Snowy - At Last

After many seeds sown and a few false starts I finally managed to get a "Snowy" eggplant to grow this year. It started to flower, but never set any fruit or so I thought. Look at what I discovered this morning when I went down to the vegetable garden.

To say I got excited to see it is an understatement, but it's my first and grown from seed which makes it extra special in my book.

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Garden Update - March 2017

Well, here we are, March is over and the first month of autumn has gone, but March was a very warm month and it has only been over the last week that the weather has finally started to cool down. 

As I expected pickings from the garden have been small, both in size and quantity.

The only two eggplants I've had so far this season with three each of Honeybee and Principe Borghese tomatoes.

Surprisingly over the last two weeks the eggplant has really picked up and has doubled in size, it is covered in flowers so I am hopeful of a few more fruit before the colder weather arrives.

One thing that wasn't small in size was the rockmelon.

It weighed 2.2kgs, and was sweet, juicy and delicious.

I thought it was going to be the only one for this year, but as you know the garden is always full of surprises.

  I hope it matures quickly.

There are also two watermelon slowly growing in the garden as well, one is nearly ready to pick,

the other was a relative late comer so I'm not sure it will mature in time.

The pumpkins are getting closer to being ready to be picked every day. I can't wait to cut this one open to see what's inside. This was a volunteer plant that popped up in the garden, and although it looks a bit like a Queensland Blue I have never grown them or bought them so I have no idea what it is.

Looking forward to lot of pumpkin soup this winter made from these beauties.


Readers will remember this photo of a tomato flower from last month's blog post, I have since found out that it is a fairly uncommon condition called fascination. The cause of fascination is unknown, but it is harmless to plants and it doesn't spread to infect other plants.

This is the resulting tomato fruit.

It looks weird, but it tasted just like a normal tomato.

One last photo to finish this post, my orange tree is once again playing host to the caterpillar of the Citrus Swallowtail butterfly, and hopefully I will be lucky enough to watch them hatch again.

Photo taken October 2015

Well that's it for this month, hopefully my blogging mojo will come back soon and I will blog a little more often, if not I will see you next month. 

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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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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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A Week In The Garden

It has been a slow week in the garden this week, with very little happening at all.

Tuesday 9th August

I went down to water and check on the "Baby" broccoli that I had planted last week only to discover that something had eaten every single one of them. I wonder what the chances are that they will regrow.

Thursday 11th August

 I spotted the first pea pod on the Purple Podded pea vine, such a beautiful colour!  I only wish the peas were purple instead of green.

And I just cannot get enough of their flowers, they are so pretty.

Three of the cauliflower are now big enough to see without having to look for them.

After this photo was taken I clipped the leaves over the top of the cauliflowers with pegs to stop the sun turning them yellow.

One of the asparagus has decided it's spring already and has started to send up shoots.

Hopefully the rest will wait until it's the right time to grow.

I harvested the first head of the "Green Dragon" broccoli and one stem of the "Italian Sprouting" broccoli today.

I'm really pleased with how the broccoli has gone this year, a big improvement on last year.

Both of the orange tree are covered in flower buds despite the fact that one still has fruit on it. Is this normal?

Saturday August 13th

Not really gardening, but still garden related, I spent some time today going through all the seed packets I have (a lot more than I realised), sorting them month by month, tossing out the out of date ones, and writing a list of the ones that I need to buy. 

I then placed an order at Eden Seeds for Golden beetroot, True Gold corn, Turkish Turban pumpkin, Brown Berry, Principe Borghese, Pineapple and Tigerella tomatoes, Purple Beauty capsicum, and Gold Arch Crookneck zucchini. Hopefully with the seeds I all ready have, this should be enough to keep us supplied with vegetables over the spring/summer period.

I harvested a bunch of parsley today,

and noticed that the plum tree has burst into bloom.

Just gorgeous!

Sunday 14th August

I paid a visit to Cheap as Chips to pick up some stakes and twine that I will be using to help to support the broad beans when they get bigger.

I ended up walking out with not only the stakes and twine, but also some seedling trays, seed raising mix, celery seeds, Harlequin carrot seeds and some Giant Dahlia zinnia seeds.  I really don't need any more seeds at this point, but I'm sure that a few more will sneak in when I'm not looking. I think it can be quite addictive, everything always looks so good on the front of the packet.

I put the eggplant out in the sun today, in the hope that it will help with the powdery mildew issue and as I was checking it over I found six more fruit which brings the total to ten now, and it is covered in flowers. If they all produce fruit I have no idea what I'm going to do with them. A nice problem to have though.

So that was this week in the garden and now that I look at the photos  I can see that a lot has actually happened in the garden this week, I just haven't had to do any of the work.

What's been happening in your garden this week?

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