

In this episode I chat about what it is, how to avoid it and how to manage it when you've got it.

Square foot gardening is an intensive gardening technique very popular in the US/UK. 

In this podcast we talk about what it is, the pros and cons and how we do it in Australia.

Tree roots invading your vegetable garden is a huge problem taking water and nutrients. 

In this episode I chat about some strategies we've used here to fix the problem. 

When recently interviewed by Gardening Australia Magazine, I was asked what is my favourite gardening method - and the answer was a no dig method because I am lazy and don't like digging. But laziness isn't the only reason. 

In this podcast I chat about why we do no dig gardening here at Love of Dirt and how we do it. 

Need to buy manure for your garden but confused about what type is the best? 

In this podcast I share my tips for choosing the right manure to give your veggie patch a boost and what ones we choose and why.

All plants need sunlight to produce energy for growth. But some plants need more of it than others to thrive. So how much sunlight does your veggie patch need?

In this episode I chat about what your veggie patch needs, common definitions and working out the best way to position your patch.

Hydroponics and aquaponics are based on the same principals, they both grow food in an inert media using water.

But what is the difference and which is better? 

Do you have a problem with little flies hovering around your indoor plants or even your kitchen compost caddy?

Often people refer to these little monsters as fruit flies, but they are actually fungus gnats or vinegar flies. They don’t bite or spread disease they are just incredibly annoying. 

In this episode I talk about strategies to get rid of those annoying flying bugs inside.

I often get asked whether cat or dog poo can be placed in the compost bin. 

The short answer is yes. With a big fat caveat. You don’t want it mixed with your regular compost that goes in your veggies.

In this episode I chat about why you don't want to mix your pet poo in with your regular garden compost, and what you can do to compost it instead.

Are you vegan but struggle to find solutions that aren’t animal based for your vegan garden? 

For a very long time I was super confused as to how you could be vegan and also eat organically. Organic fertilisers are generally manure based, and manure for the horticulture industry generally comes from the animals within the meat industry. Then there’s worm farming and attracting beneficial insects to murder the bad insects.

In this episode I talk about ways to boost your organic vegan garden soil and keep your garden pest free. 

Carrots can be one of those tricky crops to grow, which can be frustrating considering they are dirt cheap in the supermarket. However, nothing beats a home grown carrot, especially enjoyed straight from the garden.

In this episode I share my carrot tips, along with troubleshooting some common issues. 

The idea of companion planting is a broad term used to describe a method of grouping plants together for mutual benefits, whether it is for pest preventing or growth.

In this episode I talk about the 3 companion planting techniques we use in our garden.

Whenever anyone asks me where they should start when it comes to composting I always say get a composting worm farm.

In this episode I chat about the different types of worm farm setups we've had, we currently use and other options you may want to check out. 

Compost is one of the key ingredients to the success of growing food and there is nothing like home grown compost. If you grow your own food, knowing how to make your own compost is key.

In this episode I talk about the basic process and types of home composting.

I’ve always been one to thin my vegetable seedlings, beetroot included. I have found over the years that plants do better if they’re not competing with resources (sun, water, nutrients). Thinned plants are usually a little more resilient from bug attacks. 

In this episode I chat about my latest experiment with not thinning beetroots, along with some tips for growing them.

If you want an endless supply of greens the simplest thing to do is grow micro greens. From planting to harvest you’re looking at anywhere between 2-4 weeks.

In this episode I chat about types of things you can grow as a micro green and all the tools you'll need to get started.  

Need to buy soil for your veggie patch? 

In this episode I talk about how to avoid disaster with my tips on choosing commercial veggie mix soil and how to make it amazing.

One of the first posts I wrote on our blog was our setup of a mini wicking bed pot. It worked well for a while but the styrofoam eventually failed and I never got around to implementing that type again as I moved to different ways of doing them. 

We’ve had some fails and wins with our various experiments along the way so in this Episode I thought I'd share with you our Wicking bed learnings.

Often we are asked what type of raised bed we prefer to use in our suburban patch. There are a range of options and in this episode I have put together a break down of options to suit the Australian conditions.

Root knot nematodes or eel worms are those hidden annoyances that you don’t really know that you’ve got them until it’s too late. Root knot nematodes are a microscopic parasite that sucks the life out of your plants. 

In this episode we talk about strategies we use when we discover an infestation of root knot nematodes.