Christmas Vegetable Gardening

Took some pictures this morning just after the early morning watering. Please see below. The vegetable garden needs a fair bit of maintenance and work on it as you can see. I will in the next couple of days plant more carrots, shallots, and cucumbers etc and sought out the tomatoes. And more weed pulling. I must admit, the last few months have been very busy and my vegetable garden has been on the back burner amongst other things. Not as much in the patch as I thought I would (ie growing what I want), but still will be great.

So have a Merry Christmas and hope your vegetable gardening endeavours are successful during 2011.

Garlic Spray Recipie, Other

I have come across a great little recipe using Garlic. It's organic and I thought I'd reproduce it and post on my blog. This spray will last for between 24 to 72 hours but variable to the local temperature, moisture and available sunlight. It's source is from the Gardening Australia Website and CREDIT to them.

Garlic spray recipe
To make a large quantity of garlic spray, follow this recipe:

500g crushed garlic
150-200mls liquid paraffin (just enough to cover garlic)
2.5L water
150g pure soap

• Soak the garlic and paraffin together for 24-48 hours
• Add remaining ingredients and stir thoroughly
• Filter the mixture well (a commercial filter or sieve is best, but a piece of muslin or tea towel will suffice).
• Store in a glass container (flagon bottles or jars are excellent), away from sunlight.
• Dilute at the rate of 15-30mls of concentrate per 1L of water, depending on use.

Spray when pests are active; for instance, apply spray in the late afternoon or evenings for night-feeding pests.
Other additives may be used at the first stage. Crushed chilli is very powerful, but be careful not to touch eyes or other sensitive parts when dealing with chilli.

A quicker recipe

• Chop or crush three or four entire bulbs (approximately
  100g).
• Mix with 40mls mineral oil, 500mls water and 25g pure soap flakes.
• Steep for at least 24 hours.
• Filter and dilute at 15mls to 1L of water.

Use for aphids, snails, chewing caterpillars or any soft-bodied insects.

Here are some photos that I have just shot less than half an hour ago:

The first details mainly the potatoes and how I have increased the layer of soil around them to increase the stem area where the tubers can form. Also protects them from exposure to the sun and the potatoes going green. I had to ensure the growing tips of the potatoe plants were still exposed. I did this late yesterday. I the background you can see I relocated the rain gauge behind the potatoes (near the vegetable garden entrance) for a more accurate reading of the rainfall. Before I had it against a post which wasn't good at all.

The next two pictures are at different angles.

The last shows the garlic and leek in the background. Also on the right of the picture shows the newish generation of shallots.Will be able to start harvesting them in a couple of weeks. Yum. The Garlic I expect to harvest in about a month. In a few weeks I will cover them to drastically reduce the amount of rainfall or me watering them. The bulbs need to dry out so I can harvest them in December. If they get wet, harvesting damp bulbs will go mouldy and won't last as long in my cool dark pantry.

Auf Wiedersehn. Bye.

Cucumber and Sweet corn

Sowed Cucumber and Sweet Corn seeds about midday today. Specifically; 3 x Cucumber seeds per hole, 1 x Sweet Corn seeds per hole. Watered well and they at the moment are located inside but uncovered brick courtyard (warm local micro climate). Noticed only one, yes only one Black Russian Tomato seedling plant out of 32 growing. Something has gone wrong here, not sure. Possibly the seeds were off. Very low odds. Hope I have a higher chance in tommorrows Melbourne Cup. :-) Good rain over the weekend - 10mm in total. Also raining now and amount unknown.

Happy vegy gardening!

Regards, Steve the VegyGardener.

End of October Sow

I pulled out the old cabbage and brocolli. I actually harvested one cabage with K used in her cooking tonight. All the brocolli and cabbage went to yellow flower. In this area, I sowed Basil, four Pumpkin plants (two seeds per hole), eight Roma tomato plants, eight Grosse Lisse tomato plants. Put tomato stakes in too. These sixteen plants I purchased from a Canberra nursery. I put the pumpkins on the outside edge so when they grow I will encourage them the grow outside the patch. Last year the pumpkins filled the vegie patch up and over took the area. I will put the old cabbage and brocolli plants in the compost when I have the chance.

In with the climbing beans I sowed four pumpkin plants also on the outer edge. I will force them to grow outside.

