Dehydrated tomatoes

I finally have a food dehydrator, just in time to deal with the tomato harvest! My visions of making "sun-dried" tomatoes in this may be problematic as the height of the racks won't allow for halves of any tomatoes larger than a not-too-large cherry tomato, and my goodness those halves took forever to dehydrate - two days! Even the slices of brandywines and green zebras took one and a half days.

My conjoined cherry tomato triplets, and two of their normal siblings.

Two types of brandywine tomatoes part-way through the dehydration process.

The end result - dehydrated tomato slices.

A smorgasbord of seedlings

Quick seedling roundup:

Mon 22nd October - planted out a dozen broccoli, half a dozen cauliflower, and a lone red cabbage. Some of these were looking a bit iffy but perked up once planted. Since then, someone's been a-nibbling some of the leaves (in particular the cauliflowers seem to be a favourite). They are all out of sight down the end of the garden (which is all of 10 metres away).

Sunday 28th October - planted out six brandywine, three green zebra and three gardener's delight tomato seedlings. I've put these in the same area as last year as it works so well for watering, but next year I'm going to have to rotate them back into less convenient spots.

Sunday 4th November - I should have sown these a month ago but today I've finally set up seed trays for:
Tomatillo - green and purple varieties
Chilli - Caribbean and Ancho varieties
Capsicum - Marconi Red and Jimmy Nardello
Bergamot
Jamaica
Basil
Cape Gooseberry
Jicama (the first batch of these I did earlier didn't do so well, only one germinated and it died off).

In other gardening news, something has been attacking the strawberry leaves (an insect? There are all these small holes in the middle of the leaves), the coriander has bolted and been removed and the chamomile did the same - we did have several weeks there of a gently waving forest of green topped with white flowers. Still weeding through the rest of the herb garden and tidying things up ready for the planting out of the rest of the herb seedlings, I have Mexican mint, feverfew and anise ready to go in.

Oh, and three hearty courgette seedlings still to plant out!

Maybe I haven't been as slack on the gardening front as I thought.

Summer update - what summer?

It's been a somewhat challenging season so far. While I did really well getting the seeds off and running early and then transplanted out relatively promptly, it's all fallen apart since then. Most of this has been due to factors outside my control. First I was away for 3 weeks from mid-November - just when I need to be vigilant as far as removing tomato laterals, weeding, playing my favourite game of eradicate-the-whitefly, and making sure everything is establishing itself properly. Then, since I returned in mid-December, the weather has been pretty wet.

Strawberries - too wet to get many of any decent quality. I did collect around 500 grams of unnibbled berries when I first arrived back, enough to make a batch of strawberry ice-cream, but since then I'm only getting the two or three I pop on my cereal each morning.

Tomatoes - I'm still waiting for any tomatoes to ripen up. I had to do some major pruning on the plants as they had become quite overgrown, and I don't think the bees had been able to get in to pollinate! The tomatoes on the plants seem much smaller, and fewer in number than in the past. I've now also done some serious removal of the lower leaves in an attempt to make sure any sun that does make an appearance can get in to the actual tomatoes.

The various chillies and capsicums are coming along - no sign of any fruit as yet though.

And a trip down the end of the garden in between the showers today revealed the scent of garlic in the air. I suspect these are ready to harvest, but in order to do that we need a good week of dry weather, and there's no sign of that any time soon. Hopefully they are not starting to rot underground.

Herb garden

(Have just found this October post lurking in my drafts and not posted- oops!)

After much hard working digging in bricks yesterday 23 October I now have an official herb garden. So far there's sage and rosemary in one panel, and chives and german chamomile in another...and subsequently basil, oregano, hyssop and mexican mint seedlings have been planted out and are all growing (well, except for one basil casualty). And now I have the brickwork done I can sow the seeds for the few herbs that are direct-sown.

23 October:

12 November: (watch that chamomile patch grow! The transplanted chives are also flowering)

 

I've also transplanted four Russian Red tomatoes, three Green Zebras and two Gardeners Delight, and subsequently three tomatillos, three ancho chillis and four capsicums.

Down the bottom of the garden I've also transplanted a Cape Gooseberry. I have a couple more of these to go in a neighbouring bed but that bed needs reweeding first. My wrists and knees weren't up to that after establishing the herb garden!

