Fertilising Garlic

Something not many people would do in their gardens, that is to fertilise their garlic. Over the growing season, garlic actually need a nitrogen boost every now and then, especially before setting scapes, but never seem to get anything mentioned.

Today using Nitrosol, I gave them a feed to help keep them healthy.

Correa reflexa - Stockdale Form

On a bush track not too far away from here, Correa reflexa grows wild in the bush among the bracken and undergrowth. This Correa is usually spindly in its wild state, only growing a few branches, but competing as it grows. 

Petal and I were  there last year after a grader had cleaned up the tracks through the bush. On the side of this particular track, was a seedling Correa which had been uprooted, so I took it home and planted it near my magpie feeder. It eventually started to grow and over the year has formed into a nice compact shrub.

It’s currently flowering, with nice size red corollas, a typical Correa reflexa. I’m attaching some photos, as this is a nice form of this plant. You would be very lucky to find a plant with this many flowers on it in the wild.

Rainy Day Here

I got woken up at 6.00 a.m. this morning by heavy rain on the roof, something we seldom hear, but it sounded great and the garden will love it. Later when we got out of bed, Jan checked and we had 8.0mm so you’ve got to love that.

Hopefully you got some of it too.

Happy Easter 2020

Well, it’s actually Good Friday today, but I think more in name than anything else, so Happy Easter.

Today we planted a punnet of Brown Onions, to assure we get a few plants through to maturity. 

We sowed Red Onion on tape and only got a few come up, so planted some Cream Onion seed, but only got a few them up. We also planted another punnet of Silverbeet, so we will have some green manure for the Winter compost bins.

Enjoy your Easter. Stay Home & Stay Safe.

Garden Arch

I got a memory come up on Facebook to say our garden arch I made is now 12 months old. The use of sheep mesh and star pickets made this a very cheap item in our garden.

We have currently three Hardenbergia’s growing on this arch, one we bought at Bunning’s, one our friend gave us, the last was a seedling we found on a bush track that a grader had pushed up. All three are growing great, especially the latter, which sat for ages before deciding to race to the top of the arch.

One we got from a friend, is actually from seed that the late Bill Cane, local Nurseryman and Plant breeder had collected seed for. When Bill died, his seed collection was given to a friend of mine and together with the local Native Nursery, grew some seed for it. What eventuated is a narrow leaf form with pink flowers, which doesn’t have the tendrils that H. violacea has and just scraambles across the ground.

Here are two photos, one when I built the arch, the other one year on with the climbers attached.

Garlic Doing Great

After getting Garlic Seed at the Meeniyan Garlic Festival in February, sowing time came around pretty quick here on the Gippsland Plains. Something that is entirely different to what I’m familiar with is a change in growing seasons since we moved here.

I went for all Turban types this year, rather than stagger my season, so I ended up with Tasmanian Purple, Monaro Red, Wilde Pearl and one bulb of Purple Stripe. My first try was 3 rows in the big garden of Monaro Red, which were up within a week. 

Then the following week I planted everything else, it too was up quick and it’s just a matter of leaving it grow now. A shower or two of rain has it looking pretty damn good.

 

Did I mention Saffron

Petal planted 30+ Saffron Corms here last Autumn, this year most of what we planted are up, with flowering being pretty spectacular. We’ve had about fourteen flowers up until now, but today there looks to be seven flowers that may open if it gets sunny later in the day.

The flowers are being harvested as you’d expect, so these are well worth growing, even just for the flower beauty.

Here are a couple of shots of a couple to date.

***Update – We managed 25 Flowers from 35 plants, so not too bad.

Autumn Vegies 2020

Amongst the Autumn vegies that made it into the garden this year are Red Onions, Silverbeet, Peas, Carrots & Parsnips. 

The availability here was at an all time low, with restrictions of one punnet of each variety, hence I’m relying on seed for some of them.

Here are some photos of what’s growing as of today.

Red Onions

 Greenfeast Peas

Topweight Carrots

Dwarf Green Peas

My Garden Layout

Just a couple of photos of my vegie garden layout.

