Make a Worm Tunnel

On the weekends I usually spend time reading gardening books, old magazines or surfing the net for gardening tips and ideas.  Months ago I saw a picture of a lady making worm tunnels for her garden out of plastic pipe offcuts.  At the time I thought it was a great idea, as my worm farm was not keeping up with the constant supply of food scraps that our household produces. This week I decided to try and make a couple, but do you think I could find the original instructions? Then I remembered.  I'm a man...I don't need instructions! The idea is to take a length of drainage piping, drill holes in it, put it in a hole in the ground, put your food scraps in the pipe so worms will enter through the holes and munch on the scraps. The worms help to break down the organic matter, adding nutrients to the soil, and also assist in aeration, which will help with air and water movement through the soil. Ultimately this will give your garden healthy soil for healthy growing plants. Once the worms have worked their magic the tunnels can easily be moved to other areas in the garden to repeat the process. Here is what I did.

Measure a 45cm length of PVC piping.  Drill random holes around the pipe.  I just used the largest drill bit I had.  Make sure you leave a 5 cm section at one end of the pipe hole-free, as this will be above ground.

This is what it looked like.  In hindsight I think it could have done with a few more holes.

Dig a 40cm hole in a spot where you want the tunnel to be. I chose to put mine in between the rows of broad beans I have growing.  The hole will need to be deep enough so that the 5cm "hole free" section of the pipe is just above ground level.

Give the pipe a gentle tap into the bottom of the hole (I used the flat of the spade) to secure it in place. Carefully back-fill the hole so that no soil goes into the pipe.

Put food scraps in the top and push down with a stick. I haven't totally filled mine yet. I want to see how quickly the worms are attracted to the tunnel. It's easy to add more scraps as they become available. The only scraps I wouldn't suggest putting in is onion peel and citrus.

I used old saucers turned upside down with a rock on top to cover the tunnels. Hopefully this will stop the rain filling them up and unwanted animals getting in. The tunnels can easily be pulled out and placed in other areas in the garden once the scraps have been broken down and there is no room left in the tunnel.

Photo Friday From the Garden: Calendula Officinalis

This Friday's photo is of a Calendula Officinalis bloom.  I raised the seedlings from seeds I had sown in punnets in January (now April).  Most gardeners would agree that they are one of the easiest flowers to grow from seed and provide a beautiful display of flowers. 

HOT TIP OF THE WEEK: Getting rid of weeds

All puns aside this really is a hot tip.
I have been searching for a ‘spray free’ method of getting rid of the weeds that have been popping up through the cracks of my driveway and paths. Can something as simple as boiling hot water really do the job? Honestly, yes. I came across other suggestions: Vinegar, salt, soap solutions, baking powder, blowtorch (which sounded like fun), getting on your hands and knees and pulling them up (boo) etc. But something as simple (and cheap) as boiling water was the method I chose to give a go first. Can’t believe I had not done this before.  It’s as easy as: Make a cup of coffee, tip the rest of the boiling water from the jug on to any weeds, sit down, drink your coffee and watch those weeds die.  Other boiling water I have used this week has been the the water from steaming my vege for dinner.
Here’s the proof.

Before (ie prepare to die)

Pour on the boiling hot water

The next day (even better the day after that)

I have read that you may have to try a second dose if the weeds don’t die.  I have had to do this to the ones with tap roots (eg dandelion). JP

Chilli Sauce

On my walk home from work one summer’s evening I passed a store with a stall of organic seedling plants outside. I find it difficult to pass by such plant stalls without taking a look and this time I was tempted by a punnet of yellow chilli seedlings. Now my only other experience growing chillies was something of a disaster. It was difficult to tell if they were ripe, they were extremely bitter and had no heat whatsoever! Consequently they all ended up in the garden bin.

Being yellow I decided that at least this time I would have some idea of when they would be ripe. I planted three of the seedlings (gave three away) in the corner of my glass house, with nothing more than a dressing of fresh compost. I then watered them every five or six days. Three months later I harvested near on a kg of brilliant yellow, sweet smelling chillies. Biting the end off one confirmed they were indeed hot chillies.
So what to do with them? A tip from my friend Jenny had me freezing some of the chillies, so I could use one or two when required. The rest I turned into sweet chilli sauce.

This is my recipe.
-  300g chillies, 200g red capsicum (if you want it really hot substitute capsicum for chillies), 3 garlic cloves, 3 cups white vinegar, 3 cups sugar.
-  Halve half of the chillies and put in food processor (with seeds), remove seeds of remaining chillies and add to processor.
-  Add chopped capsicum, garlic and half the vinegar to the chillies. -  Process until finely chopped.
-  Put the chilli mix, sugar and rest of the vinegar in a pot and on a low heat. Stir until sugar is dissolved.
-  Turn up the heat until the mixture boils.
-  Turn down heat to simmer and stir every now and then for around 40mins (until sauce thickens). Don’t worry if it’s not totally thick as it will thicken more as it cools.
-  I poured the mixture into jars that had been heated in the oven to sterilise.
Enjoy!

As an aside, I remember as a kid my dad coming out of a public restroom laughing. He then told us about the graffiti he’d read. ‘If you feel like the bottom is falling out of your world, have a chilli curry and have the world fall out of your bottom’.

Plant of the Week: Coreopsis grandflora

Over the next month or so I want to show you some flowers that you can start growing inside now (from seed) so that they will all be ready to plant out once spring hits.  I have chosen Coreopsis for plant of the week due to the fact that is a really easy flower to grow for the beginner gardener (from seed), they produce masses of flowers all through summer (good to cut for the vase and mass of colour in your garden) and are easy to look after (not a fussy plant, will grow well in almost all soil types and will forgive you if you forget to water it).   

The flowers look like daisies and are often bright yellow with the foliage being a dark green.  Coreopsis is often talked about with the common name Tickseed.  I would recommend the Coreopsis grandlflora and in particular ‘Early Sunrise’ as seen in the photo.  You can get seeds for this variety from Kings Seeds https://secure.zeald.com/kingseeds/results.html?q=Coreopsis.

I really get a kick out of seeing the whole process from growing from seed to picking the flowers.  So Coreopsis seeds from Kings will be on my shopping list this year.

Last week’s plant of the week was Whau (Entelia arborescens), and I said I was on the hunt for some of the seedpods so I could try and grow them from seed.  Well, while walking around the Zoo with the kids yesterday I picked a dried seedpod off the ground under a Whau tree.   

Once I pulled the prickly pod apart I got over 30 seeds (along with a baby cockroach).  So tomorrow I’m going to plant 10 of the seeds.  So stay tuned for my success/failure rates.