Colour Hunt

Over the last two weeks my days have all started the same; I go outside in a search for colour. Generally I'm disappointed but the last two days have been promising. I've been waiting for all my beautiful green veggies to turn colour so I pick & eat them! I haven't had much produce from the garden beside my green, purple and butter beans and I'm itching for a big bowl of tomatoes!

My grosse lissie tomatoes are all still green, the tigerella tomatoes are almost ready and the pumpkin still has a long way to go.

The Jalapeno and Standard chillies are still green but the capsicum's are starting to turn.

New Years Harvest

2012 has arrived nicely with my first reasonably sized harvest.  I picked some Green & Butter Beans, Spacemaster Cucumber, Costata Zucchini, Strawberries, Yellow Tumbling Tomatoes & Mini Mama Capsicum this morning. I also have my first Wrinkled Butternut Pumpkin forming and some more cucumbers and zucchinis.

Me standing next to the pumpkin ladder.

Summer has arrived

The garden is coming along nicely at the moment with lots of growth and very exciting things happening.

One of the veggie beds that has tomatoes and the mammoth zucchini is going well. The parsley is strong and healthy and I'm trying to grow lemon grass again, hopefully it will go better this year then in past years.  

The rocket plants are getting bigger and I have my first zucchini flower! The Pumpkin is going better since I feed it with a top dressing of aged manure.

The Spacemaster cucumber has the beginnings of fruit on them. The lemon and lime trees all have healthy buds on them and the beans are flowering.

The mint I planted in the garden is starting to spread out just like I wanted and the chocolate mint in a re-purposed cooking pot is doing well. The mini mama capsicums and jalapeno chilli are strong and healthy but neither have turned red yet.

Summer's almost here!

It felt like summer had already arrived yesterday with the sun shiny brightly and I got burnt for the first time this year! The garden is shaping up nicely with almost all of the summer veggies in with a little more space for more.

The garden is looking good with the big veggie bed exploding with red & baby cos lettuce, spinach and parsley.

Unfortunately the majority of my tomato seedlings went yellow and died, but I did manage to save the Tigerella and San Marzano seedlings and they're now in the ground. I bought some more tomatoes to fill the space where my seedlings should have gone; all up I've planted 10 tomato plants: 7 in the veggie beds and 3 in tubs. The tomatoes that are in the ground now are:
Cherry Varieties: Beams Yellow Pear, Wapsipinicon Peach, Tomatoberry, Sweetbite and Tumbling Yellow (which only grows to 40cm tall the tomatoes 'tumble' off the plant)
Standard Varieties: Tigerella, San Marzano, Grosse Lisse and Apollo

Out of the seedlings I stared earlier in the year I've planted out the wrinkled butternut pumpkin, spacemaster cucumber, costata zucchini, lemon basil, sweet basil, Thai basil and wild rocket. 

Wheel Barrow with nasturtiums and marigolds in flower, the pumpkin ladder and costata zucchini seedlings

I've also planted a  fire chilli (left), sweet mama capsicum (middle), mini mama capsicum (right) as well as a  jalapeno chilli and.sweet chocolate capsicum,

Progress Report

Everything has taken off with the warmer weather over the last few weeks so I thought I'd share some progress pictures. The pumpkins, basil, eggplant and tomatoes have all sprouted their first true set of leaves. Yesterday I transplanted the tomatoes into bigger containers and the sticky fly trap I put up has caught lots of flies! Unfortunately only 6 of my marigolds have survived a bug attack which is disappointing.

The wheel barrow is slowly bulking up; the nasturtiums are growing well, the Brahmi is creeping out and the thyme is flowering. The hellebore's and violets I planted recently are settling in well; and the lavender that I didn't think was going to survive is now in flower which is good to see. 

The Shallots are getting bigger and strong and have warded off an aphid attack very well. The Potatoes have grown to the top of the bags and are growing tall and strong. 

Last week I planted out the big veggie bed with the first lettuce, spinach and parsley that I've grown from seed. I also planted some red cos and marigolds with them that I bought. There are also lots of green strawberries on the newer strawberry plants. 

Seed Progress

It's almost been two week since I started all my seeds and half of them are already up and growing.  I do have mold growing on the outside of the peat pots and the pots made out of news paper which is a bit concerning. All the Tomato seedlings have sprouted as well as the pumpkin, marigolds, nasturtiums, chamomile and rocket. The eggplant, capsicum, lemon balm, malabar spinach, tomatillo and basil are yet to sprout.

My first set of successful seedlings!

The seedling set up in the garage. 

Seed Starting

Spring is officially here! The long awaited September has finally rolled in and I've gotten straight to work on starting my seeds. I decided to try and start all of my summer veggies from seed this year as it's much cheaper. I've read plenty of books on how to successfully start seeds and I've almost perfected the art with lettuce and spinach seeds over the winter. Fingers crossed all goes well!

Here is a list of the seeds I've started in the garage under fluro lights:

• Basil: Sweet, Thai & Lemon.
• Chinese Giant Capsicum
• Eggplant; Listada Di Gandia
• Wrinkled Butternut Pumpkin
• Cherry Tomato: Cherry Roma, Brown Berry & Yellow Pear
• Standard Tomato: Tigerella, San Marzano
• Purple Tomatillo

 These are the seeds I started in the green house outside:

• Wild Rocket 
• Malabar Spinach
• Nasturtium
• Lemon Balm
• German Chamomile
• Marigold: Citrus mix & Red marietta