Great Zucchinis in Three easy steps.

 Great Zucchinis in Three easy steps.

The hard part is getting enough compost.

The Coming Season

Getting ready for the coming growing season can mean only one thing here at My Veggie Garden, seeds.

This year I'm taking a different path to the one I usually take.

After reading David Glenn's, from Lambley Nursery, spiel on growing F1 hybrid tomatoes for improved yield and increased disease resistance I've purchased two packets of tomato seeds to trial here in My Veggie Garden.

Lambley Nursery is set around an old farmhouse in the hot dry wind swept plains of the central Victorian Goldfields so it will be interesting to see how they do in my, usually hot and humid summer.

 At around a dollar per seed they could be considered expensive but I consider it a small price to pay, for if they do crop well it will be a good investment.
The two Tomato varieties I'll be trying are,

• Tomato, Gourmet, 'Gabriella' F1 
• Cherry Tomato, 'Tycho' F1

On the Lambley Nursery web site, David Glenn goes on to say,

"If you are having trouble growing a good crop or indeed any crop at all of “heirloom” tomatoes or seedling tomatoes bought from garden centres or big box stores you will be joining a growing band of gardeners.  The answer is to plant disease resistant varieties. 

We trialled 10 varieties of disease resistant hybrid tomatoes and the 3 listed below were the best for taste and for disease resistance. I was still picking good, ripe, full size tomatoes at the end of April. 

The seed of modern, good flavoured, disease resistant tomato hybrids is expensive but it more than pays for itself in the vastly improved production of ripe tomatoes."

I've also ordered other seeds that I will trial for myself as well, these include,

• Cucumber, Australian Slicer 'Icebreaker F1' 
  
  • Beetroot, 'Red Ace' F1
  • Broccolini, 'Happy Rich' F1
  • Cabbage, Mini, 'Gonzales' F1
  • Carrot, 'Nelson' F1 
  • Coriander, 'Calypso' 
  • Scarlet Runner Bean, 'Scarlet Emperor' 
  • Bush Bean, 'Simba' 
  • Spinach, 'Tyee' F1 
  • Zucchini, 'Bush Baby' F1
   

I'm keen to get started and can't wait to see the results but I'll be posting as I sow and plant and hopefully have a bountiful harvest to share.

Lambley Nursery has a good reputation among my circle of gardening friends and my seeds arrived well packaged and inside the two week time frame I was advised to expect.

The Chronicle story.

It just goes to show, you never know who's reading these bloggie things.

Yesterday I received an email from an The Chronicle reporter, that's our local newspaper, asking if she could have a chat to me about a story she is putting together about local veggie gardeners.

Seems she put the question to Dr. Google and up came the 'My Veggie Garden' blog.

Anyway, a time was set a chat was had and we're, that's me, the blog and the veggie garden, supposed to be in the paper tomorrow (5/10). You can be sure I'll post a link to the story when I find it and in the mean time I might have to go and do a little house cleaning for the rush of new visitors coming my way.

Sadly for me I have work tomorrow but the good news is I have all day Sunday and Tuesday to get veggie gardening and at this time of the year there's always something to do and plant.

Zucchini, Sweet Corn, Climbing Beans and some Spring Onions for starters will be getting planted along with the regular jobs of weeding, mulching, watering (is it ever going to rain?)

There's two tomato cuttings that have struck and a Gross Lizzy Tomato that need to be planted out as well.

Plenty to do, cheers and happy veggie gardening

Stewart.

100+ ways to cook Zucchihi.

Have I been veggie gardening? Not bloody likely. I've spent the last fourteen sun shinny days in the cab and on my day free it rains. Oh well, such is veggie gardening.

In the meantime and with a nod in the direction of the coming growing season and courtesy of the Tree Hugger team hear is a few things you can do with Zucchini.

100+ ways to cook Zucchihi.

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