August – The Wrap Up

Posted on September 3, 2011 by Liz

I could use this post to show some more gratuitous tomato seedling shots, but I wont……………………………………………………………………………………well perhaps just one.

I quite enjoyed August when all is said and planted.  I think this is more to do with the comparatively mild weather than anything else, well that and the stunning development of my tomato seedlings………..oh god I’m starting to bore myself……

I did have a really productive August.  I sowed all my Spring seed, potted up my chillies from last year, planted spuds and generally got my garden organised (now if only I could say the same about my houses interior)….. I also ate a lot of cauliflower.

Here is one of the chillies I have just potted up after nursing (well, left it in the pot to see what happened) it through winter.  I pruned this one at the start of July and it has good new growth on it and flower buds – it will be interesting to see when it sets chillies.

Earlier in the month I posted about a silver beet plant that I thought was bolting – it was and I nipped out the bolting stem – this is what happened: Lots of new leaves  – all smaller than they look in this picture – all surrounding what look like other potential flower stems.  I  think I will continue to nip out the bolting bits and keep going.  Meanwhile I have sowed some new seed.

Aside from the aforementioned cauliflower and my watercress which just keeps growing my most productive plant this month was parsley.  I love parsley, I am passionate about parsley, not quite as much as about tomatoes, but its close!  I especially like this parsley which is happily growing away in a part of the garden which has been in total shade all winter and there it is producing happily.  YAY for parsley!  Note: if you look carefully at this photo you will see a sandpit in the background.  This sandpit is a new addition to our garden.  We cleverly located it right next to the backdoor thus ensuring I am never bored – there’s always a constant supply of sand to sweep out of our living room……Note to self: Next time engage brain then build….

Onwards to September and the start of the purple sprouting broccoli.  I seem to be harvesting a brassica a month at the moment.

To see my gardening activity this month click here: August 2011

 

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Growing Tomatoes in Melbourne – Part 1

Posted on August 31, 2011 by Liz

As you will have no doubt noticed this blog is called Suburban Tomato, but unless you read my “about” page (pretty recently if your memory is anything like mine…) you wont necessarily know why.  Well this is why:

Tomatoes are pretty much my favourite food and were the initial motivation behind establishing a kitchen garden.  I simply wanted to grow great tasting tomatoes to cook and eat.  Things mushroomed from there to incorporate other vegetables and herbs but I am still looking for that perfect tomato.  It needs to be one that: grows well in partial shade, resists disease, the birds don’t eat, doesn’t fruit all in one go, fruits no matter how hot or cold the summer is and most of all tastes delicious.  In short; the perfect tomato for my part of suburbia.  Impossible?  The thing I love about gardening is that each year brings a new chance to find out.

This year I am concentrating on growing cherry and small tomatoes.  This is partially because the kids seem to prefer them and partially because they are perfect for the salads I intend to eat all summer (plants and weather willing of course…).  The varieties I am growing this year are:

Small or cherry:

  • Tommy Toe
  • Yellow Boy
  • Sweet F1 Hybrid
  • Baby Red Pear
  • Broad Ripple Currant

Plus a trio of larger varieties:

  • Black Krim
  • Rouge de Marmande
  • Yugoslav

This represents their progress so far.

      • 21st July 2011 – Seed sown and seed tray kept in the laundry for warmth.
      • 3rd August 2011 – First to germinate was Sweet F1 Hybrid.  I move the seed trays outside the day I notice them germinating otherwise the plants become way too leggy as I don’t have a well lit windowsill for them.  They live in a small plastic covered seed tray when outside.
      • 4th August 2011 – Black Krim & Yellow Boy germinate.
      • 5th August 2011 – Baby Red Pear germinates.
      • 6th August 2011 – Rouge de Marmande & Tommy Toe seedlings emerge.
  • 7th August 2011 – just seed leaves:

17th August 2011 – Getting Bigger

21st August 2011 – Starting to get true leaves so I give them a dose of liquid fertiliser.

29th August 2011 – Ready to be potted up.

    • 29th August 2011 – I pot up the seedlings into 10cm herb pots.

I think these should be ready for planting out in October which I think is about right for my part of Melbourne, but having said that I’ve planted out tomato seedlings as early as August and as late as December before and had good outcomes.

I seem to be taking more care with my tomatoes this year – perhaps having decided not to have any more children (I have two) I feel a need to give that maternal thing one last outing.  This time with a neater, quieter, cleaner, cheaper, etc etc etc baby.  But I worry as though they’re a child, are they warm enough, have they enough to eat, is their growth rate appropriate, am I over or under feeding them, they’re not sick are they… and so it goes on.  Hmmm I wonder if I can get them clean up after themselves….actually I know that they wont as the detritus of last years crop can still be found around my stakes.  A job for the weekend perhaps.