Last year I had grown some forget-me-nots in a pot sitting by the front door. These are now flowering again and I even have one plant that has crossed the concrete path and popped up in the main garden in the perfect spot by the edge of the path. Thanks Nana!

Seeds - batch 2

But first, a report on batch 1: Tomato (Russian Red) - wonderful peasant stock! All germinated, all hardy-looking, all coming along nicely Tomato (Green Zebra) - the number that I actually wanted have germinated and have their first true leaves now which is good news Tomato (Gardeners Delight) - as always, the cherry tomatoes are the weaklings of the bunch. They did mostly germinate, but were a bit spindly - still got a couple of more sturdy-looking ones so hopefully they will continue to thrive. Cape Gooseberry - today the first couple of seedlings have poked their heads through, hurrah! Parsley - the problem child of this a particular batch. Still plenty of time to resow though. Chamomile German - fertile wee bunch, and oh so tiny Peppermint - like the Cape Gooseberry, the first couple have just poked their heads through Oregano - we have germination, I am shocked! Now to keep them alive. Marigold (Mexican Mint) - three or four germinated here, will probably need to sow some more as I wanted a big group of these this year. Now on to batch 2: Sown today for the Mexican garden were Chilli (Carribean Blend, hoping for some Scotch Bonnets in here) Chilli (Ancho - as per last year) Tomatillo (as per last year) Epazote (hopefully they will germinate this year). And for the ordinary garden were Pepper (Topepo Rosso) Basil Bergamot Hyssop I have a space and a plan for a proper herb garden this year, just need to get some bricks or something to outline the segments.

Seeds - batch 1

Garlic report - the organic shop didn't have garlic that looked any sturdier than mine, so all eight cloves I planted out were from last year's harvest. All eight have germinated and are coming along nicely.

Seed report - today I sowed the following into seed trays:
Tomato (Russian Red)
Tomato (Green Zebra)
Tomato (Gardeners Delight)
Cape Gooseberry
Parsley
Chamomile German
Peppermint
Oregano
Marigold (Mexican Mint)

This year I've resisted the temptation to plant the more unusual varieties (the Purple Calabash from last year cured me of that, at least for this year!) so I've gone back to some faithful varieties, a red, a green, and a cherry. I'm planning on planting out five of each.

Summer of 2010 update

Busy with harvest time at the moment.

Tomatoes - loving the cherry tomatoes, and the green zebras (as always). Not so much in love with the Purple Calabash (these don't make good 'eating' tomatoes, and seemed extra attractive to snails and the like so suffered a fair bit of damage) or the yellow plum (which turned out to be cherry-sized, and are good cooked or in sauces but not so tasty to eat fresh), so I probably won't bother with those ones again. I must confess that although I started the season dutifully removing the laterals my routine slipped at some point in December and the tomato patch quickly became an overgrown forest that collapsed in upon itself in places. This was obviously Not A Good Thing, and I had powdery mildew on the branches for the first time. On the plus side, we did grab a couple of triple-stake triangular frames and these gave those couple of plants much more support, so I'll definitely be picking up more and doing all my tomatoes like that next year.

Tomatillos - went in a bit late but are now doing beautifully. A very photogenic plant! Looking forward to them ripening, so we can see what they taste like.


Also in the Mexican garden went some chilli seedlings, but they haven't really grown that much. Now that I have a decent mini-greenhouse I'll be sure to get these started earlier next year. I also planted jamaica flowers - these are used to make a drink. I think these went in a little late as they are only just starting to show the first signs of buds, and again I'll try harder next year to sow these earlier.


Cape Gooseberry - similar lanterns to the tomatillos but much smaller. The first few of these are ripening up now, and we love them - so tasty! A definite to keep in the garden.


Courgettes - the year of the marrowing. This year's variety seemed particularly sneaky and quick!

Herbs - coriander went to seed quite quickly so I've managed to save a lot of seed for next year. Dill and chives were direct-sown in late December, took a long time to germinate and are only now starting to be recognisable. The parsley is doing well (not as over-the-top as last year, thank goodness). The existing plot of sage is continuing to be thick and lush, and one branch of my rosemary has been successfully bent over to grow its own roots so we can now get rid of the giant woody mass that is the old bush. This frees up the corner that I want to be my entire herb garden, not just my rosemary garden.

