Bill and Ben

I can hardly imagine now how this managed to capture my imagination as a five yo. but as I remember my day wasn't complete unless I'd seen Bill and Ben.
I also believe it set up one of my paths in life of gardening. I know I catch myself singing the song from time to time and can't help but feel the simple happiness of a 5yo.

More climbing beans.

It's a pretty ordinary photo and doesn't show clearly what I wanted to, but I'll go ahead anyhow.
Firstly the beans seeds on the left are my Scarlet runner beans which are nearly twice the size of my lazy housewife climbing beans.
I took the photo mainly to show the difference between the to types of beans.
Anyhow besides all that I have finally managed to plant them. I simply scratched a small hole about 25/30mm deep and placed two seeds in each hole covered them over and gave them a good watering.
Now being fairly hot around these parts atm I expect to see some new climbing beans in about a weeks time, fingers crossed.
That's it for today, I'm still feeling a bit week from being crook so I'm only doing a little at a time.
Cheers
Stewart
P.S. Maybe I'll get my Chioggia Beetroot planted tomorrow, again fingers crossed:-)

Climbing beans

Ok here we go getting ready for planting the climbing beans. I've got two varieties of CB first is Red Scarlet bean that I picked up from the local hardware and the second is the Lazy Housewife bean that I ordered from diggers.
I've never grown climbing beans before having always planted bush beans so this is new and exciting for me.
You can't pick it up very well but between the two coppers logs there is a light 100 mm wire mesh.
I made this earlier this year and planted sweet peas after adding dolomite and some aged horse manure to the soil.







I pulled the sweet peas out yesterday and today I added two buckets each of compost and aged horse manure.












Then it was a matter of turning it through the soil and giving it a through watering.

I'll let it settle overnight and tomorrow I'll plant my beans.















Here are some of my magic bean mix just sprouting

Almost better, "cuplla days".

Hi all,
Well I'm nearly alive again.
I have managed to do some much needed watering and a little bit of weeding. Still a bit on the week side of things but I am improving each day.
I'm hoping to get some climbing beans planted out before the end of the week plus catch up on some progressive planting of lettuce and butter beans.
I'm also happy to see my Magic Bean mix and my pop/baby corn have sprouted and are making nice growth.
Everything else is doing well despite a week and a half of neglect.
Scotty is still at the machine shop getting his head read. So far the valves are ok but he might need new valve guides. Oh well, there goes the long weekend.

New Zealand's Gardening Nun

New Zealand's Gardening Nun

I pinched this from Creating "Wildside" as Home.

She's 86 years old and has some of the greenest fingers in the country. Sister Loyola Galvin looks after the gardens at Wellington's Home of Compassion and has been voted 2008's gardener of the year by readers of New Zealand Gardener

Why did the farmer want to grow

Why did the farmer want to grow vegetables all over the world?


Because he wanted Peas on earth.

Pls don't throw the rotten produce at me, I saw this joke in one of those cheap gossip mags and though I'd pass it on.

PS. Not much getting done around here atm on account I've been pretty crook for the last week but I hope to be back on my feet soon.
Cheers
Stewart

Beautiful mid spring day

Beautiful mid spring day here, cool easterly breeze fine sunny day not to hot and not to cold, just right said Goldilocks, I just cant help myself but go outside and work myself stupid.

Just some up dates and progress reports.
This is the tiny tom I'm trying, it is growing vigorously atm which is all I can hope for.

I mulched them this morning as well as my egg plants and watermelon I planted the other day.
The rain we had during the week was excellent, but there is still dry patched here and there when I dig somewhere to plant something. 70-80 mls of soaking rain over a week would be terrific but that hasn't happened around here since Noah was a boy.

I prepared a small area for my baby sweet corn which if I let mature I can use for pop corn as well so I'll plant them this arvo.






Most of my silverbeet is in it's second year and is now bolting to seed. I save some and see if I can grow more from my own seed.













The first of my sugar loaf cabbage is starting to form heads so it wont be long now.


















My potatoes are growing like mad. The King Edwards at the back are flowering and look absolutely divine.










My first planting of sweet corn is doing nicely as is the extra seed potatoes I planted that wouldn't fit in the main potato bed.













Last but not least is the globe artichoke with it yummy flower heads about half formed.

Be gentle with me

Help me. I've lost my head!!

















This goes with that(above) but not without one of these below. And that is the source of my problem.











No veggie garden today due to Scotty and the rain we had yesterday making it to wet to work the soil.
But boy o boy is everything looking fresh and green. Positively bursting with vibrancy.

Magic Beans

Wow, could it be Diggers Magic Bean Mix is actually, "Magic",.
I planted the beans out this morning along with my Watermelon and Pumpkin and can you believe it,it's raining.
According to the Marburg BoM radar it is coming at us from the east, west and south east.
Whoo Who.
Ooh. I almost forgot I planted some lemon cucumber as well.

Seeds, Weeds and Automobiles

I've been pretty quite here over the weekend.
Saturday it rained and drizzled on and off nearly all day making it to wet to do any gardening.