 

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Monday Harvest – 29th August 2011

Posted on August 29, 2011 by Liz

I’m afraid that my harvest this week is meagre, or to be more accurate my photo’s of harvest are meagre.  This week I used quite a lot of parsley but failed to photograph it.  Ate quite a lot of watercress but failed to photograph it.  Made a few batches of stock – celery, carrots, thyme, bay leaves, and more parsley but failed to photograph them.  Well what did I photograph?  This:

Yes more silver beet!  This lot I braised and served with some chicken cooked with lemon and sage.  Very nice it was too.

I also photographed this:

Which topped off a noodle stir fry served with salmon in a soy and ginger sauce.  Really good.

Now I know this last item is not really a harvest but I was cleaning out my cupboard when I found it right at the back – so at a push you could say I harvested it from the cupboard.  Who knows how long its been there but I think now the only sensible option would be to plant it and see what happens…… or perhaps photograph it from a few more angles cos it does look really cool and frankly I suspect Melbourne’s climate is not really suited to growing sweet potatoes…..

For other Monday Harvests visit Daphne Dandelions.

 

 

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Pests & Annoyances – 3

Posted on August 23, 2011 by Liz

Today I bring you 3 garden annoyances – I will try not to whinge too much!

Annoyance 1 – Rodents????

There’s something eating my broccoli plants.  I recently planted out 3 nice broccoli seedlings and this is what happened to them:

 

Since I took these shots the remaining leaves have been nibbled off.  The same thing happened last Spring to the broccoli and during Summer to my young passionfruit vine.

The leaves disappear, presumably they are being eaten and I think I can discern toothmarks on the stems leaving me to suspect either rats or mice.   But if anyone has other ideas I would be grateful.  If it is rodents then I am in a bit of a quandary over what to do.  If you read most gardening books they have a really nasty habit of skirting round the issue of rodents in the garden and beyond poisoning (which is not an option due to a roaming toddler) offer little in the way of real advice.  The organic guides are particularly bad in this respect.  101 different treatments for powdery mildew but no one seems to have come up with a way of keeping mice at bay.  Ideas would be marvellous!

Annoyance 2: My own stupidity

Now anyone who read my post on horseradish will know that I cleverly ignored all advice and planted it direct into the garden.  Now guess what is happening – horseradish shoots are appearing  everywhere…..well not actually everywhere but inconveniently next to other plants that I don’t want to dig up in order to remove the roots I missed when harvesting.  I think I’m going to have to (look away now if you are totally organic…..)……………. poison it, unless I can think of another option.

Annoyance 3 – Dilemmas

My next door neighbours have two beautiful eucalypts growing right up against our adjoining fence.  The trees are lovely but are getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger.

It has got to the point where my garden gets no sun at all after 2 in the afternoon which frankly is upsetting my veggies (and also my washing which often refuses to dry in protest).  As you can see one of the trees is also growing at quite a jaunty angle and as a risk adverse mother of young children it does have the tendency to cause me to have 3am anxiety attacks and visions of flattened toddlers.  My neighbour has found a man who can who has agreed to remove the jaunty angle tree after Ramadan (YAY – roll on Eid!) but she wants to keep the other tree.  Now this remaining tree is a Manna Gum which is a variety that grows very very large and has the tendency to drop limbs, but does provide habitat for all sorts of desirable creatures.  My dilemma is how much to push for its removal.  Does my desire for the perfect tomato outweigh the rainbow lorikeets need for a place to rest his feet?  Which does the world need more: low food mile veggies or birds in the city?  Does the answer to that change if you know that my neighbour also has two very large trees (a eucalypt and a casurina) in her front garden and my front garden is all wattlebird friendly natives?

Kermit had it right -“its not easy being green”….

 

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Monday Harvest – 22nd August 2011

Posted on August 22, 2011 by Liz

In Melbourne its almost getting to that time when the winter crops start to run out and the spring and summer ones are yet to start.  Luckily I still have watercress to go with my Pumpkin & Feta Filo.

Broccoli, Lettuce and Chillies made up a mid week harvest.  The broccoli we ate with fish, the chillies in the next nights curry and the lettuce was for a 4 year old who likes to pretend shes a rabbit.

Along with the chillies the Chicken Saag  also used silver beet.

By the end of the week it was time for more watercress salad.

The forecast is for a warm week this week so I am busy feverishly sowing all my spring and summer crops – what a different a bit of sun makes – everything seems to be suddenly growing so quickly.  Such an exciting time of the year!

For more Monday Harvests visit Daphne’s Dandelions.

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