Still My Favourite

I have to say that when the vegetable garden is idle, I tend to revert to my favourite pass time of all, plant propagation. I've grown so many native shrub cuttings over the years, I could have grown a forest or two with the plants. Currently my hot house is 2/3rds full of cuttings or about 600, which includes Natives, Citrus, Berry, Flowers along with seed sown for Ponytail Palm and Illawarra Flame trees. Much has struck and I'll be reliant on the rest striking before the 28th July when I'll sow the seeds for my tomato crop. Then of course there are my rose cuttings, all 70 of them, taken from a variety of plants from around the district, hopefully few more to come when rose pruning starts in June/July.

Life is good in the garden at the moment.

New in the ground is a Meyer Lemon tree, while two Heritage Raspberry canes sit in pots waiting to be planted. Citrus cuttings for Meyer Lemon, Lisbon Lemon and 'Sublime' Lime sit in the hothouse, so I'm ever hopeful of a strike or two.

Talking about Peppers

While recently on the subject of Capsicums, of which Chillies and Peppers for an intricate part, I decided to get a photo of some of my Peppers growing in the back yard. Using my wife as a measure, I took the photo below which shows the growth well over 5 foot in height (150cm) and there are 4 of these plants growing side by side. They are currently ripening their fruit and I'm loving seeing the masses of red each day. I'm even thinking of overwintering some of these plants and just shroud them in a plastic enclosure for when the frosts start.

New in 2009

This year I will be trialing some Slovakian Peppers, a Chilli and a Tomato that will be new to me, so fingers crossed I get a good season for them. First on the list is "Granka", a pale cream coloured, sweet, apple type Pepper which I'm hoping are as good as I've heard. Next on the list is "Barkol" which is a long, thin Chilli with medium heat and maybe good to cook with although anything too hot will be just grown for seed. The last of these will be the "PCR" a light green, short pointy sweet Pepper, all will be tried and if we like them they'll make the list for next year.

A new Slovak Tomato will also be grown this season with "Perun" which is a small yellow pear shaped fruit. Also making the list will be Purple Ukraine, Tamina from the U.K. and lastly is Crisana from Romania which we tried the season just gone and they rate highly here.

Winter Crop

Finally getting away from Tomatoes and looking at what else is happening in the garden at the present time and there is some green showing.

Garlic


Swede

Autumn Cherries

I think I'll get a feed or two from my autumn crop of Black Cherry tomatoes, on the single "cutting grown" plant growing in the garden at the moment. Yesterday I took the blossom bags from several trusses that were well formed, so there will be some fruit within the next few weeks. This will actually make the third growing of this variety this season, so I can be thankful they grow and mature fairly quick.

Seed Time

It's that time of year when the collection of seed is starting to come to an end and the seed drawer gets filled with all the goodies collected. Here are a few photos of some that have been done recently, or are currently being done.

One of my Peppers


Seed from above Pepper

Qarabali Seed


Tomato Seed