Weekend Past

This past weekend I planted out the last of this season’s tomatoes. These were seedlings I grew from seed ordered from Diggers. I planted out two Mortage Lifters as described in this post. Two Amish Paste that have elongated fruit and are supposed to be good fresh or, as the name suggests, for preserving. Two Costoluto Genovese, another all rounder with meaty ribbed fruit and finally two Sugarlump that have largish, cherry type 3cm fruit. The last three have been planted one in the no-dig section of the garden and one in a pot. I've never grown these three so we'll see how they perform.

I pulled my garlic over the weekend and ended up with twenty two heads this year. I grew them in the ground rather than pots and although they take up the space for a long time I think they'll be in the ground again next year. Here's a few of them

And a few of the nice purple cloves that came loose in the process



First Broad Beans

I started picking my broad beans today. The beans are mostly right up at the top of the plants leaving a couple of feet of bare stems below. Next year I might wait until August. Or at least try planting two lots a month apart and apply a bit of science to the whole enterprse. Still, for the next couple of weeks I'll get enough for a few good meals.



The Three Sisters Revisited

Last year I made an attempt at a companion planting combination called the three sisters. This involves planting corn, beans and pumphins together. The corn supports the climbing beans, the pumpkins shade the soil and prevent weeds and the beans help fix nitrogen for next years crops. It didn't work, mainly, I think, because I planted the beans too late and they were shaded out of existence by the corn. This year I've planted everything at the same time. The pumkins are going to be grown vertically as usual but I've put in a bean seed next to the corn seeds. They're up and going so we'll see what happens.



Spring Out The Front

Everything has settled in well in the front garden as it heads into it's second summer. My last house had a cottage garden in the front but now I've experienced growing natives I'll never go back. There's been a few deaths along the way. All the Carpet Queen Grevilleas and the Birthday Candle Banksias are no longer with us. Well there is one Birthday Candle just hanging on but it's not long for this world I think. I found out that these prefer a slightly heavier soil than my Perth sand.

The Gold Velvet kangaroo paws are flowering like mad. These flower over a long period and are as hard as nails. I can't recommend this variety highly enough for Perth gardens.

The Sandra Gordon grevilleas have just about finished flowering now and have been pruned back. These have a great show of yellow flowers from late winter through to mid spring. They went from about 400mm heigh to over 2 meters in a year and a half. If you want a fast growing native screen look no further. That's them along the fence in the photo above.







Tomato Tip

When I pick tomato plants from the nursery I look for ones that have been slightly stressed so they have started flowering. Young pampered ones, when they hit your nice rich bed, will start producing lots of leaves and wont bother flowering until further into the season. The stressed ones that have started flowering will love all the food and keep flowering. Take note though, tomatoes don't need, or like, a lot of nitrogen so stay away from chook poo and stick to cow or sheep. Watering them in with some seasol will help them along and a good sprinkle of sulphate of potash will keep them flowering and toughen them up a bit. Here's my Tigrella that not only has flowers but tiny tomatoes as well. I also trim off the lower leaves and plant the seedlings much deeper than their existing soil depth in the pot. Most plants hate this but tomatoes will send out new roots from the stem.



Sprung Spring

I planted up the first two beds with summer crops on the weekend. This bed is where the potatoes were. This is mostly herbs, coriander, dill, parsley, lemon basil and oregano. There's also some leaves - chicory, mizuna and something called land cress. There's an eggplant tagged Thai Eggplant. I thought these were small black ones similar to the ones I grew last year. Though they may end up being small, green ones like these. I'll found out in a few months I suppose.

I've planted two different types of beans to climb up the black meshing, Blue Lake and Purple King. These will hopefully serve two purposes. To supply beans, obviously, and to provide some afternoon shade for the soft herbs. My back yard gets cooked in summer so with any luck this will work.

The next bed has the first of the tomatoes for this year. A sweet Bite cherry tomato, a heritage type called tigrella and a roma. There's also sweet basil, purple ruffled basil, marigolds and an eggplant called Japanese Long Tom. This is more like what I was after with the Thai Eggplant above. I've also planted beans around the wire for the same reasons above.

Last Spuds

Well, I over estimated the spuds. I ended up with 7kg. I must have dug up the richest square foot before. A bit poor but enough for a few meals. Bangers and mash tonight!
A bit more vigilance slug-wise on my part next year and I should be well sorted for mash, chips and... um...more mash.