Garden Share Collective - August 2015

Not a lot happened in the garden in July, everything is taking its own sweet time about growing and I just have to learn to be patient, I know that everything will get there in the end.

 It has been a colder than normal winter this year, and we have not had the amount of rain we would normally have, but having said that we did have enough rain in July  (42.4mm) that I didn't have to water, which is always a good thing.


After five very fretful weeks of wondering if they had rotted in the ground the potatoes finally decided to start sticking their heads up out of the soil. 

Kestrel

Royal Blue

I lost my first planting of broccoli to aphids, the one time of the year I didn't think I needed to worry about them, but they are everywhere at the moment. I am keeping a very close eye on my second lot and spraying with soapy water when needed.
The peas are making their way up the trellises, and the strawberries are flowering and fruiting.

Red Gauntlet

 The tomatoes that popped up all over the gardens in the front yard, have so far survived any frost we have had, I can't leave them there so in the next week or so I will be potting them up. After last summer's disaster with the tomatoes (Verticillium wilt) I'm not going to risk planting any tomatoes in the vegetable garden for the next couple of years.

Harvesting

Zero, zip, zilch, nada. It looks like the winter crop, will now be a spring crop, as long as I get something I'll be happy.

Planting/Sowing

It will be at least another four, maybe five weeks before I can start planting or sowing seeds.

I'm thinking of adding sheep manure to the vegetable beds as a soil conditioner. Has anybody tried this, or have any advice as to what the best soil conditioner is.
Don't forget that the next GSC will be on 31st August, I will see you all then.

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Colouring In - No Longer Just for the Kids

I'm not one to buy into every new fad or craze that comes along, but this is one craze that I'll quite happily take part in, colouring-in books just for us adults.  It's a craze that is sweeping the world, allowing adults an escape from the hectic pace of their everyday lives, a chance to disconnect from the technological world we live in and get back to basics. By focusing the mind on colouring, it brings calmness and stillness to the mind, almost like a form of meditation. 

There is a wide range of books available, below are just a few examples of what is available.

Secret Garden and Enchanted Forest by Johanna Basford, beautifully illustrated and just waiting to be brought to life with colour.

Animal Kingdom and Tropical Wonderland by Millie Marotta.

I love paisley so this one is right up my alley.

Art Therapy Colouring Book, this is one of a series of three books, the other two are Colour Therapy and Creative Therapy.

If you would like to indulge yourself, but don't want to buy any books, just type free colouring pages for adults into your search engine, there are plenty to choose from. Me, I'm off to do some more colouring.

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Garden Share Collective - July 2015

Hello everyone and welcome to another round of Garden Share Collective hosted by Kate, Kyrstie and Lizzie.

The month of June was a slow one, workwise, in the garden and a dry one too, with just over 16mm of rain recorded for the month.

 

The peas that I sowed in May have sprouted with about a 95% germination rate.

Melting Mammoth snowpeas.

The Green dragon broccoli hasn't done anywhere near as well this winter, they are only 1/3 of the size of the ones I grew last year and the heads are tiny.

I'm hoping they will get a little bigger than this before they have to be cut.

 

The Green Sprouting broccoli is coming on.

Broccoli in May on the left and June on the right.

As is the cauliflower.

The rhubarb is still producing stems, normally by this time of the year it has died down, but with the weather being all over the place as it has been I'm not surprised the poor plant is confused.

I have self-seeded tomatoes popping up all over the place, some of which are flowering. At last count, there were fourteen, if they all survive I won't have to worry about seeds or seedlings come spring. 

I pruned the grapevine back and I'm thinking I might have cut it back too far, I guess only time will tell. I will be repotting it into a half wine barrel soon and if it doesn't give me any fruit this year (it's five years old) it will be going into the compost.

Harvesting

I had a very small harvest of ginger, I had been expecting more considering how lush the plant was.

Apart from the ginger, pickings have been slim, almost non-existent this month, hopefully things will get a move on in the garden and next month's harvest will be bigger and better.

Planting 

I finally got around to planting the potatoes, 6 each of, Kestrel, Blue Royal, and Red Delight and that's it, it's just a matter of waiting now.
 

My hens Rosie and Ginger have been through their moult and they looked very tatty this year. The feathers have grown back now and they are looking like their old selves again, I just wish they would start laying.

Rosie and Ginger doing their best to turn over the new compost bin.

That's it for this month, I will see you all again next month.

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Taking Stock

Making: An afghan for the lounge room
Cooking: Split pea and ham soup for dinner tomorrow night
Drinking: Coffee, tea and water (and maybe a glass or two of red wine)

Reading: Pigs in Clover
Wanting: A long holiday …….alone
Looking: Forward to becoming a grandmother again in the new year
Deciding: Whether to redesign the vegetable garden or not
Wishing: There were more hours in a day
Enjoying: Winter sunshine
Waiting: Impatiently for the vegetables to grow big enough to harvest
Wondering: If my outdoor entertaining area will ever look the way I want it to
Loving: My new boots
Pondering: The possibilities of a trip to Queensland for Christmas
Considering: Painting my bedroom
Buying: Nothing, unless it’s absolutely essential
Watching: Star Trek: Enterprise and CSI: New York
Marvelling: That I am managing to keep the maidenhair fern I was given for Mother’s Day alive
Needing: To clean out the freezers
Smelling: Chocolate mud cake baking
Wearing: Lots of layers to ward off the winter cold
Noticing: How quickly time is passing
Knowing: That things will turn out all right in the end
Thinking: Too much about things that don’t really matter
Sorting: The house out, one room at a time
Getting: A lot done, but there is always more to do
Bookmarking: Lots of vegetarian meal ideas
Disliking: Narrow-minded politicians
Giggling: At the goings-on in Pigs in Clover 
Feeling: Slightly overwhelmed
Helping: Wherever I can
Hearing: The sweet sound of silence

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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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