Winter Solstice and the garlic's in

It's the winter solstice today and I have planted the garlic. This year I was able to use the best bulbs from last year's harvest, so this is third-generation organic garlic.

Quantity-wise it seemed like the twenty I planted last year was in fact way too many. Will the eight I am planting this year be too few?

I have planted 3 in a row in the long patch leading up to the lemon tree outside the kitchen window, and the other 5 in a row where the two courgettes were last year. I learned last year that apparently I don't go out our front door enough to plant anything out there that needs daily inspection, so garlic should do nicely. The bulbs went in around 5cm deep, pointy-end up, and last year they took 2 to 3 weeks to sprout.

I did get black aphids on the garlic about three months in to the growing cycle last year, so I need to watch out for this and spray with Neem Oil - hopefully I'll do better at stopping the bugs establishing themselves.

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!

Pasta sauce

Note to self for next year - it is worth taking the time to remove the skins from the tomatoes before making pasta sauce :(

I'm also thinking there should only be one courgette plant next summer. It ended up in everything I made, and I'm quite over courgettes now. Next summer I'll restrict it to one plant, and eat them all fresh.

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?

Cover crop

Last Sunday I sowed phacelia in the two main patches where the veges grow come spring. No germination as yet, so it will be a while before we see this sight again.

I see from reviewing my earlier posts (loving blog labels, very easy to locate notes to self!) that I had thought about sowing phacelia in the shaded strip leading up the front door. I had borage in there over summer, which was lovely but a bit big, so I must remember to order some more phacelia seed to sow along there in spring.

The discouraging leek

"If your leeks are ready..." says the the latest email newsletter from Lynda at NZ Gardener. Really? Out there, someone's leeks are ready? My single leek is still pencil-like. A sturdy pencil, but still......

In other news, the lemons are half green half yellow now. There appears to be one less-than-healthy branch on one of the trees where the lemons are all small and oddly shaped, rather like they've already been shrunken and preserved, but the rest are coming along nicely.

Now, if it would just stop raining for a day so I could hoe away the weeds and sow the cover crop for winter before it's too late!

Catnip

The catnip is now officially enormous. I must find some human uses for it! It does get plenty of use as a place for Bugsy to sleep, judging from the giant cat-shaped indentation in the middle of it, and I will definitely start harvesting and drying it to do some custom-made cat toys.

Leek

After two years of trying to get leeks to germinate, and then thrive, I finally have one single solitary leek that was today transplanted into the garden. Hurrah! Hopefully it will continue to thrive.

In other surprising developments, my Jingle Belles capsicum seedling (that germinated late and was therefore going to winter indoors before being planted out in late spring), has decided to attempt to grow some capsicums. They're about 5mm across.

No sign yet of any lettuce and mesclun seedlings - I'm pretty sure everything green in that patch of the garden is a weed but I'm leaving them there just to be on the safe side.

Last batch of pesto

Finally got around to making the last two batches of pesto today.

Total pesto for the year was 7 x small (150ml-ish) jars, at a rate of 1 full-grown basil plant per jar.

Lettuce

After a special request from the management I've sprinkled more mesclun seed this evening, along with Paris White Cos Lettuce and Danyelle Lettuce (both organic seeds from Kings Seeds).

I'm sure the urge for lettuce will have passed long before they're ready, and that's assuming they don't end up drowned in a wet autumn!

Beetroot

Yesterday I harvested half a dozen beetroot. These had been sitting there for quite a while because I forget about them, but everything worked out fine - they were a good size but not too big for my stock pot, and they were tasty once cooked up.

I've only done two batches of pesto so far, but hope to do another two today.

Whitefly - autumn round

The whitefly is back. The sweet new leaves attracting them this time are my purple broccoli seedlings and the new growth on the citrus. I sprayed on Wednesday, again on Sunday, and will keep that up for a few more rounds.

All my capsicum are red-ripe now. Shame the largest one is only 4cm across!

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 :(

Done their dash

The tomato plants have done their duty this summer, and are now progressively being removed. However one of the Green Zebras is still going strong, it's draped itself over the lemon tree and is still getting new growth on it, so I'll leave that one in to see how long it lasts.

I'm also planning to take out one of the courgette plants (the runt), and the purple sprouting broccoli today - I don't think I'm going to get any more shoots off the latter and it's getting a bit stinky! The watermelon vine is another one that can come out now.