Lush gardening

Update!

2009-12-09T21:29:00.002+13:00

OMG, I just HAD to post something to this much neglected gardening blog (much like my much neglected garden) as I notice from the stats that people are reading it!

Anyway. So it's December here in the Cesca garden. The weather has been HORRENDOUS this past year or so, so I've not been particularly inclined to get out into the garden.

However. I am eating strawberries most days now. Yum. The two peach trees are so incredibly laden with fruit that we're worried that their branches will snap off. The two grape vines are looking good.

We've eaten broad beans, spinach and cauliflower this spring, all good. I currently have tomatoes planted, plus one cucumber, a capsicum, and some new spinach (my old stuff was that perpetual stuff so it just lasted forever, until it finally bolted and died last month). Also some spring onions and carrots (they never do well in my garden - I get about a 10% hit rate for my onions and my carrots never get bigger than my thumb) and some lettuces. I also have my pepino melon from last year - I planted it out into the actual garden this year and it's grown HUGE. Interesting. Also, I've got a 5 foot tall tamarillo tree thing. No idea if it will fruit or not, but it's interesting nonetheless.

The bloody miniature apple tree has refused to fruit for a second year in a row. Hmmmph. And the cherry tree is now 6 feet tall and has a total of 8 cherries on it. We've decided it's not the nice eating cherries, so we are debating pulling it out before it gets too big.

Anything else to note? Oh yeah, a zucchini, some beans, some potatoes, and that's just about it. It seems rather barren this year, doesn't it?

Maybe I'll get my gardening mojo back once I get some spare time (a rare commodity around here at the moment).

Guerilla Gardening

2009-02-11T15:05:00.003+13:00

I haven't posted here in a million years due to losing interest in my garden. Yes, shameful, however my excuse is that we will be moving on soon. If it weren't for the stupid global financial meltdown causing our house not to sell, we would have been gone 8 months ago and I would have started a new garden already. But I digress...

One thing Cesca and I have discussed recently is the wasted space all around our city. Miles of grassy strips along the kerb. Vacant blocks of land with overgrown grass.

Did you know that there's some sort of food crisis going on in the world, which apparently is going to get worse? Yeah, there are rumours. Everyone I know is whinging about the rising food costs. So, my proposal to Cesca is that we start doing some "guerilla gardening" and planting out all these empty spaces under the cover of darkness with fruit, veges and other useful plants. For free, public consumption.

Of course, being the egomaniacal wanker that I am, I thought this was an original, genius idea that noone had ever thought of before.

I was wrong.

However, that's not to say I'm any less excited by this idea. If anything, I'm now even more inspired to do some night gardening from seeing the results of others. So, who's with me?

Harvest

2009-01-13T17:04:00.005+13:00

This photo was taken last week, my harvest for that day.

There are onions (they went to flower/seed, but I ate them anyway) and garlic up top left, the cauli there in the middle. Bottom right are two zucchinis and a cucumber (FIRST EVER CUCUMBER!!! It tasted sweet!).

In that blue thing are potatoes from various self sown plants around the place, red onions (small bulbs but otherwise perfect), the last of the broad beans and the first of the runner beans.

I made up a big vege cheesey bake thing and it was DEEEEE licious.

By golly, another cauli!

2009-01-13T17:02:00.002+13:00

Okay, so I planted three cauliflower plants way back in winter.

We ate the first one in October, the second one in November, and the third one in January.

I can't believe I nearly pulled that damned plant out, thinking it was a dud! I'm also bemused that it took nearly four months longer to ripen than it's brother.

Yummmm!

I bought another pottle of six plants today, and I'm hoping that they won't all ripen at once again!

Catch up!

2009-01-13T16:54:00.004+13:00

So. Much. Garden. News.

So. Little. Time.

Okay, where to start?

Firstly, YAY! the first of our tomatoes ripened yesterday. They were cherries and were promptly eaten. More should be ripening in the next few days... I can't wait til we have tomatoes coming out of our ears!!! (Hopefully it should be a month or so, we have 9 plants in all, plus several self-seeded ones popping up here and there).

