Firstly, I must say that because I have been spending so much time making the new garden beds in the front yard, the main veggie patch has been a little neglected.
Today I remedied that issue. After spending the morning bike riding with Ben, and catching up on a bit of reading, and sprinkling a sack of pulverised cow manure around the base all the fruit trees, it was high time to spend a solid afternoon cleaning up the veggie garden.
The veggies were all growing well, except for one red cabbage that was covered in aphids (good chook food). This season there have been no black aphids on the garlic or onions, because I practiced a little bit of companion planting. In the cabbage patch I let nasturtiums grow, and left the weeds to grow. This has deterred most of the cabbage moths so far. We have been harvesting the green cabbages during the last month, and are even having some for dinner tonight.
I have been replacing the cabbages with rainbow chard and lettuce seedlings, and keeping it all well fed with worm wee tea.
In between the rows of onions, I planted carrots and radishes so as to confuse any potential pests on any of those plants. It has worked well, with the radishes being long eaten, however the carrots are still growing strong and the onions starting to fatten. There is also sage and spearmint in pots at the end of this bed which may have helped as well.
The next bed has garlic and red onions. Once again I planted carrots, but they have not grown very well. As gardeners luck would have it, the bed is dotted with little oregano seedlings. I believe that the smell from these plants may have helped keep away any pests. There are also two very healthy silverbeet plants, that grew in the right place all by themselves. The oregano and silverbeet both grew from the layer of compost that I spread before planting.
Broad beans are one of my favourite vegetables, and I planted an entire bed full this year. It is growing strong and tall, and no sign of broad bean rust. The days have still been quite cool, so this fungal infection has not reared its ugly head so far. There is also a celery plant at the end of the bed which I am waiting to go to seed, so that I can use some in cooking and collect the rest for this season.
The berry bed is dormant, however the first signs of leaves are starting to appear on the thornless loganberry. I pruned this rather large bush about two months ago in the same manner as I did last year. Instead of lopping it off close to the ground, I cut off the really old wood, and leave the recent canes and cut to about a metre. I then tie it with old panty hoes to the trellis that I made. If last years crop was anything to go by, it should be excellent again this year. No sign of the rhubarb which is planted to the left of this bed.
Lastly, I am amazed by the flowers that just pop up anywhere they please. I leave them there of course, encourage them with a little bit of blood and bone fertilizer at the start of winter, and just let them be.
Cyclamens and Nasturtiums growing everywhere! It is wonderful spending the afternoon in the garden. With my hands firmly in the soil, I felt truly grounded and feel revived.
Looking forward to next weekend as we are filling the front yard garden beds. I already have desiree and royal blue potatoes chitting out of direct sunlight, so need to get them into the grown in the next couple of weeks. The new beds could not have come at a better time.
Did you spend any time in your food garden this weekend? What did you accomplish?
Dh, after retro double glazing the entire house is now converting all of our raised garden beds to wicking beds. So far 4 large ones have been done and he is working on two smaller ones. Next will be the large main bed. Half will become two raised beds and the other half will have to wait until the potato onions and garlic are harvested. He is then going to build a glass house from the glass that was saved from the double glazing
Hi Pam, great work by DH, pass along my congrats. You should have no thirsty veggies this year. BTW, the glass reuse is fantastic!
Gav x
Very productive Saturday in the garden, mowing, whippersnipping, weeding and emptying my first lot of compost from the rotating bin onto the beds. It smelled good so i think i did it right. I’ve had mystery plants growing because i didnt label them and discovered that the unusally high cabbage plants with no head are brussel sprout plants. Tiny little sprounts growing up the stem. Yeah for me.. I’ve just done a walk around with eco-oil as im told the aphids are on their way. Yep, a great gardening day.
Far out Brussel Sprout 😉
Yes, I have the eco oil ready, just in case.
Gav x
Hi Gavin,
As we are starting to transition into the fall here in New England, I have spent most of my gardening time pulling spent summer plants, trimming back tomatoes and planting fall veggies. Change is coming, I can feel it in the air! I am planning to remove the lawn in the front of my house and replace it with edible and medicinal plants, so I’m watching your garden redo with interest! Thanks for all the great info.
No problem Sue. What sort of veggies are you planting for autumn?
Gav
I’m planting a lot of root veggies such as turnips, rutabaga (suede – I’m originally from the UK and rutabaga is such a strange name), carrots, beets, cabbages, cauliflower, brussels sprouts and broccoli,and winter squashes.I actually like these veggies better than the summer ones! I have to use tricks to extend the season though, as our first frost date in October 15.
This year’s garden was a disaster. A cold wet spring, 6 weeks of flooding rains in June and into July (close to 20″ of rain in that time when 6 – 8″ would be more normal), six days of 90+ temps, a woodchuck that demolished my broccoli, and now a cool August that has the tomatoes reluctant to ripen. The only thing that did well were the weeds and the mosquitoes. I need to get out there and start ripping stuff out.
I can’t get over the beautiful cyclamen that pop up all over your garden like, well, like weeds. I’ve only ever seen them here in pots in florists’ shops. Somebody gave me one once but it didn’t last long. Very hard to give them the conditions they prefer inside the house.
Better luck next season Kathy. I had to look up what a woodchuck was!
Yes, it feels great to have cyclamen as weeds. I think I have a green thumb like my dear old Nana Webber (bless her soul).
Gav x
Hi Gavin. Nice coverage and for a neglected garden it still looks pretty good to me. I remember you had problems with your garlic last year and wonder, apart from the oregano seedlings, whether you sprayed them with eco oil earlier this year or did any other intervention. We lost all of ours about 6 weeks, totally annihilated by the dreaded black aphid. We tried an eco oil but perhaps it was just too late. Any ideas would be most welcome. serendipity2000
Hi Serendipity. So far, no other intervention has been required, but I do have eco-oil on standby in case of the beginnings of an infection. You have to nip them in the bud early.
Gav x
I am glad that companion planting has worked well – so much better than spraying. I find I keep learning things in the garden and every year gets better. Your broad beans looks amazing!
Me too AA. Glad I write all these lessons down 😉
Gav x
garden looks very good… do you ever top up the soil in your beds?
Good question Anon. I add two 20L buckets of home made compost to each bed once a year. This helps with soil loss during plant extraction.
Gav
I must say your garden is looking great Gavin! I find that carrots grow exceedingly well here because of the sandy soil, and those cyclamens are just gorgeous!
I spent time in the garden on the weekend, weeding and putting in ollas to see how they go keeping the soil damp from underneath. Cant wait to see the result. I have my fingers firmly crossed that this works as I cant afford to keep paying high water bills.
It is 27C here tomorrow so Spring is a knocking 🙂
Gee Tania, that is warm, but you do live inland. All the best with your patch this year.
Gav x
Hi Gavin, gee I am very envious of your broad beans. I too planted and entire bed. They have grown like wildfire in Auckland this season, however we had a mini tornado drive through my garden (Why mine!!?) and my poor old broad bean plants were wafted hither and thither. They are laying and falling and bending but producing!! They look very bohemian and floozy like, laying all over the edge of the beds and each other. I have decided that next year I am going to put a barrier around the edge of the raised bed so they can be contained. Or I will stake them, I hate staking veg however, apart from beans and toms,I like to see them producing strong stems to support the growing bits oh well. Like the new beds in the front garden by the way.