Plant Love Grow

Spider

noreply@blogger.com (Ash) — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 23:46:00 +0000

Gardening Australia Episode On Air

noreply@blogger.com (Ash) — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 23:28:00 +0000

Back in June I told you about Gardening Australia coming to my house to film my garden and to build a potato cage with me. you can watch that episode at these times:

Saturday, 25th of August at 6.30pm on ABC 1
Sunday, 26th of August at 1pm on ABC 1
It will be on ABC iview in the Lifestyle section until the 7th of September
If you miss all of those times it can be downloaded from the Gardening Australia Website for years to come - it's episode 22, 25/08/2012 - This won't be available until the 26th of August.

Lemons and a Lime

noreply@blogger.com (Ash) — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 00:29:00 +0000

My Lemon and Lime trees are being much more productive this year; don't get me wrong though they're not giving us bags full, but it is better then previous years.

Gardening Australia!

noreply@blogger.com (Ash) — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 07:22:00 +0000

Today Gardening Australia came to my garden to shoot a story! I'm not sure when it will be put to air but it's all very exciting. They came early this morning and left mid afternoon. We did lots of little shoots around the garden and Jane Edmanson helped me build a potato cage. I'll keep you informed about the viewing times of my story.

The crew and all there gear:

The finished potato cage:

Dwarf Peas

noreply@blogger.com (Ash) — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 02:37:00 +0000

I recently planted the dwarf snow pea, dwarf sugar snap peas and dwarf shelling peas that I was growing in a tray. I've constructed some trellis out of stakes and wire mesh to grow the peas up. You can't see the trellis very well but there are three sections; two of them are straight and one is round. This is the first time I've grown peas in the garden bed and not in tubs so I'm being extra diligent with my snail spotting. I've spread around used coffee ground to try and deter the snails and slugs but it doesn't last long with all the rain we're having.

Fingers Crossed for a Productive Winter

noreply@blogger.com (Ash) — Thu, 31 May 2012 08:21:00 +0000

All the seeds I bought back in February have been sown and are all seedlings now. To protect the mini wongbok, baby broccoli and purple sprouting broccoli from snails and slugs I've placed plastic bottle collars around them. Previously I've had great success deterring slugs and snails by spreading coffee grounds around the plants so I did the same this time as well. My local cafe saves big bags of used coffee grounds for me whenever I ask; organic and free pest control! My garlic is going well so far, unlike last years garlic that failed miserably.

I stated a tub of dwarf snow peas 7 weeks ago and there going really well. I also started a tray of dwarf snow peas, dwarf sugar snap peas and dwarf shelling peas. I know your suppose to start peas in the ground but it rained everyday for a week so I just started them in a tray, fingers crossed it won't hurt them too much in the long run.

Radishes & Turnips

noreply@blogger.com (Ash) — Thu, 24 May 2012 08:08:00 +0000

My well proven theory that home grown always tastes better than store bought made me take the risk of planting something I'd never eaten before. It could have gone wrong had I disliked either of them but that couldn't be further from the truth. They do live up to there reputation of being super easy to grow! I did slightly neglect them but they still turned out well and I'm glad I took the risk. I planted Watermelon Radishes and De Nancy Turnips.

Radishes

Turnips

Using the Harvest - Oven Dried Tomatoes

noreply@blogger.com (Ash) — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 04:17:00 +0000

With the never ending harvest of tomatoes this year I've had to come up with more creative ways to use them up other than tomato sauce! I looked on the Internet and found a way to oven dry them.

Ingredients

Tomatoes

Thyme/ Rosemary/ Oregano

Olive oil

Garlic

Instructions

1. Pre-heat oven to the lowest temperature possible; mine is 140 oC. Oil a baking tray.

2. Cut tomatoes in half and place them cut side up. Drub rosemary, thyme and oregano with oil and put them in between the tomatoes. Spray/ drizzle the top of the tomatoes with olive oil.

3. Bake for 2-6 hours. After 2 hours check cherry tomatoes to see if there done. You want them to be squishy but not brittle.

4. Sterilize a jar and place a whole garlic clove, spring of rosemary (or other woody herb) and cooled tomatoes; fill to the top with olive oil.

*Notes* Don't put in the fridge other wise the oil will 'set'. Use within a few weeks; but they'll be gone before you know it! Check the oven every half hour to make sure none of the tomatoes have burnt.

