I'm Cooking Dinner

Probably the wrong day to do it, but I'm cooking a boned leg of Pork for dinner in the camp oven. I think the neighbours may know by now what I'm doing.

 

Air Drying Garlic

Here is one of four varieties of Garlic we grew this year and have just cleaned up, these being Monaro Red. These will sit for another month now before going through the dehydrator as Garlic Flakes.

 

 

80mm Garlic

 While we had a great Garlic crop this year, some of the globes we got were huge, with a few between 75mm - 80mm. Here's one of our purples which was 80mm when pulled, now just under as it dries.

Our Zucchini Cross

A sneak peek at our Zucchini cross and the minor differences that have shown up, which will determine which ones make it next season. The ribbing and stripes are the main thing we think will make these appealing to growers. In no particular order, these range from all yellow to ribbed and striped. All these zucchini's will be saved for seed this year, currently range from around 30cm up to 40cm.

First Picking

Here is a photo of the first picking..

This photo shows the striping from the Jade Numbat showing up in this new cross.

 

Zucchini's Started Producing

I guess with 9 plants pumping out zucchini's, it won't be long until picking starts in earnest. These are our Gold Rush X Jade Numbat cross, which needed to be hand pollinated due to lack of male flowers. We have a few marked to keep for seed, so all being well we'll get some.

 

Macalister Tomatoes

 My Macalister tomatoes are fruiting, not as many as I'd hoped for, but it maybe the season perhaps. Here's a look at one starting to get some size to it. I hope I get a few with bags on to save some seed.

My Benches

Well, the benches are now finished, thanks to Jan lacquering the bench tops and me fitting the vice yesterday. I purchased a LED fluorescent light to go over the longest bench, so will get that installed soon.

This is the last photos of them.

Some Spuds to Finish With

Making room in the garden for other things saw some Ruby Lou potatoes dug this morning. I like these boiled with some butter and cracked pepper.

Why Waste Them

 Jan cut off the un-pollinated zucchini's this morning and will cook these to eat. There is nothing wrong with them, so why waste them.

New Additions

Finally got around to making a couple of work benches for the shed. First one was 3.5m x 80cm the second was 1.8m x 80cm, both 90cm high.

These are heavy, but won't need to be moved once tops are sealed.

 

 

 

                                                                                                                              

Garlic Galore

Well, I pulled some of my Garlic this evening, not by solstice or the moon, but because they were ready. I started with three rows of Tasmanian Purple and I'm very pleased with the results. Well over half of those pulled were a great size, with a lot of big globes among them. I have three or four more varieties to do tomorrow and will lay out on the lawn to start the drying process. The bigger bulbs in the Tasmanian Purple measure between 75-80mm, can't ask for more than that.

Bottom two photos show:-

Monaro Red, probably the smaller size bulbs of all pulled so far.

Wilde Pearl, a good mix of sizes medium to large.

In The Garden This Week

 A quick snapshot of a couple of raised garden beds in our garden. Our Zucchini plants and Strawberry plants are doing well at the moment.

Today's Tomato Size.

Macalister - my cross I did last Summer.

 

In The Garden Today

 Not much happening in the garden today, but enough to keep as a memory for down the track. 

Firstly, the Red Onions got pulled, thanks Jan, as they had bolted and we would have lost them if I'd left them in the soil.

 

First up a look at my tomato plants and where I'm at with them. 

Then, I bagged a few more flower trusses, as can never have too many bags on. Looking at this photo you wouldn't think so.

Then a photo showing the curling ribbon I use to mark my trusses I bag.

Bolting Onions

We've had a few of our Red Onions bolting, so first thing was to cut the flowers off. Tomorrow we'll pull the ones that bolted and these will be dried and used first. 

 

No point wasting them.

 

How are yours going?

 

 

 

It Has Arrived

 We got our new Covid Camp Oven today, so now it needs a good hot soapy wash, then it needs to be seasoned, a job Jan will do later in the day.

For those that are not familiar with what I've called it, then the lid should say it all. It's a 12" diameter Camp Oven, so should do everything we want in it.

Waiting on Our New "Covid" Camp Oven

Our new Covid Camp Oven is stuck in the Mail Centre in Melbourne somewhere after being posted a week and a bit ago. We ordered the new 12" oven from Billman's in Castlemaine and have been hopeful of trying it out soon. 

This new oven will make our 4th Camp Oven, having a Metters, a Furphy and a China stamped one, so we're holding out to cook our next roast in the new one, if it ever arrives.

While the oven has been ordered, I have increased some of our pit items, as shown.

Off And Running - Tomatoes

My tomatoes are starting to load up. This is one of my new cross, which I named Macalister after our river here. It's a cross between the red fruited Nicoleta from Romania and Sweet Ozark Orange from USA.

It'll be interesting to see what comes out of the cross, colour wise.

Unpredictable Wind

 We live on the Gippsland Plains, with the mountains visible to our north and it gets windy here mainly over the Spring. It gets windy enough to wreck a vegie garden, including tomato plants and anything else that grows low, like zucchini's.

Two years ago it got so bad we had to go to Bunning's to get star posts so we could put up a shadecloth surround to break the wind. It worked and now we are seen putting up our shadecloth wind break, because we've found it works.

We now have a frame around/over the tomato bed and have enough shadecloth to make a great wind-break around the garden. In the photo below, we have the shadecloth set up for wind, but if it gets hot we can simply open up the existing "wall"and protect from the sun.

Zucchini Cross - Update

As a follow up to previous post.

The year before last my wife crossed a Gold Rush Zucchini with a Jade Numbat Zucchini. For those that aren't familiar with these names, the difference is that one is yellow, the other light green. Last year we grew some seed and from the variations we saw, weren't lucky enough to save seed, so we're trying again this year. Early indicators in the early plant growth show that some plants are going to be different. If you look at the two photos, one plant is showing strong signs of the yellow in it's leaves, while the other is a strong green. Interest will show us if any colour changes in the fruit show up early. A friend who grew these seeds last year got a green fruited plant, while all ours were yellow.

 

Zucchini Cross - Doing Well

 Jan's crossed Zucchini she did are doing well and you can see them growing bigger every day. These are F1 seeds from the season before last, hopefully this time we'll be successful and get seed.

Red Onions & Garlic - Doing Well

 Our Red Onions are really starting to thicken with good sized bottoms and over the next month should fill out nicely. These were ones we bought at the local Nursery when seedlings became in short supply locally during the early part of the Pandemic. We'll grow these again next year as we're very happy with how they've grown.

 

 

Although the bed of Garlic is looking good too.

 

Powering Away

We've just had four cold nights here and the tomato plants are still looking OK. They range in height from 70cm to 90cm and are all bagged ready for a good season, hopefully.

This one I could reach easy to get a photo is 80cm.

 

 

Frosts Next Week

The first tomatoes are forming on the plants at the moment, but the next week will pose a problem here. Over a few mornings next week, our temperatures will drop in the 1C - 5C range and with it we're sure to get one or two frosts here on the Plains. I have a structure over the tomatoes, so they will get a shadecloth cover on the colder nights.