Secondly, we've eaten the first of our potatoes! Yay! I haven't yet pulled up the plants from my bins, but I fossicked around and found a potato or two, so things are looking good. As I just bought a 5kg bag of potatoes from the supermarket, I'll leave the totties in the ground for a bit longer til we dig them up and eat them.

Thirdly, we had strawberries coming out of our ears during December, but alas, only about a quarter were lovely. The others were bland. Odd. I'm figuring that it has something to do with the patch now being many MANY years old. I think I'll have to dig up most of the old plants and chuck them, and start with just new plants, maybe I'll keep an eye out for runners this autumn and use them.

We are eating plenty of produce at the moment - zucchinis (both green and yellow), spinach, lettuce, beans, etc.

We've just started eating our runner beans this past week - yummm! Four types (scarlet runner, shiny fardenlosa, dwarf french, and borlotti fire tongue) and they're all delicious. We ate the last of our broad beans a few weeks back, which was sad, as they're now my favourite vegetable (I never knew that broad beans could be so delicious! My childhood memories of them are of large grey things with elephant-like hides!).

Ummmmm, and that's all for just now.

My pots!

2008-12-15T20:33:00.003+13:00

I have quite a few things in pots now.

Firstly, I transformed the kids' old clamshell sandpits into two little gardens. At present they're growing peas, rocket, silver beet, spinach, tomatoes, broad beans and sweet pea flowers. The soil is 100% pure compost (home made) and is VERY moist and rich. Certain things thrive, others don't.

Then there's the potatoes. I stuck three seed potatoes into bins a couple of months back, and just last week threw another three seeds into a couple of new pots (I don't know why it had never occurred to me that potatoes can be sown throughout spring and summer). I expect that we'll be harvesting the first potatoes in a month or so (I actually stuck my hand into one pot today and noted at least one potato in there, so it all bodes well. Or at least, better than last year.)

Then there's the salad leaves and various melons and squashes that I've stuck in pots. And herbs - there's vietnamese mint (useless to us, but I ripped out the large plant in my main vege garden so thought I'd better save a small plant or else my husband will kill me) and basil mint.

Things are growing well so far! I just have to keep up the watering!

Poppies and currants

2008-12-15T20:25:00.005+13:00

Poppies. We have opium poppies scattered throughout our garden - gosh I love these poppies! The only thing I don't love about them is that the local junkies somehow manage to find our house each year and rip all the plants out. Grrrr!

Anyway, I only just learned this week by reading Gilly's blog that you can actually save the seed of these poppies to use in baking etc. I did not know that. For some reason (the junkie thing I guess) I thought they'd be poisonous (or hallucinogenic).

So that's cool. I'll add them to my list of genuine vege garden stuff.

In other news, I've noticed that my blackcurrants are doing shitely this year. On closer inspection I discover that the only currants appearing are on the OLD WOOD. Oh. Yep, you got it, when I was doing my annual winter hard prune of my roses I decided to give the blackcurrant bush a hard prune also. Ooops. So looks like we'll have no serious fruit until next year.

Ach well, it's all a learning experience I guess.

Yum....

2008-12-15T20:18:00.003+13:00

So, the strawberry season is underway!

We got our first red fruit a week or so back, and are now harvesting about a punnet's worth every day or two. Not bad!

Unfortunately a good 10% of the fruit in the patch are inedible, due to slugs eating them. I'm not sure what to do as I've never had this issue before. I was going to put down straw (as they're just sitting on bare dirt) but Frally has straw under her strawberries yet they're also being eaten.

Hmmm. Oh well, can't complain, a punnet every other day is bloody good! And boy, do they taste fantastic!!!

(Note to self - the sole strawberry plant I stuck in a pot has fruited, but the fruit was yuck. Don't try this again.)

So far in December...

2008-12-04T22:12:00.003+13:00

Strawberries are turning red.
Runner beans are above ground
Cherry tomato seedlings are starting to look robust
Eating lettuce
Picking off green caterpillars (Some plants have been sacrificed in the name of laziness)
Watering, watering, watering and watering some more (It's been very dry)
Waiting, waiting, waiting until I can eat something from my garden other than lettuce.

