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? 

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Garden Update March 2016

I'm not even sure it's worth doing an update this month, but here it is.

The corn is still growing, still producing. 

Although it's all a bit hit and miss.

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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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A Gardening Conundrum

It started a few weeks ago, just after the heatwave in October, a branch of my cape mallow bush started to die, I didn't worry about it too much, things die, that's just the way it is. When the branch died completely I cut it off and put it out of my mind. 

Then one morning I went out to water the pot plants and noticed that the lemon balm was dead and that the parsley in the same pot wasn't looking too good either.

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Garden Share Collective - Growth

I wasn't going to do a post for this month's Garden Share Collective because I didn't think I had anything to share, but a quick walk around the garden and potted plants proved me wrong.

Sweet corn, sown weeks ago and only now starting to sprout.

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Garden Share Collective

It's time once again to join Lizzie @ Strayed from the Table for another round of Garden Share Collective.

January was a month of contrasts that began with devastating bushfires, followed by some desperately needed rain and then a return to much cooler weather.

Down in the garden things are finally starting to happen.

I lost all my Scarlet Runner and Butter beans, which had just begun to flower, during the heat wave at the start at the month. I had to sow two more times before any germinated. I have put up shade cloth to protect them from the afternoon sun and so far, so good.

I successively sowed four lots of corn seeds, but only the first two germinated and they are almost ready to harvest.

The cucumber plants are covered in flowers but no sign of cucumbers yet.

The chillies and capsicums are doing especially well this season and should provide me with more than enough for drying and freezing.

Cayenne chilli

Self-sown Bok Choi

My autumn fruiting raspberry is flowering. Is it normal for it to flower this early?

It took a while, but the strawberries are at last setting fruit and are sending out runners as well. Hopefully I will end up with enough to fill the bed without having to buy any more.

Immature fruit of the Red Gauntlet strawberry

 I really need to get better at labelling plants. I planted two different types of watermelon, but have no idea which is which now. There are only three at the moment, but judging by the amount of flowers on each of the vines there are going to be a lot more.

And  just because I think it's pretty, a lovely mauve flower on the mint bush.

Planting: I have planted the last of the summer crops now, which included English spinach, endive, rocket and a variety of lettuce. I won't be planting anymore now and instead I will start sowing seeds for my winter crop as soon as my seeds arrive.

Harvesting: Tomatoes (412g), basil, chillies and capsicum. 

Just before I go, I have a question about my tomato plants that some of you more experienced gardeners might be able to answer for me. What is wrong with my tomato plants?

  The plants started out lovely and green and lush, but then the leaves started to turn yellow and now they look like this. Does anyone know why?

The Garden Share Collective is a group of bloggers who share their vegetable patches, container gardens and the herbs they grow on their window sills. Creating a monthly community to navigate through any garden troubles and to rival in the success of a good harvest we will nurture any beginner gardener to flourish. Each month we set ourselves a few tasks to complete by the next month, this gives us a little push to getting closer to picking and harvesting. The long-term goal of the Garden Share Collective is to get more and more people gardening and growing clean food organically and sustainably.

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This Week In The Garden

The asparagus plants are laden with seed pods.

The first flower buds appeared on the "Blue Bantam" dwarf peas.

With more coming up.

 The chilli plants are still producing.

The capsicum plant I bought that turned out to be a banana chilli.

Cayenne pepper

Yellow hot wax

Garlic shoots are emerging from the earth.

The kent pumpkin that I thought was dead has sprung back to life,

and is flowering.

I doubt whether there is enough time for it to set fruit before the cold weather arrives though.
There is the possibility of a few tomatoes.

At the end of February I sowed 24 "Windsor Longpod" bean seeds, unfortunately only eight germinated. I am keeping my fingers crossed that I will get at least a few beans.

And finally while not in the vegetable garden but still edible I planted two pineapple tops in the garden at the back of the house. Hopefully in 18 months or so we will be eating home grown pineapple.

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Harvest Monday - 20th January, 2014

With the horrendous heatwave of last week, which for those of us who live in South Australia looked like this, 42.8, 45.7, 46, 46.4, 44, I honestly didn't think that I would have any vegetables left never alone have anything to harvest. But as always the plants continue to amaze with their resilence and while it isn't much of a harvest it is at least something to show for all all the time, energy and water I have put into the garden.

Mostly cocktail tomatoes, 1 green zebra and a lone grape tomato. The chillis are yellow hot wax and cayene. Drop by Daphne's Dandelions to see more harvests from around the globe.

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Harvest Monday

Pickings from the garden are slim at the moment and all I have to show this week are some chillies

Hot wax chillies

and some coriander seed, 73 grams in all, about half a jam jar full.

There are 4 more plants drying in the gardening shed which I will harvest in the next day or so. Linking up to Daphne's Dandelions. 

I will be back tomorrow with a tale of woe or two.

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