Because of my 8-year rotation plan, I sometimes have two beds dedicated to solanums (tomatoes, eggplant, capsicum). This is one of those years. In future years, I'll loose this bed and gain an extra pumpkin bed (where I can plant melons) or an extra root bed (where I can plant onions and garlic).
In the main tomato bed, I have, well, tomatoes. In this the second 'tomato bed' I have a few tomatoes, but mainly eggplant and capsicum and some basil.
Late in the season, it became obvious to me that I hadn't planted any zucchini or corn. What was I thinking? How could I have a summer without those two? I rushed in a couple of plantings and because I was doing it all last minute, I squeezed them into the end of what will be next season's winter bed.
In late January, early February I will need to start preparing this bed for the winter brassicas. Zucchini grows quickly, shouldn't be a problem. Besides I've left half the bed empty!
I find now, in early January that, for this season, I haven't really blogged on the planting of the pumpkins - and yet - here they are. They have sprung from nowhere, apparently.
It must have been hot on this afternoon when I was photographing the pumpkin bed. The rather elephantine leaves look a bit droopy. Pumpkins are so expressive about heat and moisture stress. It really helps the learner gardner - if they droop, water them.
You may also be curious about this plastic bale of sawdust. It was in my husband's shed (about half the garage) and he insisted I bring it down to the garden and use it. We had purchased it for our guinea pigs and bunny but unfortunately we weren't destined to be the kind of people who could keep caged animals. Despite being reluctant to get them, they really grew on me and both children had quite a soft spot for them but alas, fate determined that they would not linger long with us. After three pet deaths we decided - nah - better get another cat instead. Anyway, this bale of sawdust was cluttering up the 'shed' so I plan on using it for mulch instead.
Previous posts
Before the 12 months is over (March 2009)
Pumpkin bed - update late Summer (Feb 2008)
Pumpkin bed - early summer (Dec 2007)
Pumpkin harvest (June 2007)
Check for frosts (April 2007)
Stumbling on melons (February 2007)
I really should have taken a 'before and after' set of photos on this potato bed. Can you even make sense of what I've done here? I have lettuces and silverbeet going to seed in triffid like structures which blur the paths. I have also chopped back all the comfrey leaves and put them onto the soil to compost. Or rather Nick did that, under instruction. And then on top of the potato plants I've scattered about half a bale of hay. This helps block light from the growing potatoes and provides more hay to rot down and feed the plants.
Looks a bit like chaos.
Previous posts
Potato bed - early summer (December 2011)
Potatoes are up (November 2011)
Planting seed potatoes (October 2011)
Buying seed potatoes (September 2011)
Leek and potato soup (May 2011)
More on the potato harvest (March 2011)
Potatoes and leeks (March 2011)
Potato bed - update late summer (February 2008)
Potato bed - early summer (December 2007)
The peas are beginning to brown off at the bottom, though they are still cropping strongly. I needed to tie some of the pea plants back onto the frame as the weight of the plants was pulling them off the frame. Not sure why.
On the other side of the frame, the beans are up and growing strongly. Though my star post has taken an alarming lean to it. I think these were put in during the period when the star post driver was AWOL. It has since been replaced out of community funds and that star post is calling out for some attention!
There are climbing beans at both ends of the frame, with bush beans in the middle.
So far, no signs of flowers or beans but these did go in quite late.
Previous posts
Shelling peas - summer 2011 (Dec 2011)
Pea and bean bed - early Summer 2011 (Dec 2011)
Pea and bean bed - Spring 2011 (Nov 2011)
Spring vegetables and sowing peas (Oct 2011)
Planting peas - preparing the trench (September 2011)
Bean bed - update - end of summer (February 2008)
Bean bed - early summer (December 2007)
Seed saving - beans blue lake (May 2007)
Seed saving - beans (April 2007)
I have two beds with tomatoes, capsicums, and eggplant in them. This, the main bed, is now in early January full of a jungle of tomato plants.
There are trusses of tomatoes. Just starting out. Beautiful.
I use the baling twine from my hay to offer some assistance to these rambunctious plants. They are more like vines than bushes, crawling and falling all over the place.
They will grow roots from any stem that falls to the ground. This is probably a good thing, allowing more nutrients into the plant, but it does make it difficult to harvest and when I've been particularly free form with my plants, I've sometimes lost the path between the beds. Some restraint is necessary.
Previous posts
Tomato bed 1 planted (November 2011)
Tomato bed - mid summer (January 2008)
Tomato bed - early summer (December 2007)
Tomato bed prep (November 2007)
Last year one of the community gardeners left her plot of fruit trees and as there were quite a number of them we were all given the opportunity to take over some trees. We chose a plum and an apricot. We got our first crop from the plum tree last year but no apricots. This year, there aren't that many plums...not sure why...lots to learn.
Here's a photo below of the plum and the apricot. I went down to the garden last evening and the apricot tree was full of native birds feasting on the fruit. Almost every single apricot had a bite taken out of it. If we're going to be serious about this venture, next year we'll need to net the trees.
Pretty plums.
As part of the orchard redistribution we also put our hand up for a fence line that has berries and grape vines. We aren't sure what species of berries we've inherited - loganberries maybe? So, in the spirit of world expansion, we planted a thornless blackberry to add to our future cropping.
Berry plant with yummy but unidentified blackish, purplish berries. No thorns on the vine.
Checking out that watering system. We are also unsure whether the grape vines are table grapes or wine grapes. It will be a bit lost on us if its the latter. Not sure our life is long enough to learn to press grapes.
