happy toms

My tomatoes are going gangbusters, probably from all this rain and a fairly warm spring.  They're about as tall right now as they were in January last year!  That's not really a good thing if you're just getting leaves and little fruit.  But I don't think that will be a worry.

The black cherry did have a bit of a setback when its main leader broke but it's now got heaps of flower clusters.  And what clusters!  I counted 16 flowers in this photo but there may be some hidden ones.

The honey of Mexico are a bit more advanced and already have several ripening clusters.  This one has 9 fruit on it, it would have 11 but two blossoms rubbed off against that leaf.

I think I made a good choice this year to grow two cherry types instead of a mid-sized.  They ripen faster and seem to be hardier.  Or maybe they just seem hardier because they spend less time ripening on the plant, open to bugs and diseases.  In any case, I'm hoping to taste my first toms soon!

bad luck tomatoes

What is with my bad luck with breaking tomatoes?!  Last year I pulled my Florida weave too tight and snapped one of my tomato plants off at the top.  This year, I didn't get my black cherry secured and we had so much wind it snapped right off.  It was growing so much taller than the honey of Mexico I was waiting to secure it.  Waited too long!

I was especially disappointed because the broken section had some flower buds on it!  Well it's not the end of the world.  The laterals - the side shoots - of tomato plants grow just as well as the main shoot.  I hope.  And at least now the two plants are the same size.  Since this photo I have gone in and set up a second layer of Florida weave to keep them from snapping again.

And the good news is there are some more flower buds.  They're both small-fruited tomatoes so it might not be too long before the first fruits come in.  Hopefully before Christmas!

tomatoes are in at last!

I almost didn't think it would ever happen.  Look at how long and leggy my poor toms had gotten!  The basil's still small, though, I'll wait a bit longer before I plant that out.

I made a hug mistake, though.  It's a good idea to plant leggy seedlings several extra centimeters deep in the dirt to grow some extra roots.  When I plucked the leaves off my honey of Mexico, I did this.  Don't do this.  This is silly.  Trim off the leaves, don't yank them.  Good thing I had extra seedlings...

And now, at last, they're in the tub.  They only need a small stake at that size, but it won't be long until I'll be wrapping string all around them to keep them from flopping.  But will I have tomatoes before Christmas?  That's the real challenge in Australia!

tomatoes almost ready to go

It's time to swap over the beetroots to the tomatoes.  Unfortunately not many of the beetroots reached even "baby" size but I really needed to make the swap!

Once they were out I finally had to dump out all the dirt in this tub.  For the last two years I suspect that my tomatoes have gotten some kind of disease that's in the soil.  Which meant I needed to get rid of all the soil and I even rinsed out the tub with bleach.  I got a bit of a surprise when I pulled the tub away from the steps - a whole colony of snails!

Once the snails were dealt with I put together the wooden frame I use to keep the tomatoes in shape.  This year I got extra-fancy and fit cross-beams along the length of the tub too.  The soil is a fresh mix of potting soil and mushroom compost plus a sprinkle of some sulphate of potash and organic fertilizer pellets. 

The only down side is that I can't plant out my tomatoes just yet.  I was out of town this week so I haven't had the chance to harden them off yet.  But hopefully mid-week I'll be able to finally put them in their new home!

changing of the (veggie) guard

It's the time of year when the winter veg are finishing off and it's time to make room for the summer shift.  My tomato seedlings are busing at the seams!  I've given away two already but the remaining black cherry are outgrowing their pots.  The basil sprouts are powering along quickly too.

The only problem is that their tub is occupied by beets!  At the front and in the smaller pot is silverbeet (developed for its leaves), behind that are beetroots, and behind that is the last of the kale.

I keep hoping the beetroot plumps up a bit.  I want to eat them as baby beetroot but they're still too small even for that, as you can see here.  I thinned out the smallest seedlings as I probably should have done weeks ago, and I'm hoping the remaining beetroots plump up in the next week so I can plant the tomatoes.

But in the meantime I picked some of the silverbeet to try for the first time ... and learned I don't really like silverbeet.  I like spinach and I don't mind kale and other brassicas, but silverbeet has an unpleasant sort of bitter flavour to me.  It's meant to be such an easy-to-grow garden staple but I won't be growing it again.

