Growing Asparagus

Asparagus is easily one of my favourite vegetables, and the best thing is that it is also one of the easiest veggies to grow and will supply you with delicious spears for twenty years or more if properly cared for.  

Bare rooted asparagus crowns can be bought from most garden centres or nurseries, as well as online and are usually planted out during winter through to early spring. Choose a sunny position with well draining soil that  has been enriched with plenty of organic matter, well rotted horse manure would be a good choice if you can get hold of some, plant crowns at least 10cm deep and between 35 - 40cm apart.  

During the first year of growth it is very important that the spears are not harvested as this will weaken the plant, a light harvest can be made in the second year, and in the years to follow the spears can be harvested every two to three days (they grow very quickly) over a six week period. Any spears that appear after that time should be left to grow into fronds. Pick only those spears that are at least as thick as a finger, and 15 - 20cm tall, any spears smaller than that should be left to grow. Keep your asparagus well watered during spring and summer and fertilise with pelletised chicken manure once harvesting has been completed.

Asparagus can also be grown from seed, but it will be three years before any spears will be able to be harvested.  

Asparagus fronds will start to turn yellow during the winter and this is when they will need to be cut down to ground level and the asparagus bed covered in a good thick layer of compost or manure, followed by a layer of straw, this will give them a good start when they start to grow again in spring.

Asparagus fronds ready to be cut down.

See, easy, the hardest part is waiting until you can harvest, but it is definitely worth the wait.

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The Great Pumpkin Harvest

Well, maybe great is a bit of an exaggeration, but compared to last years harvest of one minuscule butternut,

this years harvest was indeed great.

10.4kg of Butternut and 4.8kg of an unknown volunteer.

As you can see in the photo one of the pumpkins has split, I have since found out that it is an indication that the fruit had been left on the vine too long.  It was the second one to have done it, my own fault, but I wanted to make sure they were fully ripened before I picked them. I was worried that they might have gone mouldy or started to rot inside, but when I cut them open they were just fine and the pumpkin soup that was made with them was absolutely delicious.

There are still three more Butternut pumpkins on the vine that should be ready to pick on the weekend, I will be making sure those are not left too long.

Did you grow pumpkins this year? How did they go?

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What's My Gardening Philosophy?

Welcome to this months Garden Share Collective, hosted by Kate from Rosehips and Rhubarb and Krystie from A Fresh Legacy. This months theme is PHILOSOPHY.

My gardening philosophy is to keep things as simple and easy as possible by cutting down on the amount of work that I need to do in the garden, and only growing the vegetables that my family and I enjoy eating.

Growing vegetables can be hard work if you let it be, so here are a few things that I have found that have made it a little easier for me. 

Install a watering system - Watering (especially in summer) takes up a lot of a gardener's time, and I don't know anyone who enjoys standing out in the summer heat watering the gardens to keep plants alive, installing a water system not only cuts down on the amount of time you need to spend in the garden, it also cuts down on water wastage.

Mulch, Mulch, Mulch - I cannot stress enough how important mulch is in the vegetable garden or any garden for that matter. It helps keep the soil cool, which creates a good environment for earthworms who in turn help break down the mulch which enriches the garden's soil. It helps to keep the  soil moist, which means less time spent watering, and it suppresses weed growth which is always a good thing. *Gardening Australia's Peter Cundall does advise against mulching onions as they need the warmth of the sun to swell and ripen. 

Invest in insect netting - If you don't like the idea of using pesticides in the veggie garden then you may want to buy yourself some of this, it will not only stop the White Cabbage butterfly laying her eggs on your brassica plants, but it will also prevent a myriad other insects devouring your vegetables. Old net curtains bought from your local op shop will work too, as long as it has a very fine weave.

Only grow what you like to eat - Those glossy purple eggplants might look delicious hanging on the plant, but if no-one eats them, they will only go to waste, the same goes for trying to grow veggies that aren't suited to your local growing conditions, so save yourself the time, money and stress, find out what your family likes and dislikes and do some research on your growing area before you plant anything. 

So, that's my gardening philosophy, I guess it's nothing new, but it works for me, and I hope you find some of it helpful.

Harvesting

Lots of peas, Oregon and Melting Mammoth snowpeas, Purple Podded, Telephone, Early Crop Massey, Blue Bantam and Sugar Snap peas. 

Oregon snowpeas.

Purple Podded peas.

Early Crop Massey and Blue Bantam peas

Harvesting them has been made considerably harder by an unexpected guest.

Mother Blackbird sitting on the nest she made amongst the Telephone pea vines.

And the eggs she is sitting on.

I harvested the last of the cauliflowers which was small but perfect.

