Fat Fruit in the Greenhouse

Well the veggie garden at Hazel's is still looking a bit sad.  But the plants in the greenhouse are more than making up for it.  Check these out!  They don't call it a Fat Fruit Greenhouse for nothing!

Jack ...again

I know I have made reference to Jack, of Jack and the Beanstalk fame, before.  But I can't not mention him again...because I think I must have planted some of his magic beans.

I was very proud, when I constructed a three-metre tall pentapod (it has five legs), for the climbing beans to scale. What I forgot in the design, was that I would never be able to reach the beans at the top.

The photo below was taken at full stretch,

with the camera above my head.

Do you think those beans 

are laughing at me?

Maybe next year I will plant the beans earlier,

drape some tinsel and stick on a star.

I could enter Veggiegobbler's, Christmas Branch Party.

UP!

No, not The Movie...the beans!

The beans on my 2 metre tall teepee made from fallen branches

are almost to the top and are beginning to produce.

Have you ever noticed that climbing things 

always seem to twine in an anti-clockwise direction?

This year I have the usual black eggplants growing,

and a white one and this long one.

I thought this one was worth a photo 

because it is twins from one flower.

Is this unusual?

I told it to smile for a second photo

but it gave me the two-finger salute...

or maybe it was just pleased with the attention.

Colourful start to 2012

The new year promises to be 

Colour co-ordinated!

The Aztecs

I began this post,

then thought of our own dear departed

Billy Thorpe and The Aztecs.

OK! so I am showing my age!

But doncha love the dancing, and the suits?

And why was I thinking of the Aztecs?

Because of the corn and the beans of course.

I waited until the corn was up and growing...

then I hilled up the soil around their roots

and planted climbing beans.

Just like the Aztecs 

(the civilization, not the band)

used to do in South America.

This combination is the absolute pinnacle

of companion planting.

The beans fix nitrogen in the soil for the hungry corn,

and the corn provides something

for the beans to clamber up.

A real win-win situation.

Of course, the Aztecs would have planted

some squash nearby and allowed it to ramble

through the lot to save space.

And no 'poison ivy' in sight!

Can't wait to see how much it has grown

when I get home.

Pees and Leaks

Following along nicely from yesterday's post I spent the afternoon 

planting peas and leeks in the garden...

or should I say peaing and leeking in the garden. 

However, I think the computer has decided to censor me and is playing up.  

I cannot turn this first photo the right way...

so you will have to gently place your right ear 

on your right shoulder 

to get the right view.

That raised bed is made from those boxes 

I salvaged from the school's rubbish pile and is now home to ...

and....

I also planted  brown onions, some more cabbages (savoy) and cauliflowers (snowball) and broccolini.  

There are also telephone peas (which I assume will climb to great heights), snow peas, broad beans (dwarf Coles).  

Today I am off to plant some more root crops as the full moon is here again.

I've bean wondering

I have some beanish questions for you.

These borlotti beans planted later in the season are podding up well.  I planned to dry these and use in cooking. Do I leave them on the plant, or pick and dry them?  How do I dry them?

Then there are the lazy housewife beans that have produced so well for so long.  I cannot recommend these highly enough.  

I would like to save some as seed for next year and have left pods on the vines for this purpose.

But now what do I do?

Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down

Some local papers around Melbourne carry a  'Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down' column.  You know the sort of thing.  Thumbs up to the lovely chap who picked me up when I fell over outside the pub.  Or Thumbs down to the woman who lets his three great danes use my front lawn as a toilet.

Firstly, thumbs up to Fleet-footed Mark, a fellow blogger.  He had done a bit of pruning and instead of disposing of the branches he put them to good use.  He made postman deterents with some and has Spring plans for some other. 

Yesterday I removed some branches from the goats' shed.  Bubba and Bazza, like children who leave their bread crusts,  had daintily removed all the leaves but left the sticks.  I had a Mark inspired 'light bulb' moment.

These climbing beans have grown past the top of their old gate and I have been meaning to
put up some sort of extension for a while.

Even this little twig got a job leading the cucumber up to its support.

So Thumbs Up to Mark.


Another blogger, Ali, was bragging that she was the hardest working gardener because she broke the wooden handle on her shovel.  I commented that I had broken the STAINLESS STEEL tine of a fork...with my own muscles.   To prove I am dinkum, here is a photo.

As further evidence of my great strength and capacity for hard yakka here is the label on the handle.  See that Ali, it had a five year guarantee and I had it for less than a year.  Ali still insists she is the hardest working gardener.

But that is not all! Since the demise of my good fork I have been using an older one with bent tines.  It is my 'compost' fork but I have been forced to use it in the garden.   Today I was digging and it broke!  Ali  mozzed me!

So Thumbs Down to Ali!