Yes I know, its the 8th of September and all that but I hadn’t done a wrap up post and despite occasional protests to the contrary I am a creature of habit/s (not all of them good….). Before you start reading though I should warn you that not only am I drinking my second glass of wine for the evening but I did spend rather a taxing day in Melbourne’s city centre today. What started as a ‘great idea’- to find as many of the 50 Mali sculptures as possible ended with a slightly manic 2 year old, a whinging 6 year old and two exhausted parents collapsing onto the train whispering ‘never again’. I probably should explain at this point that Mali is an elephant who was born at Melbourne zoo last year(or perhaps the year before). To celebrate the zoo’s 150th anniversary they made 50 life sized baby elephant sculptures and commissioned artists to paint/decorate them. These sculptures are positioned at various locations around Melbourne’s city centre. Whilst finding them is fun, trying to do it at the same time as trying to find shoes for a 6 year old with awkward shaped feet is to be avoided at all costs. We managed 14, my personal favourite being the one in the upper level food court at Melbourne Central, although woollen skinned one in Fed Square ran a very close second.
None of this has anything to with my garden in August though, but I think it probably gives context to the mood of the post if nothing else. Anyway with no further ado here are some photos of signs of Spring, or to look at it another way – photos of my plants bolting:
Silver beet/Swiss Chard
Cavolo Nero/Tuscan Kale
Parsley
As I have chosen to regard all this rushing to flower as a sign of Spring, rather than a crisis, I have forgiven the plants, but as usual I have neglected to sow replacement seed quite early enough…sigh….. To be fair though I should be able to get crops out of all of them for a while yet so all is not lost.
That is especially true when you consider that not only are the blueberries flowering but the Cape Gooseberry seems to have set some fruit:
The other thing doing well in the garden at the moment is the watercress. We have had enough rain to keep it pretty content:
Also doing well, albeit a long way from harvest, is the garlic. These are fatter than my leeks, which is probably as much a reflection on my leeks as anything else, but still this does look promising…
Then there are the broad beans which have recently started to flower, so I am now anxiously anticipating beans in the foreseeable future. Ahhh now that really is something to look forward to.
For me August is something of a transition month, Spring kind of starts here in August to the extent that many winter crops start to bolt (even if the temperatures don’t really warm up until September, and even then not that much – today was about 16 degrees C). Equally August is when I sow many of my summer crops so I have heaps of punnets of seedlings to show you, but that is for another post. For now its bye bye winter, hello Spring!
I love the story about trying to find all 50 Mali sculptures in the same day. That sounds like something I would do with my kids, and then regret thinking of it. The story made me laugh. 🙂
Congratulations that spring is nearly here for you. Fall is nearly here for us, and I am so thankful. It has been a HOT summer.
In retrospect it was fun – albeit exhausting. The funny thing is that in a couple of weeks they’ll all be moved to one place – at the zoo for the 150th birthday so we could have waited and seen them there, having said that though I did quite like seeing them in the city environment which wont be possible once they go to the zoo.
There is a part of me that really envies your heading into spring! I’m sorry to see the early bolting you have with the plants, but they sure do look healthy and bug free!
They are lovely and healthy at the moment (aphids on some of the garlic and the cabbages aside….), I really like that about Spring – the plants really do look glad to be alive which is lovely.
Wonder Woman! Able to write coherent blog posts after a day schlepping kids and after a glass of wine. I would have gone to bed. 🙂
You have inspired me to try to grow watercress this winter. I have a packet of seeds which says I should be sowing them round about now. Maybe you’ve covered this in your blog somewhere, but do you have any tips on growing it? I’m planning on growing it in containers where it will be much easier to monitor the soil moisture.
All your spring bolters are reminding me that I need to get my last garden bed finished so that I can get all those babies planted on time.
Funnily enough I did go to bed not long after hitting ‘publish’….. Re: watercress I don’t do much different to than any other crop aside from watering it a bit more frequently. Whilst it doesn’t need to be in water, it does need regular watering, mainly because it is very shallow rooted I think. It spreads a fair bit. I’ve grown it polystrene fruit boxes before quite successfully and I think you would need something reasonably wide to get a decent crop from it.
The Mali sculptures are a brilliant piece of fun! I must say you did remarkably well with your post if you had two glasses of wine under your belt prior… but then again I guess it depends on the size of the glass… when I have a glass of wine, often it is in a giant ice tea tumbler so a “glass” is closer to the whole bottle! LOL!
