Australian Bush Life

We have 2 ways of getting seed to grow and produce a beautiful vegetable with fruits you can eat.

1. Add the seed directly to the ground in our vegie patch.
2. Grow seeds in pots or trays and nurture before planting out seedlings into our vegie patch.

Seedling with protector from slugs, snails and slaters.

Using either technique we always have the issue with slugs, snails or slaters eating our young seedlings. Even a tiny nibble by one of these invertebrates can be fatal as they love to take a nip out of the stem completely cutting a seedling in half.

We have been really working hard trying to improve our rate of raising seedlings from seed with minimal effort and tackling slugs, snails or slaters particularly using natural (non-chemical) techniques has been a challenge.

For small seeds such as carrot, radish, parsnip, coriander, dill etc we tend to go with the tactic of just planting out heaps directly into the vegie patch. Using lots of seed with the hope that invertebrate pests won’t be able to eat every germinant or seedling. We have found that to do this in an efficient and cheap matter it is really worthwhile to harvest our own seed so that we have plenty to play with and can afford to loose some this way.

For larger seeds that we plant directly into the vegie patch such as peas, snowpeas, beans, beetroot we plant the seeds inside a seedling protector so that they get the chance to grow with reduced predation by slugs, snails or slaters. We also use a seedling protector if we plant out seedlings that we have grown and nutured in pots or trays before transplanting such as curcubits (pumpkins, cucumbers, zucchinis, squash), tomatoes, chillis, capsicums, eggplants, corn etc.

Seedling protectors on hand in the vegie patch.

We have made all our own seedling protectors using recycled materials. We started with good quality plastic yoghurt tubs but in the end found that PVC plumbers piping was probably best in terms of durability and lasting potential when out in the weather. We don’t buy the piping but have found it all through local hard waste collections. 90mm  diameter piping is the best but smaller and larger diameters can work too. We simply cut lengths about 150mm long.

The best tips we have found for making the seedling protectors most user friendly have been:

• Have plenty readily on hand so that you can grab one or many easily when and where you need them (we have about 50 scattered around our vegie patch).
• Ensure that the opening is wide so that the seedlings inside are easy to water, a small opening makes it difficult.
• Use the protectors to create micro-climates to nuture your seedlings, protect from sun etc
• Don’t put mulch up too close to the protector while the seedling is small as this provides hiding spots for slugs, snails or slaters. The protectors only reduce the chance of the seedling being found.
• Make sure that no slugs, snails or slaters are trapped inside the protector this will be fatal for the seedling.
• Use other manual techniques to reduce the overall number particuarly of slugs and snails.

The small amount of extra effort in using the protectors greatly improves our seedling success rate. We tend to only keep the protectors on until the seedlings have begun growing their secondary or adult leaves and look big and strong enough to tackle the invertebrate pests. Usually this is about 3 – 5 adult leaves present, not including the original 1-2 leaves that are produced immediately after germination. Keep the mulch away from the seedling stem a little longer also helps.

We have been using the same enviro laundry ball now for over a year and they are fantastic. You don’t need to use any laundry powder at all – don’t worry we questioned this at first but they work! It is amazing to see how much dirt comes out of your clothes.

We were concerned about the laundry products we use as we put all our laundry water (grey water) out onto our fruit and vegetables during the warmer months between about September – April. Then during winter it goes into a septic system. We didn’t want to have powders that effected the natural (microbial) systems of either our garden or our septic system.

Most concerning in many laundry powders were the levels of salt and nutrient (like phosphate) which can adveresly effect plant/s and soil life (microbes). So doing some research we decided to give these a go and they have been just fantastic. We have had a very successful growing season this summer - all our fruit and vegies have loved the extra grey water and they tasted just great.

There has been some great research done on environmental issues around water quality from laundry liquids and powders and we recommend checking out these results if you use your grey water on your gardens, particularly your edible garden. click on the “laundry brochure” for a PDF summary on the “laundry” page at Lanfax Labs Research.

Plastic water tank after bushfire. Melted remains went to landfill.

We had a 2000 litre plastic water tank that was up against our main shed, and both shed and tank burnt in the bushfire. The water tank did have a small amount of water still in it, but not much as it had been a long, hot and dry summer leading up to the bushfire.

On the evening of the bushfire our shed caught alight from embers between 1 – 2 hours after the fire front itself passed through our bush block. At this stage the additional heat from the burning shed evaporated the last of the water inside the plastic water tank and then the air inside superheated to a point where it basically exploded. The explosion further enhanced the burning of the shed – all too late for either shed or water tank by this stage.

We are still in the process of organising ourselves new sheds and tanks as we are trying to make good decisions and not hurry into things that don’t end up working well in the long run. We will definately be buying either steel or concrete tanks and not be using a plastic water tank again. An empty steel or concrete tank could be damaged by the heat of a bushfire but is unlikely to explode adding additional gases etc for the ignition and fuel of fire.

There is also more possibility that a steel or concrete water tank could be fixed and re-used if damaged therefore be more sustainable as a lifecycle of this product. We can’t imagine where most of our plastic water tank disappeared to. There must have been a whole lot of nasty fumes dissipated into the atmosphere somewhere and the plastic melted blob that remained just ended up in landfill and this is not sustainable.

Gang-gang Cockatoos at our birdbath

If you want to enjoy the birdlife in your garden then having a birdbath is a must. So many people have bird feeders, laying out seeds etc for birds to eat. We are very worried about this approach as it has so many negative impacts on indigenous birds. Changing their foraging behaviours & diet and increasing their potential to get sick from malnutrition or diseases at uncleaned bird feeders. Not to mention that it encourages some of the feral birds in our area like Indian Mynahs, Starlings and Feral Pigeons which all compete with our indigenous wildlife for resources. 

All you need is a birdbath strategically located in a highly visible place so you can observe and enjoy all your visitors. Almost every bird species that we have observed on our block uses our birdbath. The exception is Kookaburra’s they are always here singing away in the trees, but we never see them use the birdbath.

King Parrot eating seeds of Cherry Ballart - Exocarpus cupressifirmis. Also a Bushtucker plant.

Just keep the birdbath clean and topped up with fresh water. Birdbaths require a bit more cleaning in summer as warmer water gets dirtier more quickly and the sides may need a regular scrub to remove algae build up. Also place the birdbath in an area which has good landing places and a bit of vegetation, preferably indigenous plants around it as the birds like to come in and land on a branch nearby to check out the safety of the birdbath first.

We do also ensure that we actually provide visiting birds and other wildlife with food, but we do this by ensuring that we keep indigenous plants in the garden of which they regularly come to feed from. We can’t stress enough how important keeping our gardens full of local plants of different varieties is to ensure the diversity of wildlife come to visit.

Many people these days are obsessed with behaviours that are going to be seriously detrimental to maintaining wildlife diversity – biodiversity. Mowing (especially mowing bush and turning it into weeds), fire prevention practices which includes mowing and other forms of “tidying up” such as picking up all the groundcovers (leaves, twigs, logs etc) and an overall lack of appreciation or understanding of how beautiful our indigenous plants are. Usually this is shown through planting exoctic plants – do people see these as more beautiful? Even worse when indigenous plants are removed to plant exotic ones!