The Week That Was

Apparently, I'm no good with writing a blog post every day so here is what my week looked like instead. I'm hoping that once I get back into the habit of writing again, writing on a daily basis will become easier.

Monday - A Rainy Morning
I woke up to rain this morning which put the kibosh on the plans I had to work in the vegetable garden today not that I mind, there has been so little rain through winter, which is our wet season, that I'll take all the rain we can get, and there are always things to do in the house and that's just what I did. 

The rain cleared in the afternoon and I went for a walk. I'm trying to make this a part of my daily routine as my second youngest daughter is getting married next April and she has asked me to give her away, as you can imagine I was absolutely thrilled that she asked me and I want to look the best I can for her big day.

Tuesday - An Appointment and a Visit to the Library
I had an appointment in town this morning, which ended up being a waste of time, I did walk there and back so I got my walk over and done with early.

While I was out I paid a visit to the library and picked up some books, I love to read and try to read for at least an hour a day and on average I read a book a week.

I've just finished reading The Magnificent Mrs. Mayhew, by Milly Johnson and thoroughly enjoyed it. 

The trip into town wasn't a complete waste of my time as I saw this family of ducks on the way there. There are usually a lot of ducks and ducklings around at this time of year but due to the lack of rain, we've had just over half of our normal rainfall this year, the river is basically dry except for a few large puddles, not ideal conditions for raising a family in.

I've sown a lot of seed this year and for the most part they are germinating well. I did notice though that not all of the bean seeds have germinated so I've had to sow more, I think the problem was too much water and they rotted away, I've resown and hopefully will see some germination in the next ten days or so. 

The beans that have germinated are doing well and are more than ready to go into the ground something I'm hoping to get done this coming weekend.

Wednesday - Hablar Espanol?
I've always wanted to learn another language so when Spanish lessons were offered at the local community house I signed up for them, not long into my second year of learning the language my teacher was offered a job, so Spanish lessons were put on the back burner. A few weeks ago I heard that my teacher was available again and I signed up for lessons straight away. I don't know that I will ever need to use Spanish but they say that learning a different language is good for your brain so I have nothing to lose.

Thursday - Too Hot to Work Outside
A very warm day today with the temperature reaching 30°C and very windy as well so I spent the day inside catching up on some housework, dusting, cleaning windows and vacuuming which since I bought my Dyson is no longer the chore it once was.

Friday - A Day in the City
 I took the train into the city with my daughter, I don't enjoy going into Adelaide (or any city for that matter) too crowded, too noisy, but I needed some art supplies and it was cheaper to travel into the city to buy them, then to order online and pay for postage.  

While I was in the city my daughter and I decided to do some clothes shopping, I don't often shop for clothes and I had forgotten how unforgiving dressing room mirrors are. I knew I had put on weight,  but seeing myself in the mirror was a bit of a shock so I've decided that along with walking on a regular basis I would start intermittent fasting as well. I currently weigh 74.3kg (163.8lbs) and for my height, 175 cms (5' 81/2") that means I am 5kg (11lb) overweight, my goal is to lose between 5 - 8kgs. 

Here are some photos I took while wandering around Rundle Mall. It's hard to take a photo without people in it when there is an endless stream of humanity going in both directions but I did my best.

Augusta - one of the four mall pigs on a day out in the city.

Truffles and Horatio 

Oliver

 

The Spheres - more commonly known as the Mall's Balls

There are always buskers in Rundle Mall and these guys were really good. The elderly gentleman wasn't part of the act, just a regular visitor to the mall who loves to dance with the different buskers who are performing.

I spotted this artwork on our way to afternoon tea at San Churro, one of many pieces of street art that can be found in the Adelaide CBD.

Saturday - The Weather Can't Make Up Its Mind
I was so tired from walking around the city yesterday that last night I went to bed at 10.30pm which is something that doesn't happen often, I slept very well, and woke up at 7.00am but didn't actually get up until 8 o'clock. When I opened the curtains I found that it had rained overnight, 12mm all up, wonderful for the gardens but it's now too wet for me to plant the beans out, so I think a lazy day is in order. One thing I am hoping to get done today is getting these beauties hung up. I walked past the shop this picture was hanging in for two weeks before deciding to buy it. I don't often buy big items like this but I knew if I didn't buy it I would regret it so home it came. I love birds, especially our Australian natives so I know this will be hanging on my wall for many years to come.

Sunday - The Beans Are Planted
Well, at least some of them were. It was a strange day weather-wise, grey and overcast, then the sun would come out, then it would get windy and start raining and after being rained on a few times I gave up and called it a day. The beans that did get planted are the variety "Painted Lady", also known as seven-year bean and I've planted them on an arch so they won't be disturbed, the arch is not the best quality so I hope it doesn't collapse, I've tied it to the fence for some extra support.

I've tied the arch to the fence in the hope that it will keep it in place.

