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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Perpendicular Pumpkins

I realised I haven't given an update for a while on the pumpkins that give my blog it's name. In short they're going pretty well for the garden's first season. This is the only way to grow pumpkins in a small garden. Not only does it save room but having the fruit on wires stops the bugs getting into the soft spot that can occur where the fruit rests on the ground. The vines are just starting to die off and once they do completely I'll be harvesting. Also you can just see the powdery mildew spots on the leaves. I could try to slow this up with a diluted milk spray but I'm not sure I'll bother this late in the season. Pumpkins always get powdery mildew towards the end and I think it just part of the plants life cycle.

Capsicum

I've had a mixed result with the capsicums. One plant produced some nice plump fruit while the one right next to it produced small fruit with what I think is blossom end rot. They have both been treated the same way so I'm not sure why they produced such different fruit. It may be down to the new bed and some uneven nutrient distribution on my part, particularly dolomite lime. I've always struggled to grow decent capsicums so I'm happy that at least some of them came out ok.

Good



Bad