dilly dalley doolittle gardening

Winter bed ready

This is a bit of an "update post". I actually did this work last weekend but am only now posting. We have had a long and intense and sad week with the death of the family pet. My cat of 18 years who predates my life in Canberra, my marriage and my children reached the point in her life where we as a family had to make some hard decisions. My 10 year old son and I have found the last week to be particularly hard. However, the vegetables wait for no one. As the earth relentlessly continues its passage around the sun, so too do the seasons change and we must answer the cycles or its Woolies for you girl! Heed my warning.

So after a very sad cat funeral where we buried our cat, said a few kind words about her, read her Cynthia Rylant's "Cat Heavan" poem, and planted a She-Oak over the top of her, we all went down to the community garden for some life affirming garden bed preparation. Normally, working in the garden cures all sorts of ills. I'll go down with a headache, feeling stressed from work (paid work that is) and find that after a short time of gardening my muscles are relaxed, my tensions are gone, the headache has subsided, my thoughts are turning to sweet things. But even the magic properties of gardening cant take away an aching heart. At least not straight away.

You can just see the baby she-oak (casuarina) in between the children.

Still here it is. The bed that had contained the mis-timed melons now is dug over ready for winter crops. I have seedlings of cabbages, cauliflower, broccoli (italian style), broccoli (hong kong style), kale, silverbeet, spinach, and cos lettuce ready to go in. Saturday, the day I did the bed preparation, was not my watering day and so I decided to plant the seedlings on Sunday afternoon at about 5-7pm so that soon after they were planted I could water them in. Anyway, here's the bed early Saturday evening. I've managed to retain the cucumber trellis.

Blogged with Flock

Potato bed - update late summer (last one of this series)

Last update that is...I've finally worked my way around my garden beds with update photos. After  I've done this, I'll let you know how I'm going getting my brassicas in for winter. There was that small issue about killing off the melons. Anyway, here's the potato bed.

There appears to be a gap half way down the bed and that would be because there IS a gap half way down the bed. But its more complicated than that. The first half of the bed was planted before the garden open day (but still very late for me) - late October maybe. I usually try and get potatoes under straw in late August, early September. Anyway, after the garden open day - so I'm talking early December (!) I put in the other half the potato bed. Really, when I did that I was just experimenting. I don't even know if all is well under that growth at the back, and whether or not they'll finish growing in time for harvest. It seemed like it was worth a try because I had this half a bed allocated to potatoes - I just hadn't got around planting. So, we'll see. Certainly the potatoes at the front of the bed - just after the stawberry plants - look normal. Bulky, lush, green growth on top that covers the bed whereas the ones at the back are smaller and haven't all managed to grow.

Blogged with Flock

Bean bed - update - end summer

Strawberry plants at the end of the bed. Beans blue lake on the trellis.

The green beans are cropping well. I pick a handfull most days at the moment. This is just about right. Steamed for dinner the children each eat one green bean and we eat the rest. And yes, the one green bean is eating on sufferance. One day they will realise what a joy fresh home grown (community grown) vegies really are. In the meantime, my husband and I sigh at our philistines and enjoy the bounty.

Blogged with Flock

Pumpkin bed - update late summer

These photos were taken a few days ago - anyone living in Canberra would know that because the sky isn't overcast in the photos! We have had days and days of overcast weather but only moderate rain. Still, any rain is good rain. So here's the pumpkin bed update.

And from the other end.

The poles / sticks that you see cluttering up many of my photos are used to help guide/ drag the watering hose around. I don't have a watering system set up in the garden bed and do all my watering by hand. I have two long hoses joined together, which makes for a bulky and sometimes recalcitrant heavy rubberized snake. I don't want it to damage the plants and so have set up poles on the corners of each bed. So every garden bed (all 8 of them) have 4 poles - one on each corner. From this angle you can see one pole on the corner of the pumpkin bed and one pole on the corner of bean bed (which I'm standing next to to take the photo).

One of the babies on its way... not sure what type.

And standing side on to the pumpkin bed and looking back across the 4 beds is this view of ...what..a wave of pumpkin vines about to swamp those who linger on the edge of the sea of plenty.

Blogged with Flock

Melon bed - late summer

Look now before it vanishes! In my confusion and drought induced nervousness, I ran late putting in my Summer beds. Then all of a sudden the pressure was on. We were scheduled to be part of the Open Gardens scheme in December. So, without looking at my crop rotation plan, and without really believing the drought was over, I planted out this melon bed.

It has a trellis with cucumbers growing on it, and watermelon vines, heirloom rockmelons and store bought seedlings of (I think) Hales rockmelons. Unfortunately, it all has to go in about a week. I need this bed for winter brassicas: cabbages, cauliflowers, broccoli, kale etc. I feel most annoyed with myself.  Given my complicated crop rotation, I was never meant to have a melon bed this year but because I didn't check my plans I didn't know this. Anyway, I can't plant the brassicas anywhere else so these babies will have to be sacrificed, as given the current cold weather, I really don't think they'll ripen in time.

And these...

And these....

I'm just going to have to stiffen my resolve. Ignore the perfume of an organically grown rockmelon (hopefully it will be a cold day with no heady aromas wafting around). And repeat after me - never plant without checking your plan!

These at least will not need to be killed off. I think I can maintain the cucumber trellis and still have enough room for the winter brassicas. The cucumbers will probably continue on through to end March - early April. By then we'll be sick of them, frost will get them or downy mildew. As my incredibly fussy eater daughter does actually like cucumbers I am glad I can maintain the vines until the end of their natural life.