I had saved some seeds of some mixed tomatoe plants last season so I sowed them all today in a small spot and put pea straw mulch over the top. Sowing the tomatoe plants I think is abit late but who cares, I have done it anyway. Also in the same format I sowed parsley seeds from a commercial packet also under mulch. This in the bed with the already growing red onions. The red onions should be ready to harvest before Christmas.

In the old orange carrot bed I sowed red capsicum seeds from last season which I saved. Just a note, there are two lots of seeds. One lot which I sowed in the bed furthest from my house were collected on the 18 July 2010, and the lot sowed closest to my house were collected on the 5 June 2010. They are sowed beside each other yet separate. I would like to find out how each grows and if one is better than the other. So more on this later.

Pulled out quite abit of weeds from the patch. The normal thing. Also mulched with pea straw the lettuce plants which I must say are growing well. I separated the lettuce plants a couple of weeks back I think. Putting mulch around the lettuce does three things; 1. keeps the ground warm, 2. keeps the ground moist, 3. keeps the lettuce leafs clean. I have never put mulch around lettuce like this before, but I only see great benefits.

I sowed Asparagus seeds months and months ago and they are growing very nicely indeed. I will give them away to my friends, if wanted. Nice little ferns. Also the Sage and Dill plants are growing well and NOW ready to be harvested. I keep putting it off and need to do it shortly.

Please see the photos below that were taken today:

Early Spring Activities

At the moment I have lots of dill. Last season the dill plants went to seed and that seed spread in that little area and this year (season) and now I have dill plants everywhere. Plenty of them. So in the coming week or two at most, I need to harvest most of this dill and store it away. The way I plan to do this is pick them, then straight away place them into the microwave for 3 minutes on high and that will dry the dill out. Then it can be stored in containers. This should keep the colour and flavour of the dill for later use in cooking.

In the last 1-2 weeks:

I planted Thyme, and Corriander. Because each needs to stay moist, I sowed the seeds with pea straw over the top to help keep that moisture in the soil.

Also planted a new generation of silver beet, purple carrots, red onions, and four plants of climbing beans. At the time of writing this entry into my blog, the silver beet and purple carrots are starting to show through. In regards to the the herbs sowed, can't see much because of the pea straw.

See picture below (shows sage too growing well from same plant as last season and the asparagus):

In other news, put cow manure around each asparagus crown. The shoots are growing well and fast! Strong looking shoots too! Also dug in more manure into the ground where the potatoes are. Pulled out weeds from the patch. Day temperatures are starting to become warmer in the early 20's. Just perfect for this time of the year. Afew weeks back we had quite abit of local rain, so that was great. Paddock grass the other week grew fast at 4 inches (100mm) in one week. With warm weather and decent rain, the vegetable garden is growing well too. Just afew days back sowed black russian tomatoe seeds in my little green house. Still too early for putting tomotoes out in the open. Sowed Desiree and Pontiac seed potatoes. Put them in rather deep becuase I thought it would be very helpfull for a longer protection because we can get a late frost in October. Dug up the last spring onions which were not harvested. More later! Steve the Vegygardener.

End of Winter Vegetable Gardening

Preparation

Today I eagerly dug over most of my vegetable patch. It's important because when one does, it allows air and light into the soil. I am combining beds together to make larger vegetable beds to save space. I'll get more out of it this year. I will in the coming month or so draw up the new bed layout within the vegetable garden. A little thought is needed by me as to what I will grow in the beds and when rather than just chuck it all in like last year. Also I spread over by hand a Blood and Bone product to most of those areas. In the coming week there should be abit of showery and rainy weather so it should be good for the blood and bone to soak in abit. I'm thinking ahead. Pulled out all the weeds I could see. There was quite a few naturally. With recent wet weather the weeds come out like butter.So today I just didn't hang around, unlike the Australian hung Parliament.

Update on seeds; all seeds - onions, lettuce etc are coming through now. Just a week to go till Spring.

See the below pictures of what the patch looked like today, after what I did. Just a quick note: the third photo shows (look closely) new asparagus heads growing.

Late Winter update

Hey to all those thousands of people who are interested,

I cut back asparagus plants today. The old withered brown growth was cut off, this old growth resembled the ferns which you can see in the various pics in my past posts. The seeds which I planted some time back have still not emerged and are still okay I hope. That's fine, they take a while. Back to my actual vegy garden, new shoots are growing so that is good, I suppose the plants think it is Spring. Nearly! Some are a inch long already and rather thick. In the coming week I need to add compost to the asparagus plants. This will give them the needed nutrients and food for the Spring growing season.

