Plant and grow Spinach in Containers.

 I received multiple varieties of Spinach from Happy Valley Seeds so I'm trying four of them out.

I'm also sowing mostly into containers mainly because I find it easier to grow baby leaf veggies this way. Spinach ‘Black Glove 10’ F1 https://www.happyvalleyseeds.com.au/collections/spinach/products/spinach-black-glove-f1-seeds SPINACH - VNS https://www.happyvalleyseeds.com.au/collections/spinach/products/copy-of-spinach-baby SPINACH - English (Winter Giant) https://www.happyvalleyseeds.com.au/collections/spinach/products/spinach-english-winter-giant-100 SPINACH - Giant Noble https://www.happyvalleyseeds.com.au/collections/spinach/products/spinach-giant-noble

When I'm Feeling Blue

I'm feeling a little blue today. After weeks of fabulous late Autumn weather things have turned cold for us here.
And after a miserable overcast day yesterday that only managed to deliver us a grand total of four mils of rain I've decided to cheer myself up with a heap of photos that I took of the garden last Tuesday.
These were taken at around 11:00 am and the weak, late Autumn sunlight, was simply marvelous for taking photos.

 Spinach is just getting going. Made a nice spinach spaghetti with them the other day.

Two tubs of lettuce is keeping me going.

A Lisbon Lemon tree I planted on Tuesday. I've got a video to edit on planting it and then you'll be hearing a lot more about this

Might be my last strawberry now until the weather warms up again. They are still flowering but I suspect the cold will take care or that for a while. 

Same for my chilli

And tomatoes. This is a late planting of tomatoes in the warmest part of my garden in an effort to see if I can get tomatoes to fruit here during winter in Toowoomba.

More lettuce. Never too much lettuce. What I don't eat the chooks (chickens) will take care of.

Silverbeet going gangbusters 

 as is the garlic.

Peas are powering and I've sown some old purple podded pea seed I found while tidying up and they are sprouting up out of the ground too.

I came out of hospital in early July last year and was greeted with mandies from my tree so I'm looking forward to a big mandy feast very soon.

Broad beans are growing strongly.

 Biggest and best parsley I've ever grown.

This might finally be the end of my Basil too.

Rhubarb's getting ready for winter.

And sage.

I feel better now or at least not so blue.

Cheers

Stewart.

Storms with some rain

Storms with some rain in them have been predicted for this weekend so I'm taking as much of my health as I can summon and I'm a planting seeds.

So I got a row of Spinach in and hoed over a few sq mts for peas and ran out of puff.

Tomorrow I'll plant the pea seeds and start getting a bed ready for some broad been seeds.

It was nice to smell the smell of freshly turned moist soil.

I was also walking through Coles when I spotted some Shallots and picked up four of them and I'll bung em in the garden tomorrow as well.

(The shallot is a botanical variety of the species Allium cepa, to which the multiplier onion also belongs. The shallot was formerly classified as a separate species, A. ascalonicum, a name now considered a synonym of the currently accepted name. Wikipedia)

I've also got some Garlic saved from last years harvest to plant as well. Seeing as I'm going back to work on Monday it's looking like I've got a few busy days ahead.

Cheers

Stewart.

Green Harvest time

I'm lovin' these guys.

I placed my order with Green Harvest on Tuesday evening, received e-mail confirmation on Wednesday evening saying my parcel had been posted.

Parcel arrived at my front door lunch time Thursday.

How good is that?


Whoo woo, empty box full of potential!!!






First out of the box is two packets of seed.

#1 is Spinach 'Bloomsdale', an English spinach for cool weather.
It prefers a rich well drained soil with added compost, so I better get cracking with the soil prep.
#2 Is Beetroot 'Detroit', not much to say, just a good beetroot variety.
Beetroot is a heavy feeder so I'll be adding plenty of compost and Rooster Booster before I plant a Autnmn crop.





Next is the Garlic. Allium sativum

'Italian White', is a softneck garlic which does not produce a flower stem (more on softneck and hardneck in next post).

















More 'Italian White', six bulbs all together leading to approx 48 cloves to plant.












Then the Shallots. Allium cepa var. aggregatum syn. Allium ascalonicum
Synonyms include Golden of French Shallots, Eschallot, Potato Onion.

I've never grown these before so I'll be keeping a curious eye on them as they progress.

According to Green Harvest the bulbs are a culinary onion with a superb mild flavour. They can be eaten raw, boiled, baked, or fried. Golden shallots are long keeping and will store for up to 12 months.




Last but not least, more Garlic.

'Monaro Purple' is a hardneck or top setting variety which usually produces a flower stem in early summer.
It is suitable only for cooler areas (I hoping I'm cool enough here, fingers crossed, time will tell. I know I get bloody cold).

So there you go three thumbs up for Green Harvest.



PS. At the time of writing this I could not connect to the green harvest web site, I'm assuming they are having server trouble.
So if the link does not work, please come back and try again at a later date.
Thank-you.