More stormy nights in the garden. I think this storm was deeply pounding South Canberra at about the time we were trying to finish up gardening. We got a bit of rain in West Belconnen but nothing like the 35mls that hit Duffy.
To find my garden in this view...middle of the photo...yellow metal drum next to two black compost bins... wall of asparagus behind the bins...that's me. Well not actually me. I'm taking this photo by standing over on the perimeter of the community garden looking across the garden, towards the tree line. Not a very common view on this blog.
Ah, so ... is this looking more familiar? Asparagus, tomatoes, husband - no particular order. All lovely.
They are unclipping drippers from the watering system...
A friendly, neighbourly gardener asks would we like some basil....
Verdict? Yes. Thanks. Would she like some strawberries? Then we beat a hasty retreat before the sprinkles turned to a pounding.
We have been slowly trying to get around to planting fruit producing trees and bushes in our home garden. A while back I wrote about the Apple Trees in our garden. I have also previously posted about our Fig trees. Well, recently we've been planting a few more fruiting trees and shrubs so my husband asked me to document them and it seems as good a place as any to record it here. In the process of taking the photos and working out just what we have, I also made notes about when they need feeding, pruning, harvesting. I keep a monthly list of things to do in each garden: home garden, and community garden. It was quite helpful to work through all the fruiting bushes and trees and add various notes to the list. We are years off having anything truly productive but you know, if you start, then someday there will be fruit - and that will be good.
We have:
Dwarf Peach tree (planted 2004)
Mulberry Tree (planted 2008)
Lemon Tree (Eureka) planted 2011
Gooseberry bush (planted 2011)
Blueberries (planted 2010)
Raspberry (planted 2011)
Pandora Passionfruit (planted 2011)
Red Currant (planted 2010)
Behind the currant is an Ivy League vine - a deciduous vine that changes colour in autumn - Virginia Creeper. I've wanted one ever since we moved into this house. One of my kindly community gardeners has it growing in her garden and she generously gave me three cuttings. We have a large west facing brick wall and during a landscaping course, I was advised to grow a vine on this wall because as mentioned here
Virginia creeper can be used as a shading vine for buildings on masonry walls. Because the vine, like its relative Boston ivy, adheres to the surface by disks rather than penetrating roots, it will not harm the masonry but will keep a building cooler by shading the wall surface during the summer, saving money on air conditioning. As with ivy, trying to rip the plant from the wall will damage the surface; but if the plant is first killed, such as by severing the vine from the root, the adhesive pads will eventually deteriorate and release their grip.
I don't know why I keep forgetting to take my camera down to the garden. But I do. It looks quite different to when I last photographed it, so I'll try and remember to take it down tomorrow morning - in the new year. 2012.
I started at the Charnwood Community Garden in April 2004. At some stage, we kept chickens and I needed to develop a really complex 8-year bed rotation plan to accommodate the usual 4-year rotation plus moving the chook house. Anyway, I typed in dates into my excel spreadsheet that had unfathomable numbers - 2012. I don't seem to quite get the passage of time. In 2004, I had a 2-year-old and a child in the second year of school. I had just returned back to my part-time job after 14 months maternity leave. I cried all the way down Southern Cross Drive, wiped my tears, walked in through the front door and began for the second time, that awkward balancing act that is the privilege of working mothers. A few months after returning to work, I answered an advert on the social club database for plots at a local community garden. A small act of escape. Now, in December 2011, I sit listening to Jazz renditions of Christmas Carols, while my 14-year-old first born writes out his novel by hand. We have no conversation because he's busy imagining and writing and I'm busy shelling, listening and reflecting on a year past and a new year to begin.
Hopes and dreams. Responsibilities and escapes. Small acts of courage. Small acts of rebellion. The unknown. A year just gone, grieving for lives that are over, for my father, for my mentor, Geraldine. Trying to accept myself. Doing and being for my children, for my partner. Sometimes well, sometimes not well enough. Far enough through this life to get a sense of time but still, time doesn't make much sense. I heard Professor Stanley, a renowned medical scientist whose field is brain development, particularly in early childhood, say that you could think of a person as a boat, and over the course of a lifetime the boat is rebuilt many times, but that person always remains recognisable as a distinct boat. Our brain cells, our skin cells, our hair and nails, our thoughts, feelings, memories live and die year-by-year but somehow we remain constant. And yet, I often think the boat could look quite different by the end of its life. Maybe it started as a light water craft and ended as a tug boat. Maybe it started as river barge and ended as tall ship. Hopes and dreams.
A New Year Tomorrow. 2012.
Stats : 445g of shelled peas. Sugar Snaps and some rather fat snow peas left unpodded. I love sugar snaps. I ate quite a few while shelling - just to test that they were actually sugar snaps and so the pods could be left on. Yup. That one's definitely a sugar snap, so I don't need to shell it. Yup - so's that one. Yup - n'other one. You can tell from the outside because the pod is sort of waxy and fleshy looking. But just to be sure, better pop it into your mouth. It would be dull to throw a normal pea pod into a stir fry. No one would thank me for that. Better test this one too. Yup. The whole pod is crunchy and sweet and juicy. Sugar Snap.
I am such an unruly planter and picker - all the different peas all jumbled up together.
But this is why I garden - fresh peas. You have to grow them. Woolies doesn't sell pods of peas in big metal bowls. And it was time to sit quietly and reflect. I needed a bowl of peas to pod. Perfect end of the year activity, to sit quietly with my hopes and dreams alongside my son with his hopes and dreams. Peace be with you all.
