Pumpkin, Buttercup 'Bonbon F1'

Pumpkin, Buttercup 'Bonbon F1'

 Occasionally i get a little adventurous and courious about varieties of seeds I haven't tried before and Buttercup 'Bonbon F1' Pumpkin from Lambley Nursery seed catalogue is one example.

I planted two 125mm pots with two seeds each and as you can see all four germinated. Not unusual for seeds from Lambly.

The second photo shows a vigorous root system just rearing to go and the third photo is of their final growing position. The other two are planted about two meters away.

An All American Selection winner ‘Bonbon’ is a classic looking buttercup pumpkin....Read more

When they're ready I'll let you know how they went and what they taste like.

Also, with our sometimes hot and humid summers, I'm keen to see how they go for mildew which can be a curse for cucurbit growers around these parts.

Another Busy Weekend.

Wow, my first full weekend to myself and a productive and surprising weekend it was.

Productive simply because I managed to get a lot done, obviously.

Mainly maintenance gardening jobs like weeding, spreading and side dressing with compost, applying liquid fertiliser, some pruning and then today I got lots of seed planting done.

Talking about seeds, I watched a short video from Blooming In Brisbane Gardening TV by Claire Bickle who looked at salad greens including sorrel, chicory, rocket, mustard giant red, watercress and kale.

Some of these I don't have so this morning I placed an order with Edan Seeds for Chicory, Fennel Florence - Romanesco, Mustard - Red Splendor and Sorrel. While I was there I also added some Shallots, the red bunching variety which are highly coloured at all ages and a packet of Helchrysum, Tom Thumb Mixed for the bees.

Still on seeds I went mad planting this morning including, 

Eggplant, take two (first sowing failed to proceed)
Taskeniki,
Red Square,
and Rosa Bianca.

Carrot - baby, Cabbage - red, Lettuce - Great Lakes, Tomato - keepsake, Zinnia and Cosmos, Lemon basil, Lemon cucumber, More borage, Cosmos Bright lights,

Pumpkin, Leek and Watermelon.

That took care of most of today and this afternoon I went to a get together for the Toowoomba area Backyard Veggie Growers group.

 

And surprising simply because we received and unexpected nine mils of rain on Saturday night.

Not much else, bunged a few spuds into the ground, planted a couple of lettuce and a few Chinese cabbage.

Just have to sit back now and watch it all grow.

Cheers

Stewart.

Mid Week Blues

It seems I've got the mid week gardening withdrawal blues.

I've started a new roster for driving the Taxi that will give me every weekend to myself instead of having a split week.

But last Saturday I felt unwell and had to work on Sunday so it's been nearly two weeks since I've managed anything productive in the garden.

So that leaves me Thursday and Friday to battle through and then I've got two glorious golden days to garden my little heart away with.

I've got to clean the chook pen and spread new straw for them, organise a bin and two piles of compost. There's a gazillion seeds and seedlings to plant. And I've managed to borrow some of the neighbours backyard for planting pumpkin in so that's got to have horse manure, compost and coffee grounds added to it.

And mentioning coffee grounds, I've got buckets of the stuff to spread and add to garden beds, throw it over the lawn and in compost. It's everywhere.

I am currently enjoying some of the best broccoli I've ever grown, along with heaps of peas, lettuce, rocket and coriander. Just enough strawberries to keep me interested and the broad beans are flowering like mad but no beans yet.

Onions, garlic and beetroot are making good growth as well as radish, lettuce, purple climbing beans, Chinese cabbage and pokchoi.

 I can't get any leek seeds to sprout so I'm guessing the seed is old. It's a fresh packet but just no go. Not even one out of two sowings.

How fast does water cress grow? I think my seed has shot but it's very slow to get growing. My first time growing water cress so I've nothing to compare it with.

Not having much luck with capsicum and eggplant seed as well but that might just be from the coldish weather. I'll sow a few more this weekend and see if I have more luck.

Well that's about it for now, chomping at the bit for the weekend to get here.

Cheers

Stewart

Tips without explanations.

I sometimes have an intense dislike for some gardening tips/advise that are doled out with liberal regularity without any form of an explanation as to why this is good advise or what, if any, benefit will be achieved by following this tip/advise.

