Spring seed raising

Quite a few weeks ago now, Liz from Suburban Tomato gave us a great run down of the tomatoes she was raising. Sadly I didn't have my act together then to make a similar post, indeed, I hadn't even started to raise my tomatoes or any other seeds as I feared a late frost -  I thought it was too early for our mountain slopes climate.

But now that the weather has jumped from maximums in single digits to ones in the mid twenties in the space of two weeks I feel like I am starting too late! Ah, gardening in a new environment!

 Here is what I am currently raising.

Tomatoes
Last year my tomatoes were a complete failure, mostly becasue it was scorchingly hot and also because we only arrived at Highfield in mid-November. This year I am hoping I will have much better fortune especially seeing as I have so many wonderful varieties with different shapes and colours. All these seeds came from Yvonne - thank you so much, I hope to do them justice.

• Juane Flamme 
• Red Pear
• Yellow pear
• Verna orange
• Green grape
• Oxheart yellow
• Speckled Roman
• Peach
• Purple Cherokee

Chillies/Peppers/Capsicums
I have gone completely overboard here with the encouragement and seeds from Nina and Bek. It's just that these plants seem to be able to survive the hottest of summers, and I do like a chilli or too and I have a secret desire to hold a chilli-based food festival... one day...

• Chilli - Long Cayenne
• Chilli - Padron
• Chilli  - Jalapeno - thanks Nina
• Capsicum -  Orange Glory - thanks Bek
• Capsicum - Hungarian Wax - thanks Bek
• Capsicum - 7 colour mix
• Pepper  - Merlin - thanks Bek
• Pepper -  Chocolate - thanks Bek
• Pepper - Absa - thanks Bek

Eggplants

• Listada di Ganda -  thanks Yvonne
• Prosperosa - thanks Bek
• Rosa Bianca

Greens

• Lettuce - Salad bowl
• Lettuce - Freckels Bunte
• Pak choi
• Fennel Florence
• Rocket

Beans and Peas

• Bean - Kentucky Wonder - thanks Nina
• Bean - Sex without strings
• Peas - Snow peas
• Peas - Pigeon peas

Onions

• Spring onions

Pumpkins / Melons

• Pumpkin - seeds from Pat Murray's pumpkins (Pat is King of vegetable growing at the annual Adelong Agricultural Show)
• Melon -  Minnesota Midget

Roots

• Beetroot - Crimson Globe
• Radish - Round Red

Zucchini

I have shared with you previously my obsession to enter the Gundagai Agricultural Show in the category, Three zucchinis under 18cms. I am hoping that I can grow three great specimens of different colours just to wow the judges. So I have planted the following varieties so far - I have a few other varieties held back for planting later in the season as insurance.

• Costata - thanks Bek
• Gold Rush - thanks Bek
• Greenskin
  
  
  

Don't you think a trio of green, yellow and speckled zucchinis would be a show stopper? If I am successful, perhaps  I can share my winnings  with Bek... but I am getting ahead of myself!

Herbs
I have put these seeds in but when they are up they will join my other more perennial herbs.

• Basil
• Thai basil -  thanks Yvonne
• Dill - thanks Nina

Flowers

• Marigold - French Bonita
• Marigold - Petite Yellow -  thanks Nina
• Larkspur - thanks Diana
• Nasturtiums - Red - thanks Nina -  the leaves are stunning, I am sure the flowers will be too
• Sunflowers -  Prado Red and Evening Sun, my usuals
• Zinnia
• my beautiful purple Holbrook poppies

That's it for the moment but I will be putting in some cucumbers and other things as the season develops.
What are you putting in?

Soon I will post on all the fruit trees I have put in over winter.

Harvest Monday - 11th March 2013

With the weather cooling (slightly) and with a little added rain, I have had a little more produce to pick.
Delights this week have been the Minnesota Midget Rock melons.

They have been such performers, dealing with the heat and the lack of rain, I have decided to 'harvest' their seeds to re-plant next year.

I am also starting to get a decent picking of zucchinis (about time). Here are three that I have picked just the last couple of days, the good news is that more are on the way.