Pulled out some weeds that were in the patch. Still more to do. I am getting ready for turning over the fallow ground ready for compost top up and airing it all out. Spring is coming and doing this hardish work now will result in a plentiful Summer harvest. So I'll be changing the layout of the vegetable garden for this seasons patch. I need to use the space I have for the patch better, in other words, become more efficient with the area. In a previous post, I mentioned I will be doing it, and I will.

Pulled out the last of the carrots. Pulled out all purple carrots too. Jacinta and I cleaned, blanched, cut, and frooze them this morning for later use.

Anyway garlic, onions, peas, leek, brocolli, and cabbage all doing well.

I did all of this this morning just before the rain entered our region of the world. It is now steadily raining. Good slow soaking rain.

Serenity now in the vegetable garden!

Purple Carrots

SUMMARY FROM 'The Sun Herald, 8 August 2010, page 35, by Keisey Munro'

Purple carrots are now concidered as the next superfood. An Australian study has shown they are high in anti-inflammatory properties and antioxidants. Tested on rats for a 16 week pre-clinical trial, they were fed a typical western diet on junk food for the first 8 weeks and then scientists added purple carrot juice to their diets in the second 8 week period. Their bodies went back to normal dispite continuing a fatty mimiced western diet. Purple carrots have upto 28 times more anthocyanins than standard orange carrots. Scientists believe this antioxidant that creates the purple-red pigment in certain foods is anti-inflamatory. There should be a resurgence of vegy gardeners growing purple carrots. A full study and results are to be released in the British Journal of Nutrition.

An interesting story I thought. I have had a good harvest this year and my purple carrots are being harvested now as the family needs them. So I'll be growing purple carrots again this summer, really not because of the above story in todays newspaper, but because they are just as good as all the other vegetables I grow. They are interesting in colour and I grow them cleanly. Unlike commercially grown vegies, I don't use all those crappy pesticides and poisons on our food. Actually I don't use anything at all.

An update on my patch: Brocolli are forming very nice heads and are ready for harvesting now. The cabbages are growing well too and about four of the plants are really forming beautifully. Garlic and onions growing fine. The patch is due for a late winter weeding. So next weekend or possibly during this week.

Sowed Iceberg Lettuce seeds this afternoon in a small area in Bed 13 next to the silverbeet. When they ae old enough to transplant, I will. Pictures show what the vegetable garden looks like today with onions and garlic. The garlic are really taking off. Had showers over the past day or so in our area with 11mm recorded.

Carrots

I have so many carrots, so I thought I better pull out as many as I can to preserve them for later use. So this afternoon I harvested half of them and brought them inside, cleaned them up, blanched and then cooled them down ready for the freezer. Fifteen family sized zip bags for fifteen separate nights on the dinner table. Later I will harvest the remaining half. Took a picture. Notice the fifty and ten cent pieces beside the carrots, that's all I could afford. See below:

In other Murrumbateman news, I threw Blood and Bone over all the growing vegetables as I know (and hope) that there will be rain overnight and tomorrow morning. On the 26th June 2010 I pulled out all the leeks from the garden and put them into the freezer. Below is a happy snap of the leek before any preserving was to be done:

Steve the Vegy Gardener. Happy Vegetable Gardening!

Clean up

Photos showing what the vegetable garden looks like at present. Almost dormant except growing activity from the onions, carrots, garlic, brocolli, cabbage and shallots. Pulled up the old tomatoes and stakes and all the remaining capsicums. As you can see all of this was shoved into the compost bin as the last photo shows. Put down Pea Straw mulch over the garlic and young leek (see above photos). I sowed asparagus seeds afew days back, so I'm in for the long haul with them. You could probably see in one of the photos the ferny asparagus plants with darkish red seeds. I will this coming weekend (5 days from now), remove all the mature leek and freeze them for future use. There is one photo above showing how one of my pumpkins that grew amongst and within the wire fencing surrounding the vegetable garden. I'll have to cut it out soon for a soup.

Garlic is sown.

First Picture shows part of Beds 5 and 6 cultivated with fresh cow/sheep manure and also the old capsicum in place. The second shows that I have dug up the rest of the old Bed 6 and added cow manure and dug it in. The ground is now light and fluffy. The two beds are now full combined. Also show the garlic before bracking them up into individual cloves. The third picture illustrates all the gloves of garlic ready for sowing. The fourth has the garlic cloves in their spot ready for sowing into the ground. Some at the back have been sown already. They are about 50mm (2 inches) deep with the pointy bit of the clove up. The last picture shows all raked over and watered. Beautiful day today too, 16 degrees. Happy gardening.