I had a lot of bolting this past spring too. Lost all my spring planted turnips and most of the radishes because they all just bolted. I think the weather was just too erratic and stressed them out.
My recently sown radishes have started bolting too – I think you have to get the timing just right…but then as that timing differs from year to year I guess its all about cross your fingers anyway. I need one of your tumblers – it would save the walk to the fridge….
There’s a trail of cat sculptures in York that I always thought would be fun to do. After reading about your experiences, I might just wait until the kids leave home then do the trail by myself! Meantime, while the days get shorter here, I’m going to enjoy the Australian spring through reading your posts.
Now don’t let me put you off your children are probably far more civilised than mine….well more civilised than Mr 2 anyway who is so far from civilisation he makes Timbuktu weem positively suburban.
I may have to avert my eyes when you show your heaps of punnets of seedlings. There could be tears!
I’d been away for a few days for a conference leaving my son in charge of my seedlings (mistake no. 1). As he had left the side up, the dreadful winds we had lifted off the plastic cover and flipped over one of the shelves. To his credit, he rescued what he could and put them back. When I got home, I surveyed the damage – not as bad as I thought. I put the side down and figured that would be that (mistake no. 2).
We subsequently had even worse winds and despite the ‘house’ being secured with 4 heavy duty tent pegs, the whole thing blew over and that was the end of most of my seedlings (and to make matters worse, the greenhouse fell on to a couple of my potato grow bags, snapping off the new growth).
A few seedlings have been saved, though very bent and bruised. But not many. Oh well, back to the drawing board. 🙁
…and I’ve bought more tent pegs, I’m nothing if not determined!
Oh no! I checked mine I don’t know how many times during the recent winds but it stood firm. I did put sandbags on the bottom shelf though which I imagine helped. I really feel for you – how frustrating. On the bright side I guess it is early enough in the season that you still have some sowing time left (or you could of course buy seedlings and be not lose any time at all.) Wish you were closer because I don’t imagine seedlings would withstand the Aussie Post treatment.
Thanks for the commiserations. I WAS feeling a bit sorry for myself, I’ve gotta say! I managed to rescue more than I thought I would. I let them lay out there, uprooted, in all that horrible weather for a couple of days (just to teach them a lesson) and when the weather finally cleared a little yesterday I re-potted what I could and then re-sowed some more. And yeah, there’s always the big green shed!
Oh you make me laugh!! walking(or did you use the free tram) around the city looking for Mali sculptures, goodness no wonder you hit the wine when you got home.
Picture this 2 parents and 5 children (blended family) on a house boat for 5 days !!!!
what were we thinking…………..quite a few bottles of wine and VB were consumed!!!!
Will you leave any of the vegs to seed or will you pull them out for new seedlings?
I have lots of seedlings of Tuscan Kale quite large and ready to plant out if you would like some,(also bunching onions) I am coming to the big smoke during the week so happy to drop off. andrea.nealy@hotmail.com.
I always finding getting on and off the tram with kids is often more of an ordeal that just walking the block or two anyway. Vis a vis the houseboat – complete and utter madness! Its funny how things sound great in theory but the reality is often far more taxing than one imagines… As for the Tuscan Kale – I would love some if you are in or near Coburg. I would hate you to go out of your way though! Incidentally do you think they will go through to next Spring or might they bolt in the next couple of months? I’ve only ever sown it in summer, so past the bolting risk period. RE: bunching onions – I planted out 2 punnets worth today with more just germinating which I am very much hoping will see me through for awhile.
Yay for broadbean flowers! I had a delicious dish at a restaurant on Saturday night with broadbeans in it which made me even more excited for the upcoming season, not long to wait now!
I’ve seen a couple of the Mali’s around town and thought of going on a hunt for them but haven’t got around to it yet, sounds like I need to do it soon though. I loved searching out the huge devil babies at the Melbourne Festival last year. Did you see those?
This is the first I’ve heard of the devil babies – they sound fun though.
I’d have two glasses of wine after a long day like that too. We are in the same kind of transition, but of course we are headed into fall. The summer crops are quickly fading as the fall ones take over.
Ahh, kale florets! Sounds like you earned not only a second glass of wine but the right to put your feet up for the rest of the evening…
Looks like your garden is picking up speed, that cauliflower is gorgeous!