3rd February Garden Photo Tour

This is the time of year of rampant growth, flourishing critter populations (for better or worse), and lots of harvesting. A month ago I posted pics of my garden - the difference between those and these pics is amazing!

The pumpkin/zucchini/watermelon patch which was tiny a month ago is now a veritable sea of green, with lots of flowers and small developing fruits. On Jan 24th, I extended the area by adding carpets that we removed from our house and some extra black plastic in one corner, to keep down/kill off more grass and weeds, to give me a bigger area to develop into new gardens after the squash etc are finished. The plants have almost entirely covered all that as well as their original patch.

Clearly, I was overly optimistic when I planned to keep the two rows of pumpkins turned away from the row of watermelon and zucchini in the middle! Still working on it, but it's getting harder and harder to get in there to do so. 

The three zucchini plants in this patch are now huge, and have started producing. I picked this washing basketful yesterday from them and the two plants in my greenhouse. I gave some away, kept some for fresh eating, and dried the rest to make zucchini flour - more on that in another post.

In the last few days I've gotten nets up on my Damson plum (which will be ready to harvest soon) and over my grapevine (after giving it a summer prune), to protect the crops from the birds. After these photos were taken, I also netted my dwarf double pear tree. I do have another grapevine I leave unnetted, so the birds are welcome to feed from that - but they're supposed to stay away from my covered ones! Every year there are some Houdini's that get in, so we'll see how we go this time.

This garden bed has flowers at one end, a self-sown choko on the edge of the middle section which has some shallots to harvest and then I'm going to give a make-over to, and marshmellow with beetroot and kohl rabi at the other. The pots have some potatoes that I just want to keep perpetuating for now. 

A Yellow Admiral butterfly was visiting my Zinnias. 3rd Feb is also the first day I have seen any honeybees in my garden this season. They're now visiting the squash flowers and white clover in the lawn, among other things. Yay!

In this half of my greenhouse I've weedeatered, laid down cardboard, covered it in a couple of inches of compost, and topped off with woodchip from our trees that were pruned last winter, then watered it. I'm just going to let that sit for a while. The zucchini in the corner was already there - it was looking quite pale-leafed and sad compared to it's neighbour; I was tempted to pull it out but decided to lift it a wee bit, put down the compost etc, not under or around it per se (as the compost was very fresh and not safe to put on plants yet), but up to the edge of it's outer leaves. Within a few days it perked right up and the leaves have darkened to where it looks like the healthy one next to it, and is once again producing well. On the right, is a choko in a pot which is growing up a trellis that extends across the roof. I haven't grown one indoors before - it's partly an experiment to see how much I can extend it's season (outdoors they are killed off by the first decent frost). 

The cucumber (pic taken just before I watered it, so looking a wee bit droopy - it's 30 degrees in the shade, and more in the greenhouse!) is producing well. The capsicum next to it has lots of fruit. 

Russian Red tomato - less vigorous than the Moneymaker I usually grow, I have not taken off laterals etc, just lifted and loosely tied those that start to sprawl in my way. Have been steadily picking off it for the last month. 

A couple of weeks ago I sowed a lot of seed - lots are coming up. A few aren't though - either it's too hot in the greenhouse for them, or I need to ditch some of my older seed and get fresh. Top shelf is all plants started from cuttings which I need to plant out, plus two apple cucumbers a friend found for me after I mentioned I was looking for another cucumber seedling to plant. 

Out to my front garden now. These Russian Silvery Fir tomatoes were planted as small seedlings on 1st Jan, under micromesh. They're doing wonderfully, as are the leaf lettuces planted along both sides (there's parsley hidden down the middle, but it's completely overshadowed now). Lettuces planted in a neighbouring bed, partly shaded but without mesh, are struggling considerably compared to those under the mesh. We, like much of the country, had a week of extremely high winds and storms; these tomatoes can be quite fussy and delicate, but they took the storms completely in their stride, thanks to the mesh. It's the only way I grow this variety now.

My broccoli is still steadily producing lots of side shoots (pic taken just after I'd done another picking). In all honesty, I'm suffering from what one might call "broccoli fatigue"  - I just don't feel much like eating it any more so am giving most of it away (also have plenty in the freezer). I may pull the plants out soon, but I don't need the space just yet for anything else, and they're providing for others, along with the kale, so they can continue for a while. White butterfly are around now, but not causing any more than minor issues - the rampant nasturtium I have elsewhere keeps them somewhat distracted, and the predatory insects I encourage keep them mostly under control, assisted by birds which I often see hopping around under the plants picking off any bugs.

Now this bed is empty of garlic, I plan to remove it, spread the compost in it out, and add a couple new rows of beds in here, no dig style. This end of the front garden is the only part that gets enough sun in winter for crops - where the kale and brocc is in the next space gets partial sun, and the rest of it is nearly fully shaded. So I'm planning to plant some winter crops in what will be the new beds here.

None of the beans I sowed along the trellis came up, but the corn seedlings I popped in behind are going strong, as are the marigolds I put along the front. A few volunteer radishes need picking too. Behind it is a weedy area that I'm leaving for now, as the flowers and things there are attracting various beneficial critters. 

This end bed is doing fine, with a mix of celery, leaf lettuce, spring onions, broccoli and perpetual spinach.

I want to get back into composting on as large a scale as I can manage. I had one of those tall, square plastic compost bins given to us, with three layers inside. Frustrating thing. So I pulled it apart and laid it's sides on their edges, with a little help form some rebar stakes, to create this temporary bin to get started with. Ultimately I want twice that depth, and about four times the surface area in various bins, likely made out of pallets once I acquire some new ones, or similar.

There has also been quite a lot of preserving to do this past month; I bottled apple with a light honey solution, made this batch of Harvest Sauce, did a big batch of pasta sauce, and when I took some kale to my neighbour's chickens, she sent me home with an armload of cucumbers, so I could do some of my favourite pickles.

It's been a month of extremes - from wind storms to cool 4.9C nights, to 31 degrees-in-the-shade days. I'm just hoping the "summer" lasts long enough for me to have mature pumpkins and Silvery Fir tomatoes!