June 2010 - Winter Vegetable Update

Been a few weeks since the last update. Things grow slowly during winter and we have had a few weekends where no vegetable gardening was done.

This weekend however I managed to do some cleaning up and weeding around the vegetables. Hopefully, this will promote better growth over the next couple of weeks. I also put some fertiliser on and watered the garden well. Once this was completed I mulched the entire garden with sugar came mulch. This will help with water retention and lessen the affects of the cold weather.

An overview of the garden showing the self-seeded tomatoes at the  top of the garden with the broccoli, cauliflower and bok-choy next. We then have the strawberry plants and the plum tomato plant which is still producing tomatoes so I have left the plant alone.

Most of the seedlings planted were damaged by insect attack soon after they were planted but have now recovered and are growing quite well.

April 2010 - Winter Vegetables

This weekend some winter vegetables have been planted. We have a broccoli, cauliflower, bok choy and parsley. These have been purchased as seedlings. The gardens have also been mulched with sugarcane mulch.

The capsicum plants have been removed and this garden used to plant some parsley. There is further space in this section of the garden for another crop.

April 2010 - Preparation for Cooler Months

Over the last month we have had some failures in the garden. The watermelon seedlings planted in January seemed to suffer during a cold snap and did not survive. The iceberg lettuce seedlings survived but never really developed a 'heart'. The plant produced many leaves but never really looked like an iceberg lettuce you would buy in the shops. Now that these plants have gone to seed I have removed them from the garden and prepared the bed for planting new seedlings.

What has survived and flourished are the tomato plants and the capsicum. We have harvested 8 - 10 capsicums and about 12 truss plum tomatoes over the last 4 weeks.

 The other garden bed where the watermelon and bok-choy was planted will be cleaned up and the garden prepared for winter herbs. This garden bed does not get a great deal of sun and I have decided to use this bed for herbs and other plants that do not require the same amount of sunlight as some of the other vegetables.

Week 25 - Repotting the Seedlings

Due to some extreme weather conditions last week (over 40 degrees celsius on the Monday), the seedlings planted the previous weekend were almost all dead. This weekend I salvaged one tomato seedling and one capsicum seedling and replanted them into larger pots. Both plants are only around 3cm high and will need some further growth before  being transplanted into the garden.

To ensure the seedlings do not dry out too quickly I placed some upturned bottles on them to create mini greenhouses.

Other tasks performed this week were:

• Adjusted tomato stakes to ensure the new growth on the plant was better supported. There are already small green tomatoes on the plant and I am hoping for a good crop.
• Cleaned up some of the beds and removed a couple of bucketfuls of weeds.

Week 22 - Seed Planting

Over the past two weeks, it has been a time of maintenance and care of the plants recently planted. The watermelon, lettuce and tomato plants are all growing well and I have been using pyrethrum on the new plants to ensure they do not succumb to the same pests as destroyed my Bok Choy plants. It only took a couple of days to cause the damage in the second photo.

During the weekend I also planted some more seeds to get some  seedlings to fill some of the empty spots in the garden.

I have planted some more lettuce varieties. Roma tomatoes and capsicum. These are the three vegetables that we most often use for lunches at home.

The plan for the next couple of weeks is to get the rest of the garden planted out with seedlings and hopefully get some produce from the strawberries and capsicum plants.

Week 20 - Garden Overview

Last weekend had the first major changes since starting the garden. The squash plants and tomato plants have been removed and some new seedlings planted.

Here are two photos showing what the two garden beds look like now. I still have a considerable amount of space left to plant out. Will spend the next week considering my options.

My other task for this week is to work out how best to keep the pests off the Bok Choy plants. These plants have suffered badly from caterpillar attacks over the last two weeks and a couple of the plants may need to be removed.

Week 20 - New Plantings

Over the last three weeks I removed all the squash, tomato and corn plants in readiness for replanting these beds with new seedlings.

This weekend I managed to find enough time to go out and get some of the seedlings to plant. With some help from my 5yr daughter I picked truss tomatoes, watermelon and iceberg lettuce.

Late on Sunday afternoon I planted the seedlings out. To minimize the potential of diseases from one crop spreading to the next I swapped the section of the beds I was using for the tomatoes. 

I also planted the watermelon in the far section of the new garden bed. This will mean when the vine starts to spread it will occupy a lesser used part of the garden (behind the trampoline) and wont be spilling over into other plants.