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.