A Week In The Garden

I apologise for getting this post up two days late, but life has a funny way of changing our plans sometimes.

Another week in the garden and the start of a brand new month. 

August 1st

It is just seven short weeks until the spring equinox, which marks the true start of spring. I am no where near ready for winter to be over, I love the cold and the rain and I am all ready dreading the heat that I'll have to endure in the months ahead. 

August 2nd

The first head of broccoli is almost ready to harvest, the others won't be ready for at least another two weeks, while it isn't as big as some I have grown in the past, it is a decent size and I am more than happy with it.

There are buds forming on one of the plum trees, I will need to get both of them transplanted into bigger pots this weekend.

Satsuma or Santa Rosa? I can't remember.

August 4th

The wombok cabbage that had been attacked by earwigs earlier in the season had started to recover and was looking very healthy, but now something has had a good old munch on it and there isn't much left. I won't bother trying to grow womboks anymore, they are too high maintenance for me. 

The Topweight carrots and Mendania spinach seeds have started to sprout, and I found two more fruit on the eggplant. It has a mild case of powdery mildew which I will be treating it with a mixture of milk and water.

I found two more White Cabbage butterfly caterpillars on the same Curly Kale plant, it looks like I will need to invest in some enviromesh before next year.

August 5th

I dropped into Bunnings on the way home from work today as I needed to buy some compost so that I can pot up the plum trees tomorrow. I ended up buying ten 25 litre bags, I hope it's enough. I also bought two new pots for the plum trees, one packet Panorama mixed Bergamot seeds and one packet of Bee and Butterfly flower mix for the insect garden.

August 6th

I spent today outside as it was such a nice day, as much as I love the rain, it's nice to have a sunny day every now and then. I planted fourteen "Baby" broccoli plants, no sooner did I get the last one in the ground and the White Cabbage butterflies started showing up. I found another of their caterpillars on the Curly kale plant, poor thing it will be lucky to survive, hopefully that was the last one.

I potted the Satsuma and Santa Rosa plum trees up into bigger pots, I just wish I could remember which one was which, but the tags disappeared a long time ago. Before I potted them up I drilled holes in a piece of PVC pipe and put a piece into each pot, my hope is that by keeping the pipe full of water it will become almost like a self-watering pot and save me from having to water everyday during summer.

Looks like I got it re-potted just in time.

I did the same to the mandarin and one of the orange trees. I had to leave the other orange tree as it has fruit on it.

I sprayed the eggplant with a combination of full fat milk and water at a 1:25 ratio, I will spray again in ten days time, hopefully that will be enough to get rid of the powdery mildew. I found another fruit on the plant today, that brings the total to four. Not bad for a summer growing plant.

August 7th

I totally overestimated how much compost I would need to repot two plum trees. Not only did I re-pot the plums, I did five chilli plants, a blackcurrant, a raspberry and a blackberry, topped up the potatoes and there is still one bag left. It was a lot of hard work, but hopefully not something that will be needed to be done again for a few years.

I placed a small soft drink bottle in each pot when I repotted the chilli plants, each one has a flip top lid to keep dirt and other debris from blocking the water flow.

That's it for this weeks gardening update, I will update again next week and hopefully it won't be two days late. 

So, tell me what has been happening in your garden this week?