One of these tips is to pinch out the growing tips of trailing plants like pumpkin, watermelon, cucumbers and rock melons, etc. So as I was reading organic gardener's 'Getting started' essential guide I finally found out why this is good advise.

So here is the tip found on page 28. 'Pumpkin, zucchini, squash and cucumber plants thrive in soil heavily manured with sheep, cow, poultry or decomposted stable manure. The secret of good pumpkin yields is to initiate more female flowers by pinching out the growing tips of runners when about two meters long. (and here is the explanation as to why this is good advice) This forces out side shoots that bear more female flowers'.

How easy is that? Now I can rest easy and knowing why the bloody hell I pinch out the tips of my pumpkins.

Cherry-bye then till next time

Stewart

My favorite pumpkin soup recipe

I'm about half way through making this my favorite pumpkin soup recipe so I thought I'd post it. The recipe that is, I think the soup would end up a bit messy if I tried to post it.

Ingredients (serves 6)

• 2 tbs olive oil
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 leek, white part only, finely sliced
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 1/2 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
• 1kg peeled pumpkin, diced
• 1 large potato, peeled, diced
• 1L chicken or vegetable stock
• 1/2 cup (125ml) thin cream

Method

1. Heat oil in a large saucepan over low heat, add onion and leek and cook for 2-3 minutes, until softened but not coloured. Add garlic and spices and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds. Add pumpkin, potato and stock and bring to the boil. Turn heat to low, cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Allow to cool slightly, then blend in batches.
2. Return soup to pan, stir through cream and reheat gently. Season and add a little more nutmeg if desired.

Source

delicious. - April 2004, Page 63

Recipe by Valli Little

Lunch is served.

Baked pasta with fetta and pumpkin

I've been getting around to making this for a while now and finally succeeded today.

It could easily drop 100g of pasta and pick up 100g of pumpkin and maybe some extra fetta wouldn't hurt either, but as it is it was very yummy.

A great way to use up some extra pumpkins.
Three thumbs up





I'm going down to the Toowoomba Community Organic Gardens this afternoon to start digging up my patch so the extra carbs should come in handy.

Have a nice day and happy veggie gardening, cheers,
Stewart

Rats

Rats, at least I think so. This is the only one sampled so hopefully the rest will be left alone.





Clicking on the photo will give you a better view.






Butternut (great name for a pumpkin) growing randomly along my fence line. I love the way these guys make themselves at home.

After the rain

Butter beans that need a bit more buttering up yet.
















Growing up the mesh is a cucumber and to the right is a rogue pumpkin and somewhere in between a not very noticeable eggplant.















This is the real corn as opposed to the baby/pop corn. Flowering well so it shouldn't be long before I'm eating fresh sweet corn

Potatoes in the foreground are lovin' the rain.












This is my roma Tomato San Marzano stand that I'll use for sauce and relish and whatever else I can think of (jam). I have a book here devoted to cooking with tomato's.











My beam's yellow tomato I planted on the 10th of September

Now, at least 7 feet tall and full of fruit.












My climbing beans now 3 weeks old and going gang busters.

"Gang Busters (Wikipeda)was an American dramatic radio program heralded as "the only national program that brings you authentic police case histories." It premiered as G-Men, sponsored by Chevrolet, on July 20, 1935".







Remember these guys. (2/10/08)














And now. Whoo who. Chips, Baked spuds, mashed potato, hash browns, potato bake, potato salad, ooh I can hardly wait.

More veggie garden adventures

Ok Lots to catch up on.
Firstly on Wednesday I planted some butternut pumpkin and some Sugar Baby watermelon into little 5" pots on account their bed is not ready for direct planting.
Then I potted on four seedlings of capsicum so as they can get a little more established before I plant then into their final growing position.


Corn I planted on 8/9/08 was ready to be planted and was dispatched to the prepared corn bed.

Two more lettuce seedlings were planted to continue their successive planting.
















Now you see it











Now you don't.

Peas were pretty much spent so out they go to make room for more sweet corn. Just need to add some compost aged manure and blood bone turn it over and away I go.









I did get a nice basket full before they came out.