The beans were starting to get a little pot bound

Painted Lady beans, I planted three on each side of the arch, it should look lovely once they start to flower.

 That's it, that was my week, how was yours?

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Because You Can Never Have Too Many Seeds

My seed order from Diggers arrived a couple of days ago, I wasn't going to buy any seeds this year as I have more than enough, but then I decided that I really wanted to grow some Lemon Drop tomatoes again this year and because paying $6.95 postage for one packet of seeds made for some expensive tomato seeds buying more seemed like the sensible thing to do.

Along with the Lemon Drop tomato seeds I also bought:

Crimson Flowered Broad Beans - As the name suggests these beans have a beautiful crimson flower and I've wanted these for the longest time, so I decided to just go ahead and buy them, they will make a lovely addition to next year's garden, there's no room for them in the garden now.

Painted Lady beans - Also known as seven year bean these beans have a white and salmon flower and will be given there own bed where they won't be disturbed.

Sunset Runner beans - Another bean I chose because of the flower which is a lovely salmon-pink.

Golden Podded Peas - Discovered at a market in India, I chose these because of the pod colour, but they also have a very pretty two toned flower of purple and pink so they will definitely add some colour to the winter garden next year.

Juane et Verte Squash - I'm trying to broaden the variety of vegetables I grow and after seeing some Yellow Button Squash in the local fruit and vegetable market I thought I would try growing them myself, but couldn't find them anywhere, so I bought this variety instead, I found seed for the yellow squash in the Reject Shop two days after I made my order. Oh, well.

Golden Zucchini - I grow green zucchini in my summer garden most years, but this year I want  to add some more colour to the veggie beds and I think these will do the trick.

As for those Lemon Drop tomatoes, if you haven't tried them I suggest you give them a go as they add a lovely lemony tartness to salads. I think they just might be my favourite tomato.

Until next time, Jan.

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The Garden in December

This post was meant to be my last one for 2016, but I got busy with other things so instead it is my first post for the brand new year.

While I might not enjoy the heat of summer it seems the garden does.  The butternut pumpkins are doing fantastically well this year and are starting to outgrow their beds and onto the pathway, they are producing lots of female flowers which I hope the bees are busy pollinating.

The zucchinis are doing the best of all the vegetables I planted and are all ready providing me with more than I really need, I don't know what I'm going to do once they really get going.

The green ones are sweet and creamy, totally different to shop bought ones.

The Yellow Crookneck has a much firmer texture than the green ones, but they taste good and at the end of the day that is what it is all about.

The watermelon and rockmelon (cantaloupe) are covered in flowers so fruit shouldn't be too far off.

The first planting of corn is doing well,

 and the tassels are starting to emerge.

I waited too long between planting the first and second lot of corn and so it will be quite a few weeks before the second crop of corn is ready which may not be a bad thing.

But not everything is doing as well as I would like, the Turkish Turban pumpkin which at first did well and produced lots of little pumpkins,

The only pumpkin that seems to have been successfully pollinated so far.

took a turn for the worse and looked like it might die, luckily it seems to be recovering now and is starting to put on some new healthy looking growth and maybe even some more pumpkins.

I have since sown another seed which will hopefully grow into a strong healthy plant and produce masses of pumpkin. #agirlcanhope

Some of the beans are doing well and producing, like the Tender Delight,

while others like the Borlotti, which at first was doing fine and had produced masses of bean pods,

suddenly turned up their toes and died.

The unnamed volunteer that popped up in the garden and is still unnamed, but I'm starting to suspect it might be a Kent pumpkin is going great guns and there is the real possibility that it could take over the melon garden if I'm not careful.

The eggplant that I overwintered, survived the powdery mildew and has started to produce fruit again and will shortly be joined by two more eggplant, a Rosa Bianca and a Snowy.

My last job for December was potting up the very slow to grow tomato seedlings.
I honestly did not think that the tomato grown from store bought seed was ever going to get big enough to transplant into larger pots, in contrast the ones that were grown from store bought tomatoes, sliced, and lain on top of the soil are much further ahead with their growth and look healthier too. Hopefully now they are all in pots they will flourish.

Tomato seedling grown from store bought tomatoes.

This one was grown from shop bought seed.

Just a couple more photos to share of the damage done by the storm that came through South Australia last week.
The trellis that I had been using to hold the shade cloth off the corn was blown over, luckily the corn was only bent not broken and was standing up straight again by that same afternoon.

The damage that upset me the most was my greenhouse which was a birthday present from my daughters last year. Even though it was tied down and had survived other storms this time it ended up over the neighbours fence and is unfortunately beyond repair.

I know I'm lucky to have sustained such minor damage it could have been so much worse and was for a lot of people.

So, that was the garden in December, I'm expecting a lot more produce to come out of it over the next few weeks and I will be back at the end of this month with another update.

Wishing you all a HAPPY NEW YEAR and I hope the year ahead brings us all an abundance of the very best that life has to offer.

