Presents!

I love getting plants in the mail, and it's even better when we've been away for a week and they are waiting on the doorstep! (Don't worry, they'd have arrived that day or possibly the day before, and hadn't been languishing by the doormat the entire time.) 

It's a mixed box of goodies this time. I have half a dozen different tomatoes, a couple of varieties of capsicum, two cranberry plants, a 'black raspberry' I couldn't resist getting (having never seen or heard of them before), a white strawberry, and hopefully best of all: a wasabi variety called 'Daruma,' which is supposed to be a bit more tolerant of warmer weather. The wasabi plant is the one at the top left with the gloriously large heart-shaped leaves. 

     

   

We were greeted on our return home by the most amazing spring-like weather: 26c today, with a gentle breeze and fluffy clouds in the sky... Not bad for the last day of winter, hey!? I spent the day ignoring the holiday washing and pottering about in the garden, pulling out weeds and cute baby beets. I suck a bit at growing beetroots, in my opinion, but I still go into raptures over those amazing crimson stems.

 

Happy Spring! 

  

Today's job

After a strained groin muscle and two attempts at spraining my ankle out in the garden in the last fortnight, it has occurred to this heavily-pregnant woman that it might be time to take it a bit easy, before I find myself unable to walk in labour... Time for some non-strenuous work out there.

I found some garlic bulbs in the cupboard, neatly labelled, from last year's harvest. Normally they would have all been eaten months ago but this time, morning sickness put me off using them completely and so I have plenty left to plant (not to make this post entirely about pregnancy and garlic!)

I'm planting Dynamite Purple, Early White American, Cream, Melbourne Market and Australian White (not pictured). I love garlic as a crop: bung it in, and off it goes with almost no maintenance or care required at all. It will do better, however, if kept weed-free and fed.

'Peas, peas!'

That's what our SP says, 'peas, peas!' These are Greenfeast and Telephone varieties: Y.U.M. SP and I have been picking them whenever we wander past the vines, and eating them on the spot. Poor Old D isn't getting much of a look in on the peas. Oh well, he does know they're there!

Buckets of broccoli

I have no idea why my broccoli is doing so well as it never has before. The variety is Magic Dwarf, and eight individual plants has been enough to keep this little family of three in broccoli for over two months now. In fact, with a fridge crisper full and another bucket collected today, we're starting to get a little sick of eating it; Broccoli soup, broccoli salad, broccoli quiche... Broccoli pudding next? Fortunately -or not - I think we'll be back to buying it soon as our crop is starting to shoot and the season is ending. This means that summer is on its way and soon I will be muttering about gluts of tomatoes :)

Potting up tomatoes.

I promised ages ago to show you pictures of my seedlings, but as usual I haven't got around to it, so today here is just a selection: perhaps a quarter of what I have been growing. A lot of these are going to family-members vegie gardens, because there is far more here than I need. Last year I had perhaps 10 different tomato varieties and we were inundated with fruit for most of summer and well into autumn; this year I am trying to be more circumspect.
All of the bigger seedlings I'm going to plant directly into the garden. The smaller plants I'm going to pot on and give away. Known varieties here are Amish Paste (the biggest seedlings, prolific and delicious, great for cooking), Black Russian (one of the better known heirloom varieties) and Wild Sweeties (tiny taste bombs). I'm also growing a ten colour heirloom mix, and a currant mix, both from Diggers.
Incidentally, today I'm also going pot on, or plant out a punnet of sage babies, and another of marjoram. Those are the ring-ins in the pictures.
Which varieties of tomatoes are you growing and eating this year?

And they're in!

