When Goldilocks planted her tomatoes, she either did it too early, getting far too excited about the warming weather, or too late, and she doesn't get tomatoes for Christmas. She never gets it JUST RIGHT. Tomatoes don't seem to know what they're doing around here. I get scores of them self seeding all over the place where I've let the fruit fall to the ground or mice have fallen away. The cherry tomatoes ripen the best but I've never had success with big tomatoes, as they never seem to ripen in time if we plant them Melbourne Cup day (November 1) or, the summer heat means they lack juice and can have spots on them.

The Bureau of Meterology have put El Nino on 'watch', meaning there's a 50 percent chance of it occuring (a normal year is 25 percent), meaning we could be in for pretty dry weather ahead. It's the second driest autumn on record for the south of Australia and a dry outlook for next few months, meaning a dry Spring and an even dryer summer. It's making me re-think my garden - it's hard to water a vegetable patch at the best of times and I just don't know if I've got the heart.

I've been getting excited about wicking beds, and we have an IBC marked for cutting which we'll make for the summer vegetable planting. They'll be ugly, Jamie warns, but hey, I'm a Libran and can make anything look harmonious and beautiful - just watch me.

The wicking premise, by which capillary action draws water into the soil, can be applied to any container, really, so this is how I'm going to experiment with an early tomato. I bought a variety today called 'Tasmanian Chocolate' and it's actually designed for container planting. The label said it's perfect for pots and has black to purple blush beefsteak tomatoes and yield about 1.5 kilos. Whilst I have tons of room for growing bigger tomatoes, that's not the point - I need to have one kept watered without relying on me, and one going now without a greenhouse. Hence the wicking pot (the pipe is slightly hidden behind the tomato plant - I probably should have used a longer pipe but that was the exact length I had and couldn't be bothered cutting it.

I popped a tree guard around it and put it for now in the compost bay, hoping that will keep it warm enough until the cooler weather passes. A green house would be great, sure, but it's kinda redundant for us as there's only a short amount of time we'd really need one - we can grow vegies most of the year round in this mostly temperate climate.

As I was busy finding buckets that would work (this is a 300 mm pot in a 10 litre food grade bucket) and pipes and so on, I actually didn't bother taking photos - but this diagram basically shows the principle. I've got an area tucked away behind the vegie patch that's not visible from the house, so I'm happy to have tubs and baths and things like that behind there for experimenting with growing vegetables in wicking systems. It should reduce our water bill in the summer at least!

So the little 'wicking' resorvoir is made out of an old plant pot that I drilled holes in, and more holes were drilled at the bottom of the bucket. The refill tube is a bit of flexible plumbing pipe I found in the shed (I'm glad J. didn't throw it out on one of his cleaning frenzies). It didn't take me long. I didn't bother with the top lid - I'll probably just mulch it with straw instead or perhaps I'll experiment with another one and use one of the plastic lids I have kept from the food grade buckets J. keeps pinching off me to do man things like put landrover oil in. Grrr (cue Marge Simpson growl).

Oh, and if you're wondering what the om in the title was about, I bought a 'Om' for the garden - 50 percent off in the local Indian store. I do love a bargain. I also love that I can see this from the house, and it marks the entrance to the vegetable garden (we've got a fence around it to stop the rabbits).

There's something poetic about the seed of all creation hanging above a garden of seeds and creation, no?

Have you any experience with wicking beds?

Do you live in an extreme climate that calls for extreme measures like this?

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