Sunday. Go Ford

My Diggers(hi Cathode) seed order arrived on Friday and I finally go to over to Mums to pick them up. They were at Mums cause we have shared the diggers membership and used her address.
None of these I have grown before so maybe I can unofficially join the growing challange.



1/ Climbing bean The Lazy Housewife.
2/Bean Magic Mix a. Red Kidney Bean b. Flageolet c. Borlotti d. Cherokee e. Yin Yang.
3/Fennel, Florence
4/Bush Bean, Violet Queen
5/Sweet Corn Baby -Poping Corn
6/Cucumber, Lemon
7/Beetroot, Chioggia
Neville (my mums hubby) bought some Tomato seeds home from their honeymoon in Tassie last year and I now have some Tomato 'silver fir' a Russian heirloom bush variety with very attractive grey green, finely divided leaves with flattish red tomatoes early in the season, according to the packet, and tomato 'principe borghese a early, prolific Italian heirloom variety producing apricot, oval, red fruit. Very tasty, when eaten raw but mainly used for drying, to try.
The seeds come from Oyster Cove Plants & Flowers. Now know as SOUTHERN HARVEST ONLINE SEED SALES
I also picked up some scarlet runner bean seeds as well.
So by the end of the season I'm going to be up to my neck in beans.





Monday.
Well my trusty steed decided to blow a head gasket so gardening has taken a back seat until I get Scotty (that's his name) back on the road.
If i could only work out how to get that chainy thing off the sprockety thing off the cammy thing I'd be right.















Scotty in all his glory.

I don't believe it

It's raining, it's really raining. 7 mls far
This is the first time in about three weeks I haven't had to trudge around the backyard watering.
I'm as happy as a pig in mud.

Tattie Tyre update

I added a third story to my tattie tyre palace today but it's starting to look like the leaning tower of Pisa so this will be the last extention.
It's just wait and see from here on.
Here is the first two story's

Just some going ons.

Progressive plantings of carrots. I have four short rows planted about 2/3 weeks apart and need to get another in the ground very soon.
I'd like some prospect of rainy weather as I find carrots shoot very easy in showery/rainy weather.













Beetroot now and then. Last photo right down the bottom















Turnip ready to eat. Anyone got some interesting recipes for turnip I can try?














Another flower. How did that get in here?

















Now and then.

I just picked a flower for you all

I hope you enjoy it.

Broad Beans

This is all that is left of my Broad Beans having striped the bushes clean of their beans and cleared their bed.
After having pulled a few out roots and all I noticed some good nitrogen nodules on their root system so I'll leave the rest with their roots in the soil and then work them back through the soil.
The big bowl on the left will b frozen the little bowl on the right is about go into a Bacon and Broad bean Risotto.
I did leave one bush though, having noticed that it produced more beans than the others so I have decided to grow it on to seed and use it's seeds for next year.



Just a photo to show the progress of my pumpkin and watermelon that I'd mentioned last week.

Salvia officinalis 'Purpurascens'

This is a photo of my Purple sage which greets me from my back door each day. For some reason I feel happy when I walk past it.

Salvia officinalis 'Purpurascens', a purple-leafed cultivar, considered by some to be strongest of the garden sages.
'Purpurascens' is a purple leafed cultivar of S.officinalis. The purple-gray foliage produces an interesting color note in the garden. Height 24-32", spread 3'. Salvia officinalis is the common garden sage widely known and used as a culinary herb in poultry stuffing, omellettes, soups and bean dishes. It is also used as a medicinal herb. It is a shrubby evergreen perennial with many branched stems and velvety gray-green leaves about 2" long. Flowers are generally violet spikes, with white and pink cultivars available. Height 24-32",spread up to 3'. Thrives in full sun in well drained soil.
More info from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Guess who's coming to dinner.

Mr Beetroot
Ms Carrot
Mr Leek
Ms Turnip
Master Broad bean.
Plus Miss Cabbage currently not present in photo but arrived early.

Hi Ho Hi Ho

Hi Ho Hi Ho its watering time you know. 'whistle whistle'.
Hi Ho Hi Ho this is where my time will go.

It's so much easier when it rains.
With higher temperatures predicted and I can't remember the last time it rained, two nine liter watering cans and a rain water tank I've got a few miles of watering ahead.
So
Hi Ho Hi Ho its watering time you know. 'whistle whistle'.
Hi Ho Hi Ho this is where my time will go.

The fruits of my labour.

The fruits of my labour.
Broad beans
Savoy cabbage
Leeks, which went into a very nice potato and leek soup, thank you very much.
And there's more where that came from.
I'm lovin' this.








More potato hillin'.
No more blood and bone for these guys they are just growing to fast.
I did give them a watering of charlie carp after hilling though.
I don't know if you can pick it up in the photos, but you may notice the spud plants are bigger from front to back.
This has been caused by soil temperature due to the back half of the garden bed being shaded all winter by a garden shed. So as the sun returns to the bed it only warms the earth as its shadow is reduced therefore the difference in growth from front to back.