Carrots - fresh from the soil this morning was this funky fellow. He was a decent size, almost 200grams. Now he's carrot cake :)


I'll also share with you one of my neighbour's sunflowers, which we could see back in December waving at us across the fences.

Into the garden this week

Over the weekend most of the seedlings were planted out in the garden - the cape gooseberry, 11 tomato seedlings, and four Mexican marigolds. I really need to get a wriggle on sowing the remaining late spring/early summer seeds though....Also up from the direct-sown seeds are the peas, beetroot and carrot.

While I wasn't looking whitefly has arrived on the citrus, so the round of spraying with Neem Oil has commenced today. Begone!

Parsnip!

Thumbs up - the two courgette plants were planted out today, and the direct-sown coriander has emerged.

Thumbs down - No sign of the cumin as yet - at least, I'm pretty sure the things that are popping up are more likely to be weeds than cumin......The tomatoes still aren't quite big enough to be planted out but are coming along nicely in the new "greenhouse" and will probably go in next weekend. No sign of the watermelons - I planted three, two pots are inside and one is outside in the greenhouse as a bit of an experiment to see if the additional heat would help things along, but there's nothing to report as yet (at least a week in).

Harvested today - one big beautiful perfectly formed parsnip. Also three carrots that the perfectly formed parsnip is probably pointing at and laughing. I'll try and grab a photo of the parsnip tomorrow evening.

And I have a guilty conscience over everything else that still hasn't been sown. Must remember to get a tray sorted out tomorrow!

A rocky start

The potatoes FINALLY made it into the ground last Sunday. They were EXTREMELY well-chitted!

Several seedlings had popped up their heads in my seedling tray. I promptly got overexcited and put the trays outside in the new greenhouse (three-tier, plastic-covered) for the day and cooked them. So I'll be starting again today. There was only one survivor, a Purple Calabash tomato that has subsequently popped up its head in the tray which I hadn't emptied!

A bigger, better garden

At the end of summer we cleared away a big camellia bush in the garden which has freed up a rectangular space (2.5m x 3.8m) - looks enormous compared to the rest of the garden. Hola, my Mexican garden!

It's now early spring, and sown indoors today were:
* five varieties of tomatoes (Yellow Plum, Green Zebra, Purple Calabash, a beefsteak and a cherry tomato)
* Parsley
* Cape Gooseberry
* Mexican marigold

If it stops raining long enough to let the soil dry out a bit I'll be able to get out and do the direct sowing that needs to be done. Right now it's looking a little too boggy.

Harvest time

Wow, doesn't time fly, it's been almost a month since my last post! Notes on this year's harvest:

Tomatoes - have ripened, been picked for the most part, and I even took out the first plant today. This year I didn't water enough and completely forgot to give them any fertiliser (hangs head in shame), so the harvest was pretty small. However I understand it hasn't been the best year for tomatoes Auckland-wide for whatever reason. The Tigerellas and Green Zebras were both delicious, and I've made one jar of tomato sauce from each variety. The Watermouths were smaller than last year but still tasty. I wasn't that keen on the Dali tomatoes, these didn't seem as interesting or as tasty as the others - possibly the colour put me off, they are a pinky shade rather than a rich red. Interestingly the birds didn't really go for the tomatoes this year. I think they were too full of strawberries!

Courgettes - one plant does seem like the right number if you don't want to get sick of them! They are still going strong, and got quite a long way into summer before the powdery mildew showed up.

Lettuce/mesclun - should have sown more. I think I should set up the Google calender now with sowing reminders for next spring and summer, better to have too much than too little!

Spring onion - still growing slowly, I definitely planted these too late, mustn't forget them next year.

Garlic - I have harvested these today, a good six weeks after the summer solstice. One was a good size, another three weren't too bad, and the remaining five were runts of the litter. Like the tomatoes, I don't think I treated these right this year - I didn't water much through December and January and never got around to mulching them.

Oooh, and I had these weeds popping up near the front door. Never got around to pulling them out, and just as well because the first one has flowered and it turns out they are self-seeded borage! I didn't recognise them from last year.