Using the Harvest - Basil Pesto

noreply@blogger.com (Ash) — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 23:31:00 +0000

Home made pesto is super easy to make and it's 10x better then anything you can buy at the store. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

Bunch of basil

45g of toasted pine nuts

60g of grated parmesan

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

5 tablespoons of light olive oil

Instructions
1. Combine the basil, pine nuts, parmesan and garlic in a food processor and wiz until finely chopped.
2. With the motor still running slowly add the olive oil in a slow but constant stream. Once all the oil has been used scrap the bottom of the food processor and wiz again to combine everything.
3. That's it! You can store it in the fridge for a couple days but if the top is left exposed it oxidises and goes brown. To counter act this either cover with oil or push glad wrap onto the top surface. If this fails the brown top can be scraped away but the bottom is still good to go!

Dwarf Peach

noreply@blogger.com (Ash) — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 07:42:00 +0000

I received a gift card for a home improvement store for Christmas and I decided to buy a dwarf peach with the money. I'm really excited to see how it goes and fingers crossed I'll be eating peaches soon.

Tomatoes, Tomatoes, and even more Tomatoes

noreply@blogger.com (Ash) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 23:02:00 +0000

The tomatoe plants are surcuming to black spot quicker than I'd like but they're still giving me lots of tomatoes from them. This morning I picked just over 1kg of tomatoes from 2 of my cherry tomato plants, the yellow pear plant, a grosse lissie plant and a Tigerella plant.

Winter Veggies

noreply@blogger.com (Ash) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 11:46:00 +0000

Summer is coming to an end and it felt like I was only just started to figure out what summer veggies to grow. I visited the Diggers Club today and bought up my winter veggie seeds.

Peas - I had such success with my dwarf snow peas last year that I thought I'd have a go with a climbing pea and a sugar snap variety also

Below Ground Crops - I was hesitant to even try growing below ground crops with the many failures I've had, but I think I've learn from last years mistakes and I'm giving it another go.

I'm also super excited to see who my broccoli and cabbage so since I haven't try growing these before and they are always a luxury buy at the supermarket!

Mega Zucchini

noreply@blogger.com (Ash) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:43:00 +0000

I picked this zucchini off my costata zucchini zine yesterday and it weights 1kg!

My Garden Friends

noreply@blogger.com (Ash) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 22:35:00 +0000

This morning I was greeted by a parade of garden friends. There was a pray mantis on one of the grasses, a lady beetle eating powdery mildew on my zucchini plant, a spider setting up camp near my malabar spinach and a stick insect hanging out on my chilli plant.

Colour Hunt

noreply@blogger.com (Ash) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 22:19:00 +0000

Over the last two weeks my days have all started the same; I go outside in a search for colour. Generally I'm disappointed but the last two days have been promising. I've been waiting for all my beautiful green veggies to turn colour so I pick & eat them! I haven't had much produce from the garden beside my green, purple and butter beans and I'm itching for a big bowl of tomatoes!

My grosse lissie tomatoes are all still green, the tigerella tomatoes are almost ready and the pumpkin still has a long way to go.

The Jalapeno and Standard chillies are still green but the capsicum's are starting to turn.

Mum & I in the Garden

noreply@blogger.com (Ash) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 22:17:00 +0000

New Years Harvest

noreply@blogger.com (Ash) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 22:13:00 +0000

2012 has arrived nicely with my first reasonably sized harvest. I picked some Green & Butter Beans, Spacemaster Cucumber, Costata Zucchini, Strawberries, Yellow Tumbling Tomatoes & Mini Mama Capsicum this morning. I also have my first Wrinkled Butternut Pumpkin forming and some more cucumbers and zucchinis.

Me standing next to the pumpkin ladder.

The Best Christmas Present Ever...

noreply@blogger.com (Ash) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 22:52:00 +0000

This year I got a my first tomato of the season off my yellow cherry tomato tumbler plant for Christmas, couldn't of thought of anything better!

Summer has arrived

noreply@blogger.com (Ash) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 03:17:00 +0000

The garden is coming along nicely at the moment with lots of growth and very exciting things happening.

One of the veggie beds that has tomatoes and the mammoth zucchini is going well. The parsley is strong and healthy and I'm trying to grow lemon grass again, hopefully it will go better this year then in past years.

The rocket plants are getting bigger and I have my first zucchini flower! The Pumpkin is going better since I feed it with a top dressing of aged manure.

The Spacemaster cucumber has the beginnings of fruit on them. The lemon and lime trees all have healthy buds on them and the beans are flowering.

