Autumn

OK - so it shows how long since the last update when the title is the season "Autumn" but I've been busy in the garden and lazy on the puter...
Well actually Lily and I have been busy in the garden... Lily now comes out every morning and diligently waters all the plants and feeds the animals - I'd like to say that she's enthralled by the sight of emerging seedlings and seeing her efforts result in beautiful flowers and food on the table - but really she's quite happy just to be making a mess with the water in the mornings and yelling "go get it!" to the dogs with a gleeful chuckle after she pours their kibble into the feed bowls - She does enjoy giving the flowers a good 'ol sniff though

The front veggie garden has been dug up and and had some compost and blood and bone turned into it - the compost is from the grass clippings and leaf litter that has been getting put across the back of the garden to keep the grass off the fence and to act as a bit of a path. Apparently, as this sort of mulch decomposes (well actually when wood chips decompose...), it draws nitrogen from the soil , hence adding blood and bone replaces this and keeps things happily balanced - that's the theory!

Anyway, out the front, Lily and I have planted lots of winter veggie seeds - this was done about 2 weeks ago - say 10/5 (I'll update my calendar) - veggies in the ground from memory are lettuce, silverbeet, broccoli, cabbage and possibly some other similarly boring winter veggies - yes, the guarding part is fun, but the range of winter veggies falls very short of the exciting and flavoursome summer crops!

Out the back and under the roses, the butternut pumpkin continues its battle - seemed we'd only get 1 pumpkin of this as the vine isn't agreeing to well to the colder weather, but some rain a few weeks back saw a flush of female flowers, and with a bit of help from father farmer brown nature, 2 more pumpkins now seem to be taking quite well - fingers crossed!

The roses have had their time in the sun - The standards have all had reasonable prunings and are no slowing down - Yes, it is a bit early as they should be pruned after the last frost but they were in desperate need of some taming, especially the strong one which had branches about 3 times as long as the main stem!

Some action in the garden though! Some nasturtiums that were kindly given by Sandra have been planted under the crab apple trees - these appear to be taking well and already have 4 flowers! Also starting to flower are the zygo-cactus which are all budded up and ready to bloom - will post some photos soon once these are all up and going!

Another winter chore yet to be done is spraying of the lawn - Seems to be alot of garbage growing through this year- much too much for dealing with by hand as was done last year with good results - seems the lack of spray last year has given the dormant weed and seed a chance to grow- oh well, at least its green!

So anyway - that's about it for the moment - next post will have some exciting pictures - I promise!

What's been happening?!

OK.... so the blog hasn't been updated for some time now - I've been slack and the garden has been dry and rather un-eventful

With some recent rain though, it's been making a come back. The roses are all out in bloom and the grass is starting to turn wild

Most interesting though is the unexpected addition to the back rose garden. After mulching very thickly some tiny little plants started to emerge. They appeared to be melon or pumpkin. They continued to grow and I watched on - wondering....

The growth continued and apart from odd watering and some minor taming of the vine, it's been left mostly alone.

Seems there are 2 plants there. One MIGHT be a watermelon??? This only has 1 fruit so far

The other one is a butternut pumpkin. This currently has 1 large pumpkin (about 20cm) and lots of smaller ones emerging - 1 cute one if less then half the size of my pinky fingernail!

so there you go - I've been wondering how the seed got in there and have come to accept they must have been from the veggie compost I'd added before putting the tree mulch across the top

Here are some pictures

A New Arrival!

There's been a new arrival in the garden today - A Crepe Myrtle Lagerstoemia Miami (http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/7905/)

This went out on the front corner in preparation of the future "one day" garden

The soil was rock hard and it took a fair amount of effort to dig the hole with just a shovel. I ended up digging about 3 to 4 times the size of the pot and filled the hole with water a few times to give it a good soaking. It took a good hour or so for the water in the hole to drain - not a good sign of my soil quality!

I also added some blood and bone and water crystals to the base of the hole...  Fingers crossed!

Beetroot and Pumpkin

The remainder of the beetroot was harvested last weekend - the pic below shows the harvest minus a few that had already been given away.....

hmmmm.... what to do with beetroot.... you'll need to wait and see!

Also the first golden nugget pumpkin for the season was harvested. Just a good size to bake for 3 people! mmmm.. .yum!

The Summer Harvest Continues

Happy New Year!

That can mean just one thing.... It's time to harvest!

The tomato plants are starting to yellow as the heat of the days ramps up in true summer style. I'm watering nightly to keep up but by 11am the plants are wilting but recovering with the nightly water and rest.

But the tomatoes are ripening nicely on the vine. I'd picked the first smaller ones a few days back and the taste was just yum. These were chopped up for Lily who munched them all down!

The tomatoes below were picked this morning - yes, that bigger one is nearly 10cm! A few tomatoes have holes where some bug or other has had a munch despite the tomato dusting to keep them at bay. Right or wrong, I'm leaving some of these in place hoping they'll be sacrificial fruits to the bugs who will leave the others alone......

Another zucchini picked this morning and while there I'd noticed some more coming up so did some more hand pollination. I've found this is the only way to get the fruits to remain viable!

Finally, I had a peak at the corn. These are smallish which I think is due to being planted too late in the season, forcing the flowering to start too soon. Will need to plant earlier next year! But in any case, it does look good and we'll need to plan a good roast or something so we can pick and eat them along with the 2 golden nugget pumpkins that are sitting there ready to go too!

mmmm.... Reaping the seeds you sow - Its a good time for the veggie gardener!

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!