What's up, Doc?

Mildly worried about these. Any thoughts - both just watering problems?

The first is one of my tomatoes - I think it's a Green Zebra (if not, it's a Tigerella). This particular plant is at the front of the tomato patch, and the leaves mostly have this dried-out, inside-out appearance. They feel pretty dry too. I don't remember this from last year's Green Zebra crop. I would guess this indicates it's not retaining enough water? The fruit itself appears to be growing fine though. The neighbouring plant (which is a different variety) also has a slight tendency towards this, while the third plant at the front is the one with blossom rot. I've been trying hard to keep water levels consistent but perhaps I'm not trying hard enough - I think I'll mulch the tomatoes next year.


The second is the pea in the foreground below. This is the one that died, then decided to send out new shoots again. It now has other plants behind it for comparison - as you can see the first one (which has had a couple of pods on it) has now developed a whitish colour while the others are still lush and green. Is it on its way out? Is this something that should be fixed?

What's growing on

I have two Dali tomato plants. This is a generic name and indicates it's one of the varieties that the Yugoslavian community (who settled predominantly in Northland back in gumdigger days) brought with them or commonly grow here. There was no photo with these seeds so I wasn't sure what they were going to look like - now I know. This particular plant (which is at the back of the tomato patch and is therefore more sheltered) is doing well, the other plant is the one with the blossom rot.


Technically the Dali with blossom rot won the ripening race this year, but I ruled it ineligible due to its inedibility. We now have a new winner - it's Tigerella! Another new one this year.

Over in the winter root crops bed, things are looking good. The carrots still need thinning, and the beetroot is at the pretty stage.

Second sowing

Just did a second sowing of my winter root crops - beetroot, carrot and parsnip. I also thinned out the first sowing of beetroot a bit (and even popped those leaves in the salad leaf bowl in the fridge rather than tossing them), and will need to do the same with the carrots but want to wait until they get a bit bigger first, they still look fairly insubstantial. Three of the first parsnip sowing have now germinated, they were quite a bit slower than the others.

Interestingly enough, I've now become quite a fan of direct sowing. The first year of gardening I needed the reassurance that seeds will actually germinate and grow, now I can't be bothered with all that transplanting - just sprinkle some seeds on the ground and see what happens!

Oooh - and one of the Dali tomatoes now has a yellow tinge instead of green :)

Blossom rot

Spent yesterday morning tying up the tomatoes and removing the lower branches and stray laterals. One of the Dali plants had lots of fruit but most of them had blossom rot so I have removed them. The other Dali is fine.

Apparently this is a sign of inconsistent watering. Seems a bit harsh, I was watering them every other day if it hadn't rained, and stepped this up to daily about a week ago, so I've been trying hard to make sure they are hydrated.

Delight or disappointment?

Feeling slightly neglectful of both the garden and the blog at the moment. In my defence, there's been a few disappoinments on the gardening front, so here's a roundup of delights vs disappointments for everything that's currently in the ground, in an entirely random order.

Strawberries - delight! The odd single strawberry last year has given way to a veritable bounty this year, I'm having a couple of strawberries each day on my cereal and there's plenty left for snacks and desserts. The garden bed where the one plant became dozens via the miracle of runners seems to be the right spot, and I'm getting better quantities and better sizes from the ones in the ground versus the ones in containers.

Leeks - delight! Well, sort of. The one in the ground has sprouted up and developed what must be a flower or seed head - the whole thing looks very elegant and swan-like but the leek itself has stopped fattening up. I think I'm just going to eat it. I also have four germinated leek seedlings.

Rosemary - disappointment. I think my enormous rosemary bush is on its last legs, it has dying spots all over the place

Tomatoes - delight! These seem to have gone from small seedlings to fully grown plants in no time and there's baby tomatoes on there now.

Cherry tomatoes - disappointment. I only have one successful seedling of the Mexican Midget cherry tomatoes, and one might-make-it-or-might-not seedling of the Henry's Dwarf tomatoes, and both have only been planted out today which is pretty late. Fingers crossed they'll perk up and give me a good late season crop though.