Fruit notes

2008-11-25T23:05:00.003+13:00

A couple of notes on the fruit.

The apple tree is looking like producing no fruit this year, despite a nice crop of blossoms and one little mini apple. Alas, the mini apple was blown off by the wind today. Oh well, I don't mind too much I guess, seeing as it's a tiny tree that I only stuck in this year.

The strawberries are SO nearly ready. I spy a couple that look suspiciously red. I'm betting that we'll be eating our first strawbs in a day or so. Unfortunately, a lot of the strawberry plants seem to be covered in some sort of spittle goo - some type of bug I guess. The hose washes it off, but it's kind of gross anyway.

The cherry tree looks like it is not a fruiting cherry, just a flowering cherry. Bugger. (Or, hopefully, we're again in that "no fruit in the first year" phase of its growth).

The blackcurrants were looking very stunted at their tips - on closer inspection I see that they were being eaten alive by white aphids. I high pressure hosed them off, and they seem okay now. I'll keep keeping an eye on them.

The lemon tree (which has NEVER given us fruit) is looking okay this year, thanks to my Mum throwing a heap of citrus fertiliser around the base of it a few weeks back. Plenty of flowers, and SHOCK, it looks like fruit is actually setting! I'm not getting too excited yet, as this has happened before and the tiny lemons just fell off before they got bigger than my thumbnail.

I also threw the citrus fertiliser around the mandarin, for good measure. It's looking healthy and hopefully this year the fruit will be bigger than a large grape and actually have some juice in them rather than just pith. (Again, my optimist side is putting that down to first year blues).

Any other fruits? Oh yeah, the grapes are doing fine. Nothing on the new grape vine, but the old one is laden with baby bunches.

Flowers

2008-11-23T22:45:00.003+13:00

Can't NOT mention my flowers, as they're coming into their best just now.

Our front path is looking great - I hung four hanging baskets up there last week (after nurturing them in the back patio for a couple of weeks to get them started). They are filled with pansies, petunias, lobelia and nasturtiums, and although I didn't get clever and stick plants around the sides of the baskets (which would have looked cool but I couldn't be bothered) I'm hoping all the plants will trail nicely over the sides in the next few months.

The roses are also looking good, all in flower now. There is also a gorgeous fuchsia pink peony at the gate, which is great. Poppies are everywhere, and the forget-me-nots are starting to look crappy now so they're about to get the pull.

I've got cuttings of fucshia (my dad pulled out my only fucshia bush last week when he was making a treehouse for the kids) and pelargonium (from Sumner Beach today) in dirt in the conservatory - fingers crossed there.

Geraniums are also looking nice, azaleas are past their best now but still nice, and there are violets, violas and pansies everywhere. Marigolds everywhere too, and foxgloves are popping up everywhere (they self seed like crazy in my garden) and are going to be huge in about a month.

Gutted that I can't seem to find any California poppies anywhere - I had them everywhere for a few years, but they became almost like weeds so I started pulling them before they could self-seed too much. Damn - must have pulled too much.

We DO have opium poppies though (as well as plenty of field poppies). Got to make sure the local deros don't catch on to that, as it's rather annoying having drug addicts ripping up your flower beds looking for a fix.

Hugh and Jamie

2008-11-23T22:39:00.001+13:00

Just been watching River Cottage Spring (Prime, Sunday 8.35pm). Gosh I LOVE that show. I really like Hugh Fearnsley-Whittingstall too, and I'm supremely envious of all that land he's got to work with.

I don't get quite as enthusiastic about he does about growing your own meat and then killing it, closest vegetarian that I am, but hey. I really appreciate that he would prefer people to eat animals that have had good lives, rather than shoddy ones. Oh, and yes, I'm all for the idea that anyone who wants to eat meat should be made to kill it. Too many people eat meat blindly, not thinking at all about the animal that piece of flesh in the plastic packaging on the supermarket shelf once was.

So Hugh. Yep.