Also in the picture is the last of the asparagus. They did not do as well this year as in previous years and I only picked enough for a couple of meals, it could have had something to do with all the rain we've had over the last few months, but I'm not really sure.

My only other harvest for this month wasn't edible, but it did make me very happy.

Sweet peas, so beautiful and their fragrance (especially the white ones) is divine.

 I had forgotten how much pleasure growing your own flowers can bring and I will be making sure that these won't be the last for the year.

Sowing

The last lot of seeds I sowed was in early August and not one seed germinated, I blame it on the seed raising mix I used, it was a lesser known brand and it dried out very quickly. I have since bought a better quality seed raising mix and on Tuesday I sowed not only this month's seeds, but last months as well. I won't bore you with the names of all of them, there was a lot, I just hope that they germinate this time. I also direct sowed five varieties of bean seed.

Things to do

Lots of waiting happening at the moment. Waiting for seeds to germinate, waiting for the seed pods to form on the broccoli plants, waiting for eggs to hatch and baby birds to fledge, and waiting for peas to finish their growing season, so there isn't a lot I can do in the garden at the moment. As soon as all that happens, I will be able to sow the corn, the pumpkins and the salad greens. I am growing tomatoes, capsicums, chillies in pots again this year, hopefully next year I will be able to start growing them back in the garden again, and as I've never had any luck growing cucumbers in the garden I will be growing them in pots as well. I need to get the chick peas in soon as they need quite a long growing season, hopefully that will happen this weekend.

That's it for this month's Garden Share Collective, If you'd like to know the gardening philosophy of other GSC members drop by Krystie or Kate's blog. See you next month.

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Garden Share Collective

Happy New Year everyone, and welcome to another month of Garden Share collective where gardeners from around the world get to show what’s been happening in their vegetable garden over the past month, hosted by Lizzie from Strayed from the Table.

December was a bit of a mixed bag as far as weather was concerned, thunderstorms, winds so strong they brought down tree branches, 

One of the White Cedar trees across the road from our house lost a branch.

the odd hot day, but for the most part the days were just gorgeous, cool mornings (so cool in fact, that some mornings a cardigan was needed), warm sunny days turning into cool evenings that didn’t require the use of a fan to get a good night’s sleep.

In the garden

Down in the vegetable garden things are still slow to get moving, with some things doing better than others.

Sweet corn, off to a good start .

The Genovese basil  is doing beautifully and I have already made my first batch of basil pesto.

The self sown Kent pumpkins have started to flower.

 Tomatoes of an unknown variety. Well, not really unknown, they are volunteers from last summer's crop that I over-wintered, I'm just not sure what they are yet.

Lebanese cucumber, of the 4 seeds sown 2 of the seedlings are doing well, while the other 2 are struggling to grow, and I have no idea why.

Harvesting

Mostly herbs at the moment, basil, parsley, thyme and oregano.

To do

Weed and water as required, I have a feeling I will be doing a lot of this.
Try to get some coriander, English spinach and lettuce growing, I have had no luck so far.  
 Mulch the last few beds.

Well, that's it for this month, see you same time, same place, next month.

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Garden Share Collective September 2014

It's September, already! Is it just me or does this year seem to be flying by at an alarming rate.

August was a month of unseasonably warm weather during the day, cold nights and no rain.

What's been happening in the garden?  There are blossoms on the plum and orange trees,

and the shelling peas are starting to produce.

   Harvests in August were mostly cauliflower and broccoli, along with the odd carrot.

The snow and sugar snap peas were a real disappointment this year, last year I had so many I didn't know what to do with them all and this year the plants only produced 783 grams. I have sown more sugar snap peas in the hope of getting some more before the weather gets too hot and if I can find room for them I will sow more snow peas too.

TO DO:

Sow seeds of tomatoes, spinach, silverbeet, basil, snow peas, coriander and cucumber. Linking up with Lizzie at Strayed from the Table.

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Harvest Monday

It was a very disappointing garlic harvest this year, not so much in quantity but the quality was definitely lacking.

While some of the bulbs on top look a decent size, they are in fact quite small; the biggest one is only 4cms. There are some that didn't develop past the stage of the clove that I planted and others that split into seperate cloves.

I don't know what happened this year, could it be that I planted them at the wrong time, 2 days before the full moon in April. I think next year I will sow at the winter solstice as I did last year, the resulting harvest was much better.

The only other thing that has been harvested in the last week or so was carrots, 800gms of baby carrots to be exact. Grown in a polystyrene box and for the most part badly neglected.

 I wasn't sure whether they would be bitter because they had been neglected but no they tasted really good.

I have been very busy in the garden over the last few weeks rearranging things,  I'm not quite finished yet but hopefully by the weekend it will all be done.  I'll be back with photos when it is. Linking up to Daphne's Dandelions.

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