Growing Challenge Update #14

In the Greenhouse:

Not a single seed germinated from the punnets of salad burnet, slow bolt coriander, cumin or caraway seeds I sowed some weeks ago, which is disappointing. I'll have to investigate what happened there, too hot perhaps? I vaguely remember reading that sticking some of those seeds in the fridge before sowing might help, although I can't remember which ones they were LOL. Any other suggestions?

In the Vegie Garden:

The root vegetable seeds I sowed some weeks ago into the new dog-leg bed are looking pretty tragic unfortunately, a fact I put down to the highly alkaline soil. I have treated it with powdered sulphur, and the buttercrunch lettuce seedlings are coming along OK, albeit slowly, but the root vegies are not really responding at all. The row of White Icicle radish below should be almost ready to harvest by now, the carrots and beetroot are looking even worse and what silverbeet seeds germinated are very stunted :-( Not worth persisting with I think, so I will dig it all over with more sulphur, heaps more compost, blood and bone and potash (and rock minerals if I can find some), and have another go, although it is getting late in the season now. Live and learn!

Of the other Growing Challenge vegies, the Rouge de Marmande tomatoes are getting bigger:


And the first butternut pumpkin is growing nicely.

With any luck these three will be pollinated as well :-)



The Listada da Gandia eggplants are beginning to flower (below), although I have now lost all of my Jalapeno chillies, two more of my capsicums (peppers) and another Udamalapet eggplant to pests or the hot weather :-(

Elsewhere in the garden the leeks are bolting to seed,


As are the mustard greens:


However, more Heritage raspberries are coming along nicely, although only one of the three bushes are growing well. Despite planting them where they are shaded from the afternoon sun, I think they are having trouble dealing with the heat lately? The one which is doing well was more established than the others when I planted it, so perhaps it was able to get growing more quickly before the really hot weather set in?


The potted Black Sapote tree, or Chocolate Pudding Fruit is flowering. The flowers are very unusual aren't they? You can see young green ones on either side in the this photo, and when they come out the tiny petals are white underneath. Then they go black as you can see in the middle flower, but so far they have all dropped off, unpollinated, which makes me wonder if we don't have whatever insect pollinator is required in our garden? Another issue for research ;-)

Also unfortunately, every tiny mango on my potted Bowen mango tree has dropped off. Bummer. There was one left, but yesterday I noted that it has dropped off also :-( I was hoping to get a taste of just one this year, but it's not unusual for immature trees to drop their fruit, so it looks like I will be waiting another year.


I've also been missing the rocket (arugula) in our salads and have been eagerly awaiting volunteers. There are large numbers of seedlings, but - typically - so far ALL of them are between the pavers, right in the middle of the path. Couldn't I get just one of them actually in the garden?!


Remember the aloe vera plants I decided to use reverse logic on? I stuck them in a corner and forgot to water them for a couple of weeks, then shoved them in a planter with no fertiliser and ignored them for a bit longer. Well, what do you know? Today I noticed new growth popping up ;-)




Deliveries:

Since my last update I ordered - and received - a box of (early Christmas present) plants from Daley's Nursery: a male and female kiwi fruit, black passionfruit, lemon grass, a thornless blackberry (because you can never have too many berries, right?) and a Black Genoa fig tree. I was delighted to note that the fig tree has figs on it!

Sadly they arrived in the middle of the frenzy of pre-birthday party preparations and DH shoved them behind the shed to get them out of the way of the birthday guests. And we forgot to water them again until I remembered them a few days later... I think my female kiwi fruit may be beyond redemption :-( :-( Sigh. I'll keep it moist in the hopes it might reshoot from the base, but it looks pretty grim. I'll put it in the 'sick' corner with the licorice plant from Shiphards Herb Farm that arrived infested with aphids, and now looks equally as dead. Double sigh.

Harvesting:

Look, my very first onions! They are Hunter River brown onions I planted as seedlings some months ago. I'm very impressed, they bulbed up nicely, and are now drying a little in the shade on my back verandah before they come inside for storage.

I also harvested most of my garlic this week. Sadly, they didn't do nearly as well as the onions :-( I had a bumper crop last year which lasted me for months, but this year I think the unseasonally hot weather in spring stopped the bulbs developing and for the most part the bulbs are very small and sad looking, despite using my biggest, healthiest-looking cloves from last years harvest to plant with. Quite depressing considering how much we *love* garlic around here...



...Still, I was able to dig up some rather delicious - but strangely bumpy-looking - Kipfler potatoes from a self-sown plant in the front garden yesterday. I vaguely remember reading something about bumpy spuds being the result of over-fertilising, and since these grew in pure home made compost plus blood and bone, that could certainly be the cause of their weird shapes LOL. Since the plant was a volunteer I wasn't hilling it like the ones I purposely planted, so unfortunately over half of the spuds were green from exposure to light, but we still had enough for a roast dinner last night (along with home grown carrots, squash, beans and onions - yum):


Have a great week in your garden :-)