And Jamie Oliver too. Love that guy. Love his message. Love all those free-range chicken shows, the Ministry of Food shows, the school dinners, and especially that show that Jamie did with cooking all his own homegrown food. Orgasmic stuff.

Potatoes are getting huuuuuuge!

2008-11-16T22:22:00.003+13:00

Well, the plants are anyway. No idea if there are little potatoes (or huge potatoes for that matter) under that dirt.

So, I've been piling another inch or so of deer compost (that I bought from the garden centre cos it sounded exotic), potting mix, or our home brand compost on top every couple of days... I'm estimating that we'll be up to the top in a week or two, when the real waiting shall commence.

Note to self re growing potatoes in big plastic pots versus green council recycling bins. The green bins don't drain so well, the soil is usually moist. The leaves in the drier pot are much bigger. Do potatoes need dry or moist soil generally? I have no idea. (And of course, seeing as I planted three totally different varieties into these containers, it could have more to do with the potatoes rather than the soil. Pffft.)

Broad bean harvest!

2008-11-16T22:12:00.004+13:00

So, the broad beans were looking fat and healthy.

Having NO IDEA what to do with them, I sent the children off to pick the fattest ones and pod them.

They looked amazing! So green and tasty looking! (And the pods were were amazingly furry inside... a tactile sensation...)

We managed to fill the bowl, and only stripped about a third of the beans on the plants.

I was then faced with that age old dilemma: "What the hell do you do with broad beans????"

I sat down with a wine and opened the newspaper and voila! A simple recipe for cooking broad beans (boil them for a few minutes in water, a dash of olive oil, and cumin, and then add lemon and mint) that looked scrumptious.

Alas our big broad bean dinner plans for tonight had to be postponed due to lack of time and energy but we are already looking forward to tomorrow.

Behold my redone herb garden!

2008-11-16T11:16:00.003+13:00

For it is awesome:

Included: parsley, coriander, mint, sage, thyme, marjoram, chive seeds. And that pretty green plant at the top? A passionfruit. Yes, I'm feeling brave. It's one of the hottest parts of my garden, so it might actually grow. I will not entertain the thought that I am possibly being delusional until it ups and dies on me.

Elsewhere in Frally farms:

Some cherry tomato seeds are in pots.
My grape which didn't do anything for about a year and a half, causing me to believe it had died, is doing a good impression of Jesus right now. Not only coming back from the dead, but steadfastly attaching itself to some wood (i.e. my fence).
The Husband went on a runner bean planting frenzy. Every fence that is currently bare should hopefully be covered in the near future.

Frally's November Garden Update

2008-11-06T20:51:00.003+13:00

Not much happening apart from what's currently there getting a whole lot bigger. I have been plucking at the lettuce and spinach for inclusion in salads for dinner, but nothing else is harvestable yet.

3 of the 4 garlics have poked through. I hope the fourth one pokes through one day because I can't actually remember where I planted it.

Also, because I should have written about it a week ago, carrot seeds and spring onion seeds were planted down the side of the house under Cesca's direction. So far, no activity.

Beans and tomatoes

2008-11-06T20:40:00.002+13:00

So, my little bean plants from the conservatory have been planted out into the garden! Next thing is to tie some string to the fence so that they have something to climb up.

These two beans were scarlet runners and some other type of runner bean named "shiny fardenlosa".

Their spot in the conservatory has now been taken by two other type of bean - dwarf butter yellow and borlotto. I only sowed the seeds a couple of days ago, so they obviously haven't yet sprouted.

Oh, and the broad beans are coming along well! I'm a bit confused as to whether I should wait til they're all big, and so we actually eat the podded beans, or to eat the pods whole when they're young and tender. My indecision on this is meaning that it'll no doubt be the big beans, as they're growing fast.

As for tomatoes, as well as the two happy cherry tomatoes in the garden, my conservatory has a punnet of "moneymaker" plants (six plants, haven't yet decided where they are to go) and a "heritage" or "heirloom" plant with the exciting name of "Bloody Butcher". Had to buy that for the name really.

