Showing posts with label kale. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kale. Show all posts

Monday, June 30, 2014

Harvesting now

It's been a busy time for me since my last post and a busy time in the garden too, so time for a quick update.

We've been continuing to harvest eggplants, the four eggplant seedlings I put in last year have been incredibly prolific and are still producing an abundant amount. Our tomatoes ( I think they were called something like Marmande?) bigger than our usual cherry tomatoes have started to produce but we've lost heaps to big green caterpillars that seem to find them irresistable. In an effort to help minimise the loss I ordered a harvest protection kit from Green Harvest. What a great kit! (but more about that later). Our chillies have been really productive and in general things are doing well.
The cucumbers came to a swift caterpillar eaten end and we're removed in defeat!





Eggplants (Aubergines) still going strong, abundant chillies and tomatoes



A few bits grabbed for a quick dinner. Still harvesting leeks, kale, asian greens, basil and heads forming on my first successful broccoli.




Winter vegetables like broccoli are just coming into their own and the garden is planted up with lots of kale and some asian greens as well. The peas are now plentiful as well, but unfortunately they even didn't make it into a photo, let alone the kitchen.

What's doing well in your garden right now?

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Around the garden

A quick update on what's happening in the garden at the moment. After all the rain we've had things are really happening. The grass has grown to super huge proportions in the side gardens. We are guilty of letting it go while we've worked on the wicker gardens and retaining walls at the far end of the garden so it's not surprising it's now hard to tell there was once garden beds all the way along here. We've started to chop it down, pull it out or dig it up, but it's not going to be a quick job. I'm looking forward to the Easter long weekend to hopefully get a chance to get a good go at it.


The rain has given the apple trees a spur along and they have flowers on and the start of new fruit, as too does the passionfruit vines.

The apple trees are flowering and you can see the start of an apple next to this one. The trees are now about three years old so they are at a size where we should start to see some resulting fruit.

I love the unusual flowers of the passionfruit.

Passionfruit on the vine, and now we wait...
The loquat tree is a mass of flowers heralding signs of a good feed to come and the little mandarin tree is covered in tiny fruits.



This loquat tree only stands as tall as me, but these flowers will probably produce anything up to 50 small fruits across the tree. Normally we just stand there and gobble.

This mandarin is about two years old now. We've had a couple of small fruit that were so tart the only thing we could do with them was make jam. But the fruit look like they are holding well this time, fingers crossed.

Some things that I thought were finished for the season have suddenly sprung back to life. The kale and basil are bigger than they've ever been and to think I almost pulled them out. The chillies have started flowering all over again, just when I thought there would be no more.

Kale on mass at the top, basil brought back to life at the bottom and sides. Pesto here we come.

Flowers mean chillies. These are my favourites, they aren't too hot. I missed out on getting many this season as the chickens suddenly decided after living with them for over a year that they'd try them and really took a shine to them, so much so it's one of their first stops on their rounds when they are let out each day.
Not everything is blossoming however. Regardless of the rain and the sun in between, the water chesnuts haven't been confused about the season and just seem to know it's time to die back. Harvesting them soon will have to go on the to do list.


It's not all about fruit and veg now though, the rose hubby was given for his birthday last year is in flower and the smell is divine. I love roses, but never dreamed I'd have any success with them. This one might just change my mind.



And of course my garden wouldn't be complete unless all this rain brought out the frogs as well. These are one of my favourites, I'm not sure what they're called but they are only about the size of my thumbnail at biggest and although they are green, they shine gold in the sun.

Thanks for sharing my pleasure in my garden at the moment. How is your garden looking with your weather at the moment?

Monday, March 21, 2011

Autumn and new beginnings

I love that Autumn has officially arrived. Not that it's much cooler, but I was keen to get some new seedlings in, and it seemed fit to do it with the start of the new season. In fact it was a little earlier than the new season (what can I say, I don't have that much patience, and I had new seeds). So in my eagerness I'd planted up some seedling punnets ready to start my Autumn crops off well.
So here's the list of what seeds I planted on Thursday 24th of February:
Snow peas
Peas
Brown Onions
Red Onions
Red Arrowhead Broccolini
Purple Broccolini
Corn
Coriander
Cos Lettuce
Brussel Sprouts Tighthead
Then on the following Tuesday 1st March I added:
Strawberry Alpine
Mini Cabbage
Cauliflower
Kale at 4 days
Rocket at 4 days

English Spinach starting to show after 4 days
 The photos are a little old now, the first of the peas have just been planted out and I've had hubby build a little "pen" ready to protect the Brassicas (cabbage family) from white moths which have been enemy #1 each time I've tried (and failed) to grow these type before.