Garden Update

Winter is well and truly upon us now, and as expected growth in the vegetable patch has slowed down, I wish I could say the same for the weeds. It's hard enough to keep on top of the weeds during the colder months, but when you add the flu (which took me two weeks to get over) to the mix, by the time I felt well enough to go down to patch it was completely overgrown. It took about six hours to get it all done, now I just have to keep on top of it.

 The snow peas that I sowed on May 14th finally sprouted 15 days later. I am using two old innersprings that I picked for free as trellises for them, when the peas are a bit bigger I will take a photo, I like the way they look in the garden, kind of like rustic sculptures.

Even though they were covered, my first planting of mini cauliflowers was decimated by aphids, so they had to be pulled out and they were replaced with Snowball.

 Two of the Green Dragon broccoli plants were also affected but nowhere near as bad as the caulis and with a spray of soapy water I was able to save them.

You can see the aphid damaged brocolli on the right.

I also planted a punnet of Green Sprouting broccoli, and I will be planting another punnet in two weeks time, hopefully that will give me enough broccoli to see me through until summer.

 The garlic is coming on, I'm hoping I've got the number of cloves right this year. Last year I planted way too many and most of it went to waste.

I've lost count of how many times I've sown coriander seeds, but none of it germinated and in the end I gave up and resigned myself to not having any this season, so I was pleased last week to find  a single plant that had self-germinated. Maybe I'll have coriander after all.

After I finished weeding the strawberry bed I discovered the Red Gauntlets flowering.

 Harvesting 

The last of the Genovese and Thai basil were harvested, half of which was frozen, the other half is hanging in the kitchen window to dry, along with two bunches of parsley. I've also been harvesting small amounts of bok choi and silverbeet.

Sowing/Planting

I have sown more snow peas, both Melting Mammoth and a new one I am trying, Oregon, Sugarsnap, Telephone, Early Crop Massey and Blue Bantam peas. Windsor Longpod and Brown Beauty beans have also been sown and I am hoping to have a bumper crop of beans this year.

To do

Plant the potatoes, more bok choi, broccoli and celery.
Keep on top of the weeds.
Fertilize

That's about it for this month's update, I will see you all again next month with another.