First Fruit

The Roma tomatoes are already on their way. That's the benefit of buying seedlings that are already flowering. A little bit of stress in the pots before planting out is a good thing and starts the flowering process early.

Golden Nugget

The bush pumpkins, Golden Nugget, have popped their heads up. I've never grown these before, they grow like zucchini as far as I can tell rather than on a vine like the butternuts. The seed packet says to leave 2 seedlings per clump with each clump around 40-50cm apart. I'm not so sure about this, and since I've planted 4 clumps, I'm going to thin to 1 plant per clump and see how it goes for the first year. That means one of these guys has to die.

More from out the front

This is the Leucospermum "Cape Gold" in full fig in the front garden. These are also known as Pincushion Proteas. And here is the latest from the rest of the front garden this weirdly warm spring.

Spinach

The English Spinach keeps growing faster than I can pick it. And there's only so much spinach you can eat. It's at it's best raw, when young, in salads or sandwiches. As it's grown larger I've sauteed off some garlic then quickly tossed through some leaves until just wilted. It's ok but you have to be fast because, unlike the Cavelo Nero, it turns to mush very quickly. Is it worth growing? Probably not.



Planted

Over this long weekend I planted out the entire summer crop. Ok then....
Seedlings
9 x Tomatoes: 2 x Sweet Bite, 2 x Grosse Lisse, 2 x Mortgage Lifter and 3 x Roma
6 x Eggplants: All Mini Lebanese
2 x Red Capsicum
2 x Chillies: 1 x Serano and 1 x Jalepeno

Seeds
Corn: Honeysweet, enough to end up with 16 plants once thinned.
Zucchini: Blackjack, enough to end up with 4 plants.
Pumpkins: Butternut, enough to end up with 4 plants.
Golden Nugget, enough to end up with 4 plants.
Cucumber: Lebanese, enough to end up with 4 plants.

There's not much to see in these pics so more on each of these soon....



Broad beans

The Early Long Pod broad beans have had masses of flowers on them for a long time now and I was wondering if they were ever going to set pods. They were planted on the 7th of June and today I noticed the first couple of pods, about 17 weeks later. There is a lot of conflicting information on plant and row space affecting the time it takes to set pods, mine are 150mm apart with rows 300mm apart. I now think that the timing is about right and it's purely a temperature thing. I've also read that cutting the growing tips encourages the pods to set. I've decided not to try this and see how they get on. Hopefully now they've started the first couple of pods will be followed by a lot more.



In a Pod

I resisted eating peas straight off the bush for a few days so today I could pick enough pods for a small bowl of very sweet peas. Steamed and eaten about five minutes after picking they were perfect.