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.

First strawberry of the season - already!

You know you want one.

Weekend sowings

On Saturday I finally got around to resowing the seedlings I managed to destroy.

It had been mostly dry all week so on Sunday I was able to do some digging (well, supervise some digging), and some direct sowing. Into the Mexican garden went cumin and coriander, along the fence went peas, and into the root vege garden went carrot, parsnip and beetroot. I also weeded out the strawberry patch - it's looking good in there! The plants have been flowering without me noticing, and there's baby strawberries!

The sad news is that two of the bigger beds have gone from being far too wet to go near, to rock hard dry, within a week. Hopefully today's rain will have evened things out a bit - those are my salad beds in theory!

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.

Nibblers

The snails are still going at full strength, seems like I spend all my gardening time removing them from the strawberry planters. In more exciting news, yesterday we ate our first strawberry (mmmmm) and had to cover up several more ripening ones before the birds spot them. Only the berries in the planters are ripening up so far, but there's definitely plenty of berries on the numerous plants in the main bed.

My two courgettes have been outside the greenhouse hardening up for a couple of weeks. Note to self - completely unnecessary, next year just stick them in the ground straight off! One was completely nibbled by snails a few days ago though, so the other one has been declared the winner and is now planted out in the garden. The tomatoes will follow over the next couple of days.

Did a load of weeding today too in preparation for direct sowing carrot, mesclun and other things including a stretch of red poppies.

Snails

It's a full moon tonight which means I shouldn't sow the seed trays this weekend. Next Wednesday is an excellent time to sow root crops though, so I will wait until Wednesday evening to plant out the potatoes, and get the seeds underway then as well.

That leaves this weekend free to do some more weeding and tidying up in preparation. My gardening by the moon calendar tells me that the spring full moon is the prime time for snails - this explains why I keep finding so many in the strawberry planters! Daily checks, and possibly some beer baits, are called for to keep them under control. I wonder if that's what's been nibbling on the two pea seedlings? (now down to one, thanks to the nibbling)

Spring strawberries

It's spring (well, pretty much, winter and spring came early this year). The strawberry plants from last year are already flowering, a month earlier - probably a mix of the warmer temperatures and already being well-established.

There are four Camarosa in the square planter - two are the originals and two are runner babies. There are four surviving Pajaro in the long planter, all originals so very thick and sturdy. Over in the main garden, there's one original plant (don't ask me which type) and at least a dozen of her runner babies that are all established and thriving well.

Today I removed a snail colony from the Pajaros, along with the odd snail from the Camarosas, and gave the two planter boxes a feed using liquid tomato fertiliser. The only strawberry food I've seen for sale clearly isn't organic so I didn't want to feed them that. Apparently tomato fertilizer is a good substitute, and I already have an organic one!

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.

Garden roundup

Courgette & scallopini - now removed

Broccoli - now removed

Tomatoes - now removed apart from the last Green Zebra plant which is still going

Onions - appear to have removed themselves :)

Strawberries - still fruiting!

Spring onions - still going strong (shouldn't have planted so many)

Eggplant - the plants are growing on upwards now, but it's far too late in the season so no eggplants again this year :(

This weekend I didn't.....

1. find out what to do with the strawberry runners (in my defence, I did go through my gardening books but none of them mentioned it, and I haven't gotten around to Googling it yet). I must say the plant that's in the ground (rather than in the planters) seems to know what to do all by itself, it's busily sending out runners that are sending up shoots at presumably the right distances apart from each other, and several of them have now rooted. I'm guessing all I need to do at some point in the not-too-distant future is to cut their umbilical cords, so to speak.

2. eat any purple sprouting broccoli. I have just now cut the sprouts around half of it, plus the centre head which was started to go brown and gooey, and will be cooking the sprouts for dinner.

I did look into the scallopini issue, and it seems it depends on exactly what variety it is as to how big you should let it get - anywhere between 2 to 4 inches. The first one is now off the vine. I'm still a little bit puzzled as to the best way to (cut and) cook it, I did find a nice sounding recipe where you slice it horizontally through the middle and fill the centre with a stuffing of carrot/onion/garlic/tomato/whatever you have, then bake it. If I can get a pair of the same size I will probably give that a go.


The tomatoes are ripening up well. We've had a couple of the Watermouth (delicious) and a couple of Russian Red (as good as last year), and today I've gathered 10 Romas (enough to make a small bottle of sauce!).

This weekend I must......

1. ...find out exactly what to do with strawberry runners (although I'm confident this is Not It)


2. ...find a delicious way to serve the purple sprouting broccoli and actually cut the main head (which now looks like it's going to seed) and some of the shoots


3. ...find out how I'm supposed to know when scallopini are ready for eating

Strawberry runners

The Camarosa strawberry plants are now starting to send out runners, so I will have to research as to exactly how to make these into new plants for the coming year. The parent plants are still producing lovely berries but I will try to have more plants next year so we can have quantity as well as quality!