Amazingly, the radishes that were almost completely grazed off by the Wallaby have started to produce their rosy little swollen roots.

Other than this, my harvests have been mostly rocket, rocket and more rocket. I am not very good at remembering to take photos of the things I harvest, especially when they are herbs and saladings, so you will just have to have pictures of my plants instead, you can see where I have picked the rocket at least!

Baby beetroot leaves also for salads.

Basil -  not huge quantities, just tip pickings for salads and parsley, chives, garlic chives and thyme.



I am contributing this to Daphne's Monday Harvest. A collection of great produce will be posted there soon, when the earth turns a little more.

A lovely pair of melons

Yesterday my Minnesota Midget melons ripened.  In the morning, they looked like they had a good way to go, but in the afternoon they had suddenly turned a yellow colour.  I got down on my hands and knees to see if they smelt ripe - they did - so they were promptly picked and admired. There were only two, but what a lovely pair of melons!

They are only small as their variety name implies - just a handful each. This is fine by me as I am really the only household member that is a rock melon (cantaloupe) fancier.

They are really very heavy for their size and very juicy inside. I am really surprised at how juicy they are given that I had to be very careful about how much I watered due to my limited water supply. They have that special fragrance that rock melons have ( that not everyone likes but I love) but a somewhat crisper flesh than shop bought rock melons. 

I have posted about this melon previously. These little blighters have toughed out a really hot and dry summer. The plant originally set 5 fruit but I guess the plant just decided it could only sustain 2 fruit given the difficult record-breaking  hot season.

I would certainly grow this little fellow again.  It has proved itself in a difficult climate, takes minimal space in the patch and I like the smaller fruit size and the crisper flesh.

Now I probably should have held this post over till Saturday when I could have joined Liz's Saturday Spotlight but I couldn't wait, I was just too excited. You see, these are my first ever melons. Pathetic I know...

Have you grown something this year for the first time? How did it go?

The Mighty Midget

I planted a number of different pumpkins and melons this year in my new patch.

Pumpkins

• Musquee de Provence a beautiful green and orange fluted pumpkin
• Baby Blue - provided by Bek
• Buttercup -  again thanks to Bek 
• Australian Butter - and again

Melons

• Tigger - provided by Bek
• Minnesota Midget

The choice of pumpkins was obvious - I wanted to grow some things this summer that I could store for winter and, as the climate here is dry and hot ( in summer at least) it is great for avoiding that nasty mildew on the leaves. And the melons? Well I like a good melon and on a hot day a juicy melon is just the ticket. 

I had prepared lovely beds for them - nice piles of organic material along with a large dose of free sheep manure for each. I mulched and mulched, including with the good stuff - lucerne and, all have failed. No doubt this is because of two main factors -  the damn record breaking heat we have been having and the fact that we don't really have any shade. There just hasn't been a way to keep water up to them. 

The exception as been the Mighty Midget from Minnesota (I think this sounds like a wrestler's nom de grapple don't you?).

Let me introduce the Minnesota Midget. Tiny little thing, small leaves, lots and lots of flowers that are bee magnets - no need to get the paint brush out for this little fellow, oh no! Pollinates all by himself!

The fruit are swelling each day. So far I can see about 5 little fruit forming.

As you can see from the photo above, the Midget has even survived being sampled by the Wallaby...few have survived that encounter.

Amazingly too the Midget is probably in the spot in the garden that gets most afternoon sun. I am assuming because its leaves are a little smaller that it is a little more accommodating of the heat? Certainly the pumpkin with the largest leaves - the show girl Musquee de Provence with her enormous leaves looked pretty shabby each afternoon with all her leaves wilted - not so for the Midget.

I guess one difference is that I planted the Midget quite a bit later than the other pumpkins and Tigger the melon and after the other poor little fellows toughed out the fire threat day. Perhaps the Midget got the less testing part of the season?

Now I know one shouldn't count melons before they are ripe, but I am hoping that the Midget keeps on and yields a juicy melon or two. If we do get fruit, I'll be saving this little fellow's seeds.

Do you have a melon or two in your patch?