Blogged with Flock

Half a bed ready for winter root crops

I started off with the digging board and slowly, over a few mornings, dug my way through the bed. (Thursday morning view)

(Friday morning view) Then I levelled it and smoothed it and now I'm just waiting for some rain, or a day when I'm allowed to water and then when its moist enough I'll put in the carrot, turnip, beetroot, parsnip and radish seeds. The far end of the bed I'll dedicate to onions, which I wont need to plant until June.

(Saturday morning view) On the pole is my jacket. It looks a bit reminiscent of Peter Rabbit. It was chilly this morning. Strange cold weather for February. This is very Canberra though. The weather always seems to be doing what you least expect. We were told it would rain every day last week. It rained one day, and we had 10mls in the garden. Good. Then it stayed overcast and chilly all week. Hard for those heat loving vegetables to ripen and hard for us heat loving humans. My husband is a winter chap and he's enjoyed the break from summer but not me. I love the summer. The winter has always seemed long and dominant in our climate. Having said that, of course we aren't really talking about a very serious winter. Frosty and cold but no snow. I grow vegetables right through the winter, after all. So its not that cold. Still the trick is to get your winter vegetables in early enough. Late February for cauliflowers and cabbages has been, from my experience, the very latest you want to push it. After that, they really don't get established enough before the days get short and the cold and frosts set in.

Blogged with Flock

Corn & zucchini bed - late summer

This view is looking from my internal path along the bed towards the 3 zucchini plants and corn. We've eaten well from the zucchini -and we have loved fried zucchini, ratatouille, dried zucchini, zucchini cakes...but I'm sick of it now and I've been turning my back on it and it's been exploding into marrows. There are two left on the bed which I really should chop up and feed to the chooks.

The corn on the other hand has not been such a success. Unfortunately, I didn't pay close enough attention to it and someone - I blame the "Were-rodent" has been nibbling, munching, crunching through my corn. Here lie the discarded skeletons of previously plump corn on the cob.

These are the dried out remains on the plant. I did sort of notice that some damage was happening fairly early on in the growing cycle but didn't quite absorb how extensive the damage was. By the time I got around to harvesting corn for the family (and we all do love corn on the cob!) there were no - I repeat - NO ears of corn that had not been munched. AAgh....

I did plant two crops of corn and the second crop of corn is looking fine at present. So I am checking it daily and if I find nibble damage I'll harvest it. I'm not sure of that as a strategy - if like birds, the were rodent eats before it is fully ripe then harvesting wont be much good for us either. The Organic Man sells "humane rodent traps" and so I might order some of those. I've decided its a rodent doing the damage because you can see teeth marks on the ears of corn and I don't think the birds would do that, and I do know there are mice in the chicken pen - having seen them many times in the hay bales.

Here are some corns from the second crop. Let's keep our fingers crossed....

When the corn and zucchini are finished up in this bed it will become the root bed over winter. I am currently digging the half that is unplanted and hope to plant out carrot, parsnip, turnip seeds on the weekend.

Blogged with Flock

Tomato bed - mid summer

Well it is now mid-summer and time to update progress in the garden. Despite summer being the promise of tomatoes, I planted late and so now we wont harvest any significant  tomato crop until summer is well and truely over. Funny how putting plants in late doesn't seem to cause too much grief but waiting and waiting for tomatoes is agonising. Those cardboard things are everywhere in the shops.....I do buy them but I'll be glad when I don't need to.

Below is my very first tomato harvest for this season. Can you see it? Let me help. In the egg container are two baby cherry tomatoes. Unfortunately someone has been nibbling on the very first ripe tomato. Sigh. Must share.

In the harvest basket keeping the tomatoes company are: 2 hen eggs, 1 duck egg (did I tell you I moved two noisy ducks down to the garden?), one cucumber and two zucchini (prentending like there aren't hundreds on the vine), tap fixings, Ho Mi cultivation tool (my favourite garden tool!), corn seeds, gloves, pink baling twine, mesh bags (what for?? who know, may be useful), stuff.

And here's the "Looking North" view of the tomato bed...

 

The "oops pitfalls of close plantings" view - no room on the path that separates the corn bed from the tomato bed.

A baby eggplant living at the end of the tomato bed.

And finally, the view of the tomato bed looking south....

And just in case you were wondering, here are the  photos taken from early December.

 

Blogged with Flock

Bean bed - early summer

Finally, the last bed.  I am growing Beans Blue Lake up a wire trellis. I saved these seeds from 2 years ago. I am amazed by their germination rate. I sowed them thickly because I wasn't sure how viable they would be. Well, we should be fine. Last year, unfortunately we had 4 days of frost in November which killed almost all of the bean plants. I think one or two survived, but I never did get a significant crop out of them. Well, we'll have to see with these ones.

On the other side of the trellis, I have filled up the bed with lettuce and asian green seedlings.

Blogged with Flock

Potato bed - early summer

Hmm. I dedicate one whole bed to potatoes and I use Peter Cundall's method of planting. I haven't done a search on the web for details but am sure you could find them. First he puts newspaper down, then the seed potatoes, then covers them in straw and sawdust and sprinkles manures and blood and bone over the top. If you've got his Gardening Video/DVD "Patch from Scratch" you can see the method there. I have found it has always worked a treat for me. Even though I probably don't need to start with the newspaper layer, I do anyway. I find it makes the potatoes really easy to harvest at the end of the season and I'm less likely to have potatoes sprouting from those beds for years later.

This year I've staggered my plantings, so about half the potato plants are up and running in this photo. I just hope the rest will have time to grow and multiply.

At the end of the bed closest to the camera is the permanent planting of strawberry plants. They are from Diggers and are the most beautiful strawberries in the world - trust me....really fragrant and tasty - way better than the usual store bought varieties. At the far end of the bed are the asparagus plants.

Blogged with Flock