As you can see in that photo I'm often harvesting my herbs all year round.  My front herb bed, where I used to grow geraniums, now has chives, sage, thyme and my huge rosemary bush.  The smaller herbs are finally starting to fill out after a quiet winter.  They're all hardy sun-lovers so they should appreciate the hot spot much more than the geraniums did!

My snowpeas are finishing off their winter shift too.  One of them got some strange and sudden die-off for a while before sprouting a bit more new growth, but as you can see it's on its last legs.  I'll have to start thinking about what to grow in these two big pots this year.  Last year it was a capsicum and a zucchini, which didn't work out too well.  I'm thinking this year of trying green beans for the first time, we eat a lot of green beans.

It is well and truly spring!  Such an exciting time, preparing for the summer garden.

tomatoes get an upgrade

My tomato sprouts are really coming along. Two of the Honey of Mexico are still small since they got planted late but the rest were really outgrowing their punnet. So this weekend they all got moved into some larger digs. I also put in two punnets of basil. One of the basil punnets and some of the tomatoes are going to a friend this year, it's lovely knowing I can help her establish her own brand new veggie garden.

They're growing so quickly, my only problem is that the tub where they'll be planted is currently occupied by some thriving kale and my beetroots that aren't nearly ready to harvest! Slow down tomatoes, slow down!

tomato sprouts

Just reporting that my tomatoes have already germinated - took just about a week.  All three black cherries are up, only one Miel du Mexique.  Hopefully at least one more will be coming.

You can see how much they turn toward the light.  I really need to get a reflector screen made!  It gives them a bit more light and reduces their need to turn toward the window.

planting and harvesting

Today I started my tomatoes. Two different varieties once again: black cherry and miel du Mexique (honey of Mexico). I threw out my sun reflector shield thingy so I'll have to make a new one when the seeds sprout. I forgot to mention when I originally wrote this, I'm using the heat pad again - the kind you're meant to put under a terrarium for lizards or frogs. However I've learned that they're powerful things, so I put a folded-up plastic crate between the heat pad and the planting tray. And on sunny days (like today), I unplug the whole thing or the soil heats up to 30+ degrees!

I've also recently decided to grow some colourful beetroot. These were bought as mixed seedlings - red, golden, and striped beetroot. I've also planted a set of golden beetroot seeds but apparently they're hard to germinate so we'll see how they go.

My firecracker chilies were so laden I went through and picked every single red chili so they didn't rot on the plant!

My snow peas in the back bed are struggling, I don't think there's enough sun for them. They're only half the size of the plants in pots on the front porch. I don't think it'll be worth growing anything here over the winter.

So even though it's winter there are a few things going on.

late harvests

Well summer has most definitely turned to autumn.  In a normal or warmish year I'd still be letting the summer veg mature and finish up, but this year has been a bit cool and so humid that disease has ended the season early.  For example the watermelon vine completely died off, leaving only 4 watermelons in total.  And even though they all looked nice and sat on the vine for ages, they were all underripe.  Quite disappointing.

I only have two canteloupe on the vine but it's a race against time, the vine's pretty quickly dying to powdery mildew.  Now idea if I'll be able to harvest these guys.

The zucchini also suffered from powdery mildew plus an attack of aphids.  I only got three zucchinis off of it before it went back to making only male flowers.  Then the aphids slowed down and stunted a whole set of new growth.  There were finally two more female flowers last week, but no males to pollinate them, plus the mildew was getting worse and worse.  So I made an executive decision and pulled it out.

The tomatoes also reached their end.  The broad ripple never really gave up, as you can see here it was still ripening fruit even when branches were dead!

But the plants were really struggling, probably something fungal.  Although the one irony is that the Oregon spring, which hadn't developed a single flower since the first flush, put out a whole new set of growth and flowers!  But there was no way they would have developed into fruit in time to eat, so they all came out too.

The figs aren't doing very well this year either.  I got some good ones early, but now they're already bloated and messy.  At one point all the ripe figs, literally, exploded.  They looked quite beautiful, in a way, but inedible.

Not everything has been a loss though.  The cherrytime capsicum made about 8 or 10 little fruit.  They're a bit strong and sharp in flavour, though, I expected them to be sweeter.  The basil and parsley in the bed along the front of the house are going great guns too.

A real winner has been the firecracker chilies.  After the slow start when they were starved of nitrogen, they took off and haven't quit since.  I've started bringing them in to work to give away. They've got a decent heat to them, not quite as hot as a birdseye.

