Welcome to my Triffid garden. Well that is what Kim calls it. She said I should use this side of the garden for some vegetables, but didn’t expect chaos like this!
This is my pumpkin and bean patch. It has gone crazy because I put an entire bag of sheep manure, quarter of a bag of dynamic lifter, and 3 wheelbarrow loads of compost into the bed before I planted it. There are 6 varieties of pumpkin and two types of runner beans in the bed. Golden Nugget, Pensyvania Crookneck, Japanese, Butternut, Australian Butter, and Queensland Blue pumpkins, with Scarlet and Lazy housewife runner beans up the trellis.
They look a bit wilted, but I assure you that they are well watered, and it is just the heat of the midday sun. They get lots of grey water from the washing machine and drip irrigated twice a week.
I have noticed an big lack of female flowers and did some hunting around the net, and found the answer at Stewart’s blog, ‘My Veggie Garden‘, where he explains how to remedy this issue. Simply pinch off the tips of the vine with your fingers, only if it is over two metres long. As soon as I read this, I was out into the triffid patch as quick as a flash looking for each vine and nipping off the tips as some of my vines are up to 4 metres long. This is supposed to promote side shoots that have the female flowers on them. Well here is hoping anyway.
Finally a shot of a very random sunflower that self seeded from the compost. It has little sunflowers growing at every leaf junction that are just about to open. It looks beautiful and is right at home in the triffid garden
Only two months of Summer left, so here is hoping that I get a few pumpkins growing between now and the end of the hot weather.
P.S. Kim’s handy work on the first sunflower. She says that gardening can be romantic as well as practical! Thanks darling for making my garden and I feel loved.
Hey Gave, looking at that garden, the movie called Little Shop of Horrors comes to mind. Be carefull it doesnt eat you.
Phil
love that sunflower!
Awww, how sweet!
Wow! That’s alot of pumpkin varieties! Impressive! Our vines are coming along nicely too… I LOVE curcubits! LOL
Gorgeous garden Gav. I am finally going to the Sydney of City workshop on ‘No Dig Gardening’. As you know, I don’t have a garden (just inner Sydney court yard) but I want to learn how I could grow veggies in pots. I have tried but ‘things’ keep eating my plants.
It will be interesting.
Hi Gav,
Something to watch with pumpkins and such is how well your nitrogen is balanced. I noticed you had added two high nitrogen products, manure and dynamic lifter as part of your soil prep.
Although they are heavy feeders really high levels of nitrogen could prompt really excessive leaf growth to the detriment of fruit formation.
Good Luck with the next few days, at least that tangle of vine is going to keep the soil from frying.
Kind Regards
Belinda
Nice blog. Glad to see your romantic experiments with sunflower. It can serve the purpose of Valentine gift. 🙂
@ Phil,
That was at the back of my mind!
@ Kelly,
I too was impressed when Kim showed me her handy work
@ dixiebelle,
Thanks. I love curcubits as well! Hope I get some pumpkins soon.
@ Sarhn,
Sounds like a good workshop. I grow quite a few veggies in pots during summer. The only pain is that they use twice as much water as a garden bed, but if you have a steady supply of buckets from the shower, you shouldn’t have too many issues.
@ belinda,
Thanks for the tip. I thought that it might be the case, so yesterday fertilised with Powerfeed which is more balanced. I see some baby female flowers on the side shoots now!
@ Rose,
Nice excuse for the ad in your link. Crafty!
Gav
I can relate to yor Triffid garden. We recently went away for three weeks and the entire vege garden was taken over by a few pumpkin plants. picture here:
http://littleecofootprints.typepad.com/little_eco_footprints/2010/01/ever-wondered-what-your-garden-would-do-if-you-disappeared-.html
I tried Stewart’s hint and it seemed to work straight away….lots of female flowers a few days later. Althought I have since ripped out almost all pumpkins because I realised it wasn’t going to be fun growing nothing but pumpkins for months.
I love Kim’s handy work on that sunflower! I’ll remember to do it in the summer:)!