Finally, my little plum trees are out of their pots and in the ground. There are six trees in this space: the first four are planted in pairs (a method where you plant two trees in one space and from then on you treat them as one tree, if that makes sense? It's a space saving/variety increasing method). These plants are D'Agen and Coe's Golden Drop in the first pair, and Santa Rosa and Satsuma in the second pair. The next tree along is a Wickson plum, then lastly is a damson plum. Behind all this, but very small, is one of my favourite Australian natives shrubs: Myoporum bateae, which should cope with the shade from the fence really well. Up the back is also some raspberries (both native raspberries, Rubus parvifolius, and an exotic variety, which I got from MIL's garden). Underneath the plums, along the entire wall, are over forty individual strawberry plants, all taken from runners off my older plants (I seem to produce strawberry runners prolifically, rather than the fruit we'd all prefer!). At the very first part of the wall, beside where the steps will be, I've planted a small David Austin English rose: Sophy's Rose. I've even scattered some seeds about: Yates 'Accent on Blue' seed mix, to help bring the pollinators in. That sounds like a lot, now that I write it out! I can hardly wait to see it all start growing and coming together. Next up we're making my raised vegie beds.

Getting organised.

Look what I spent the afternoon doing: laying out my future vegie garden! The boards are temporary markers - just old weatherboards from the old cladding - but when we build the real beds they'll be made out of recycled hardwood boards (donated by our old neighbour for getting rid of the pine tree). Each bed is about 1m wide by 2m long so I'll have 8m square of dedicated vegetable growing area, although I'm sure I'll keep squeezing random vegies into other patches of the garden.

After I took this photo I got to work digging out a bit of a ramp on the right hand side and levelling out the area where the beds will go (terracing them though in a disorganised 'make it up as I go along' kind of way, Katie-style). It got dark while I dug but I was on a roll so we set up FIL's spotlight and kept working for another hour. Now I have blisters and a warm sense of self-satisfaction for a lot of dirt moved today.

Small and perfect

That's my baby broccoli. I am super happy with it, because it's green and beautiful, and because I get to eat it before the aphids do! First time for everything, oh happy day.

Eighteen days left of winter.

The Siberian Tomato Conspiracy

Source: google.com via Katie on Pinterest

These are not my Siberian Tomatoes, and this is not my picture, this is (was) just my dream: Tomatoes in winter! And this is what sucked me in:

"Tomatoes in 60 Days! Plants set fruit at low temperatures, Produce extra early yields, frost resistant, too! Siberian tomatoes really do come from Siberia, producing juicy, flavourful, smooth, round fruit up to 225g (1/2lb) in size as early as 60 days from setting out plants. The plants produce delicious tomatoes ahead of other varieties because Siberians do not require high temperatures to set fruit like other tomatoes - just a few degrees above freezing is all the warmth they need."

(From Australian Seeds, and I avoid promoting websites or products, but they have some interesting stuff and I must reference the quote!)

Way back in March I ordered some seed and sowed it in punnets. It all sprouted beautifully and it was very exciting. Then there was a toddler-related incident and I was left with four intact seedlings out of about 30, but never mind, these things happen. I potted the four babies on and slowly they grew, and later I planted two of them into pots, and the other two into a sheltered spot in the garden by the warmth of a north-south fence. One garden-planted tomato died immediately, the other struggled on. The two potted tomatoes have done marginally better, reaching a whopping four or five inches tall by now. They are nearly five months old, these plants, and will certainly not be flowering, let alone fruiting anytime soon.

The dream of winter tomatoes is gone, and even of spring tomatoes very much diminished, but I live in hope that we may get one or two tomatoes off a plant eventually (and in the meantime, I'll stick to summer cropping varieties!)



(Yes, I know I said I was going to talk about seed sowing this post, but I can't find the card-reader so my pictures are all stuck on my camera until I can locate the blasted thing.)

Three weeks left of winter, folks!

Gardening by moonlight

No, not the kind where you refer to a chart to see what to plant when according to the phases of the moon, but the kind when it's already dark outside, and the Mosquitos are out in their hordes, but it's such a beautiful, balmy, sublime autumn night that you steal half an hour outside to do some planting (raspberries into styrofoam boxes, in this case).

The current moon phase, by the way, is a waxing crescent and supposedly a good time for planting and encourages leaf growth. I only learnt that five minutes ago...

