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: