18/8/11

During the last two days the first two asparagus spears have pushed through.  The necturine and little cherry plum trees have come into flower.  The beetroot I planted in the new raised bed has come up.  The tomato and pumpkin seeds in the hothouse have also germinated.

SUNDAY, JULY 31, 2011

31/7/11

 Friday the new wicking  bed was finished.  The bed was $99 from Bunnings.  It took 2 bags of blue metal, two bags of mushroom compost, two bags of horse poo and half a bin (barrow and a half) of home made compost to fill it.  If this bed goes well I will purchase more.  I hope by having a smaller size I will be able to put wire and covers around it easily.

Today sewed seeds for tomatoes, cucumber, zucchini and squash in pots for the hothouse.
I sewed round and long beetroot in the new wicking  bed, because I couldn't wait to plant something there.

Tomatoes: Roma, Tommy Toe, Marmande, Black Russian.

Zucchini:  Black and Romonesco
Cucumber: Lebanese
Squash: Ballet

The new wicking bed.

Saturday 2/4/2011

Today I harvested our first two lemons.  Finally we have a lemon tree that is growing and producing.

This week I eating homegrown figs, passionfruit and raspberries in the Autumn sun was very decadent.  The vegie beds have been cleaned up a bit.  I have sown collards into a pot and put it into the hothouse.  I dug up some tomato seedlings that have sprung up in the big garden and put them into the hothouse...just because.  The strawberry bed is full of plants now.  Hopefully they will stop running and produce nice fat strawberries next Autumn.  The egg plant seedling that did nothing all summer has now decided to spring into life.  I sowed a small amount of snowpeas seeds in the large bed.  The sweet peas are up.

17th March 2011

Today is St Pats day.  What I learnt from being in my friend's garden and my own:

My friend has tomatoes in abundance.  Mine were a failure.  I blame harlequin bugs and my own poor management.

I should plant sweet peas today.  So I went to Wombat Gully, bought 2 packs of seeds and  planted them.
I did not have space for the sweet peas so I harvested some of the Jeresaleum Artichokes that were in brilliant flower.
This weekend I will now make JA soup.  Preferably on Saturday, so I can stay away from folk on Sunday.
Our raspberries fruit in Autumn and they taste good.
Cherry Guavas taste as good as they say.  So it will be back to Birregurra in the future to buy more plants.
Our passion fruit are ripe.  I have not tasted any yet.
I purchased some silverbeet seedlings and what I thought was spring onions.  When I got home I discovered they were real onions called 'Sweet Gold'.  I don't really have room for these onions.
I pulled out the old, gone to seed but not producing much silverbeet from the front round garden.  I discovered the bulbs are coming up and there were small silverbeet seedlings coming up too.
Bloody birds are digging up my broccoli seedlings I planted in the big bed last weekend.  Freakin predators.
Harliquin beetles will die a miserable death when I get around to finally clearing them up.
Beans are us.  The purple ones produce more prolifically than the Blue Lake.  They love going in the strawberry bed and up over the chook run.
The strawberry plants are addicted to running.

7/2/2011

We're a bit out of shape.

Mini cabbage and Wong Bok seedlings

Strawberry bed

 The beans are doing well in the strawberry bed.  All the flowers were knocked of the other beans in the gate bed when the water poured off the pergola roof.  I have planted out some seedling but they have to have the old curtain protection from birds, moths, cats, dogs, chooks and the sun.

Beans in strawberry bed.

Lettuce seedlings

Snail Vine

Covered Mini cabbage  and Wong Bok Seedlings

Lebanese Cucumber in Strawberry 

Well the deluges have continued.  The back and side areas were flooded out Friday night due to the drainage holes being blocked and the gutting not being able to cope.  Just prior to the floods we had a couple of days pushing 40C.   As a result of so much rain the grapes are lost mildew.

29/1/11

Unfortunately we did not eat many of our apricots this year.  We had about 120ml of rain just a couple of days before they were ready.  They all split.

29/1/11

Nectarines

Nashi

Yesterday I picked our first crop of nectarines just over 2KG.  The tree came as a seedling from Penne.  From memory her mother grew it.











Today we started picking nashi.  We picked most of the back tree and some of the nashi for the side tree.  It is going to be 40C for the next two day and I didn't want them to burn on the trees.  The birds and the harlequin beetles were starting to get into them.

1st Jan 2011

After eight days the beans are  up and away.   Some protection was needed when a canine friend visiting on Christmas decided she would like to do some digging.  These seemed to encourage passing bantams and wild birds to have a go.
Next year I must give more space to the individual plants.  To much over lapping means nothing grows well.  I do have beans in my grape vine.  They are well protected from the sun.  I picked the first beans this week but we ate the before I could take a photo.

Some of the strawberries seem intent on running rather than fruiting.

Beans with protection.

Strawberries.

Front Garden

The girls are growing.

  

Nashies and Roca

Burnt Avocado

Young figs

Wallaby Grass.

First cucumber

Kipfler potatoes in tyre experiment.

The last day of the year was a 41C scorcher.  Some of the plums are burnt.  The tips of the avocados didn't do to well either.  Some shoots on the established climbing beans were shrivelled.   I tried covering things up with sheets and curtains.  This was only partly success full as the strong winds blew things around.  I proper shade set up will have to be devised over winter.  Unfortunately a lot the little berries on the new little Cherry Guava bush are shrivelled.  They were doing quite well.

23rd Dec 2010

Bean seeds planted

The  garden beds had become so over grown that nothing was getting a fair go.  Time to clean up.   A clear area was created in the garden gate bed so some beans could be sown.  I am sticking with the toilet roll method.  I have sown Blue Lake and Purple King near the trellis (sourced from Penne) and butter beans in front of the others.  A surviving tomato seedling was plated in the corner.  I'm not sure what variety.

Strawberry bed