More interesting to me is my SP's current complete fascination with the moon. She tells me she wants to sit on it; bless little toddlers! Always seeing our world in a different way.

Virtually free food?

Last time I told you about my butternut pumpkins (that's butternut squash too, for any overseas readers). Those were the pumpkins I planted myself in carefully prepared ground. But then, up the back are three GINORMOUS self sown pumpkins. They came out of the compost heap which I moved - and spilt - because it was in the way of the chicken coop which we were building (and still are, slow work in progress). I'm not sure what kind they are, I'd guess Jap or Queensland Blue since they're what we'd generally buy from the supermarket.

(Please ignore the weeds, they have gone mental and I'm telling myself I'll get on top of them once we move home...)

These three pumpkin plants are a demonstration that plants can - and will - adapt to the conditions they have. Self sown at almost exactly a meter apart, they have never had any water beyond the rain and yet never got wilty except on the very hottest of days. The butternuts, on the other hand, wilted at the first hint of heat and had to be watered almost daily through the summer. The butternuts got completely covered with downy mildew after some summer rain and the few nice warm days which followed... Not one spot of mildew appeared on my mystery pumpkins. Now, they're covered in male and female flowers, and although I was tempted to continue to leave them completely to their own devices I have been hand pollinating the baby fruits at every opportunity (many more fruits on each plant compared to the butternuts too which had about one each). Now I just have to wait and see if we get nice pumpkins from my irrigation-free plants or if they are completely inedible.

Early Autumn?

It was only 21c in Adelaide today, which is very, very weird for the middle of February. Most years, around about this time, we swelter through our annual 40+ Celsius heatwave for a week or two, but so far (fingers crossed) this seems to have passed us by. I'm not complaining; it's lovely weather, and absolutely perfect for gardens provided we water diligently. I am wondering if Autumn is here early this year - some of the trees in the main street are starting to blush already. Autumn is my favourite season, and if it turns into an Indian Summer that might be quite nice, so long as it rains, (please, Huey!)

The veggie patch is doing beautifully for us at the moment and we are able to make complete pasta sauces or ratatouille with our harvests now! We got this whole entire box of veg the other day in a quick whip around the garden (for the record we have: overgrown spring onions, loads of baby corn, two different eggplants, some pale green capsicums, three different zucchinis, yellow and green beans, Desiree potatoes, and the inevitable tomatoes).


And on the home front? The kitchen is starting to look like it might be finished in the near future! We need the electrician and plumber to make another visit to hook everything up and attach some power points and our pendant cords to the ceiling (we've tacked them up just to see what they look like). We also need to make a decision on the splashback. We do have some tiles we like but are looking to see if there is a more economical option out there (probably not, but best to check!) And we need architraves and skirting boards. And to put on the door and drawer handles. And to put on another door or two (they were up, but the boys wanted to use different hinges so off they came). But apart from all that, it's almost done.

And you might notice that the top left unit has changed? That's because I'm a woman and I'm entitled to change my mind. Originally I wanted book shelves down both the left and right hand sides of the top cupboards to the bench. I got vetoed on the right hand side shelves and I can't even remember why, but we kept them on the left side. I didn't like it, I prefer symmetry and, actually, we all thought the same. So out came the power saw and the bottom was lopped off and I think it looks much better this way.

Want to see my vegie garden?

It occurred to me that I've been showing you lots of photos of produce, but nothing to show you where it actually comes from. So today, here is my veggie garden in all it's blazing summer glory. The photos are not fabulous, but that washed out glare is not such an inaccurate representation of mid-summer here in 'Laide. I affectionately call my back garden 'The Shambles,' because it is! One day there'll be proper retaining walls and lawn and so on, but for the time being this is it.

To kick off today's set of terrible photos, I present a Window's Paint diagram of our backyard, next to the latest satellite photo of it. I like to call this one, 'Mama has too much time on her hands.' (Click to zoom so you can actually read the titles!) It's there to give you a rough idea of the layout of the place at the moment.


If you stand on the old patio looking out, this is what you'll see. My patch.