Harvest Monday - Christmas Eve

I am not sure whether to be delighted or despondent. Normally, I would be hauling produce in from the backyard in my favourite basket, providing  the Christmas table with tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, herbs, lettuce, rocket, radish, chillies, lemons and limes and sundry other things. But as we moved in mid November to our new place my beds are new and my produce scant. Still I guess I am picking something. Here is today's pickings...no where near what I would normally be bringing in and the chillies are tiny  -  a consequence of needing to be careful with the water at the moment?

Over the week I have picked a few other things too but in tiny amounts. I have had some more tomatoes - these are Brown Berries and Broad Yellow Ripple Currant.























Decent hands full of blueberries with another picking ready for harvest for tomorrow's breakfast.

But there are things on the way. My zucchs are fruiting up nicely now - the bees must have found them.

My zebras are doing very well, and, as it looks as though there are no fruit fly here, I may have them all to myself for a change!

My junior cucumber plants (Spacemaster) are looking very happy despite the heat we have had.

Tigger the melon is starting to run and the eggplants are forming.

Last night we had 40mm of rain and an amazing light show via the most  dramatic thunderstorm  you could imagine. The whole sky lit up at times like momentary daylight with sheet lightening across the distant hills.

This year we are sharing our Festive Season with new co-residents - the native wildlife that live at Highfield with us. Take a look at our Wildlife page to see who we have met already.

Best wishes everyone, may your garden prosper over whatever type of Festive occasion you celebrate at this time of year.

Lizards and pumpkin beds

There is so much to write about, so much activity and also so much wildlife to report on. I have decided to focus on just two things today - lizards and pumpkins. So first lizards.

"If I sit very still you will think I am a piece of bark".

This handsome lizard is sitting on the tension pole of our home fence line. I first noticed him/her while I was making a few mounds for my pumpkins and melons - but more of that later.

I started taking photos of this lizard from quite a distance, but s/he let me get very close. It obviously thought I thought I would think it a piece of wood. It's about 18 inches long. It's still sitting on the fence as I type.

Yesterday I also spotted a big goanna in the front yard. I have pasted a photo here from wikipedia - I didn't have time to take a photo of my visitor. They can get to 2 meters in length, but yesterday's lizard was probaby 1.5 mts.

The goanna was very interested in the nesting dirrijirris (willie wagtails). Thankfully for the dirrijirris, I startled the goanna and it headed off into the long grass while being swooped by a magpie, then headed up a tree.  Note to self -  goannas and chickens.... hmmm a problem on the horizon.

There is another lizard I have noticed around the house.  One has take up sunbathing on the front steps.  It is quite a robust spotted skink . Again I have no photo.

And  now to pumpkin beds. I am rather hastily trying to get some vegetable beds made and veggies started. I am probably taking too many short cuts but I am desperate to get started. I hope there is some sensible method in my madness, although there may not be. I have never grown pumpkins before but I am guessing that they need a rich mix and need room to sprawl? And a bit of drainage to avoid that mildewy-ness that other cucurbits get?

Today I decided to convert a large 'waste' pile of prunnings, dried grass, lawn mover clippings and ash from the wood fire into pumpkin and melon beds.

I raked the dry material into three separate piles and topped the piles of dried matter with soil from the pile and lots of sheep poo. This is available in abundance in a deep layer under the shearing shed. I suspect I will never exhaust the supply - it's enough to make a gardeners heart sing.

I am hoping that with some time, these piles will make a nice home for pumpkins and melons -  the pile and the poo making a good rich soil.  The mound looks like a mini  mallee fowl mounds so I am hoping that their method of incubating eggs will also result in great pumpkins.

I planted seeds that came to me from Bek -  two different pumpkins -  Buttercup and Australian Butter and a melon - Tigger. Thanks Bek! Let's see how they go. As pumpkins need a long season to mature and as Highfield is quite frosty, I will push these pumpkins as fast as I can once they are up, with liquid manure and nettle tea - plenty of nettle weeding to do.

Anyone got any pumpkin growing advice? And melons?  And does anyone have any tips in keeping the chickens safe from goannas - they are so strong.