Steves first SFG

What did you plant in the containers? You can plant some small and/or quick veggies around the perimeter if it isn't too hot this spring, such as radishes, lettuce, or a couple Swiss chard. The container looks deep enough that there should be enough Mel's Mix in the inner square foot to also support these other plants.

The containers are 500mm round and 30cm deep, worked out theyare 2.18square feet 

The first container I have a kent pumkin growing and the second a watermelon, good call re perimeter planting with radishes or lettuces

Consider:  Melons, winter squash, cucumbers, gourds, and of course pole beans or peas, can be grown up a vertical trellis or arch to save ground or bed space.

Saving square footage by growing up:


Typical way of sprawling:

Nice, i just have to consider maximising my sun position, at the best I can get 6hrs of sunlight, anyhting I grow up on the grass / garden bed line will impact my afternoon sun, so hence the melons and pumkins and growing down rather than up

Taken me two and a bit months to prepare the area, clean the old plants out.

Starting to look like a garden again

My before photo, compleltey overgrown with a lavender, lemon grass, i just partitioned it off and it became the chicken area, now my chickens are not happy with me

Those frames look very sturdy. It occurs to me that if you built your garden at 5 or 6 feet high, you might get an extra hour of sunlight. You could put chickens or storage underneath 

The frames are working better than I had hoped, there are holes all up each side for I guess bolting attachments too, works perfect for running some clothesline cable through, instant trellis

That's great.  If you find you need vertical runs, you can tie strings to the top rung and make half hitches as you go down.  

I made this emergency trellis for the bush peas at final sundown.  I started with adding 4 vertical strings tied at the top and bottom.  Then I made the horizontal strings using a half hitch.
Wrap around the secured string.

Then bring it over

and back under

Bring it back towards you and continue on to the right.  It got dark so quickly that I ended up with large spaces.  I will be doing it again, hopefully.  I know your permanent runs are horizontal, but if you turn your head sideways, you will get the idea.  



This was my first attempt in 2014.  After I was done, I realized my mistakes.  But, you get the idea.  When the beans or peas are harvested, you can cut the and remove the strings to attach the tomatoes or winter squash, etc. to just the permanent horizontal wires.

Was going to turn the area into a greenhouse, but with sensible advice from others have refrained, I have however started to cover the roof area, it has 90 percent light transmission.
i will hang some bird netting across the front hopefully next week, our summers are pretty harsh, 40 deg c is not uncommon, 35c and above is our typical summer range

All my baby capsicums and chillis are gone, eaten of to the stem, my sunflower has been attacked, need to seal it a little bit

sanderson wrote:That's great.  If you find you need vertical runs, you can tie strings to the top rung and make half hitches as you go down.  

I made this emergency trellis for the bush peas at final sundown.  I started with adding 4 vertical strings tied at the top and bottom.  Then I made the horizontal strings using a half hitch.

I took some of your ideas and ran some verticals inter twined with the horizontals, hard to see as they are green as well

Simso wrote:Was going to turn the area into a greenhouse, but with sensible advice from others have refrained, I have however started to cover the roof area, it has 90 percent light transmission.
i will hang some bird netting across the front hopefully next week, our summers are pretty harsh, 40 deg c is not uncommon, 35c and above is our typical summer range

My summers get up to 43-44*C (110-111*F) and sun shade is a life saver. Is the cover a transparent plastic?

All my baby capsicums and chillis are gone, eaten of to the stem, my sunflower has been attacked, need to seal it a little bit

Oh, no!  Birds?  Or, snails/slugs/rolly pollies/earwigs?  For the later I lightly sprinkle Sluggo PLUS (iron phosphate with spinosad) which is organic rated.

Yes, I can see the vertical runs when I enlarge the photo.

Yes transparent plastic, it does reduce the lighting by 10 percent apparently, the one thing I do not like is  it also cuts theuv, which IMO is good for plants

I will just net the sides this weekend, so I dont restrict airflow and allow the heat to build.

We have some 40 degree days this week, so going to go up and get some shade cloth that I can clip into place on those hot days and remove on days below 35c

We live opposite a park, which is good and bad, at 5am in the morning all you can hear is birds, galahs, parrots, magpies, crows, pigeons, litrally every breed of bird you could imagine, so tasty morning snacks for them

Managed to get some curtain wire from ikea.

When not in use I can store the shade cloth at one end.

On days when its 36c or greater, tomorrow being 38, then a 42 and another 42, i can pull it out and give some light shading (only 20 percent shade cloth) to my more leafy plants in the grow beds from 1pm onwards, peak heat typically hits us in perth at around 2pm

Unloaded the composter today, mixed it in with two other sources of compost

So have a sourced vegie compost
A mushroom compost
My back yard compost which has small amounts of chicken poop in the mix

Is this too much or too little of a re-add

My new mix



One heaped spade


My newest compost

If you are just doing fast succession planting, one or two hand trowels may be enough. For overwinter, bucket fulls may be needed to bring the level overall level in the bed back up to the original height.

I say overwinter, because the compost will continue to decompose into smaller and more usable material for providing nutrients.

I think of the process of adding compost as providing nutrients to be available at a later time. That is, for summer crops, I add new compost in the fall. For winter crops, they are using the compost I added in the spring.

My sfg is officially one month old yesterday

Have harvested 8 lettuces, 32 radishes so far from it.

From this 5 dec 2021



To this 6 jan 2022

Found a place that I could buy some frames from to extend existing area

Laying them out for next couple of grow beds

Finding another frame is excellent!

The photo shows the sun shade that you erected.  It looks more like a gauzy curtain rather than a true sun shade, letting the sun clearly shining through.  I'm thinking that if you doubled it up it might be better.  Give it a try.  Bring the hem or bottom of the curtain up so it's shorter but doubled.  See if that helps with leaf and fruit burn.

My first experience with sun protection was using sheer curtain material.  It actually created a heated tent effect so I made sure it vented.  Even then, I was fighting a loosing battle.  

Next I tried Agribon.  That was even worse.  I think Agribon works great for frost protection so it exasperated the sauna condition.  Tossed that idea out.  

Finally I tried the 75% shade cloth over individual beds and it was better as long as it was open on the ends, open on the sunrise side and/or short enough to allow a good breeze over the plants.

Then I said, forget it, and rigged overhead support across the whole garden with long banners of 75% sun shade.  Finally, the gardener herself, and granddoggie got some sun relief, also.  I hope some of this helps. 

A comment on the black plastic containers. Plastic containers of any color in the sun in hot regions will make the Mel's Mix and roots hot. So, I wrap mine in aluminum foil during the summer. Plus top with bedding straw (E-Z Straw here) as mulch. Another non-SFG gardener posted a photo of his long double rows of 5-gallon buckets draped with burlap for the same reason. Just an idea.

K, so have changed the shade cloth overhead to 50 percent heavy duty weave

They didnt have enough for me to change my side panel so that will be at a later date

My system allows me to remove and install shade cloth in under a minute, using fitted stainless curtain wire.

Getting there, now just got to get some form of cheap airflow as the air is stagnant in the grow area

I spent the morning making and cutting boards for the new garden bed, not sure if i want to go with individual square foot containers or full bed like the other one.

It was 39c yesterday, i put a small 12 inch house fan at the entrance area yesterday, it moved the patio air into the garden area.

Before the fan, the area was 42c after the fan install and running for an hr it was 37c, so huge difference IMO

Need to find a good 12v fan suitable for the job as I have a car battery in the area which runs my water supply hose, so can possibly wire it to that