Shallots

This week I pulled up the shallots that I planted back in June. I lost one third of them to aphids that I tried to get rid of with water jets, soap spray and tomato leaf spray; but nothing helped. I'm very happy with the harvest I got from the rest of them though. I originally planted 10 white shallots and 10 red shallots and I've now got 40 in total! It could have been bigger but doubling my original output is still pretty good.

I wasn't entirely sure when I was supposed to harvest them as I read two conflicting times; before flowering and after the leaves had died and dried up. Half of them were about to flower and none of them looked like drying up any time soon. After pondering for 2 days I decided to pull them up even though the leaves hadn't dried up. They've been in the garage for a week now; and they look fine so I think I did the right thing.

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,

Pray Mantis

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. 

Crystal Beauty Red Fringed Tulips

My Red Fringed Tulips from Tesselaar have poped up in the last week and they are beautiful! Last year my tulips got attacked by aphids and I didn't see any, but I've kept a close eye on them this year and no aphids so far!

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. 

Progress Report

Here's a look at how the gardens going at the moment:

The over grown dwarf snow peas are slowly coming to an end; they got badly bashed around in the last storm we had. The potatoes have sprouted through and the wheel barrow has been planted up with edible flowers and herbs.

The hyacinths are long gone, but the tulips are just popping up.

 The red and brown shallots have all sprouted and are looking healthy so far. Unfortunately all my garlic has failed to thrive, gone limp and is now dying. This was such a blow to me because mum said garlic was fool proof!

The collection of mint living in the re-purposed cookware is thriving minus a small scale attack. There's common mint, apple mint, Vietnamese, spearmint and after dinner mint. Also the strawberry plants that I planted in May now have the biggest strawberries I've grown thus far.

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