That's about it for the summer season.  I'll keep the chilies going as long as I can, and the herbs are all still happy, but I'm not optimistic about the cantaloupe.  I've started the first of my winter veggies - a Tuscan kale.  I'm also planning on growing snow peas and gai lan, since I know they produce well.

another bountiful harvest

Last week I had another great harvest; my third zucchini, more tomatoes and my first two chilies. 

There are plenty more chilies where that came from but most of them are still green.  This lot got thrown together into a prawn fettuccine.  Looks great but it was actually a bit bland.  Needed more oomph, maybe more garlic.

Still, it's great being able to eat from your own garden.  This is the last big harvest though; the tomatoes are slowing down and there's no sign of another zucchini.  The growing tips got hit hard by aphids, it's amazing how fast they can suck the life out of new growth.  It'll be a while before it recovers and by then it might be too cold. It's still February but I feel like the real warmth of the summer has well and truly passed.

february harvest

This is one of the bigger harvest for this year.  I've got another zucchini ripe, the tomatoes are going crazy, and of course some herbs.  The broad ripple yellow currants are producing like crazy, but to be honest I find them annoying because the tomatoes are so tiny.  You can't even cut them in half, they just splatter.  Next time I think I'll go with a slightly larger cherry tomato.

In any case, I turned this harvest into a dinner that came almost entirely from the garden!  The zucchini was sliced and dusted with cumin and smoked paprika before grilling.  The tomatoes were cut up and tossed with parsley and chickpeas.  The mint went into the yogurt with some garlic and lemon.  And on top, some fried haloumi cheese.  Seriously tasty.

It's not often I harvest enough to really plan a meal around it, so I'm pretty proud of this one!

january edible updates

Here are some updates from around the garden in January.  We've had so much rain this year (hundreds of mms/around 8 inches in just the last few months), plus some very humid tropical weather, which has made the whole garden go absolutely bonkers.  Plants that were going slowly through the cool spring have really started to catch up. 

First, my tomatoes.  They haven't grown too much in the last week or two, but I was very right when I realised they were lacking in nitrogen.  You would think I'd figured this one out before, since the first year I grew tomatoes I did the same thing.  The other good news is the lower leaves are looking OK too, so either the disease has slowed down or it was all just low nitrogen!

Speaking of which, my firecracker chilies are now going spacko since I gave them a shot of nitrogen too.  I'd grown them in a pot that had snowpeas in it, which are meant to "fix" nitrogen into the soil. I've also learned that they end up spending that nitrogen on themselves; they only really put it back in the soil if you plow them in when they're still little plants.  So yeah, mental note for next year: make sure if I re-use potting mix I give them a bigger boost of fertilizer.  I'd put a sprinkle of organic fert pellets but obviously not enough.  In any case, my firecracker now even has one green chili ripening away, plus dozens of flowers.

The cherrytime capsicums are coming along brilliantly too.  Not red yet, but there are quite a few little caps on there.

My basil's doing really well this year too.  They seem to like this weather a lot more: mid-high 20s plus rain and humidity suits them better than past years' dry heat with the occasional 40+ day.  The weird thing is my Greek basil (on the left) is getting die-off on one side.  No idea why, otherwise it's very healthy.  Maybe there are grubs in the potting mix?

My twig is also coming along beautifully.  Both grafts have fruitlets on them, although one has more than the other.  If I get half a dozen fruit to ripeness this year I'll be a happy camper.  And look how green and lush those leaves are!

For a little while it was dropping its lower leaves, which didn't worry me too much.  But it's actually started putting out a lot of new growth from the middle.  That actually makes me happy as it was starting to get a bit leggy.  I'll have to make sure the two grafts have the same number of shoots but look at all that new growth!

The melons are also finally starting to go crazy, they absolutely adore this weather.  No fertilized melons I can see yet.  I should be out there with a paintbrush helping them pollinate, but I keep forgetting to do it in the morning.  And when I do remember, it's raining which makes it pretty impossible.  Also notice how big that colocasia has gotten there in the corner - it's huge!

All of this has resulted in some decent harvests - well, decent for my garden anyway!  The tomatoes are producing pretty well, especially the yellow currant.  This is what a typical harvest looks like for me these days - a few handfuls of herbs and some tomatoes.

Keep bringing on this weather!  I just need to keep on top of the weeds...