Weekly status of tyre garden - update 12

Three months since I started this. Looking at earlier photos, there's been a lot of development in the form of slow progress. I suppose it's nearly at the steady state stage in that the "infrastructure" of the garden is mostly in place, and from now on it'll be a matter of crop renewal and maintenance in the form of weeding and harvesting.

Lots of rain this week - no drought here.

The Moneymaker tomatoes are nearly as tall as I am, and are flowering but oly a few have set. Some of the Roma are about 15mm to 25mm in diameter, and plenty more on the way. Youngberries are in season and producing a daily bowl or two. Everything else doing pretty well, but, apart from salady stuff, not harvestable yet apart from:

... broad beans, bush beans, pattypans and zucchini. And peas, but not yet in any quantity... Two of the globe artichokes are showing a bud, so that's also imminent.

Mielies are now getting a move on, but showing lingering bad effects of radish intercropping, so won't be successful. The survivors show that they can grow well in tyres, though - five in a tyre x 5 tyres could give a reasonable crop.

Florence fennel slower than expected - they're doing OK, but haven't put on much weight over the past few weeks. Cabbage heads forming - probably 10 - 15cm diameter. Kale doing nicely, but still lanky. Parsnips about to bolt, and night let them to get seed. Celery has bolted. Spring onions OK.

Not much else going on, other than completion of grape trellis (visible in background), and installation of another ten tyres, which will need to be filled with compost. These are mostly destined for strawberries if I want to do them properly. And I do...

Walnut

Battling along on its own - I haven't paid it much attention, and it's now going into year 2. Hasn't grown that much, but also hasn't died yet.

This is my third attempt - the first was in Bonaero Park in the early 80's, and it did this sort of thing before we sold the house when we moved to Grahamstown. The second attempt was in the 90's in Grahamstown, and didn't even get this far - it died within a year.

Sandersonia

A strange sort of Chinese lantern looking flower.

What happened to Witsa runner beans?

As I've posted before, I've hunted high and low for this runner bean for more than three months - in Grahamstown, Port Elizabeth, George, and Cape Town - to no effect. It's completely unavailable, with no why or wherefore. Which is a pity, because it's the only runner worth growing. Over my dead body will Lazy Housewife pollute my trellises again - it's a nasty horrible bean.

Well, I got an explanation of sorts today from the guy at Sunnyside Nursery - apparently Witsa has been recalled because of some or other mislabelling issue. He had to send back all his stock to the seed company.

The unanswered question, really, is how the heck? Is that the real reason? And when will it become available again? Have we missed a whole season?

Anybody with more details, please enlighten me?

Update 2016/09/06:

Still not available in Grahamstown.

I've been making do with Contender bush beans.

Update 2019/10/09:

Still not available in local nurseries or other places that sell seed.

BUT, I've been able to buy some from Livingseeds, who have come up with another, real [?] explanation, namely that the sole commercial supplier had died, with no-one to take over the business from him, leading to a hiatus in the supply chain.

Can anyone confirm or deny these stories? Or come up with another explanation?

Anyway, after about 5 years, I'm back in business!

Weekly status of tyre garden - update 11

Rained gently most of yesterday. Cold night and morning, snow on neighbouring mountains.

Everything doing well, and still no aphids. Plenty of slugs, though.

Planted out remainder of strawberries. Harvested remaining radishes, clearing all the intercropped tyres.

Patty pans are nearly there... although they're close, still no completely open male flowers anywhere, so it's not obvious there'll be any set from these early ones.

Bok Choi

Two seedlings out of a twelve pack. It's different to Chinese Cabbage.

Giant grasshopper

Sitting happily in the raspberries. Probably 75mm long.

There's an equally large bright green and plumper version that sits in the trellised beans on this side of the garden.

Cicada

Sitting near the top of bamboo stake supporting "Moneymaker" tomatoes. Quite a handsome beast, and isn't doing any damage.

My ears are so buggered I can't really hear these guys anymore.

Weekly status of tyre garden - update 10

Hard to believe it's more than two months since starting recording the progress of this experiment. There's a few lessons been learnt, which I'll summarize in later postings.

It's been an overcast but warm week, with some wind. Last weekend (when I was away) there were one or two scorchers. Most tyres are OK as regards irrigation, a few are slightly dry.

