Winter wrap - '12

Winter here in Sydney has been a season of two halves.  The first part of winter was decidedly wet and the second half quite dry -  a harbinger of the return of the little boy  El Nino? The last part of winter has also been unseasonably warm - I am not complaining....

Here are some of my observations from this winter.

Harvests

• cabbage - mine have been savoy
• cauliflower - these were fabulous
• broccoli
• snow peas
• spring onions
• lemons, lemons, lemons
• limes
• fennel
• rocket
• herbs - rosemary, thyme, oregano, bay and mint towards the late part of winter
• some chillies in the early part of winter
• some sunflowers in the early part of winter

What I have learnt

• lime your brassica patch lest you get mini caulies
• broccoli is less fussy liming-wise than caulies
• snow peas are heaven on a stalk
• my mint needs more winter sun
• never take your parsley for granted - it can lure you into a false sense of supply cause it lives for two years, but when it's time is up, it's up and you are left without even a sprig
• fennel loves lots of water - it will grow well without it and produce lovely bulbs, but when it gets water a plenty, the bulbs are fat and white and juicy
• plant more fennel in succession
• late winter chives are incredibly flavoursome 
• bok choi is pretty and easy
• brassicas planted in winter avoid the cabbage moth when they are babies but get the moth visiting in late winter - but by that time they are growing strongly and are little affected
• this year I was rubbish at having something to pick in late winter - I still have my second crop of brassicas in the ground and only now forming heads!
• prunning your citrus in late summer and again when the growth re-awakens is a good thing to do
• the beans you dried in summer are fantastic for winter meals
• baby rainbow lorikeets have black eyes and beaks
• lemon trees are sacred

Pleasures

• lemons all winter
• the beauty of a cauliflower
• seeing my first blueberries flower and form fruit
• thyme flowers
• the glut of lime flowers and miniture forming fruit
• the birds that visit my garden - rainbow lorikeets and currawongs especially
• Half-tail would be a comedian if s/he was a human

Autumn audit - '12

summer and autumn produce

Autumn has ended and I have missed about 2/3rds of it being away overseas for work – see Garden Glut International. Autumn in Australia (at least in the southern states) is defined by the calendar months March April and May and in my opinion is the loveliest time of year in Sydney (but come to think of it, I think  autumn is about the loveliest time of the year just about everywhere I have ever been!).

So what can I say about autumn if I have been away? Well most of this is from the reporting of my David who has been giving me great updates.

Its been a weird autumn...Just as our summer was cool and wet, this autumn has been the summer we never had, followed by heavy rains and the impact on the patch has been profound. Here is some of the things that have happened as a result.

• Eggplants - normally pulled out in February/ March continued flowering and flowering and were finally only pulled out in mid-May. The fruit were smaller than they had been earlier in the season, but I guess that can be explained by all the hard work they put in, no doubt depleting the store in the soil. Must feed up those parts of the patch.

• The Chillies too have been long producing...in fact I still have two plants in and the long cayenne still has loads of green chillies on the plant. Again I normally pull them out in around March. Even though we don’t get a frost in Sydney (at least in my part of Sydney)  I don’t over winter them. I only have limited space and I remove them when they are past their best to free up the bed. Frankly I don’t think I need to grow any chillies next summer, what with the stash ‘preserved’ in oil, in vinegar, in rocket fuel, in sweet chilli jam and frozen could keep me going for two years. But I KNOW I will grow them again next summer, they just brighten up the garden so much. And besides which I can always use the excuse offered by Suburban Tomato in her value space rating blog - they are just too efficient how can I not grow them.

last of the brown berries

• Brown berry tomatoes - just when I thought they were finished in Feb and when I had pulled all, the other tomatoes out,  they revived and  started flowering heavily. They have produced small crops – a punnet at a time and are only now giving up the ghost.

• The Broccoli that I planted in February were producing great big heads in early May. Quick hey?  Must have been all that sun they had. All the big heads have been picked and now its the side shoots to keep us going.

beautiful broccoli

• The Sunflowers that self-seeded in the broccoli patch and which I left to see what happened grew and grew and produced lovely browny heads.  In May they were towering over the patch and there were plenty to cut to bring inside. I normally pull my summer sunflowers out when they are spent and they don’t normally go about sprouting until the next late spring. I will probably take these out of the garden this weekend. They have pretty much finished now.

• Snow peas that were planted in February behaved pretty much like they always do, they started being picked in early May. They are heaven on a stalk. We pick every second day and pretty much eat everyday. There is nothing better to eat veg-wise in my opinion in a winter veg garden. Crunch, sweet, best eaten at the vine.

All this resulted in some interesting harvest baskets – a great combination of summer and autumn veg.

Autumn gluts

• Lettuce
• Rocket
• Broccoli
• Snow peas
• Spring onions – I just planted too many to keep up with!
• Lemons endless lemons

With the lovely man home alone there was only so much he could eat so much of the glut was distributed to friends and family for their consumption.

too much for one man to eat

Mini gluts

• Limes
• Eggplants

Autumn struggles

• Cabbage - with a booming broccoli crop the savoy cabbages got a little shaded. I also suspect I had another issue... the cabbage went into the patch where the eggplant were. I had had a great eggplant year and  I suspect that the eggplant had really taken a lot out of the soil.  I did top it up before planting the cabbage seedlings, but I suspect not enough.
• Beetroot - these too got a little too shaded by the monster broccoli. I got some but only small roots. 

This all comes from having only a small space and big ambitions and planting thickly to cover ground and get the most out of the patch.

Autumn duds

• Radish -  these failed pretty spectacularly I suspect it might be because of two reasons - I didn't thin them enough, and they may have been overshadowed by a very prolific rocket crop. 
• Cauliflower - hmm, big failure - serious whip tail... I have always had a little bit of whip tail but always had good strong heads. This year I pushed my luck and have paid for it. If I get any heads at all they will be tiny.  Lesson?  Don't ignore micro-nutrient deficiencies! 

The other big learning of this autumn, was how well and how enthusiastically my darling husband tended the patch while I was away. Grub squashing, compost emptying, path clearing, plant feeding, pulling out when veg had finished, harvesting and taking photos and sending  them to me to make me think of home.