Garden Update - Waiting

Have you ever noticed that as gardeners we do a lot of waiting. Waiting for the soil to become warm enough so that the spring crop can be sown or planted, waiting for the  temperature to drop so that the autumn seeds and seedling can be put into the earth.  Waiting for fruit to ripen on their vines, waiting for leafy greens to become big enough so that they can be picked.

At the moment I'm waiting for pumpkins to stop growing and start maturing so that they can be picked and stored away to be used over the winter.

Waiting for tomato flowers to turn into tomatoes that in turn will be made into passata and pasta sauce.

 Waiting for plums to ripen so that I can enjoy their sweet and juicy deliciousness.

And there are melons on the vines that are still a long way from being ready to eat.

One thing I'm not waiting for anymore is zucchini. The plants had been doing so well in December, but by mid January they had succumbed to downy mildew.

The cucumber which had showed so much promise got powdery mildew and had to be pulled out.

The corn grew well and developed good sized ears, but I think I waited too long to pick them and they were tasteless.

The Turkish Turban also bit the dust. I think it must have been infected with downy mildew as well.

I did sow another one, but I don't think there will be enough time for it to produce fruit and for that fruit to mature.

None of the plants have done particularly well this season which given the crazy weather, days of extreme heat, followed by cooler days and more rain than is normal, it's not surprising that the plants have struggled.

 I always ask myself at this time of the year, is it really worth trying to grow vegetables in the summer?
I'm starting to think it's not, especially with all the extra water that it takes to keep the veggies alive during the frequent heat waves we have experienced over the last couple of  years, not to mention the pests and diseases that have to be contended with, I think with the money I would save on the water bill I could just buy organic vegetables and save myself time, money and energy.

What do you think? Is it really worth growing vegetables during summer anymore?

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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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March GSC - Colour

Welcome to this months Garden Collective, the theme this month is COLOUR.

Colour affects our lives every day, most of the time without conscious thought from us, it affects our mood, warns us of danger, lets us know when a fruit or vegetable is ripe enough for us to eat, and is a pleasure for us to look at.

 Even within the confines of a vegetable garden there are many different colours, you just have to look for them. Here are some of the colours found in my garden.

The soft, pale lemon of a watermelon flower.

Bright golden yellow zucchini flowers.

Pale green and white stripes on an immature butternut pumpkin.

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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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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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