Autumn Update.

The weather to starting to cool off now and we have had afew frosts already this season. Most of the summer vegies have died off except capsicums (starting to wilt now but still alive) and onions (spring, shallots).

This weekend I have turned over beds 5 and 6 to form one bed with cow and sheep manure. This is to enrich the soil for what I am about to plant - Garlic. Australian garlic purchased from Coles New World. Last years garlic which I never dug up have sprouted up again this year, so I'm attempting to dig one up to see what it's like. I'll dig one up soon for the sake of it. In Bed 6 the capsicums are still there, so I have dug around them ready for the garlic. This year I'll be planting the garlic closer together to get more in. Last year they were about a foot spacing and that wasted space preventing me from planting more vegetables.

Potatoes popped up again in Beds 2 to 6 and with this cooler weather we are experiencing, have begun to wilt. So I have dug up afew and found some more potatoes for the pantry.

I did some cleaning out of the old vegies which have died off, such as Beds 23 and 24. That dead rock and water melon plants went straight into the compost. I'll need to turn over the compost in the coming days to allow the penetration of air. I have two bins going at the moment.

The tomatoes have all died back, so in the coming days/weeks I'll be collecting tomato seeds for next years season.

I think the asparagus grew well this season that just finished. It's their first year and I believe needs another year to grow all ferny. The green seeds on the ferns are turning red which means I'll give it a shot to plant new asparagus plants/crowns. So I'll do that in the coming weeks.

So as I said before, I'll be combining beds to pick up more room to plant. Too many beds means too much lost space.

Till later, Steve the Vegygardener.

Update on my patch in writing

Beds 6 and 10 - Dug up last of the potatoes, the ground in these beds are now fallow.

Bed 39 - Removed last of the sweet corn.

Sweet corn will be harvested this coming weekend in Beds 12, 31, 32, 34. Looks good.The capsicums are doing well and I would expect should be all harvested in the coming month at most.

As the weather is becoming much cooler, especially at night, the rock melons, water melons, cucumbers, zuchini climbing beans and pumpkins have died off. Ready for the compost bin. Bed 14 silver beet is starting to wilt. In Bed 14 some of the silver beet is turning to seed (great for next year).

There has been two lightish frosts so far this year this week), but I have managed to dodge them as I put over shade cloth over the most vulnerable plants - tomatoes. But the tomatoes are starting to burn up and brown off. I aim to post some pics this weekend. Presently, the nights are about 2-7 degrees and the days are 20-23 degrees.

Storing Herbs (Sage & Basil)

Today I picked a large bunch of Sage from bed 33 and a large amount of Basil from bed 38 and stored them in the freezer for future use. How I did it is below:

Sage

1. What I did was I broke the stork off each leaf and washed all the leaves in a drainer under fresh cold rain tank water.
2. Dried all the leaves with paper toweling to remove most of the water.
3. Placed the sage leaves on a tray and into the freezer for about an hour. They became quite frozen.
4. Took them out of the freezer and placed all the leaves into a air tight plastic container and put the container back into the freezer for later use.

I did the same for the Basil I harvested. So they say when you freeze herbs the taste will keep better than by drying them. Sounds right but I will find out and if I remember, I'll post results on this blog.

Keep Growing and bye for now.

New winter plantings today

Planted this morning before a good watering the following:

The newly combined beds of 2 and 3 - Brocolli (Green Belt), Cabbage (Ball Head & Green Coronette).
In bed 4 - Brocollia (Bunching), Red Onion (Odourless).

I'd like to combine most of the beds (to have larger ones) so I can use the vegetable garden to a greater capacity. Too many beds create too much empty space which is unused. Therefore I have started with combining beds 2 and 3. Water and rock melons are starting to yearn my picking. Took a huge bunch of fresh silver beet in this morning and blanched it before putting it into the freezer for future cooking use.

See below the updated pictures I took this morning:

Shows what I did this morning with the Brocoli, Cabbage and Red onion seedlings. Also shows my potatoe harvest I dug up this morning.

A closer picture showing the combined beds 2/3 and bed 4.

And some other pictures below: