more harvests

My pathetic little pumpkin vine was so far gone I finally picked the two little pumpkins that managed to grow this year.  They're adorable, I love the colour and the little pink blush.  You can see the stems are dried-looking but still very green.  You're meant to leave pumpkins until the stems are brown, dried and dead looking.  Well the rest of the plant was brown, dried and dead, it didn't have one green leaf left, so I took what I could get!

They went into a pumpkin soup last night.  Not the best soup but it could be because they were under-mature.  Not green inside or anything, just didn't have that rich savoury full flavour.

You can also see a lovely little melon on my lap, the second of my Minnesota midgets.  It's the largest one, it just looks so inviting with those bulging ridges.  Unfortunately after getting 60mm of rain in a single weekend not long ago, the melon was once again flooded with too much liquid and this time ended up tasting a bit over-ripe.  I also have to be careful because unlike store-bought cantaloupe, this variety stays fairly green when it's ripe.  But I'll definitely grow them again next year, they're fun!

The edamame are finally starting to fully ripen.  Just look at how heavy with beans the plant is!  The rest of the plant is in tatters but it's heavy with beans.  I haven't had a chance to try them yet.

On the other hand, my potatoes are once again pathetic.  I actually managed to get more potatoes last year, growing them late in the season, than this year.  They were getting so mite-eaten and caterpillar-munched that there wasn't much green left on them.  You're meant to leave them until they turn yellow and die off before harvesting but I didn't think the tops would survive much longer.  This is all I got for this year's trouble.

I won't bother next year, two years of failure in a row are enough for me.  But a word of advice to others.  Both times I tried a method people keep swearing works: you plant the potatoes low down in the pot, and as the greens grow you bury more and more of the plant until the pot is full of dirt.  Supposedly potatoes are meant to grow all the way up the buried stalk.  But both years all I got were a few potatoes at the very bottom, and a very long stalk.  I actually wonder if the plant has been wasting energy growing a longer stalk that it should be putting into its potatoes!

And finally, not a harvest but a note on my new plantings.  This is a busy time of year for the cabbage white butterfly, when people are starting to plant brassicas (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and kale) but it's still warm enough for the butterflies to breed.  Sure enough, almost every day I check my sprouts and find half a dozen white eggs under the leaves.  I've already had to pick off two tiny caterpillars too.  So beware gardeners!  Even my butterfly decoys haven't helped one bit.  The lure of the brassicas is just too much. 

But on the plus side, my brassicas are powering along in this wonderful weather we've been having!  Just when I thought autumn had arrived, we've gotten another flush of 25+ weather.  And it seems Melbourne has had over 100 days in a row where the high always hit 20C or above.  This has blown away the previous record of 78 days in a row in 2000-01 ... oh and there's at least another week of 20+ weather forecast.

a little hedge trimming

Along the back of the house runs a long bed.  It alternates between camellias and tall pine hedges.  The camellias have always struggled - they get shade all winter but sunburned in the summer.  Each year they seem to lose as many leaves as they put on, and most of the flowers get eaten by the possums.  Still, last autumn I replaced two that had died.  They're doing ok, but another one has died this summer.  I feel like I'm fighting a losing, uphill and expensive battle.

In the meantime I hate the pine bush on the end closest to the melons.  It shades the bed in the summer and because of it one of the melons never set fruit.  It's actually taller and thicker than in this photo but I'd already cut a chunk out of it before I thought to take a photo.

So I decided I was done mollycoddling precious camellias along.  The dead one is coming out and I'll try to transplant the other.  I'm slowly going to replace them all with agapanthus, a plant that's nearly indestructible in Melbourne.  I actually have a plant that's formed a cluster of 5 or 6 that I'll transplant. 

And though I'll keep two of the pines, the one on the end has seen its last days.

It was a lot easier to cut out than I thought, the wood is very soft.  I'll wait a few weeks for the next step; the agapanthus you could transplant in the middle of a heat wave but the camellias would appreciate cool weather.  It's starting to cool down for autumn but we could still have some high-30 weather before the end.

Speaking of autumn, you can just see the wilty pumpkin vine in the very corner.  It gave a very bad showing this year, only two tiny pumpkins and I'm a bit worried about them ripening before the vine fully carks it.  I did a lot better last year with the potimarrons but this year I planted them far too late.

And speaking of unsuccessful plants, I give up on chillies.  I've had grief germinating them, I've had them barely ripen before autumn, and this year I didn't get a single fruit.  Just a lot of flowers that dropped and a lot of leaves that fell off.

vines update

I'm so excited about my first melons that I have to share more update pictures.  Look at this little fuzzy melon!  It's still small but I don't know how strong the vines are so it got its little hammock this week.  I've started going out with a paintbrush to help the melons along, so there are a few more that I think have "taken".  For the record, pumpkin flowers are early risers but melon flowers are lazy - they don't seem to open until the sun is on them so I've had to do my rounds twice a day.

The pumpkin vine is doing something weird.  One of the branches is wilting during the day.  You can see here that it looks like it's about to cark it.

But by the evening it recovers.  I noticed today that about halfway up that branch it's a bit kinked from where it went behind that black mesh. So I'm going to cut the mesh and hope releasing the kink solves it.  There's now a second pumpkin on the longer, stronger vine there on the right but I'm hoping for more than 2 before the season's over.

baby melon and fatty pumpkin

My first pumpkin started to grow but stopped, as sometimes happens.  But this one I reckon is here to stay.  Look at this beaut!  I've already put a net-sling under it as even at this size it could pull the vine down with its weight.  Notice that the flower is still stuck to it.  If the flower falls off right away it ain't going to grow.

And I finally had a good surprise with the melons.  There are so many flowers that it's hard to tell if any of the female flowers have pollinated properly.  But today I saw this little baby. It doesn't look big but it's bigger than any of the other baby melons so I'm pretty sure this means it's finally pollinated properly.  It's one of the Minnesota Midgets; no luck yet with the Green Nutmeg or the watermelon.

back corner and veggies

The back corner garden is also coming into its own.  This is what it looked ago about 18 months ago, not long after I moved here.  Pretty desolate place innit.

This is what it looks like today.  Marigolds and nasturtium, perennial statice, and the dichondra "silver falls" is really coming along.  I planted it hoping it would drape over the brick to shade it a bit and keep the roots of the oak-leaf hydrangea from getting too hot.

The melons back there are coming along well, you can just see the Minnesota midget is starting to grab onto the wall.  The watermelon in the tub is doing ok too and the pumpkin is now covered with both male and female flowers.

Unfortunately despite some hand-pollination it doesn't look like any of the female babies have set.  Something I learned last year is that if the pollination "takes", the pistil (the female part of the flower) sticks to the fruit as it first starts to swell and grow.  These ones, as you can see, have a flat end because the pistils fell straight off.  I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure this means they didn't pollinate.  No worries, it's still a small vine, it's got plenty of growing to do.

And although these are on the front porch, not the back corner, I wanted to update you on the tomatoes.  I've not eaten 3 or 4 of my lovely little Tommy Toe tomatoes and eagerly awaiting the first rouge de marmande ripening.  I took a photo to show you why I'm impatient.  They've reached a lovely size and may be still growing.  Most of the bunches are quite full, one of the clusters in this photos has 6 of these puppies all squeezed together! 

When will you be ripe!!?

Unfortunately I lost a full set of RdM blossoms before I realised they weren't getting enough water.  So there's one "layer" of almost-ripe fruit, one empty layer of no fruit where all the blossoms dropped, and finally a new layer where it seems the fruit has properly set.  The Tommy Toes didn't have this problem, they kept powering along all the while.

growing, harvests, planting and worms

A lot to but together for this post.  First I wanted to share how much my tomatoes are thriving this year now that they're in a huge planter.  They're another 20cm taller since I took this photo, with heaps of little green fruit.  I've had to brace them against the wind though, it can get very strong.

I finally pulled up my Granex sweet onions to make room for the pumpkin and melons.  I put my foot in the photo for perspective - three good-sized onions and three that were too small.  They all could have done with another month of growth but I just couldn't put off the melons any longer, they'd been in little punnets for too long.  And unfortunately the onions were nothing special.  They were indeed very mild but they weren't very sweet.  Not something I'll repeat in this small garden.

But at least I was finally able to plant out two melons and a pumpkin.  I topped up the garden bed with mushroom compost, manure and my home-made compost.

I had heaps of compost this time around, rich and black.  It's going to make those melons grow like crazy!  Look at that beautiful black gold!

And finally, I decided this weekend to set up a worm farm.  The farm was free, made from two foam broccoli boxes.  Wet shredded newspaper goes in the top for worm food.  I poked holes in the bottom so the worm "juice" can drip through to the bottom box.  This "worm wee" makes excellent liquid fertiliser.

Then I just had to add worms!  You can buy the special composting worms from most garden shops.  You can't see them in the photo because they run away from the light, but I gave them a bit of watermelon rind to start with.  Mostly I got them to use up our newspaper which otherwise goes into the recycling,  but I'll sometimes add some food scraps.

As well as the "wee" they also make solid castings, rich pellets of clay-textured goodness.  So now I've got the compost bin to add texture to the soil, worm wee for liquid goodness and worm castings for fertiliser pellets.  As my husband put it, there isn't a corner left in the garden that hasn't been put to some purpose!

what a difference a week makes

I'm used to visiting my garden almost every day, so when I was gone for a week it felt like so many things had changed!  To start things off, my first Greigii tulip had blossomed - it's a species tulip which essentially means a while tulip.  The variety is called "Cape Cod."  It's so bright and cheerful against the ugly brick wall and grating.

My designer twig is also in full blossom.  Although I got an update email from the company I bought it from saying that the first fruits should be removed when they're still tiny so as not to weigh down the branches and to encourage the plant to grow.  So no mandarins or tangelos for me after all!  But I still enjoy the flowers.

And my indoor seedlings were definitely ready to be planted out.  Look at the size of that basil!

The chillie got its own pot (on the left) whereas the cinnamon and lettuce-leaf basils will share a pot.  Last year my two basils shared a pot and they did just fine.