The mint I planted in the garden is starting to spread out just like I wanted and the chocolate mint in a re-purposed cooking pot is doing well. The mini mama capsicums and jalapeno chilli are strong and healthy but neither have turned red yet.

Shallots

noreply@blogger.com (Ash) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 02:16:00 +0000

This week I pulled up the shallots that I planted back in June. I lost one third of them to aphids that I tried to get rid of with water jets, soap spray and tomato leaf spray; but nothing helped. I'm very happy with the harvest I got from the rest of them though. I originally planted 10 white shallots and 10 red shallots and I've now got 40 in total! It could have been bigger but doubling my original output is still pretty good.

I wasn't entirely sure when I was supposed to harvest them as I read two conflicting times; before flowering and after the leaves had died and dried up. Half of them were about to flower and none of them looked like drying up any time soon. After pondering for 2 days I decided to pull them up even though the leaves hadn't dried up. They've been in the garage for a week now; and they look fine so I think I did the right thing.

Summer's almost here!

noreply@blogger.com (Ash) — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 03:38:00 +0000

It felt like summer had already arrived yesterday with the sun shiny brightly and I got burnt for the first time this year! The garden is shaping up nicely with almost all of the summer veggies in with a little more space for more.

The garden is looking good with the big veggie bed exploding with red & baby cos lettuce, spinach and parsley.

Unfortunately the majority of my tomato seedlings went yellow and died, but I did manage to save the Tigerella and San Marzano seedlings and they're now in the ground. I bought some more tomatoes to fill the space where my seedlings should have gone; all up I've planted 10 tomato plants: 7 in the veggie beds and 3 in tubs. The tomatoes that are in the ground now are:
Cherry Varieties: Beams Yellow Pear, Wapsipinicon Peach, Tomatoberry, Sweetbite and Tumbling Yellow (which only grows to 40cm tall the tomatoes 'tumble' off the plant)
Standard Varieties: Tigerella, San Marzano, Grosse Lisse and Apollo

Out of the seedlings I stared earlier in the year I've planted out the wrinkled butternut pumpkin, spacemaster cucumber, costata zucchini, lemon basil, sweet basil, Thai basil and wild rocket.

Wheel Barrow with nasturtiums and marigolds in flower, the pumpkin ladder and costata zucchini seedlings

I've also planted a fire chilli (left), sweet mama capsicum (middle), mini mama capsicum (right) as well as a jalapeno chilli and.sweet chocolate capsicum,

Pray Mantis

noreply@blogger.com (Ash) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 06:06:00 +0000

Progress Report

noreply@blogger.com (Ash) — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 23:35:00 +0000

Everything has taken off with the warmer weather over the last few weeks so I thought I'd share some progress pictures. The pumpkins, basil, eggplant and tomatoes have all sprouted their first true set of leaves. Yesterday I transplanted the tomatoes into bigger containers and the sticky fly trap I put up has caught lots of flies! Unfortunately only 6 of my marigolds have survived a bug attack which is disappointing.

The wheel barrow is slowly bulking up; the nasturtiums are growing well, the Brahmi is creeping out and the thyme is flowering. The hellebore's and violets I planted recently are settling in well; and the lavender that I didn't think was going to survive is now in flower which is good to see.

The Shallots are getting bigger and strong and have warded off an aphid attack very well. The Potatoes have grown to the top of the bags and are growing tall and strong.

Last week I planted out the big veggie bed with the first lettuce, spinach and parsley that I've grown from seed. I also planted some red cos and marigolds with them that I bought. There are also lots of green strawberries on the newer strawberry plants.

Crystal Beauty Red Fringed Tulips

noreply@blogger.com (Ash) — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 00:28:00 +0000

My Red Fringed Tulips from Tesselaar have poped up in the last week and they are beautiful! Last year my tulips got attacked by aphids and I didn't see any, but I've kept a close eye on them this year and no aphids so far!

Seed Progress

noreply@blogger.com (Ash) — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 03:59:00 +0000

It's almost been two week since I started all my seeds and half of them are already up and growing. I do have mold growing on the outside of the peat pots and the pots made out of news paper which is a bit concerning. All the Tomato seedlings have sprouted as well as the pumpkin, marigolds, nasturtiums, chamomile and rocket. The eggplant, capsicum, lemon balm, malabar spinach, tomatillo and basil are yet to sprout.

My first set of successful seedlings!

The seedling set up in the garage.