Stewart and the bean pole.

  Recently pulled out the sweet peas and since have added compost, garden lime and a few handfuls of Rooster Booster. 

  Not much to see here but what we do have is potential. And I love potential, it's what I get excited about in the veggie garden.





  Planting the seed, waiting in anticipation for them to poke their fresh new leaves up out of the ground.


  And then more anticipation watching the vine grow and the first flowers forming and then finally, at last, the bean pod.
 
  Dig it in lightly.

  I’ll let it settle for a week and then plant some climbing beans for summer.

Cheers 'till next time
Stewart.

It's planting Time.

I cheated and copied and pasted this list but it is a good comprehensive list so I'm putting it up here.

Where did I pinch it from? Well here of course. Eden Seeds Newsletter.

It's time to plant for your spring veggie garden

 

Check your needs of the following vegetable seeds now, or whatever you need for your area from the full catalogue.

Amaranth Artichoke Asparagus Bean, Bush Bean, Climbing Bean, Climbing Snake Bean Beetroot Capsicum Carrot Celeriac Celery Chilli Corn Cucumber

Eggplant Gourd Lettuce Luffa Mustard Greens Okra Pumpkin Radish Rhubarb Rockmelon Rosella

Salad Greens, Endive Salsify Spinach, Ceylon Spinach, New Zealand Squash, Button Sunflower Tomato Turnip Watermelon Zucchini Herbs

Spring storm rain

20 mls. 20 mls of beautiful Spring storm rain here at 'My veggie garden' last night. I can almost hear them (my veggies that is) growing as I walk around my backyard, and the weeds but that's another story.

I expect to see the next crop of beans up by this weekend along with the yellow button squash. The carrots and beetroot will take another week or so. Oh, and I wouldn't be surprised to see the radish up when I go out for a look tomorrow.

I sure the the tomatoes, cabbage and lettuce I've planted will be having a good time too and it'll be great for the corn I plan to plant this weekend.

What can I say? Nothing beats a nice fall of Spring storm rain.

Cheers and all the best for your veggies,

Stewart.

P.S. As I'm sitting here writing this we've (we've as in me and my veggie garden that is) just had another shower pass over. It's all good here.

A quick weekend update

 Just a quick weekend update. I managed to sneak home a bit early on Saturday and managed an hour in the veggie garden. I'd also sneaked down to my favorite plant nursery (Sungrown Seedlings in case you were wondering) before I finished work and bought a punnet each of Cos lettuce and Sugarloaf cabbage.

Therefore when I got home I bolted for the garden and got stuck into planting them out. You can see the nice row of Cos in the bottom photo.

Today being Sunday I got to knock off at around two-thirty which gave me heaps of time to get some gardening done.
My priority was to get some seeds into the ground.
I managed to plant

• Beans, dwarf
• Beans climbing
• Carrots
• Beetroot, baby
• Yellow squash
• Radish
• and some chilli seeds into a punnet.

Very happy to get that done.

I still had some spare time so I just fiddled around weeding, composting (potatoes), mulching, watering and fertilizing.

Cos lettuce I planted on Saturday.

Speaking of potatoes these are the Purple Congo potatoes that self seeded themselves which was a great relief because I thought I'd lost them in all the rain we had at the beginning of the year.


What do you think of the rhubarb photos?

I'm thinking apple and rhubarb pie.

It took a lot longer to establish than I thought it would. I think this is the second year since I planted it but right now it's powering along.

All in all it's been a great weekend and I'm currently planing Tuesdays gardening. I know the strawbs need weeding and a feed and I have a small area I want to clear where I'm planning to plant sweet corn.

I also want to plant some more lettuce seeds.

Phew, talk about your busy time of the year.

Cucumber seed I planted last Sunday has just poked its new seed leaves through the soil surface.




Anyway, cheers for now

Stewart

P.S. don't for get my new 'My Veggie Garden' facebook page. I'd love to see you there.

Atrocious, abysmal, diabolical.