Imagine these photos side by side.

Apple Thieves

Our Royal Gala Apple tree had its first crop of apples this year and we almost missed out on them.  The small tree actually had 13 apples on it and Petal liked picking one as she wanted one, that was until she spotted three Rainbow Lorikeets eating the apples. She raced to the tree and chased the parrots away, then picked the apples and bought them inside.

The funny thing with the parrots was that they came back about 30 minutes later, but there wasn’t anything for them. We’ll have to net the tree next year.

Gold Rush Zucchini

We grew Gold Rush Zucchini, plus the cross with Jade Numbat Petal did last year. We saved fruit from the cross, but didn’t get any mature seed. Strange as it seems, we let the fruit go until quite large, but all seed was without an embryo and just dried to skin only. 

No problem as we’ll sow last years seed again as it is such a good producer, why wouldn’t you grow it.

Moon & Stars Watermelon

I didn’t think I would ever grow watermelons, but I got offered some seed from a follower on Instagram, so I grew a couple of plants. Petal had to hand pollinate them as with so much bushfire smoke about, we had no bees in the yard.

To cut a long story short, we ended up with five melons, which averaged 2.5kg or better. Inside they were a pinkish colour, rather than a nice red we were expecting. Considering they were a little under done, they tasted alright and we devoured three of them, but reneged and gave the last two away.

  

Red & Orange Perhaps

I was in the garden one day and had a play with two flowers, adding pollen from the plant growing alongside after emasculating them. I took pollen from Sweet Ozark Orange crossing it to Nicoleta. I never really expected anything, but tagged the two flowers and bagged them. A week or so later, one flower dropped off, leaving just the one. A few weeks passed and the embryo started to get some size, so you just never know what will happen.

As it happened, the plant got attacked badly by Russett Mite and it was a toss up if the fruit would ripen enough to get viable seeds, but it was touch and go but managed to extract a few seeds.

Last photo is the Nicoleta with what I hope carries the pollen of Sweet Ozark Orange.

Sweet Ozark Orange - Not For Us

I picked a few Sweet Ozark Orange tomatoes today before they changed to orange as they were soft at the yellow stage and would be too ripe if left any longer. We weren’t overwhelmed with the sweet taste of this variety and not sure what they could be used for, certainly not on a sandwich.

They were of a nice big size, but not good keepers like others we’ve grown over the years. None of what I picked were from bagged blossoms, so no great loss here, sorry Sam, we gave them a go

These tomatoes were quite soft when at the yellow stage and would be too soft for us if left to get the orange colour they were named as. Maybe it was the season, but they won’t make the grow list next season as I’ll be growing less plants.

Tomato Season 2019/20 - The Season That Wasn't

In reality, the tomato Season for 2019/20 was a disaster here and our fruit load was almost zero. 

Prolonged thick bushfire smoke made our days long and dark, blocking the sun for weeks. Blossom drop was really bad too, so I ended up with almost no saved seed, so I’ll have to fall back on previous seed supplies.

Some of our favourite tomatoes, UK2000 ready to be eaten.

Wandocka Passing The Test

The sport from a large fruited red tomato which I called Wandocka has passed the test again this season producing some tasty tomatoes. Considering a very poor season, we got to at least get a taste test of this one.

Our season was what you’d call pathetic, with most varieties failing badly, with heaps being pulled after losing so many blossoms in the thick acrid bushfire smoke we had lingering for a couple of months, the plants just weren’t worth keeping going.

Here’s a look at a truss that managed to find its way inside.

A Taste

I picked a few tomatoes ripening on the bushes today, so I guess I can test them to see what effects they have on my Gout. If they do effect it, I will pull some plants and put in some green beans and some corn in their place.

Here are some of the fruits, with George Detsika’s Red, and Sweet Scarlet Dwarf, the bigger two.

With the silly Summer weather and constant smoke problems, my tomato crop isn’t doing as well as I’d hoped, but vegetable gardening here is a challenge with no rain and the hotter days.