On the other hand, my tomatoes last year struggled partly because their pots were too small.  So this year I decided to get them much bigger pots ... then decided heck, might as well get them one long huge pot.  Trust me, they will grow into it.  And I can't wait to decide what to plant in it over the winter!

I also planted the soybeans in the back bed.  I'm keeping an eye on the onions - they're starting for form bulbs!  But in the meantime I've started some Baby Blue pumpkins, Green Nutmeg rockmelon and Minnesota Midget rockmelon in punnets to go into the onion bed when they're finished.  I love spring!

the pumpkin is dead ... long live the pumpkin

I went out this evening to take a photo of my pumpkin vine.  It had been getting more and more diseased lately, first with powdery mildew and then with aphids.  But they sometimes do this at the end of their life so I wasn't worried.  But I did want to make sure the pumpkins themselves didn't get diseased, so I was going to ask some advice of my favourite garden forum.

I needn't have bothered!  It went from diseased to DEAD in just a day or two!  Definitely time to harvest the last little pumpkins.  They sure ripened up quickly compared to the first batch which apparently they do later in the season.  But they're a little bit smaller than the first batch which I don't mind.  They're still cute!

Oh and you know how I was recently praising how tough elephant ear plants are?  Well guess what I found growing up from underneath the dying pumpkin vine.  It's a little elephant ear I now remember I tried to pull out when I first planted this bed, months ago.  But I didn't dig down deep enough.  And now, here's the little fighter trying again to grow back.  I think I'll reward it this time by digging it up this weekend and planting it somewhere I won't be planting things on top of it.

three fat pumpkins

I've picked and cured the last of my first-crop pumpkins.  Aren't they handsome? 

I've still got three more on the vine and a freezer full of pumpkin soup.  Next year I'm only planting one vine, not two.

pumpkin soup

I cooked up one of my pumpkins tonight to make pumpkin soup.  The last one I picked a little before it was ready and it was a bit bland.  But this one had an extra month on the vine, a few days curing in the sun, and a week in the cupboard.  It still wasn't sweet like a butternut pumpkin but personally I don't like pumpkin soup made with sweet potato or butternut, I prefer the more rich and savoury types of pumpkins. 

I can safely say it was the BEST pumpkin soup I've ever made.  Unfortunately I ate it before I could take a picture so you'll just have to imagine how tasty it was.

water of life

I planned on spending the day in the garden but instead it decided to pour down with rain.  I've been trying to duck out in between showers but I've been driven back inside for a while.  Not that I'm complaining!

The rain sure does bring things back to life.  There are more birds, bees, and lots of new plant growth.  Unfortunately it also means the weeds are back with a vengeance after sitting patiently inside seeds for the last few months.  As you can see here, my lawn is starting to look alive again ... but so are thousands of tiny weeds.  I'm not looking forward to dealing with all of them.

They're not the only thing sprouting though.  It only took four days before the first of the alyssum seeds began to sprout, and here's were they stand one week after planting.

I wanted to share one more garden miracle.  Recall that my pumpkin vine only ended up with 5 fruit across two vines.  I lost a lot of fruit before I started hand-pollinating, and even then I lost more because I wasn't watering enough. 

Well in the two weeks we were in Texas, three more pumpkins somehow pollinated.  I kept expecting them to shrivel and fall off, but on the contrary they now look like this!

I'm actually a little torn.  I'm glad I may have three more pumpkins than I originally planned, but I also want to plant some of the sweet yellow granex onions I brought back from the USA, and they're meant to go in that bed.  I can stall for a little while by starting them in punnets, but only for so long before they have to go in the ground.  Based on when the first round of pumpkins were about this size, it'll be two more months before these are ripe!

Here's a portrait of the little culprit who's responsible for these three new pumpkins - a bee taking shelter from the rain.  See what happens when you pollinate irresponsibly, little bee?  You make unexpected babies right when I thought this vine would be retiring!

i'm back!

I'm back from visiting my sister in Texas.  I had such a wonderful time seeing her, my new nephew, and a lot of the rest of my family!  And it was interesting to see what's growing in Texas in the winter and how it compares to what we grow down here.  But by the end of the trip I was definitely wanting to much around in my garden, especially considering that we left just after the 115 degree day when the garden was looking grim.

We had house-sitters taking care of the cats and watering my garden.  Most of it came out very well and there are signs of recovering from the heat (more on that later).  The one tragedy is that my tomatoes for some reason ended up taking a beating.  I don't know what happened there, maybe not enough water.  So I've picked off as many of the fruit as I can, but it looks near the end.  We'll see if the green fruit on there ripen up, I think they will.

Almost everything else made it just fine.  In fact, the pumpkin vine took off yet again for some reason!  Remember how dried up it started to look?  Well compare the then:



To now!



It's even started to put out new fruit, though I don't know if they'll pollinate as I haven't seen any male flowers for a long time.  I'm not sure what to do about it once I harvest the ripe pumpkins, do I let it keep growing or pull it out and plant some peas for the winter?

The other great news is that a few of my rhododendrons have put out new growth and so has the maple.  It lost a lot of foliage and a few branches have died, but it's started to sprout new growth on other branches.  If it survives this summer, it will survive anything.