It's now or next year!

Yep it's now or next year if you want to plant, from sown seed, watermelons and or for that matter, cucumber and pumpkins and rock melons and you know, all those creepy climby, viney things. You can still leave it for a month or so if you buy seedlings from your nursery, but if you are sowing your own seed you really need to get them in now.

They take about 70 to 80 days to produce fruit and need the heat of summer to produce good growth. If you move into autumn (this would probably exclude the sub-tropics and the tropics where they could be grown much later into the season) and get a early cold snap you probably won't get any edible fruit.

I grow the 'sugarbaby' watermelon here because of the limited space I have in my backyard but I also have a few planted down at the community gardens.

For soil prep I use one ten litre bucket of compost, one ten litre bucket of aged cow manure, a hand full of blood and bone and a small hand of sulphate of potash. I'll also apply another small hand of potash when the vines start to flower to help with fruit set and development. Creating a raised mound in the process into which I plant my seeds.

After planting four of five seeds into each of the raised mound/s at about fifteen to twenty millimeters deep I then water them well and keep them moist untill germination takes place.

Keep them well watered for the first 3/4 weeks then water as necessary. When the fruit is ripening back off all the watering as extra water at this stage will dilute the sugars and therefore the flavor.

Good luck if you plant some,
Cheers for now,
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.

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.