Greenfeast Peas

Greenfeast garden peas are great value to grow, with an abundance of pods over the course of the season.

Candy Cane Capsicums

 What a hidden gem these two plants were this season, the variegated foliage and fruits were amazing. These fruits were prolific the whole way through the season and we numbered them plant one and two for reference. Plant one was the more prolific, but plant twp looked the goods with more variegation.

Petal loved them and in the finish we had to freeze them save wasting them, with freezing being the best thing we could have done. These are on our grow list again this year, with plans on growing a few extra for a trial I'm hoping to try.

 

 

Parsnips From Our Own Seed

This Summer just gone, Jan saved seeds from a couple of Parsnips we deliberately keep so we could try our own seed saving. As it turned out we collected so many Parsnip seeds we gave a lot away with about 130 people getting them around Victoria.

Anyway, Jan sowed the seed 4 weeks ago and covered with Sugarcane Mulch, but got patchy results and had to resow the gaps that had appeared. Eventually the rows filled up and we now have a good crop started.

Saffron Crocus Corms Lifted and Resown

We had to rush this bit as we weren't sure what was happening with the Saffron Crocus corms, so the two Candy Cane Capsicums that were sharing this bed had to be removed, so today was the day.

We originally planted 35 Corms and this  year would be their fourth in the ground, so we decided to lift them all and fill the garden bed completely with them. Lots of big corms were found close to the worm tower, so once they were all up and the rows ready to sow, these bigger ones went down the centre of the bed. All in all it went well and we soon had all the corms back in the ground, but covering the whole bed.

 

 

Parsnip Seeds Sown

 Well the fresh parsnip seed Jan saved this season has been dried, distributed, shared and now sown in the raised garden bed.

Macalister Tomato

 Last year Macalister was orange in colour, this year one plant is yellow and one is red. The yellow is a good shape and tastes good, but the red turned out to be a pink and is ribbed and very oblate, so it looks like the yellow will continue, as well as the pink..

Zucchini's Doing Well

 Petal's crossed Zucchini is doing well and producing enough to keep her happy with a feed available most days and a few left over, which the worm farm are loving.

This is a bit of a glut she started off with.

Our Strawberries

 Our Strawberries are doing extremely well and we're eating heaps. It would appear that the Torrey variety are a bit better producers than the Red Gauntlet. The flavour is full on and we're both enjoying them.

Our First Ripe Tomato

 We finally got a ripe tomato in good time prior to Christmas, but things aren't good as the tomato is red and not the Japanese Pink Cherry I was expecting. Then to make things really bad, the blackbirds ate it.

 

 Moving on to Christmas Day, our first UK2000 tomato was ripening nicely, so Petal put a bag on it to keep the birds away, so it worked and I picked it probably a couple of days early.

Bagging Tomato Blossoms - My Hobby

 I love growing tomatoes and I have a task I do on them that people think I'm made for doing, but it is what it is.

I place organza bags over my unopened blossoms, so that they can't get cross pollinated - see I told you.

Here's what my plot looks like.

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We Have Roots

 The tomato seedling chewed off by birds has now started getting roots while in a glass of water.

Growing Well

 A few quick snaps of what's growing well in the vegetable garden. Most things are loving the rain, well except for tomatoes and strawberries.

Local Rain and Flooding

Well, we're wet here again after 65mm of rain and as you can guess we've had some local flooding too, which is a regular thing this year.

Having been laid up with a crook back for two weeks, we went out today to have a look around, with our first stop at Weirs Crossing where the Avon River is running very high after Friday's rain.

From the Stratford side.

We then decided to take the Llowalong Rd to Briagolong, but water over the road had us unsure on its depth, so we went back a little to the Startford Briagolong Road, back to Boisdale, then up to the crossing at Valencia Creek, where the river was high, but lower than the flattened grass and trees on the river bank shows a drop in the river of probably 1.5m to 2.0m.

 

 

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Jan's taken over this bed.

 First came the Sweet Corn, then came the Potatoes, so the garden bed is overflowing with growing plants.

Tomatoes are in.

 The picture doesn't show te true story, as I had room for 8x small plants when this shot was taken, so I planted them and the first night, two plants were attacked by birds, one went, the other chewed off at the ground. I'm trying to strike the chewed off plant in water..

Keeping Out The Wind

No damage here from the wind last week that caused havoc across the State. A few years ago I built a frame on my 7mx2.4m garden bed I use for tomatoes and I can quickly put up a wind barrier as in the photo, or I can cover it in shade cloth, roof and walls if it gets hot.

 

Growing in Pipes

Went to Cranbourne Saturday to collect some pipe offcuts that Jan's sister has been looking after for us. These were originally from a garden plant display at the Melbourne Garden Show about 10 years ago that Oasis Nursery (Floriana) had on their stand. We have five, but I think I sold five a few years after we got them. They make ideal planters for single vegetables etc.

 

Peas are Dry

 The two lots of peas seem to be dry, but we're storing them in netting bags, just to be sure.

1. Oregon Giant Snow Peas

2. Greenfeast Peas.

Peas - Drying

 The Peas are all podded and drying nicely, so we should have plenty for a Winter crop.

This is what we ended up getting.

Digging holes

 Open the video to Full Screen for a better look.

Our Garden

Our garden beds as of today.

Setting Out The Garden Bed

 Tomato growing time is here, so I set out where my tomatoes will be planted, enough room for 27 plants although some have just germinated. 

Peas off the Bush

 Jan took the pods off the bushes for both lots of peas, so they are drying well and we'll pod them soon.

New Seeds

 A friend of mine sent me some late seeds, so what do you do when you only get 5 seeds for a variety, you plant 2 seeds, which I did. I sowed them on the Friday and they were up on the Monday and I pricked them out Wednesday. So from the other seeds, so far I have nothing else come up, which isn't a worry as I am mainly growing these tomatoes for seed for next year.

Forgetting to Post

I've been a bit slack with posting, so hopefully I can add a few posts to catch up.

Most recently, we've pulled out the peas we left for seed, so on the airing rack we have both Greenfeast Peas and Oregon Giant Snow Peas, so hopefully by the weekend they should be starting to dry out so we can pod them and get rid of the waste. The peas inside the Snow Peas are quite large, so it looks like we may have done the right thing with them.