So far I've had two courgettes but another three have rotted on the vine. Not sure why, will have to investigate. It's actually the second plant that wasn't transplanted until mid-October that is doing better than the first, but I think this is because it's more exposed so is getting more sun and bumblebee action than the first.

The garlic is starting to keel over. Interestingly it's just the Printador garlic from the garden centre, not the organic garlic which is still standing proudly. Last week I dug up one of the garlic (where there were two stems wedged next to each other, I figured they wouldn't reach their full potential like that anyway), and there was a definite bulb but it wasn't an impressive size yet.

I've been very slow off the mark with the basil this year. So far only two seedlings have made it into the ground, but there's another two hardened off ready for transplanting today once it stops raining.

Mental note - plant less albino beetroot! It's just not as much fun once it's been bottled. I do have a recipe for beetroot dip which I'm planning to try with the albino beetroot over the next couple of days.

The rocket has shot up and been flowering vigorously for the last 10 days or so. I tried trimming it back, and have removed one plant altogether, but I think it's time for the other two plants to come out.

Weekend update

Yesterday I gave the tomatoes some fertilizer, spotted the first tomato! (Russian Red, beating San Marzano by a day), spotted the first flower on the watermelon vine, sowed another half a dozen each of dark beetroot and albino beetroot, sowed another half a dozen spring onions, ate lots (comparatively - ie more than half a strawberry each) of strawberries, mulched with compost the burpee pepper (plenty of flowers there now) and the spot the eggplant will be going into once they're a bit bigger, transplanted the scallopini and the parsley into the ground, and moved the four pots of sage into the greenhouse.

This morning I transplanted into their interim pots seven basil seedlings, four parsley, three eggplant, two capsicum (jingle belles), and one white sage. I've popped them outside for a little bit to warm up.

Twice as nice

The strawberry planters have a layer of pea straw pellets on the surface which has done a good job so far of keeping the soil moist, I hadn't had to water them at all. However it hasn't rained all week and a couple of the plants were looking a little droopy - after a quick water last night it's all good though.

I found my earlier notes about what was planted where, so there's two Camarosa in the square planter (which has given me my bountiful harvest of about 4 strawberries so far - you do appreciate them more when dessert consists of half a strawberry instead of a bowl) and four Pajaro in the long planter. And as you can see below, things are now starting to happen in that planter....

A doily a day keeps the birdies away
Safely tucked under the doily is a double berry - so that's one each for dessert this evening!

Dinner

Mmmm, strawberry! One single solitary 90% ripe strawberry.

(and also a second lot of mesclun - I must investigate what each leaf is, some are quite spicy!)

Labour Weekend part 2

The courgette has been safely transplanted, but I decided to hold off on the tomato seedlings as it was still quite windy - I had some of them sitting out on the ground and one ended up with some exposed roots so I'll wait another weekend. On Monday we had a BBQ complete with a small selection of mesclun leaves, at day 37 and big enough to eat - assuming you prefer baby leaves of course. First harvest of the season!




And here's the strawberry I'm so proud of, looking like it's been dipped in ink (and is subsequently looking like a bird may have had an experimental peck).

Strawberry blush

In the mini greenhouse, one of the courgettes has some stem damage. They're in large pots growing another set of leaves before I can plant them out (which I'll do this weekend) but one has keeled over a bit and rubbed its stem against the side of the pot in the process. From memory last year this doesn't actually kill them off, but we'll see.

Mesclun day 21

Today in the garden I also put down some Tui pelletised pea straw as mulch around the garlic and strawberries (and I see that there are strawberry flowers on three of the four strawberry plants in the second planter now, hurray!), and sprayed a circle of Wally's Liquid Copper on the soil around the broccoli - this is supposed to keep slugs and snails away.

Insects

I have noticed a few more pests around this week. As well as the snails that have been snacking on my lone broccoli (not that I've ever managed to catch any at it), there was a teeny weeny green caterpillar that I squashed yesterday. Checking around today, I've also spotted what might be black aphids on some of my garlic (well, they might be black aphids, I really need to track down a good book about NZ pests with really good photos in it!), and a tiny red spider thingy on the flowering strawberry plant which I'm assuming is a red spider mite. So everything got a good drenching with Neem Oil this evening.

I've just been to inspect the onion patch for any sign of life - there's a whole three seedlings there now, of the two dozen or so seeds I sowed. Doesn't bode well really. I've also got one spring onion out of the six sown, and still only a couple of Detroit beetroot and a couple of Albino beetroot out of the 12 of each sown. On the bright side, there's quite a few mesclun plants now that are recognisably seedlings rather than weeds.

I definitely have more luck with transplantable seeds rather than direct sown ones, so I'm off to pot up some of those seedlings into their intermediate pots.