This week worked out how to cut sidewalls out of tyres, added eight tyres (for total of 107) to reach limit of space for the moment, planted peppers and chilis, did some tidying up - staking, weeding, etc - and started looking at trellis system for grapevines. Nearly run out of useable compost and next batch almost ready for turning. I need to still fill two medium tyres, and two large ones. Leaf blowing managed to top up the new compost, and will need to trim lawns soon.

Everything doing well, and still no signs of aphids, my bugbear last season. Still got slugs, snails, grasshoppers, and caterpillars, though.

Getting good crops of "Contender" bush beans, and salad greens.

It started drizzling about 17h00.

More chili's

"Black Pearl", which claims to be "very hot"...

In the ground, between tyres, next to guava tree. Bought in Cape Town.

Leftmost rear is "King of the North", and seven seeds planted a few weeks back have taken. They're at the two leaf stage.
Rightmost rear is "Sweet Banana", but only three took. I planted a few more today.
Leftmost front is "Giant Aconcagua", planted today.
Rightmost front is "Nu Mex Big Jim", also planted today.

I'll do "Giant Jalapeno" tomorrow in the spare tyre near the Pepperdews.
Update 2015/11/15: Done.

Update 2016/01/28:

Leftmost front is now Brown Poblano, Rightmost rear is replanted Sweet Banana.

Update 2016/02/14:

This is the Nu-Mex Big Jim. Two plants have survived and seem pretty healthy. The three chili's are big - so far about 10cm long - and reputedly hot. There's more on the way.

So, that took exactly three months.

There are a few Brown Poblano and Sweet Banana seedlings at the two/four leaf stage, and there are quite a few King of the North plants flowering, with some small fruit.

Update 2016/02/17:

Most of my chili plants are suffering from leaf curl despite growing vigorously. This doesn't seem to affect their flowering or the fruit that does grow. I've been googling this, and there's lots of theories about virus infection, lack of nutrients, plants being root bound, over watered, etc.

There was one comment about thrips (thysanoptera) being responsible. I'll have to see if I can capture some. Pity I can't ask my dad (Charles Frederic J-G) what they are - he always maintained that the only real world job an entomologist could get was one killing insects.

Update 2016/02/21:

Nu Mex Big Jim looking big.

Black Pearl going red... No thrips on this one.

Preparation of tyres for use as planters, and their sizes and volumes

Only now, after nearly 100 deployed tyres, do I learn what I should have been doing all along, which is this:

To reach this stage, you need the right tool for the job, which, according to an informative Youtube video, is:

Cutting the sidewall out of the tyre using a hook blade in a box cutter is actually trivial - it takes a minute or two, even for very large tyres, but requires a bit of pressure. You just have to be careful the knife doesn't jump out and take a chunk out of your shin when you're pulling on it.

Initially, I was concerned about reinforcing wire in the tyres, but the Youtube video showed there aren't any in the sidewall. So, getting carried away, I sorted out the days collection of eight new tyres (which means I've now reached my space limit - unless...):

Normal tyres, destined to contain more piquant peppers.

Two larger 4x4 type tyres, destined for bigger, more perennial plants - perhaps ultimately horseradish/globe artichokes? Or Patty pan squash? The other two large tyres contain a transplanted rhubarb, and some red skinned potatoes.

Then I tried my hand at dealing with some of the existing tyres, and it was an easy enough cut even though a bit awkward to manoeuvre round. Say three minutes instead of two. You'll notice the improved technique giving a more regular cut closer to the treads. The weight of the filled tyre gives a bit more control while cutting. An empty one moves around quite a bit under the pressure of the cut.

You can see the extra surface area for planting that can be obtained by taking out the sidewall from the impression of where the rim was. I'll do some measurements and calculate areas and volumes tomorrow.

And you can see the effect of the rim on water penetration - the rim acts like a roof, so only the middle part gets direct moisture. Also it's a haven for slugs and other beasties.

The down side of removing the sidewall from a tyre already filled with compost is that there's nowhere to hide the detached rim, which could be a bit of a disposal problem. With a new tyre it's easy, you just put the separated rim into the bottom of the empty tyre and fill it up. It's guaranteed to fit in there quite neatly and takes up minimal volume.

