Sunday, January 30, 2011

End Of January Vegy Patch Update

Hi, it's been a while since the last post.

So what has been happening? Read on......

I'm starting to harvest the onions from the garden. They are the reds and browns. Also continuosly harvest the shallotts. There are plenty of them. I will hwever sow the next generation of shallotts in the coming days.

I have tranplanted the capsicums to the bed beside. The new bed has the compost that I added afew weeks back. The plants were about 300mm (12") high and they have wilted in a major way. It's possible and most likely they will struggle because they were rather big when I relocated them. So with the hot days we are experiencing at present, we'll see how they manage.

The pumpkin are growing well. I have forced them to grow/shoot outside the garden area. As mentioned in a previous post, I planted them on the edge of the patch so I could direct them to the outside to prevent overcrowding amongst the rest of the vegies. So it's a better situation this season. I just hope our black labrador doesn't go chopping into the pumpkins before we can eat them. He 'Ben' has already gone the the tomatoes.

On the tomatoes, they are growing very well. I just need to keep the water up to them and with combined warm/hot weather, should have a excellent harvest this year. They arer begining to ripen now. There are black and the obvious red tomatoes in the patch. I thing though, I did the same mistake of last year - planted them too close. Silly. So I'm leaving them now and will keep them trimmed and staked so a maximum air flow and direct sunlight will travel between the plants to the fruit. So I have been snapping off the suckers (laterals) as they appear.

Zuchini are starting to grow well. They need hot days and they're getting it. They are about 200mm high and at the early stages of spreading. Possible I was abit late in sowing (it was about Christmas) but should be fine.

Iceberg lettuces have now gone to seed. They are only good for our seven chickens.

The purple carrotts need to be harvested in the coming days. If I don't do it now they'll turn to seed and I'll miss out.

Basil, carrots (orange) and Italian parsley growing well. Also the sweet corn. They are starting to flower and will soon pollinate themselves. And also, the potatoes have done well. I will this week start to harvest the many kilos that are underground. Can't wait for that. A quick note, the so called rock melon plant I found as mentioned in the last post was not a rock melon. It was a weed called a paddy melon. So I quickly smartly removed him.

So have a look at the pictures below that show what the patch looks like now. It is abit messy, but whose vegetable garden isn't? Yes the weeds are beginning again and need some attention too. So here they are:








Monday, January 3, 2011

New Years Vegetable Gardening






The first few pictures show what the vegy patch is looking like at the moment.

We have unusually reached our first 30+ degree day just after Christmas. Rather late according to our local meteorological history.

The last picture with me holding the compost is great I reckon. It's beautiful! This is the first batch of compost I have made and looking back, I think of the amount of food scraps etc I put into the bin and how it has broken down to the amount I have now is amazing. I would have put in 5 to 6 bins worth of scraps/clippings etc. So it's taken 18 to 24 months to do it. It smells nice (not foul) and I will soon put it into my vegetable garden. Then I'll start the process again. I have another bin beside it which is a little way off yet.

Harvested all the garlic. About 5kgs worth. I'll give some garlic to family and friends. While digging up the garlic I found about 3 kilos of potatoes. These potatoes grew from tubers left in the ground from last season. Next season I promise to harvest the garlic early to mid December. This season was abit late I think.

As per my twitter posts @vegygardener, I have sowed in the last few days carrots, zuchini, cucumber, cos lettuce, started to space out the capsicums, done more pulling weeds, removed all of the dill plants (they were starting to take over the patch), and cleaned up the last of the tomatoes by trimming and tieing them back to stakes. I also added cow manure to the soil as some areas where I planted the lettuce and zuchini seeds looked fallow.

I noticed that the mint seeds I planted last year were growing near the asparagus plants I have. After removing all the dill I found the mint. A nice surprise I might add. This mint I planted last season is a really strong scented one which I like. So I'm happy with that.

Also noticed a plant or two of rock melon growing near the potatoes. This is from seed left unoticed in the ground from last season. The same with the tomotoe plants near the asparugus.


Til next time, happy gardening! You can also follow me on twitter if desired at @vegygardener.