Atrocious, abysmal, diabolical, appalling and execrable even, (yes I took a peak at a Thesaurus) that's just a few words that I've choosen to describe the weather around these parts latley and the reason (some say excuse) for my poor showing in the veggie garden lately. Throw in a trip to Byron Bay for my nieces 21 st Birthday party giving myself even less time in the veggie garden.
But, I have to say, all that changed today for the better today. I've managed to spend up to six hours outside happily veggie gardening away.
Weeding, mulching, fertilizing, harvesting, planting seeds, just some of the things I was able to achieve today.

On a slightly less brighter note I'd like to vent my frustration on what must be the most health conscious possum going around.

As you can see in the photo the possum has helped itself to some of my coriander along with silverbeet, beetroot leaves, parsley and not to mention the fresh new shoots on my roses.
Anyhow everything precious is now either caged or sprayed with chilli spray so that might slow down his culinary delight but I think I'm stuck with him/her for a while.

That's it for today and as I sit here writing this all is looking for another good go at the veggie garden on Tuesday. It's still pretty cold here over night but I'd like to get some beetroot seeds planted and I might put in a few Tomato seeds in a warm sheltered place to see if I can get an early start on the Tomato season. I've still got plenty of weeding to do plus some soil preparation for the coming Spring, fingers crossed.

Cheers and happy veggie gardening

Stewart.

A little veggie garden update.

 A little veggie garden update.
After weeks of rain which included a torrential down pour causing the worst flash flooding ever seen in Toowoomba and the surrounding regions the weather has settled down enough to get some veggie gardening done.

Thursday was still too wet so it was Friday before I managed to get anything done.

 Being keen to get some lettuce and my Taxi tomato seed planted I started with a patch that I'd previously managed to get some work done on.

Because the soil was still so sodden I didn't want to be working it too much so I could avoid messing up the soil structure I've spent so much time on building up.

 Watch this space
The first photo is where I planted my lettuce seeds and the second is where the tomato seeds went in.

Tumeric
The silver lining from all these rain clouds is my Tumeric. I planted it as a suck it and see what happens plant thinking Toowoomba might be a bit too dry and cold and up until the rains came I was pretty right with nothing happening at all. Since the rain though it has really taken off so all going well I might get a smallish crop after all.

Sadly my tomato ha succumbed to the constant rain. This is definitely not how you want your tomato to look.

 Before

Today, this morning, I wanted to get stuck in to this bed because this is where I'll be growing my cabbage and cauliflower over Autumn and Winter so the sooner I get the weeds out the sooner I can start improving the soil and get some seeds happening.

After 

And this is how it looks about an hour later. The soil is still sodden and in one place I dug up some potatoes and about six inches deep the water was starting to puddle in the hole I'd dug. So the weeds are out but it'll be another weed or two before I can get a fork into it.
I did stick some climbing bean seeds in on the high side of the bed hoping I can get a couple of beans before it gets too cold for them.



  Well that's about it for now. The next big attack will (fingers crossed) be on Tuesday. I've still got four smallish rows of potatoes to dig up and if we don't get rain between now and then I should be able to get them up and then I can show off the potato sacks I bought from the lost seed co.

Cheers and happy veggie gardening,

Stewart

Said to myself

 About a week ago now I was putting a casserole together and when I went to get the spuds I found them full of plump sprouting eyes and said to myself, 'Self, there just ain't no way you can let this opportunity go by'. So I cut the ends with the eyes off and let them heal for a week until I planted them today. Spuddies for nothing and my chips for free.

I managed a good couple of hours in the veggie garden today with the beans, carrots, potatoes, cucumbers and tomatoes all growing very well.
I must say though that after all our early spring rain it's starting to dry out here a bit though good rain has been forcast for the week ahead.
I'm also sad to say I had a major fail in the lettuce department. Not one of the seeds I planted have come up. I'm perplexed, but suspect I let the soil dry out too much one day, as to why but will plant out again this week with showers and rain being forecast.

Umm, what else? The lucerne seed I planted is getting a go on and I can pinch out a few tops and feed them to the chooks. They don't seem to go mad for it but it's all gone by the days end.
Speaking of bloody chooks, just shoot me if I ever get another bantam. All I seem to do is spend all the warmer months unclucking bantams.I get one fixed and the other one takes it's place. Arrrrgggghhhhh.

