Beating the heat?

Day three of a week-long  heat wave and the pumpkins seem to be holding up relatively well.

I have two varieties in  -  Butternut and Jap.

You might notice the bundle of shade cloth lying beside the pumpkin bed? That's why the pumpkins are surviving I think. Uncovered and I'm sure they'd fry! I have photographed the pumpkins in the early morning thus the shadow of the photographer (apologies!).

I am leaving the pumpkins uncovered until midday to allow any pollination to happen and then I cover them with a 90% shade cloth until about 8pm when they get uncovered again. That's the approach I'm taking anyway, let's see if this method works for the rest of the week. Temps are supposed to stay in the high 30s and low 40s until Saturday!

These two plants have started to develop little pumpkins.

Let's hope the shade cloths will enable these little fellas to continue their development.

Other pumpkin vines  that were reasonably advanced during the last period of belting heat did not get the shade cloth treatment.

Sad specimens aren't they? They are still alive but have never recovered and are certainly not thriving enough to produce. The only reason I am leaving them in the ground is that at least they are providing some shade to the roots of a nearby apple tree.

The longer I garden the more I think that the oft said  tip about vegetable gardening - the one that says 'plant your vegetable garden in full sun'  - is just clearly wrong for an Australian summer. I find that  most of the plants in the vegetable garden do so much better in considerable shade, especially when I can't freely water due to relying on tank water alone.

 The photo below is of my haricot beans and cucumbers under a 90% shade cloth which remains on them all day. They are doing very well.

Even some of my chilli plants are benefiting with a little shade from an off-cut of a shade cloth.

The only plants that seem to actually thrive in the extreme heat and radiation are the eggplants.

These look to be in the shade but aren't. They are just a little shaded from the morning sun.

How is your garden surviving the heat wave? What things are you doing to protect your plants?

Stay cool SE Australia!

Summer summary - '11-'12

Always grow sunflowers

With summer drawing to a close, here are some of my reflections on the season.

On La Nina

• It was unusually wet and cool for a Sydney summer, it came as a huge shock after many many years of drought.
  
• Dorathea McKellar knew about El Nino and La Nina long before  they had terms to describe them (I love a sunburnt country a land of sweeping plains, of ragged mountain ranges of droughts and flooding rains...).
• La Nina is to be celebrated -  it saves my skin from added skin cancer risk and more freckles and  it fills the tank and means that you dont have to get the hose out and water!

On paying attention

•  My oft commented upon eggplants have been a slighly lighter colour purple this year and have had a soft light and fluffy flesh with few seeds.  I wish I had paid attention to their particular variety -  I want to grow them again. Or was their fluffy seedless flesh because of the plentiful rain?

On pest control  

zucchinis are not pests

• Eradicate the stink bugs when they are green babies and destroy them imediately! Even better, search your citrus for their lovely clear eggs and smash them before they can emerge.This way you might have a lime crop.
• Wear goggles when destroying stink bugs I got sprayed in the eye late last year and had to go to the optometrist to make sure I wasn't in some serious trouble. Tip -  irrigate your eye imediately if you get sprayed and you will save your eye.
• Hosing the aphids off the backs of the leaves of your cucumber works!  It uses a lot of water but it's better than spaying with other things and it's a La Nina year so I have lots of water.
• I now know what red spider mite looks like. I dont know what to do about it...
• Silvereyes (they are very sweet little birds) are great early season pest controllers in your tomato patch.  They search your tomatoes for green grubs and feed them to their babies. They also sometimes take a little nip.  Welcome them with open arms. Even if they nip your fruit. I can share with lovely birds.
• Glue traps work for reducing fruit fly. I love them!
• No matter how many glue traps you have, you will still have fruit fly.

On zucchinis

• Plant one zucchini and one zucchini only. Pick them young and eat them quick while they are at their best and have a miriade of recipes.  I have really enjoyed the ones I have used this year and no longer consider the zucchini a pest.

On tomatoes

• Pick your fruit before it rains lest it split!
• Learn how to eat split fruit in a La Nina year.
• My brown berries are more fruit fly resistant than the red varieties.
• Give up on growing large tomatoes in Sydney -  fruit fly is too much of a problem.



make lemon tarts

• Prune your plants a little in a La Nina  - this will help to ripen the fruit.  Don't prune  in a El Nino, your fruit will get sunburnt. Same goes for your skin really!

On chillies

• Grow them, love them, preserve, pickle, freeze, jam and eat them. They are one of life's great pleasures.
• Next year grow padrons, pick them, fry them and eat them with salt washed down with fino.

On lemons

•  Make lots of Lemon Tarts

On parsley

• curled parsley doesn't like La Nina as much as Italian.

On beetroot

frogs love La Nina

•  Dont be afraid of pickled beetroot.

On sunflowers

• Always grow sunflowers, always.

On frogs

• They like La Nina better than El  Nino.