Lily Rose tends to the Veggie Garden

Upside Down Tomato and hanging strawberries

Quick update on the upside down tomatoes. You'll recall that the UDT eventually rotted at the base and dropped dead.

Well - you'll be happy to know that it actually lives on - the roots from the UDT had travelled all the way to the other side of the bucket from which a new plant developed - it seems the tomato has some sort of fear of hanging upside down - this same plant has now started developing fruit and continues growing right way up

But my determination didn't end there and another plant that had started developing quite nicely was flipped on its head - interestingly, the overall quality of the plant deteriorated - the leaves thinned and have gone yellowish but still flowers grew and fruits have started - see bottom left. Still this plant strives to grow right way up and the stems have all bent upward. - In short, seems Upside Down Tomato is not a great success for me - will try again next year but using tiny tom (cherry) tomatoes instead

Something that has taken well to be hung - but not upside down - is my strawberries - the yield is still quite low (only 1 strawberry every 2 or 3 days) but Lily enjoys the wait and gulps them down in a single bite - YUM! - I'm expecting the yield will increase next year after the plants are more established but I do still have a good stock in a Styrofoam tub which I'll use to make up some more hangers - lots of berries next year!

Zucchini

Again, reviewing my garden calendar, the veggie garden out the front was planted 25th September - this is only 2 months ago

Already veggies are just about ready for harvesting - first up is the zucchini. Lisa wanted to know when the zucchini was ready to pick - for those of us in the know, please don't sneer at my wife's naive-ness - Zucchini can be picked as soon as it is a size that you'd like to eat it at - generally this is about 15 to 20 centimeters. The longer you leave it, the bigger it gets - the bigger it gets, the tougher, but they're still very edible

A problem I've been having with these zucchinis is that shortly after a "fruit" starts to develop, the ends turn yellow and brown, eventually shrivelling up and dropping off. Some casual observation sees that there are no bees in my garden and hence the problem.... no pollination.

Zucchinis will grow male and female flowers. They're easy to tell apart since the female flower will have the actual fruit under it, whereas the male just has a thin stem. Taking matters into your own hands, pick the male flower and peel the petals off to reveal the middle bit (pistol) - dab this around in the similar area of the female's flower (stigma) and you've now hand pollinated your zucchini and put a bee out of a job.

Incidentally, there is a world wide bee shortage which is severally impacting the farming world - to the extent that many commercial farms are having to build their own bee colonies or hand pollinate! Many blame this shortage on genetically modified (GM) crops whose time of introduction is coincidentally aligned to the start of the bee population decline

Anyway - here's the zucchini that was lucky enough to be picked first

Beetroot!

Reviewing my calendar, I'd planted some silverbeet from seed back on 22nd June 2008 (6 months ago). This week I've harvested some of this crop - however it is actually beetroot - not silverbeet

This is what you get for buying cheap seeds from Go Lo!

Anyway, the beetroot is massive! Note the size of the peg on the bottom left and no! Its not some magical miniature peg....

BTW - what can you do with beetroot? After some research on the net they can be boiled, pickled, eaten raw in salad or baked

I pickled mine and they taste great - not many steps involved - boil the beetroot till soft (mine took over an hour and the house took on a very earthy smell!) - make a mix of vinegar, water, sugar, cloves, bay leaves, Cinnamon - slice the beetroot and chuck in the mix and voila! you have pickled beetroot

more detail here - http://www.bestrecipes.com.au/recipe/Pickled-Beetroot-L257.html

And not to forget - Buddy was amazed by the size of the beetroot too but kept calling them beet-woofs!