Seedlings

2008-11-04T13:01:00.003+13:00

Ooh I lurrrrrve seedlings. So little and cute! I've never tried growing things from seed before so it's all new to me!

Here's my conservatory at the moment:

There's lettuces, rock melons, honeydew melons, cucumbers, capsicums, beans, and a few other bits and bobs in there. Fingers crossed that I manage to get them out into the garden at some stage!

Today's harvest

2008-11-04T12:42:00.003+13:00

So, remember how I grew that other awesome cauliflower? And how I thought that the other two plants from the punnet I'd bought were big fat losers?

Well, a month or so on I have been proven wrong.

Only one plant is now a big fat loser.

Wow, I can't believe I got another huge big gorgeous cauliflower!

Oh, and some bok choy. I finally figured out that if I pull all the slugs off it, and all of the outer leaves, it's actually quite nice in a stir fry with chilli and ginger.

Tomatoes are in!

2008-10-28T11:29:00.003+13:00

Thankfully I waited til AFTER the hail storms and freezing temperatures of this past weekend, and I planted out my two tomato plants yesterday. They hadn't much liked living in the conservatory but have perked up enormously now they're outside.

For the record, I planted two cherry tomatoes (as they're the best!) - one a regular cherry, and one a black cherry.

I also intend to buy a couple more tomato plants in the next couple of weeks.

Oh, and I planted out my zucchini last week - thankfully it didn't die from the hail and frost.

Harvest of the week

2008-10-24T12:43:00.004+13:00

So, a couple of days ago I picked the biggest bok choy plant. I knew it was ready as it had just started flowering. Oops! I think it was OVER ready.

I also picked some more broccoli... I love these little side shoots that pop out! Broccoli just goes on for weeks and weeks after you've harvested the main head, it's great!

The little side shoots of broccoli - yummy! Pick them weekly!

That bok choy was bigger than my daughter's head! Brocc is off to the right.

So, I picked about a zillion slugs off the bok choy then couldn't for the life of me figure out what to do with it. I've never eaten bok choy you see, and I'm not a huge fan of stir fries.

So I stuck it in the compost. Teeheeheee. Oh well, what goes around comes around.

At least the baby broccs were yum.

(I will try to harvest my next bok choy when it's smaller and I'll actually try to EAT IT this time!!)

Friday in Frally's garden

2008-10-24T12:24:00.000+13:00

Today has been a lovely day spent in the garden. The carrot seeds are now little leafy, green rows. This inspired me to put some more carrot seeds in the no-dig bed.

My four-year old boy found this all rather exciting and wanted to help plant other things. And so, we have planted some cucumber seeds up against the fence. I'm dubious about their chances of survival because I'm not sure it's sunny enough, but we'll see.

4YO OK was still inspired and so as he ate a mandarin, he saved all the seeds and asked if we could plant them. I figured there was no harm in trying, and so I found a nice sunny spot by the strawberry patch, and we put them in the ground. I'll be stoked if they grow, as will my little man!

And finally, I stuck 4 garlic cloves in my no-dig bed. I have no idea if I've done it correctly, but fingers crossed!

Potatoes are sprouting!

2008-10-23T19:51:00.000+13:00

Yes! They sprouted a few days ago. They are now bigger. Slightly.

Spring Onions are coming!

2008-10-21T14:18:00.000+13:00

They've broken through! Yay! Took long enough...

In other news, my corn was looking rubbish. The toilet roll trick? Yeah, with kids, it wasn't going to work as they kept getting knocked over. They have now been given a new home in a boring, old seedling tray.

A neat surprise has been all the pea shoots popping up throughout the garden, due to the pea straw cover. I have been plucking a few and nibbling on them while they're young, but I will let a few strategically placed ones mature and see what happens.

In Soviet Russia, Garden Grows You!

2008-10-16T15:45:00.001+13:00

Apparently, I have less say into what goes in my garden than I thought I did. A celery plant has sprung up in the middle of my no-dig bed. No reason. Just because. I certainly never planted one.

My theory is there must have been some celery in our homemade compost and it's decided to rise from the dead. It's ZOMBIE CELERY!

Braaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnsss.............