Now it's just a matter of slowly sorting out the un-modified tyres as I replant over the next several months/years.

Should have done this ages ago, but it's never too late to learn. I'll need to adjust the irrigation system to cover the new additions.

Update 2015/11/14:

Here's the numbers for 1 medium size tyre:

Diameter across trimmed sidewall = 520mm. Radius = 0.26m.

Diameter with sidewall = 400mm. Radius = 0.2m.

Depth/height = 200mm, = 0.2m

Some arithmetic: Surface area with sidewall = 0.126m^2, circumference = 1.126m
                                             without sidewall = 0.212M^2, circumference = 1.63m

So, cutting out the sidewall increases the surface area by 68%.

Volume without sidewall = 42.5 litres.

Weight of compost (density 590kg/m^3 according to superficial google search) = 25kg.

Here's dimensions and associated numbers for other tyres:

Wide rim height = 300mm, radius about 280mm, Volume = 73 litres. Weight of compost = 43kg.

The 4x4 type tyre.

Diameter = 650mm, radius = 325mm (average across distorted oval shape).

Height = 260mm.

Volume = 86 litres. Weight of compost = 50kg.

Now I have a total of 103 average size tyres installed, and 4 large, so total weight of compost required was = 2775kg, or 2.8 metric tons. Just as well that I make my own!

That's a lot of leaves and stuff.

Hybrid Squash Star 8080 - patty pan II?

Planted 3 seeds in open ground. Claims 50 days to harvest, so should be eating these by Xmas?

Update 2015/11/28:

They didn't germinate, so planted four more in a seed box this afternoon. Three seeds left in packet.

Update 2015/12/06:

Still no signs of germination. Mark this one down in the book of failure to do anything at all except waste time.

Update 2015/12/13:

One seedling. Let's see if more come up. Two weeks to germinate seems quite a long time.

Update 2015/12/20:

Two seedlings - at last - from the three seeds planted in open ground. That's five weeks to germinate?

Update 2016/01/28:

Flowering while still quite small - might be better suited to tyres?

Climbing beans

These aren't runner beans? I still can't find any Witsa - none in Grahamstown, PE, Cape Town or George. But, according to Sunnyside, their catalogue shows them as available. So, ?

I've never seen Climbing White Emergo for sale before. I got these in Cape Town. Apparently similar to Scarlet Runner, but better tasting, and more heat tolerant. These will become perennials...

I've got no climbing beans going, so planted 3 beans in each of 3 black bags around trellis. Let's see what happens. Probably best to thin them when they sprout, given they form a tuberous root.

Update 2015/11/13:

Not technically a runner or a climber, this is a Lima bean plant which nevertheless seems to need a trellis.

Update 2015/11/22:

The Climbing White Emergo just emerging from the soil in two of the three bags. That's 10 days.

Update 2015/11/24:

Almost full house for Emergo.

And the single Lima grows on...

Update 2015/11/27:

Pulled up 4 seedlings, 4 left. They're really healthy and quick growing.

Update 2015/12/03:

Update 2015/12/06:

Update 2015/12/13:

Small Lima bean pods showing. There'll be a lot of them. What to do - leave to ripen and dry out? Probably.

Emergo climbing nicely, despite being on trellis most affected by wind.

A batch of "Blue Peter", not a bad bean, but not the nicest. Waiting for Witsa to be available.

Update 2015/12/20:

White Emergo.

Blue Peter.

Update 2016/01/24:

Climbing White Emergo - many flowers, not so many bean pods.

Likewise for Lima beans, Saving the seeds, and will plant more next season.

Update 2016/01/28:

Update 2016/02/09:

Planted six of the lima beans, three have come up so far.

The White Emergo have a few pods, but seem to suffer from the heat:

There have been lots of flowers and small pods, but most drop off. Could it be a pollination problem?

Update 2016/02/26:

Whoite Emergo - the large ones haven't dried out yet. Not much of a yield, even though the plant is quite vigorous.

These are the lima beans, 2nd generation. All  six have sprouted.

Update 2016/04/10:

Here's the second generation a month or two later, doing nicely.

The first generation, having something of a renaissance... there seem to be more flowers and pods than the first time round. Maybe these are perennials?

The white emego and blue peter didn't do well at all.