Working My Patch

I had a bit of a delay in posting this one.  I thought I would spend a few evenings with Kim as she hasn’t been well of late, so therefore I really haven’t had time to write a big post.  She has been having a troubling few weeks with fatigue due the her MS and it has been wearing her down.  I am helping out, of course, so with a bit more rest and time to heal, she will be right as rain again.  It just takes time with this sort of thing.

Anyway, I worked hard in the garden on Sunday while she was resting in bed.  Planting, watering, fertilizing and a little bit of weeding.  Not too strenuous, but enough to work up a bit of a sweat.

I harvested all of the onions and left them of the deck table to dry and form their outer skins.  Here is the bounty!  I haven’t counted them, but I know I won’t need to buy brown onions for a while.  I will pickle the smaller ones on the weekend, and use the larger ones over the next month or so. Click to enlarge any photo.

I made a trip to Bunnings and bought some recycled plastic stakes for the tomato seedlings that I have grown.  I put in one each of Elfie, Mortgage Lifter, Tigerella, and Tommy Toe.  I also put in 5 Purple Russian tomato plants in the chooks veggie bed on the other side of the yard, right at the back of the bed so they couldn’t reach them through the chicken wire fence that surrounds it.  Them chickens is organised and clever!

The lettuce is doing well and the wicking pots are working like a treat.  I also made a trellis in the same bed and planted snow peas at the base of it.  I was sick of the way the peas did not climb up the tee pees that I usually make out of bamboo, so thought that this might work as there are more wires for the peas to grab hold of.  They have already burst through the soil, and I am very impressed at how quickly they have germinated.  Also in this bed I planted red spring onions, mizuna and freckles lettuce.  It is a real summer salad bed!

The first bed of tomatoes and a single eggplant are doing very well now, after a slow start.  There is so much fruit already on the vines and many more flowers yet to form fruit.  These are the self seeded tomatoes from in the citrus pots that I transplanted.

The rainbow chard that I planted from seed is growing very quickly now.  I will have to transplant it on Saturday in the bed that I pulled the onions out of.  I will add a little composted chook poo to the bed to give them a good feed.

The pumpkin patch is growing very fast now.  We have already had a flower on the golden nugget, and some forming on the butternut.  The Kent are not big enough yet to flower, but at the rate they are growing, it won’t be long.  I have one rockmelon plant in the same bed and it is just beginning to creep and flower.  This will be the first successful rockmelon I have grown (fingers crossed).  The earwigs and slugs ate the other 5 seedlings I grew. I also have two zucchini plants growing well centre front of the bed.  I had to cover them every night with a plastic bowl to keep the slugs off of them until they grew large enough.  The things we do for our veggies!

In the new bed in the front yard, I planted watermelon (sugar baby), rockmelon (prescott fond blanc) seeds, which have germinated already, and transplanted the 4 African Horned Melon that I managed to get to germinate in black pots (they like it hot).  No photo, but I have been watering them with the grey water from the washing machine.  They love it and are growing quickly now they are up and running.  In the same bed, I have managed to keep 7 cucumber plants alive, and they are also growing well.  All of the sweetcorn is at least 30cm high, some are about double that size, and all healthy.

I have the old onion bed to prep on Saturday and I will put in the rainbow chard, and the remaining few tomato plants I have left.  I have yellow current, tommy toe, and one other variety that was from a mixed packet.   I have two capsicums that are going well from seed so they will go in the same bed as the tomatoes. 

All the fruit and citrus trees are bearing well and laden with fruit, except the new apricot and the Jonathan apple tree because the chooks ate the flowers.  Naughty chickens!  I will net it early next year and it should grow high enough so they can’t reach the flowers.

I reckon that should just about do me for the summer crop, unless of course I decide to convert another bed in the front yard over the weekend!  Who knows, I might just get bored and have a spare hour or two up my sleeve.