Potatoes - delight! The plant tops are horridly raggedy, with the plants in containers practically dying off. I thought this was a bad sign and there was something wrong with them, but perhaps not because there are actually potatoes under there! I've dug up half a dozen small and medium sized potatoes from under the mostly-all-dead plant and will be having them for dinner.

Catnip - delight! Assuming I needed commercial quantities of catnip, of course, which I don't. However I have successfully made a catnip toy for the cat which went down very well, and there's plenty more where that came from. It's trying to smother the lemon tree!

Capsicum - disappointment and delight. My Jingle Belles plant I'd had inside over winter didn't like the conditions outside and has died, I didn't have much luck germinating either more of these or any of the wonderful Burpees from two years ago, but I do have one Alma Paprika that's doing well and was planted out today.

Basil - disappointment. I only had three seedlings to plant out today, far from the border of nine around the tomatoes I had envisaged (although the tomatoes have grown so well there's no room for nine basil). There won't be much pesto for Tiny Tim next Christmas.

Garlic - disappointment. I think the overall quantity (8) is right but I'm afraid that it's not going to be good news under the ground when time comes to dig these up. One's died off (the black aphids swarmed the runt, even though it had been a wet couple of weeks and I though the aphids only showed up when the plant was stressed for water), and several of the others have two or three shoots rather than the one strong sturdy one they should have. I think next year I will buy fresh garlic to plant from, rather than using my own (this year's was 2nd generation).

Watermelon - disappointment, couldn't get any germination. I'll get some fresh seeds next year. I do have a seedling of rockmelon though, which I planted out today.

Pea - disappointment. It was growing, even had a few pods on it, but has suddenly died.

Lettuce - disappointment (Danyelle - no germination at all) and delight (Cos - looking really good although not quite ready to sample yet)

Rhubarb - delight - growing strongly. I also have a second seedling in a pot that looks really good but I can't justify more than one plant with the space we have available.

Eggplant - disappointment. All my egpplant luck was obviously used up on the germination front this year, I had the seedlings ready and planted out much earlier than last year but one's died, another's on its way and the last one is still hanging in there but has a definite failure to thrive.

Germination woes

I have given up on the last batch of seeds. Able to be transplanted into individual pots were 2 x basil (only two, sob!), a Mexican Midget tomato, a Henry's Bush dwarf tomato which frankly doesn't look likely to take off, and two Alma Paprika peppers, one of which is an extremely long shot.

Last night's new sowings were:
1 x Souters watermelon
1 x Collective Farm Women rockmelon
and 4 each of Henry's Bush tomato, basil, coriander, leek (hmmmm), oregano, parsley, marsh mallow and forget-me-not.

Fingers crossed! It's really pretty late to be sowing anything but my harvest is going to look pretty small at this rate if I don't.

This weekend in the garden

Yesterday - transplanted tomatoes - 2 x Tigerella, 2 x Green Zebra, 2 x Watermouth, 2 x Dali. Also transplanted a rhubarb.

Today - transplanted 3 x eggplant, sowed a row of mesclun, row of cos lettuce, row of Danyelle lettuce. Also sowed the poppy seeds.

The germination isn't going that well. It doesn't look like we'll end up with any cherry tomatoes this year, none of the two sowings of Mexican Midgets have taken although a single Dwarf Cherry has emerged this week - a bit late, but hopefully I can keep it going and get it in the ground. There's also two basil, well down on the dozen or so I planted out last year! I've even left space around the tomatoes for a full border of basil.......

Also germinated this week is an Alma paprika pepper that I really hope survives, although it doesn't look like any of the other peppers are interested - might try germinating them directly outside where it's warmer than indoors.

Still to do today - melon and watermelon.

Potato go nuts

The potatoes are growing fast! The ones planted in the ground have been earthed up a couple of times and I've now filled in the trench they were planted in. The ones in tubs also need covering up and I'll get around to doing that tomorrow.

The seedlings have been outside in the mini greenhouse for a week and are doing well. The courgettes need planting out already, but we haven't had much good weather on weekends lately to be able to do that. Regardless of the weather, this weekend I'll be able to do the second spring sowing - this will be of capsicums and herbs since I didn't have any much germination luck on the first round of sowing, plus whatever else I had put aside till it was slightly warmer.