dilly dalley doolittle gardening

Pumpkin harvest

We finished harvesting our pumpkins mid-April. Technically after the frosts...which according to Peter Cundall is best avoided. The vines certainly died off after two nights of killer frosts and all the pumpkins were sitting there ...just sitting. No one seemed harmed. So we took the trailer down and scooped them up.

more and....

 

Where do you want these? And what are you going to do with them all?

They will be stored in the garage, which is nestled into our sloping block and is reasonably cool throughout summer. In the past, I've managed to have pumpkins get all the way through to the end of the next summer. I've never got through a whole year. Not that it matters, by the time summer is here, the spring crops are starting to feed everyone and we're all well and truly sick of pumpkin and other winter vegies.

He's tossing them. The big bloke is laughing and the photographer and all round nervous nelly is finger wagging and telling them to 'stop, it isn't funny, I planted those...'.

He did point out that he thought we had enough and if the teenager dropped one...well, damn hey. This one is waiting at the front door to be made into soup. Shssh. Don't tell him. He thinks he's being a still life with succulents.

 

Previous posts

Pumpkin bed - late Summer (April 2012)

Pumpkin bed - mid Summer (Jan 2012)

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)

Tomato bed 2 - mid Feb 2012

Tomato bed 2 had the overflow tomato plants ...like 30 plants in tomato bed 1 wasn't enough?  I just can't say no when there is space and dirt, so why not plant. But it also has the eggplants and capsicums and cucumbers (which I didn't manage to photograph this year). Below are some smallish looking eggplant plants, though they really were quite productive.

Can you see the glossy black of the eggplant hiding in the photo below? Love.

Again, the overflowing tomato plants. I am unruly. They like to be free and abundant. It is the way it is.

These went in later than the tomato plants in bed 1 and this was a good thing. Later cropping, later picking was helpful with the tomato processing. Again this year we have a cupboard full of tomato passata.

Previous posts

Tomato bed 2 - update (Jan 2012)

Tomato bed 1 - mid Feb 2012

Okay. Can you tell where the bed stops and starts? Where exactly is the path.

February 19th, 2012. We do like to plant the cherry tomatoes variety, though I wish this year we had planted just a few more of the Romas or larger tomatoes. In a future post, I can show you why we like the cherries but it does make picking fiddly.

Having a jungle of tomato plants sprawling all over the bed also makes picking a fiddly job. It is thus best undertaken by the farmer responsible for the jungle. If non-planters are asked to do picking, a protest flag is always raised above the bed. Sometimes I can look the other way and not even notice that flag. Mainly because one does need help with the harvest in times of plenty.

 

 

Previous posts

Tomato bed - lots of growth, flowers, small tomatoes (Jan 2012)

Tomato bed 1 planted (November 2011)

Tomato bed - mid summer (January 2008)

Tomato bed - early summer (December 2007)

Tomato bed prep (November 2007)

Beans, beans, beans

Bean harvests from February 2012. Another in the series of catch-up posts. Brought to you by the letter A for 'absent' and B for 'beauty'.

Beans Blue Lake on the left, Dwarf beans in the middle, yellow runner beans on the right.

Previous posts

Pea and bean bed - mid summer (Jan 2012)

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)

Pumpkin bed - late Summer

I mentioned previously that I am a bit behind in my blogging. I'm going to spend the next couple of posts updating my blog with photos from Summer. I appreciate this could be frustrating for any locals who are actually experiencing the full blown effects of the frost from last week (hint: the creatures below hate frost!). It would seem so odd to see these images when outside looks so different. Apologies. I do like to look back at my own photo record for inspiration, memories, ideas, information...so it serves some purpose for me to update this (my blog). Summer was but a brief and wet time this past year.

 These photos were taken in February 2012.

 That pumpkin vine below was allowed to cross over the path into the adjoining bed. I must have turned my back on him for a moment and he was off.

 

Previous posts

Pumpkin bed - mid Summer (Jan 2012)

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)

January harvests: where have I been?

I occasionally bump into people or receive emails from people who read my blog and after I've been quiet for awhile on the blog, they often ask am I still gardening? I think being absent from a gardening blog is kind of odd, because unlike other hobbies or pursuits, the garden didn't wait patiently while I 'got on with other things'. It kept growing and producing and needing the farmer to move it along into the next season. Or else it would go its own merry way and produce an abundance of beautiful but non-edible produce (aka weeds).

I can reassure readers who care - that I rarely abandon my garden but I do find that over the years I have had gaps in my blogging. So, while I have been quiet, the tomatoes have been growing, have been picked, have been made into passata and put in the cupboard. The apple crop has finished. The pumpkins are manic. We have received more rain than I am used to. The garden has mostly loved it. The days have grown shorter, the mornings are getting chilly, the winter beds need attention. The earth has continued its seasonal cycle. Time and gardens wait for no blogger.

A photo from January 2012.....beans and tomatoes and zucchinis.

I will be resuming normal transmission soon. I have a backlog of photos, posts and stories to tell myself and the world. I began blogging years ago, mainly for myself but also for the connections that it forms. It is a hobby though and I do have a range of other things I need to do: raise children, keep a home, work for a few dollars, maintain real live friendships and family connections. Most recently my work has been noisy and demanding. I am just about to put it back into its box and tell it to behave with more perspective. I am looking forward to being back here and focussing on nature and nurture.

Thanks for your concern and enquiries.

Tomato bed 2 - update

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.

This will be next season's winter bed - squeezing in some summer crops

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!

Pumpkin bed - Mid summer

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)

Potato bed - Mid summer

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)