Saturday, February 01, 2014

Garden Share Collective Report for February

 
It is that time of month again, when gardeners across the country, and across the world, report on their activities, as part of the Garden Share Collective. This is kindly hosted by Liz at Strayed from the Table.

You can see last month's report HERE


Above is the view from the back door.

Last month was hot, and there is more coming. Although we did get one nice little dump of rain about a week ago.

Planted

Four yellow Zucchini - three in the planter bag where the Broad Bean experiment failed, and one in a worm bin, below.


This was a bit of fun, as it was very "raw" compost, and kept shrinking as fast as the zucchini was growing - sometimes it was way down below the top of the bin. But it has won, and a good, healthy plant is now well above the lip, and starting to produce.

Spaces in the last red beet row were filled with a second planting.

Continental cucumbers in a pot.

  More lettuces and moving them along. One of the things I do with flowers is that when I cut back old plants (alyssum, lobelia, pansies, violas etc), I throw the spent plants in a bucket that has dried potting soil in the bottom. Seeds fall into that, and I sprinkle a bit onto the top of appropriate pot plants, and get little volunteer flowers everywhere. I have had a few volunteer lettuces coming up, so think I will get serious about them, and grow a few the same way. I think it will suit basil, parsley and wild rocket as well. I already have lots of Italian parsley coming up in pots, and leave it as I like the feathery green leaves and the seed heads are quite ornamental.

Harvesting

Zucchinis, cucumbers, tree onions, spring onions, French beans (almost finished, but the climbing beans are about to kick in), capsicums, tomatoes, carrots, sweet corn, lettuce.

I did some calculations on tomatoes, and they are not really late, taken on figures for the past eleven years.

Watching




The Butternut pumpkins - they are growing like anything in the compost/worm bin, but not setting well, even when I hand pollinate. Only three on there so far, but one is the biggest I have ever grown.

The Giant Sunflowers. There are flower buds on there, and I reckon the tallest is only three foot tall. So much for cheap, generic seeds.

Plans

As always, weed, water and watch. Get the corn out and get it ready for garlic there, think about where the Broad Beans are going this year.


I like this shot - it does not show the weeds like the other ones do! The beautiful bronze foliage on the right is on the banksia that almost died in the heat.


Do more work on the shade and bird netting. You can see adventures so far HERE and HERE.

4 Comments:

Blogger Jac Calvert said...

The heat is certainly keeping us on our toes isn't it. I've had a few lettuces pop up over the years, sometimes just in the lawn near where I've had it growing in a pot. I let mine flower away this year in the hope that I might get some volunteers pop up.
Good luck with your pumpkins. I've not tried growing them as I've never had the space to let them go. I'd love to grow them though.

11:06 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

I have also been having some trouble to get my pumpkins to set also but in the last week they seem to have started to do better and there are now many more fruiting and staying. Your shade cloth area looks great, weeds or not :-)

10:44 AM  
Blogger lizzie {Strayed Table} said...

I hope the heat is not to bad for you these coming weeks. I like how your pumpkins are growing on your fence, do you tie them up to support them? Or are they just good climbers. I hope from your self pollination you get some pumpkins soon

11:17 AM  
Blogger Merryn@merrynsmenu said...

I love your description of 'volunteer lettuces' and 'volunteer flowers'what a perfectly apt sentence. So much nicer than self-seeded. your shade cloth is really well done and I bet it helps keep the pesky birds away. You have lovely big pots and healthy zucchini. Very nice photographs Chloe 8)

1:03 PM  

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