That's about if for the veggie garden for now. During the week I hope to plant more lettuce and follow up plantings of radish, carrots and beans. My parsley has gone too seed too so I'll need to plant more of them. I've got heaps of comfrey ready to harvest so there's a fair chance the compost will get a look at as well and then in my spare time I can weed, weed and weed.

Cheers and happy veggie gardening.

Stewart.

The week that was.

A mixed week for my veggie garden. The weather has been varied ranging from plesant to showers, rain (10/12mm) and even warm (22C) for this time of the year.

Ordered and received

I placed an order with Green Harvest (my favorite online mail order company) on late Wednesday and to my surprise it arrived Friday lunch time (damn they are good).
Included in the order was;

• Potatoes; Ruby Lou 1kg
• Lupin
• Lucerne Sequel
• Tomato Oxheart
• Tumeric Madras
• Rhubarb Ever Red
  

Planted

• Rhubarb Ever Red
• Lupin
• Tumeric
• Carrots
• Radish
• Leek
• Potatoes
• Garlic

Sprouted

• Spring onions (just)
• Beetroot

Growing

• Strawberries are flowering
• Self sown wheat has seed heads maturing
• Radish are getting there.
• Peas are a bit slow but getting there
• Self sown potatoes are powering along. Must remember to plant my seed potatoes earlier next year. They seem to like the early start.
  

Chooks

• Still 2/3 eggs a day.

That's was the week that is from the veggie garden this week;

Cheers and happy gardening

Stewart

Update 22/7/10

Radicalish











Potentialato










Update 22/7/10

• Planted 2 x rows of Bulls blood Beetroot
  
  
• 2 x rows of dwarf peas
  
  
• Discovered one self starter potato (see above)
  
  
• Growing well - Radish (see above), peas, strawberries spinach and more
  
  
• Chooks; slowing down but still getting a few eggs
  
  
• Wheat; self sown from straw mulch, growing well
  
  
• Weather; frosty mornings but, absolutely magnificent
  
  
• Rainfall; a bit here and there, soil profile is moist :-}
  
  
• Tomorrow?; ah ha ha ha, your just going to have to wait
  

Cheers and have a nice day,

Stewart

Yes, I do still garden.

Yes I do still veggie garden but after a long, hot and arduous Summer I'm glad to say Autumn has arrived. Though, sadly, the garden has suffered badly from long periods of neglect.

The reasons for this neglectfulness on my part are many and varied. One has been the weather this Spring/Summer. Firstly spring was rainless hot and obviously dry which meant more watering which meant I needed to spend more time in the garden to keep everything alive which led to resentment by me because I could be doing so much else with my time. Then Summer was wet/hot and dry/wet/hot and dry. Long periods of damp, high humidity and overcast weather meant the plants became soft then the sun would come back with a vengeance, like a week of 30+ temperatures, and fry the poor little buggers, which led to me becoming very frustrated and again resentful (time wasted, nothing to show for my efforts) with the whole veggie thing.

Another reason for my Summer of neglect was due to me working nights in the Cab it means that when I do surface of a day time it is some where around 11 to 2 o'clock. This puts me right into the highest heat and humidity of the day. Needless to say getting me motivated to go out and do and hour or two of gardening at that time of the day is next to impossible. So there you have it, my excuses for having a poorly run down garden and I'm sticking with them.






Now on a positive note I was able to get out in the garden this morning and get some work done. First of which was plant some picking lettuce and some baby spinach.

So into a unused bed I added a bucketful of compost and a few handfuls of Rooster Booster, turned the whole lot over and in and bunged the seedlings into the soil. Easy as huh?




And last but not least watered the whole lot in with some fish and seaweed emulsion.
















Just a photo of a ruby chard that managed to survive my summer of neglect.










This is my Rosella flowering. First time I have grown a Rosella so I'm keeping a close eye on it to see what happens next. I am hoping though that it is not too late in the season with Winter just around the corner.










Anyhow that's it for now, hopefully with some cooler Autumn and Winter weather I'll be able to get more jobs done out in the garden and come up with some kind of plan for getting through Summer around here.

Cheers

Stewart.