This morning I pulled out my Village Red (PL) and have now planted my last cutting for the season, that being Girl Girl’s Weird Thing. (photo)

By the looks of things, we won't be getting many tomato plants through to the finish line this year.

I picked my first bagged fruits today for the big cherry tomato which was supposed to be Chang Li Cherry, but it too was wrongly labeled seed as this variety should be a yellow plum cherry. This plant is growing on 3 leaders which are about 80cm above the top of the cage growing on strings to support them. I’d expect them to hit the 2.4m mark at some point in the next few weeks, just a pity I don’t know it’s name.

Other varieties I grew turned out to be wrong, with Zena’s Gift and Mandarina another two varieties I was disappointed in. The two plants of Mandarina I grew were totally different to each other, one even had fine wispy foliage and oblate ribbed fruit, which didn’t appeal to me as an eating tomato. I’m terribly fussy with my plants, probably why most got pulled early, so disappointing.

East Gippsland Bushfires

Watching the Vic Emergency App as we have active fires to the north and east of us, so probably a good time to give everything a drink tomorrow and pack a few things in case we need to evacuate and go somewhere safer.

***Edit***

Following an afternoon wind change today (Saturday), any fire threat has lessened somewhat. It would appear that the fire has been turned at Bairnsdale, although it is now pushing south towards Johnsonville & Nicholson.

Covers are Off

We have a bit of respite before our next hot day, so I have removed the shadecloth covers on the garden beds. Hard to believe it, but we’re getting a few showers of rain, which will do wonders for the garden.

End result with the rain was that we managed 2.5mm in the rain gauge.

Didn't Take Long

Like all before it this season, Wandocka tomato cutting has rotted in the water after just a few days. I half expected it to do this, as I haven’t managed to get one cutting of it to strike using the water method.

I don’t really have room for more plants, so no loss, but I’ll use the wet potting mix way, next year.

Tomatoes Under Shade

Well I’ve answered my own question with growing tomato plants under shadecloth, yes, they do grow leggy. With the odd day over 35C, or maybe two close together, I’ll have the shadecloth so it can be just tacked up on the hot days and removed or lowered when it’s cooler.

One thing with the shade is that the plants are alive and not showing burnt foliage, like they can be prone to do. With regular sunlight, they will thicken up again, so no dramas.

GGWT For Short

Probably the last tomato cutting to strike going on past efforts, but this one is Girl Girl’s Weird Thing, which I’ll plant somewhere and use as a spare if need be. I haven’t grown this one before, so we’ll see what we get from it and the single plant in the garden bed.

Almost There

Today is Boxing Day and I have two varieties of smaller fruited tomatoes with ripening fruit. The first one I noticed is Chang Li Cherry (photo) which has been quite a vigorous plant. 

This variety has been by far the tallest of all in the garden.

The other is McSee’s Grape, which is a small mini Roma type fruit. Still nothing close on the bigger fruited plants, but I’m in no hurry

My New Local Tomato - Wandocka

During 2018 I did a stint at Admin on a Facebook page, where the offer of seeds for a Tomato called Stratford Giant were made. The guy offering the seed named Eric responded to my message and told me to call in and grab some, which we did, so I offered him plants as a swap. 

He gave me two envelopes of seed, so I grew some and ended up with a single Potato Leaf plant, while all others were Regular Leaf. I grew both leaf types and the Stratford Giant threw big red fruits, while the potato leaf plant threw a smaller size fruit, but pink in colour.

Here’s Stratford Giant on the scales, smaller than later fruits.

I’m tipping that the Potato Leaf plant, which I gave a working name of Wandocka (A local farming district) is a sport of the Giant, but to be sure, I had to grow it again this year to see if the fruit grows the same. It will be a while before I get ripe fruit, after the season starting so cold, but the plants are looking good.

Here’s Wandocka’s pink fruits, smaller than anything the Giants have thrown, so fingers crossed I have a new tomato variety.