The New Strawberry Garden Bed - Completed

We finished the new garden bed today after the horse lady bought us 8 bags of horse manure. Once the horse manure was down, I added about 10lt of Dynamic Lifter over the horse manure. I took the top 10cm of soil off my big garden bed which had overfilled in the last couple of years, so all the soil on top of this bed has been manured with cow manure and contains a lot of sugarcane mulch we had for the tomato crop, which hadn't all decomposed.

 

Jan moved one of her worm towers and the worms in close proximity and set it up in this bed, in the hope they will travel through the layer of horse manure and populate this bed.

 

 

Like sprinkles on a birthday cake, a final sprinkle of Horticulture Charcoal which will get turned in at some point.

 

Here are a couple of photos from today.

 

 

 

 

 

What's Growing in The Garden

A look at what's growing in the garden at the moment. Garlic, Peas starting to emerge, Silverbeet with peas in the background, plus some Strawberry runners on umbilicals doing good.

The Garlic is doing OK while the bed with two rows of peas are emerging and looking good. The Silverbeet is almost big enough to start harvesting.

Strawberry Bed - Progress

A couple of photos from what will be a strawberry bed. The first photo show digging into the native clay loam soil to improve drainage at a later date, while the second photo shows what you can find digging in our yard. (remnants from a previous wreckers yard)

 

 

New Strawberry Raised Bed - Under Construction

 We like our Strawberries here when in season, so why not increase our capacity to grow them and make a new raised garden bed, purposely for them, so I put the plan in motion today. I had enough room in front of the hothouse to fit a bed 1.8m wide X 2.2m long, so a trip to Bunnings and I was on my way.

No need to concrete it to the ground, so by the time dinner was ready, I was almost finished, with just a few brackets to square the frame and then think about filling it with soil.

Here's what it looks like, 400mm or two sleepers high.

Peas & Parsnip Seed Sown

This week I've planted two rows X 3.6m long of Greenfeast Green Peas, plus a row X 3.6m of Hollow Crown Parsnips. Rather than have a garden bed empty over Winter, we may as well be growing something edible.

Our Best Openings Yet - Saffron Crocus

 In the photo below are some of the 11 Saffron Crocus flowers that will open today, our best ever openings and something we didn't expect to see.

This will make 27 flowers to date.

Saffron Crocus doing fine

 Our bed with Saffron Crocus in it is doing OK albeit very slow this year for some reason. The plants are clumping this year, with about 6X plants per clump, so the first three clumps have given us over 12 flowers to date. The slower growth this season will mean the plants stay longer and will also flower over a longer period.

Once the plants die back, we'll lift the Corms and replant the bed, so that the whole bed is full instead of just the middle.

Garlic is Up.

Well, my Garlic is starting to look like I'll get a full bed as planted. The rain is helping and well over half the crop are up, with Purple Stripe (top photo) well ahead of the other two varieties.

New Worm Towers

Jan is making a couple of moveable Worm Towers for her raised garden beds. These will feed the garden worms over Winter when they're less active. These will start off in the Saffron bed, then move to the Strawberries.

 

Today the towers were given some soaked Rolled Oats, which will show us if the worms are interested in using them. 

 

Garlic Coming Up.

When growing Garlic, it's always good to see the new shoots coming up in the garden bed. These are some I planted recently.

 

 

First Flower 2021

 Today we expect our first flower to open on our Saffron Crocus. We managed to get a few pop up earlier than the main bed for some reason.

Below are what we harvested from our first Saffron flower this morning, they are known for their orange-red stigmas, so this is what they look like. These need to dry now before being stored in an airtight jar.

Sprouting Garlic

Prior to planting my Garlic this year I placed it on a new bench in my shed, not knowing that a screw in the roof was leaking. The end result was that water dripped into the ice-cream container of seed garlic. When it came to planting, about 6 corms had sprouted roots, so I planted them as normal as I didn't have much of the variety (Purple Stripe).

 

When I watered the garden bed this morning, I noticed shoots showing from these few cloves.

 

 

Planting Your Garlic

Planting Garlic.

With your garden bed ready to plant, it's just a matter of sowing the seed along a line to distinguish the row when planted. Simply grab a clove (already separated) planting with the pointy end up/flat end down and away you go. Space your cloves as you go, then once the row is done, cover the garlic with soil. Two fingers spread over the row will allow soil to cover the row quickly.

 

 

 

Getting The Most From Your Zucchini's

Getting the most from your Zucchini plants. As mentioned earlier we still have three zucchini plants left with fruit growing on them. Here's a way to prolong the life of a plant, just by simply removing old spent leaves. In this video you will see the new fruit on the plant, then look at the stalky stem of the plant to see how it got this way. These plants went into the ground on 16 September as seedlings, so after 181 days as of today, they are still going.

Saffron Shooting

 It's March and the Saffron Crocus we have growing in a dedicated bed, is now shooting. Two years ago we planted 35 corms and we managed 35 flowers last year, with some multiple flowers in the many shoots that grew.

Today there are five plants that are up, with a few having up to 6 shoots, meaning the corms we put in back in 2019 have multiplied nicely.

More to come on these plants when we get more plants showing.

Garlic Now Planted

 Well it's getting close to Garlic Season, so with the garden bed prepared, I planted out three X 3.6m rows on March 13th just prior to 13mm of rain, then another two rows the next morning. Three rows of Monaro Red, one row of Tasmanian Purple and one row of Purple Stripe, all three varieties belong to the Turban family.

Now for the wait to see what the germination is like and how well the seedlings look once up. We've settled on just the three varieties this year, as there is no Meeniyan Garlic Festival this year to get different seed varieties, we're more than happy with what we've now sown.

Soon Be Garlic Planting Time

Out of boredom, I spent some time sorting a few Garlic globes and pulled them apart for individual cloves ready to plant. I have Purple Stripe, Monaro Red and Tasmanian Purple. I'm still 4 weeks or more away from planting, but a job that needed doing.

Garlic Update

 All the Garlic has dried enough to start dehydrating as flakes, so by the time this post goes up, there won't be a lot left. Here's what our season looks like as far as picked garlic globes goes.

 

 

                                                                                      Purple Stripe.

 

                                                                                      Tasmanian Purple

 

                                                                                       Wilde Pearl

 

                                                                                       Monaro Red

 

                                                                                       An 80mm diameter Garlic (Purple Stripe)

Zucchini Cross Photos

This is a bit long winded with photos of over mature Zucchini fruits being saved for seed, but I'm trying to work out which pattern fruit people like the most, well enough to make you grow it.

 

There are 9 fruits shown (1-9) and taking into account, they have darkened in colour because of their age, the patterning if they have it will make it easy, although there is also some ribbing on some of them.

 

Would you grow a plain yellow or one with stripes, assuming they all are all similar tasting, a patterned or ribbed and patterned. These Zucchini's are what Jan crossed last year, between a yellow fruited plant and a green fruited plant.

 

 

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.