Black Grevillea

My black flowered grevillea (Grevillea Crowleyea), has flowered for the first time. And the flowers really are black! Once they open up a bit they go a bit reddish but when they're new they're black. I'm pretty happy about this because most so called black flowers are really a sort of dark burgundy colour. It was discovered by an amateur naturalist Valma Crowley and her mate Janice Smith somewhere near Darken in WA. Good work guys.



Peas

I'm still being a slack poster so here's a quick update. I planted a crop of dwarf peas and on advice from the seed packet, and some gardening books, I didn't give them any support. They were supposed have "sturdy, compact bushes. What I ended up with was a tangled, mildewy mess. Still, I did get a few meals out of them and today I dug them in along with some weeds and blood and bone so at least they'll make a good green manure for the tomatoes this spring. I also emptied all my old bean and pea packets into the bed which I'll allow to grow for about a month before digging them in too.

I haven't learned my lesson form last season and planted my Telphone Peas at the wrong time. While they are healthy, flowering and starting to set pods the flowers don't begin until a meter above the ground. This is a lot of wasted growth. I need to wait until early spring or get them in at the end of February so they can flower up the full height of the plants.



Winter Veg

I've become a bit slack with posting lately so time for an update. As you can see the potatoes have gone from the trench to a mound. A bit more hilling up to do and they can be left to their own devices with the occasional Seasol treament and a good cover of straw.

The broccoli and brussels are doing ok. It's a bit hard too tell, but there are six dwarf broccolis in the front and four brussels in the back. These are in a no-dig part of the garden which is pretty rich. They still get the occasional feed of Seasol and fish emulsion to boost them along.

And finally for this post here are the broccolini, at the front, and tucan kale or Cavelo Nero, the three along the back. I ate the first of the tuscan kale in a minestrone on Friday, delicious. I've said it before and I'll say it again, one of the best backyard plants to you can grow.



Cool at Last!

The weather seems to have finally broken here in Perth so I've started to plant out the winter veg. I've put in some onions, garlic, brussel sprouts and broccoli. I'll take some photos of those soon but for now it's the potatoes.
I've not grown many potatoes before, and they were years ago, so this will be a bit of an experiment. I've used Ruby Lou seed potatoes, mainly because I couldn't find any Royal Blue. Everything you read tells you to use seed potatoes, rather than ones from the shops, so you don't bring disease into the garden. I'm not sure how risky this is but best not take a chance.
I've planted them in a trench about 30cm deep which I will gradually fill up around the plants as they grow. About 80% of the crop grows above the original seed apparently, so this trench will end up as a mound.

Bed refill

Still waiting for it to cool down so I can plant out the winter crops. In the mean time I've refilled the no-dig parts of the beds after they composted down over the summer. You can see below how much they shrink back. They'll do this every year but shrinking by a little less each year.



I topped them back up again with layers of sheep poo and straw with blood & bone/ sulphate of potash mix on each layer.

 

Late Tommys

There hasn't been much to post about as the long hot summer roles on. Except maybe suffering and dieing plants, and who wants to hear about them. We're getting some relief this weekend with temps in the high 20s. Bring on autumn weather!

I did plant a couple of tomatoes as an experiment to see how they would perform through Perth's warm autumn. Using superb judgment, and misplaced optimism, I planted these just in time for a two week heat wave with temps up around 37 deg C. They've suffered a bit. Still, they're alive so there is some hope. I planted two small fruiting varieties, something called Wild Sweetie and another described simply as "Cherry", as these are usually the simplest to grow and I figured might be more likely to succeed out of season.

Cherry

Wild Sweetie

Pumkin Calamity

I spoke too soon, my pumpkins have suffered a disaster! After a 38 degree day yesterday about half the fruit split, which means I needed to pick them before their time. I've experienced this splitting of fruit wth tomatoes when they get uneven watering. I think I've been watering the pumpkins fairly evenly but maybe too much. About a week of low thirties then a couple of scorchers hasn't helped. Oh well, a couple of willing friends took some of the split fuit off my hands so none will go to waste

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