Here near the front is the oldest sowing of baby corn which is running out of steam now, and right in front of that are the eggplants which had the first fruit. The box contains a mostly unsuccessful attempt at sowing carrots when it was much too hot (but it means I have a spare box to fill, woo!) At the very back is my Moorpark apricot, planted in October 2010, which has grown immensely and all of a sudden is taller than I am.


To the left (North) of this bit are my bags of potatoes (behind), and my okra (front).


And behind that, on the patch of ground that will one day be our lawn in between the shed and the water tank, are all of the pots with my little fig trees, citrus, pomegranate, and plums (waiting to go in the ground for our 'real' yard, this winter, maybe?) as well as most of my currant tomatoes, the rhubarb, and a few bigger tomatoes and a variety of randoms like spare strawberries and more beans.


If you step UP the hill here, you'll meet my baby mulberry, look how big he's getting! He was one of my first trees and planted in October 2010.


Behind him, is my fig tree, which whilst not exactly covered in leaves (far from, in fact) is growing us a lovely batch of five figs right now. Yum! This one is a Brown Turkey fig.


Near here are my madly prolific tomatoes (although, slowing down a little now, thank God, was getting very sick of eating them).


And if you stand at the back of the yard, under out half built chicken-coop, this is the view in the other direction. Artichokes blooming in the front, fading sunflowers behind, and just some of the veggie Styrofoam boxes, which currently house a few carrots, the latest batch of bush beans and baby corn, the baby watermelon, the mini-rock melon, and the only successful capsicum bush so far. The tall patch of corn is a mid-season sowing and is just coming into bloom now.


Like these: mini watermelons (well, one!)


And the mini rock melons which are just a little over tennis ball sized.


I also have butternut pumpkins (or butternut squash, as the rest of the world calls it...) scattered throughout the yard in the hope that this year I might actually get one or two of them to eat. This one looks promising...


So that's it (well, not really, just a selection of 'it,' too much and too messy for one post alone.) Next time I'll try a renovation update, since a friend reminded me it's been ages since I've done one, oops!

PS. Just as the tomatoes begin to slow down the zucchinis begin to take over....

Radishes?

Goodness me; I knew radishes grew quite fast but I didn't realise that I'd be eating them within five weeks of sowing them! I didn't buy these 'Easter Egg Radish' seeds, they were sent as a bonus in one of my many batches of seed purchases. Radishes haven't featured highly on my 'to grow' list (daikon excepted) as I remember disliking them when I ate them as a kid. I've never enjoyed that bitey/spicy thing they can have going on. When these seeds arrived I figured I may as well give them a go and I sowed a few of them in a Styrofoam tub with some French carrots. That was back in early September.

Yesterday I noticed the rounded red tops of the roots were starting to poke out above the soil so I pulled these five radishes out. Such colours! I am always amazed by the vibrancy of home-grown produce. It might be a little bit battered, bruised, insect eaten and inconsistent but at least it wasn't harvested months ago and left in a cold store before being transported in a truck across half the country (or further) and then left to languish under fluorescent lighting waiting for someone to buy it and consume what's left of it's nutrients... The other day I saw Mexican garlic for sale at the supermarket - and no Australian garlic option. I went home and looked up how far it had come: almost 14,000km (8699 miles). That's a long way for a bulb of garlic.


I scrubbed them off and sliced off the end off a couple to taste. They still had that typical spicy radish taste that I remembered, and everyone else in my family refused to try them. But that was eating them raw, and for lunch I fried them off in a hot pan with some butter and sweet soy sauce, and a whole heap of Greenfeast peas and Aquadulce broad beans out of the garden and it was pretty good and not at all 'radishy,' so I think overall radishes deserve a second chance and I'll continue to grow them in the garden. Too easy!


Incidentally, I thought that white radish might have been a ring-in but when I googled 'Easter Egg Radish' I got a tonne of pretty pictures with reds, purples and whites so it seems that's just how they come. Random and bright, can't do much better than that.