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The Garden In November

By November the pickings in the vegetable garden were pretty lean, the broccoli and cauliflower were long gone, and there were only a few peas left on the vine,  the only other things left of the winter plantings were the broad beans and the garlic. 

It was my first time growing broad beans this year and I have to say I was very happy with the harvest I got. 

Being my first time growing them, I had no idea what to expect in regards to how many beans each plant would produce, but now I know that I need to grow at least double the amount next year.

And while I was happy with the broad beans, the garlic was another story.

I planted 52 cloves of garlic this year knowing that I use roughly one bulb a week that amount should last me all year. Of the 52 bulbs planted only 49 sprouted, but I was OK with that. 

Garlic late July

The plants grew well and I had high hopes of harvesting all 49 bulbs, unfortunately not all went to plan. 

With all the rain we had over the winter and well into the spring some of the garlic bulbs began to split apart and started to re-shoot, while some bulbs never developed separate cloves.

Not a great photo but can you see the undeveloped bulbs and the new shoots that have grown?

So for all my hard work the garlic harvest this year was meagre indeed only ten bulbs.

I guess when you are growing your own vegetables a few setbacks are to be expected, so with that in mind, I will look forward to next year and hope for a better harvest.

In the beds where the peas grew, the vines were all cut down, but their roots were left in place to add some nitrogen to the soil, and there are now Butternut pumpkin (squash) and True Gold sweetcorn growing in them.  I am succession growing the corn so as not to be overwhelmed by a glut as I have been in the past.

In the bed next to the Butternut are my fruiting vines, two watermelons, Sugar Baby and Luscious Red, one rockmelon (cantaloupe) Hale's Best, and a as yet unknown volunteer, as well as some Double Delight sunflowers.

On the opposite side of the patch in bed 1 the broccoli has been replaced by a Yellow Crookneck and an All Green Bush zucchini plus some Sun King sunflowers.

Beds two and three are planted out with beans, Tender Delight, Brown Beauty, Red Kidney, dwarf Borlotti and Golden Wax. I did have to do a second sowing as earwigs killed a few.

As you can see in the picture above in bed 4 there is another pumpkin, this time another first for me, Turkish Turban.

Everything has grown quite a bit since these photos were taken the and I've even had my first small harvest of beans and a couple of zucchini, I'll show you the photos in the next garden update in a couple of weeks time. How is your garden growing?  

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October, Where Did You Go?

Well, that was the shortest month ever! I know this year is flying by, but October seemed to be over in the blink of an eye.
It's been a while since I did a garden update and it's time I rectified that. October, and September for that matter have been strange month's weather wise, very wet, cold and windy, but despite the unseasonable weather the plants in the veggie garden have been doing their own thing and apart from the garlic I'm really pleased with the harvests I have been getting.

The asparagus this year were a little less prolific than normal, but nonetheless delicious.

The peas on the other hand went a little crazy due I think to all the rain we've had.

Of the four different types of podding peas I grew this year my favourite was the Telephone peas, the Purple podded were also very nice so these are the two that I will be growing next year.

I trialled growing potatoes in pots this year and while it wasn't an outstanding success it wasn't a complete failure either.

On the plus side, they were the most delicious potatoes I've ever eaten, so creamy and I will be growing them again next winter.

A mix of Kestrel, Red Delight, Dutch Cream and Kipfler.

I grew Broad Beans for the first time this year, they are covered in flowers which the bees love and they have been visiting every afternoon.

 It looks like they have done a good job of pollination as there are a lot of beans developing.

While the plants have been busy growing I've been busy in the greenhouse sowing seeds for spring/summer.

So far I've sown seeds for pumpkins, zucchinis, cucumber, rockmelon and watermelon. The pumpkins and zucchini were planted out in the garden yesterday and the cucumbers have been planted in a large pot down near the house where they will have a bit more protection from the summer sun, the watermelon and rockmelon still having some growing to do before they are planted out.

Seeds for tomatoes (seven different varieties), capsicum (three varieties), and eggplant (two varieties), have been sown, but they haven't all been successful. Only three of the seven tomatoes germinated, one of the eggplant and none of the capsicum. I have re-sown four seeds each of the ones that didn't germinate in the hopes that I will get at least one of each.

Bean seeds (Borlotti, Brown Beauty, Tender Delight, and Butter Bean) were direct sown into the soil and while they all germinated the earwigs have had a field day with them and not all have survived, those that have are growing well, but I have sown more in pots in the greenhouse and will plant them out when they are big enough. Leeks, shallots, sage and Thai basil are all slowly emerging too.

So there you go, October in the garden, despite the weather it was an especially busy time and I am looking forward to reaping the rewards of all my hard work in the coming weeks. What's been happening in your garden?

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Garden Update February 2016

I have corn! It has been a difficult summer this year and I didn't think that I would have anything out of the garden this season but as of today I have four cobs.

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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.

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