Monday, June 27, 2011

June in the vegie patch

Beautiful sunny winter's day today, would have stayed outside all day but the small sniffly one wanted some warmth and rest.  Some pics of the garden.

Green manure bed. Sown in march, dug in in May an redug in. Might mulch with some straw to keep improving soil in wait for Spring.  Looks downright dowdy at present.











Green manure sown in May, growing well. Peas, oats vetch Autumn mix.  Abi likes to pick the pea leaves and eat them. All peas got a sprinkle of ash from the fire place last night.

















Expanded patch, has peas growing up old corn and self sown silverbeet, rocket and celery.  Will clear for pumpkins, melons and cucumber come spring.













Mix of peas, broccolli, spinach and onions.  A little shady at times so things have been a bit slow but they are getting there.











Got the great pea trellis from the annual fire brigade fair.













Chillies aren't liking the frost.  Read about turning them into chilli oil last night and ended up getting worried about botulism.  Might try to dry some then add to oil.










Getting the odd broad bean which Abi devours with relish.  Lovely to open those soft velvety pods.  These beans have been giving us produce since summer when they emerged from seeds left from a previous crop.  They are so tough, I transplanted them and they have been hit with aphids and rust yet they are still putting on a burst of new growth.


















Lemons are trying to form fruits, need to find the Epsom salts as I think they have magnesium deficiency, blotchy yellow leaves. They have already had a dose of citrus food and are doing well since being rescued from an unwanted home.















The herb bed.
The rosemary is flowering whilst the chives have disappeared for the winter.  Plenty of parsley, oregano and marjoram.










Bed filled with weedy perennial leeks and rocket, not a bad problem to have.  Think I might put some potatoes here soon.












The carrot and beetroot patch.  Mix of seed sown and seedling carrots and beetroots.  Should be an interesting experiment.  Lesson in impatience here - I rushed out and bought seedlings as I thought my seeds weren't going to emerge due to the cold, they are now popping up with the weeds all over the bed.






Potatoes that have not died back from the late summer crop.











Potato harvest - found whilst digging bed for leeks, some are sprouting but some good roasters here.









Rocket in flower

















Beautiful silverbeet, made a lovely lasagna with ricotta and lots of silverbeet last week. Comes up everywhere.







Lemon or french sorrel, good winter salad filler but much neglected plant in the vegie patch.










Garlic, garlic and more garlic. Also small crop of salad that isn't affected by frost here. Garlic planted by the wonderful vegie ladies who were a little over it by the end.  Tried the planting under the fruit tree technique last year and it worked beautifully. Plentiful large cloved garlic which I'm still eating. Caring for the garlic means that I take better care of the fruit tree.  These are under the greengage plum, will harvest in garlic in December, plums in February.  Bag of chook poo waiting to go on top and also have some straw to keep the weeds down.


Broccoli growing next to the quince.











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