Mid-September back garden tour

I have shiny new and uncorrupted camera cards so I am back to my old snap-happy self and to celebrate I'm going to share a dozen or so photos from the (mostly) vegie garden out the back of our house.

We've had a few little harvests lately:

There was a lovely big bok choy (growing in a pot with a baby plum tree).


And the experimental Greenfeast peas had enough fat pods on them to be able to cook enough for a side to dinner for three adults and a pea-'loving toddler.


And there are more peas on their way, although the whole plot is starting to look decidedly lopsided now and I don't anticipate it will last much longer.


There were a couple of baby beetroots (not my forte, not yet anyway!)


I was going to throw all these baby beetroot leaves into a stirfry - since the actual roots were so disappointing but I accidentally left them out in the garden overnight on Monday and it absolutely bucketed down that night and the were beaten down into the ground. Still, I thought the photo was too pretty not to share; those colours! Imagine the vitamins in them!


And, as ever, the rainbow chard is still providing loads of leaves for us for no effort at all on my part. It's not quite as vibrantly coloured as it was when the weather was cooler.


We've got more fruit and veg on it's way too.

There's the Aquadulce broad beans, which are taller than my waist. I have dutifully nipped out the top buds of each plant. Apparently if you don't do this they will not set fruit, and I can say that despite all the flowers over a month ago I didn't see a single bean pod until after I'd done the nipping.


The other broad beans - Bunyard's Exhibition, that I sowed much later - are only around a foot tall but producing flowers already. Now, do I do the nipping now, or let them get taller and then nip them? I always feel like I'm making up this gardening gig as I go along!


And for months and months I have been looking at the purple pepino flowers and moaning that they were doing nothing. And then, suddenly, there are at least a dozen fruit! I theorise that the weather had to warm up enough to bring out the pollinators (feral bees, no doubt). I don't know how long they'll take to ripen, and I don't know what they'll taste like (like 'melon,' I've read), and I don't even know if we'll like them but it will be good to find out!


Some of the recent sowings are doing quite well so far and not too attacked by snails, like these daikon which I'm growing in one of my Styrofoam boxes (the carrots have sprouted too, but are too tiny to photograph).


There's beans doing their thing. These might be butter beans, but I can't remember what I've put where (it is written down though!) For some reason, the beans in the pots sprouted weeks ahead of those in the ground. Maybe because the pots are warmer than the ground?


Oh gosh, I can't remember what these are either! Pumpkins? Cucumbers? Zucchini? Eek! It's a pot luck garden! These were sown in jiffy pots and then transplanted.


And just for fun, I've planted lots of red and yellow sunflowers, and 'black' and white hollyhocks along the fence. I'll write a whole post about this soon, I'm hoping.

The red-flowered sunflower seedlings have red stems and leaf veins too. These were planted in toilet paper tubes filled with seed-raising peat (I love that stuff!) I accidentally left the tube poking a bit above the ground but I'm sure it won't matter. Some bugger of an insect has had a nibble on a number of the sunflower seedlings which is a little bit irritating.


These are tiny baby hollyhocks. Some I planted singly, and some in pairs like these two, in anticipation of some natural attrition!

Seems such a shame that nasturtiums are a weedy nuisance when out in public! They are supposed to be total pest magnets in the vegie patch so it seems contradictory to plant them there, but the idea is that you attract the bugs - aphids especially, but also slugs, snails and caterpillars - to the nasturtiums and not to your vegies. However, I seem to have the healthiest, pest-free nasturtiums out there, and my brussel sprouts are absolutely covered in grey aphids and not fit to speak about (or eat, for that matter, might give the old brussels a miss next year)


It's a very exciting time of year, this ever-lovely Spring.

[and, even better, look at this! A new satellite photo of our little house:



It shows my still unfinished path out the front, the new extension out the back, the water tank which, thanks to the big downpours earlier in the week, now has enough water in it that some comes out when you open the tap, and finally no more huge pine tree! Compare it to this photo back in April:



Woohoo, rolling along quite nicely!]