Carrots - endings and beginnings

This is for all you edible gardeners out there that actually dig up and eat your carrots. You're missing out on the seed-making magic!

The same flower head two weeks ago

Scenes from the dill forest

Sage in flower

A good proportion of the first two batches of seedlings have been transplanted from the seed trays into individual pots now, ready for planting out starting from next weekend when the tomatoes will be going in the ground. It's just the capsicums and chillies still in the seed trays now, germinated but not quite ready for the next step.

I've also marked out the herb garden with string. Next weekend I'll be bricking out the segments then planting out some of the seedlings. I'll also be transplanting the chives - yes, the chive seed that I sowed last summer that didn't do anything at the time has now popped up and I have four healthy plants to move.

Still on herbs, one of the sage plants has been busy over the last couple of weeks, progressing from this:

(that's my soon-to-be herb garden behind the sage)

to this:

The sea of waving purple is so pretty!

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.

Courgette

The two courgette plants have been in the ground for a couple of weeks now. Although they are both Cocozelle, one has variegated leaves while one doesn't!

First strawberry of the season - already!

You know you want one.

Parsnip

(It doesn't look quite as big in the photo as it does in my head - but still, a triumph compared to the carrots!)

First carrots

*I* think they're beautiful. If we were to survive off what we grow, I don't think the garden is big enough for the quantities we'd need though!

The longest one is 11 cm, the fattest one is 2.5cm diameter.

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.

Progess

A photographic update - first is the sage. I discovered today while weeding that my three sage plants, previously looking very bedraggled and sorry for themselves, have sprung to life, all lush and bushy.

Next up is a chitting potato - I wish I had a macro lens!

And lastly, my single solitary leek is now as thick as my finger - a little too soon to hope that one day I'll be able to eat my nemesis, but noticeable progress over the last couple of weeks.

HOUS - Herbs Of Unusual Size

Parsley - around three foot tall and just starting to go to seed. The Auckland winters evidently suit it.


Ever wanted to know what a four-and-a-half foot tall out-of-control rosemary bush in full flower looked like? Now you do.

Potato chitting

Rumour has it that you can just chuck a potato in the ground, forget about it, then accidentally discover lots more potatoes several months later when you're digging around for some other reason. I've never grown potatoes, and while it seems that it's not quite that easy, it also can't be too hard.....

Yesterday I purchased some seed potatoes from the garden centre (Heather, a second-early good allrounder apparently - not much choice as I left it too late, next year I will get organised and order some interesting varieties from Koanga instead). The ever-reliable Royal Horticultural Society's Vegetables in a Small Garden tells me I should be storing them indoors, exposed to light, with the eyes face up, so that they can sprout, or "chit", before planting them out.

In Auckland you can apparently grow potatoes all year round so I'm not that fussed about when they make it into the ground or when they come out! I've added a reminder to my new Google Calendar widget (you can see that in the right-hand bar of the blog) to check on them for planting out in a month's time.

Signs of life

The garlic emerged in the last couple of days - so far I can see seven of the eight bulbs have sprouted (a small furry someone has been a-digging near the row and buried the last bulb under a small mound so that one's taking its time). These took a month to pop up, so a bit longer than last year.

Since there's not much happening on the edible front, here's a photo from the non-edible - a bud from the star magnolia's first flowers of the winter season.

Lemon meringue pie season

Lemons at the beginning of this month:


View out my kitchen window this morning:


Mmmmmm....you know what I'm thinking!

The definition of optimism

It's June in the Southern Hemisphere - that's winter, my optimistic capsicum friend. Why are you trying to ripen your itty bitty teeny weeny harvest?

Trimming the strawberries

There's been plenty of rain around this week keeping the garden well moistened, so I can only assume from the droopiness that the strawberry plants feel that it's time for a well-earned rest. That said, it's just the ones in the planters that are drooping:

I've started trimming off all the old leaves and just leaving the new growth. Here's the square planter, the two plants in the foreground are the old trimmed ones, the two in the back are untrimmed runners.

However I can't quite bring myself to sort out the strawberry plant and her runner babies in the garden - I don't really know where to start! The single original plant is the small darker patch, the rest are runners.

I also spotted the first flower on one of the eggplants today - too late in the season to produce any actual eggplants, but pretty nonetheless.

Sauce

1kg of tomatoes equals 250ml of tomato sauce (give or take). Now we have Roma sauce, San Marzano sauce, Green Zebra sauce, and a mixed sauce (the last two are in the photo).

Watermelon

Ta-da! 6.6kgs and very juicy. This one will be the total of the harvest this season, I didn't get any more flowers once this one had gotten going, and both vines I planted have now faded away in the heat.

Weekend roundup

The heat is getting just a tad monotonous, is it not? I hosed the garden down again this morning (quite a mission as the hose is at the other end of the house), and noticed the following:

* The spring onions and the onions (which are particularly weak looking) are still suffering from the purple aphids, it doesn't seem to matter how much I water them

* Whitefly is back, this time on the underside of the tender new purple broccoli seedlings and on some of the citrus. I will try to remember to spray with Neem tonight.

* I seem to have planted the basil a bit late (although it will still get there - mmm pesto) and the eggplant very late - must try harder next year!

Here's my poor exhausted tomato plants mid way through the harvest:

Red Russian in the foreground, Green Zebra in the middle and Watermouth at the back. The San Marzanos are below:


And lastly, my courgette. I've been trying to get a photo of this for a while, but had to wait until all the leaves in the immediate vicinity were gone. You can see the vine coming out of the ground (it always surprises me just how dead it looks once it's dried and split, but evidently it still does the job), then it splits into two! Is this common? Both ends are equally sturdy and as productive as the average plant so I have two for the price of one.