Thursday, January 08, 2015

In the veggie garden - Jan 2015.....

....and probably the best year ever, and who's in charge? Well li'l ol' moi! Due to Joe being useless out of action the job of tending to it has fallen to me, I have probably shot myself in the foot though as Joe will say well you've been doing such a great job you might as well carry on!. I don't mind if truth be told as long as he's there to do the heavy stuff and the digging. I can dig if needs must but my back gives me grief after a while, working with small kids all those years ago does that to you, bending over for most of the day. It took me years for the penny to drop and actually sit down on their level. Anyhoo I digress, earlier today I decided to get my sewing head back on and get on with quilt I started an age ago, made a bit of headway but when I started to melt I stopped, made some lunch and watched You've Got Mail, I'd forgotten how much I loved that movie.
Once that was over I went armed with the camera to take some photos, here they are...

The nursery by the laundry, plants cuttings etc, for planting in the autumn.

 Sunflowers by the greenhouse

 Runner beans and spring onions
 Courgette patch (front) Pumpkin patch rear
 Pumpkins are needing water every day.
 Beetroot & more spring onions, need to plant some more
 The later planted garlic is a fail this year
 No cloves, just one big bulb.
 Bronze fennel, I'm going to collect the seeds this year.
 The border behind the greenhouse, there are cucumbers and beans in there but they are being engulfed by comfrey, bloody pain in the arse that stuff!
 lebanese cucs not swamped.
 Peeking in the greenhouse window
 We're picking beans now, I'm trying not to let them get too big
 Tomato triffids, I religiously pinched out the laterals then we went on holiday and they went mad. So I've just let them run riot, the one at the end left is the shop bought plant and has steadily been producing fruit since way before Christmas
 the others I grew from seed are now ripening, sweet 100s
 Another Early Girl
 and beefsteak
 
 The basil is faring better in here than in the garden
 As is the celery, we just come and pull of stalks when we need them
 Oh and as for my capsicums and peppers, they are just loving the greenhouse
 Time to make a relish methinks



 I have been plagued by green and white fly, it is an ongoing battle, I need to spray the aubergine again, it's covered. I thought I was losing the plant a while back the fruit was rotting on the stems, but once I started opening the windows to improve air circulation they are now slowly growing

 Outside I'm getting gherkins but they're all growing at different rates which is a pain.
 You have to love sunflowers
 Florence fennel, ready to use, I saw someone on Masterchef yesterday make a fennel and orange salad and serve it with snapper, might have to try that.
 The zucchinis are growing well, the worlds worst gardener could grown these!
 And we have pumpkins, only small yet but they'll grow

Time to wander to the top garden, we've been working on clearing this and harvesting the biulk plantings such as peas, beans etc. It worked really well, there's not much up here now that will need watering and we'll start getting the beds ready for autumn planting.
 I've been disappointed with the strawberries this year but then we found out why , a ceratin small dog has been helping himself, sneaking under the netting! Anyway I got ruthless and pulled all the runners out, the cows loved them! Reduced them back down to two rows again, cut them back, fed them, chucked a load of slug pellets down and laid out a bale of pea straw. Already they are growing back, so we might get another crop yet.

 The kale continues to grow and I snap bunches iff and use it raw in salads, along with silverbeet and spinach, these are great and a good substitute for lettuce that blots in the heat.
 Small figs on our new small tree
 After harvesting all of the peas and sugar snaps, all that is left are two rows of beans, we're harveting those too, if they produce more than we can cope with I'll just freeze them

 Maincrop Agria potatoes
 And the Jersey Bennes, these have been wonderful and some are huge, gotta love horse poos, lots of horse poos. Joe is going to start up the supply again next week.
 The raspberry canes are towering above me, although some pre-schoolers tower above me.
 Flowers with the promise of fruit.
 Corn bed and behind more main crops spuds

 A view from the far end of the veg garden

I've wandered back down to the main garden now, we had lots of extra plants, some I gave away and Michael was meant to come get the rest, he didn't, so Joe just dug them in randomly around the garden, they are fairly neglected and some are fairing better than others. These are two butternut squash plants, from seeds saved from a shop bought  pumpkin
 The two feijoa trees are past flowering, one flowered more than the other and it looks like we're going to get plenty of fruit off it, as ling as we beat the possums to them.

 The same goes for the peaches

There was no end to our excitement when we discovered two hazelnuts on our tree!
Woohoo!
 
 The new double grafted plum had a few fruits on one graft, none on the other. 
We did lose some in the winds.


Our other and older plum trees always give us heaps of fruit although we've probably lost half in the winds last year, never mind, we can't eat them all. I do however make some pretty good wine.

The herb garden is having some maintenance at the moment, Joe's been re-edging and digging it over. Some things we've pulled out as they either bolted or we didn't use it, as was the case with the sorrel.
 The rhubarb just keeps giving and I'm freezing it as I pick it.
 Parsley, celery and a forlorn looking cherry tomato
 Most of the self seeded sunflowers are past their best but we've left them, they still look interesting and the heads will dry in the sun.


 The dill has fallen over and needs supporting. Not so many leaves now but plenty of lovely flower heads and I'll collect these seeds too.


 Globe artichokes, I must find a recipe and actually eat them, I just love looking at them.

 Aren't these dill heads lovely?







 Rosemary & globe artichokes


And here are our harvested peas and sugar snaps, all bagged and frozen and ready for use.
We picked 5.25kgs of peas and 4 kgs(ish) of sugar snaps.
 A big bag of broad beans, some salvaged leeks that bolted while we were away 
and more sugar snaps
 and lastly woobarb.

That was a lot of photos, hope you enjoyed looking at our garden

Tomorrow I'll show you the real pretty stuff.


5 comments:

  1. I did. I know how much work goes in to producing all those crops and freezing some of them. Congratulations you have done well.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am so envious of your garden as I sit here looking out of my window at all the snow!! We have several more months of this before we even think about planting (June)! Enjoy!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. That is some garden you have! The sunflowers are the best! So happy and sunny looking!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wow so much happening in your garden ... those sunflowers are stunning :0)
    xx

    ReplyDelete
  5. LOVE the sunflowers!! My (old?) seeds didn't come up this year. Your garden is looking so productive - you're doing a great job with it - well done!!

    ReplyDelete

I love reading your comments and I thank you for taking the time to write them. I do my very best to reply to every one of them right here on the blog. When you leave your next comment tick the 'email follow up comments' and then you'll get any replies I leave. Thank you for reading my blog.