Suburban Tomato

There are some things that I really struggle to grow.  Things that are generally regarded as easy, things that are kitchen garden staples and yet I often fail dismally to produce reasonable specimens.  Then there are the things that simply aren’t worth growing, the things that take too long, are too hard, or are too susceptible to pests to really bother with.  This is my Top 5 this week.  The things that I have given up on growing (until you convince me otherwise), the things that I’m just not sure I can be bothered struggling with anymore.

1. Carrots – Does anyone grow good carrots in Melbourne?  If so when and which varieties?  My family eats a lot of carrots – about 2kg a week – so even if I managed to find a decent variety I would have to devote the whole garden to them to keep up supply anyway and frankly I’m not quite willing to do that, not when there are easier and more exciting things to grow.

Personally I have two basic problems with growing carrots:

1. Getting them past small seedling stage – either they get eaten, dug up by blackbirds, smothered by other faster growing plants or I simply forget I’ve sown them and walk all over the part of the bed I put them in.

2. I can’t seem to grow ones that taste better than shop bought.  I’m not sure whether this second issue is a product of not enough sun throughout the day, a relatively mild climate or simply varietal selection but I just can’t seem to grow really yummy carrrots.

2. Peas – I have had two disasterous years in a row with peas.  Don’t get me wrong, I like peas and would love to grow them well but for the last two years my seeds have germinated and then growth has stalled.   I think that this is in part because they keep getting eaten by slugs & snails but I think there’s more to it than that.  I have been sowing out of date seed – perhaps some new seed would resolve this particular issue.  Even once I do get them going though I’m never going to be able to grow as many as we eat although I do value having a few fresh to supplement the bags of frozen ones.

I will keep growing sweet peas – I seem to be able manage them:

3. Leeks –  is there any vegetable that grows slower than a leek.  If so I really do not want to meet it.  For my current crop I sowed leek seed in January and they are still less than a cm in diameter – in fact many would struggle to be half that.  Once again this may be a lack of sun issue but even in partial shade surely they should be a bit bigger than this.  Even these that I grew last year took over 6 months to reach a semi decent size – still not that big as you can see when you compare them to that worm.

4. Melons –  I have tried growing melons a few times but without success.  My general feeling is that I need more room, more sun, and more warmth to grow then really well and successfully.  Once again maybe I’m wrong and I chose the wrong varieties.  I have tried both watermelon and canteloupe but in both instances I used seed from a Queensland supplier, maybe I should have chosen something closer to home?  Is it really worth persisting with Melon?

5. Coriander in any season other than winter – I have written on my battles with coriander previously, in fact I’ve devoted whole posts to my battles with this lovely but petulant herb.  In a nutshell though unless its winter it seems to be pretty pointless bothering with in Melbourne, it bolts just too quickly and isn’t even good for seed as the plants are too small when they bolt to produce anything useful in that respect.  For me now is the time to be growing it and for once its coming along nicely.

Now I like to think of myself as an optimistic person (with pesimistic undertones on the odd occasion) and yet I’ve written a post full of negatives.  So now what I need is for you all to convince me that I’m wrong to abandon these Fruit, Veggies, and herbs and to share your successes with them with me.  Of course if you can’t convince me then that just leaves room for more tomatoes and there’s nothing negative in that!

And once you’ve finished here then head over to The New Good Life and check out what she has come up with this week.  Or indeed enjoy Garden Glut’s Top 5 Garden Friends , a post that I just realised that I completely forgot to link to when whe wrote it a couple of weeks back.  A thousand apologies!

I had a lovely email this week from a person who lives in the Western suburbs of Melbourne and who is contemplating writing a blog.  They are aiming for backyard self sufficiency and want to chart their progress in blog form.  Anyway I replied that I would love to read about it.  The email also got me thinking about why I really enjoy blogging, particularly about gardening and these are the reasons I came up with:

1. Readers – I have to say I do get a kick out of the fact that people read my blog.  Whilst I’m sure there are bigger blogs, more widely read blogs, blogs with a higher numbers of page views and visitors that doesn’t detract from the fact that there are some people who read this blog regularly and I really value that.
2. Comments– I love comments, with the exception of spam of course.  Isn’t spam silly?  I would just like to say to all you spammers out there: I’m really glad you appreciate my “wonderful task on this subject”, I’m glad your cousin loved it, and that you think its “awesome” but I still don’t want to check out your website, especially if its called sexdate, nor buy real estate in Texas, or a Gucci anything and I don’t currently have a yeast infection, but thanks for your interest.  Apologies for the digression what I really meant to say is that I have learnt heaps from the suggestions people have made in the comments section.  Real people that is, not spammers.  From cooking ideas to gardening tips the information is great and reason enough to blog in itself.
3. Reading other people’s blogs – Now I would have put this as number 1 except that you can do it without writing your own.  I do find though that in writing my own I am more likely to read other people’s more often.  Its hard to say exactly why this is, maybe its because reading what other people are up to doesn’t just expand my knowledge base it is also a pivotal part of belonging to the blogging community.  Regardless though I can’t tell you how much I’ve learnt through reading blogs and how much of that knowledge I’ve already successfully applied.
4. The blogging format–  I think that the diary format of blogging lends itself to garden writing possibly more than any other subject area.  The nature of gardening means that the time of year is important.  Knowing what I harvested at the start of June last year is really helpful in understanding how the garden works, and how to maximise production in the space I have.  In a nutshell a blog is a great record of when I plant and harvest.
5. Taking photos – Writing a blog gives me a great excuse to take a very large number of photos of vegetables which I am ridiculously fond of doing.  Here are some now:

And those are my favourite things about blogging.  What are yours?

At the time I published this The New Goodlife had yet to put a a Top 5 post – head over and check whether she has yet.