Green and hot!

Because there is no source of artificial heating my grow-house 

is a greenhouse and going by this picture it is aptly named!

We are experiencing a heat-wave in southern Australia at the moment, with temperatures up in the high 30's and low 40's celcius...around 100 degrees f.  So the green house is also a very hot house. With all the vents and the door open though, everything in there is surviving and thriving.

This eggplant is called 'fairy' and has lots of small fruit, reputedly sweeter too.  I think I may pick a couple tomorrow and see if they live up to their label.  This is a small plant, and it seems very prolific!

These capsicums are also prolific...they are meant to go yellow, but I have picked a couple of green ones and they have a nice strong flavour and cut nicely into rings that look great in a salad or stir fry.

The bounty...

And yes, they are tigerella tomatoes, not green zebra as I wrote in my previous post.  The zucchini are 'greyzini', and the beans, bush butter beans. 

Big 'n' Small

Look how big my garlic bulbs are!

 Look how small my garlic crop is!

Not to self - get your act together and plant a decent amount of garlic next season

AND

keep those bloody chooks out of the veggie patch!

State of play

There is no veggie garden at Hazel's yet.

Unless I get the creek pump fixed, 

and the chooks under control, 

there won't be one either.

But there are vegetables,

in the Fat Fruit Greenhouse...

safe from the foul intentions of feral fowl,

and easy to water from the nearby tank.

Several varieties of capsicum, butter beans...

eggplant...

 lots of leaves and lettuce, 

and tomatoes.

I am loving these polystyrene boxes from the chemist,

which fit neatly on the shelves.

The tomatoes are up to my shoulder and setting fruit.

There is also a range of seedlings

ready to be planted out in the garden

if I ever solve the problems of the water and chooks.

Marigolds, capsicums, tomatoes, watermelon, luffa, pumpkins, and cucumbers.

Fat bastards pay out!

I have been reading, jealously, about asparagus on other blogs lately.

Then... this week...my Fat Bastards produced a few good spears!

Even though they have been in the ground for less than 18 months,

they lived up to their name with some good sized spears.

Umm, I may have played around with this pic a bit too much,

but it was a great basis for dinner. 

They're eggs at the bottom, 

not some sort of new-age potatoes!

Joy!

Unsustainability

If I had to rely on my 

sustainable gardening

abilities to feed The Cook and me,

I would be either

 a much slenderer version of myself,

or pushing up vegetables already.

Here is the veggie round-up...

for your amusement.

Item 1: Flowering broccoli
Pretty...and pretty useless.

Item 2: Rainbow Chard/Silver beet.

All I can say about this, is the chickens' eggs

have wonderful bright yellow yolks.

Item 3: Garlic

A much smaller bed than 

last year...and it won't be ready for ages.

Item 4:

Some very depressed looking leeks.

Item 5: Shallots...

lots of shallots.

On the bright side, the girls are producing lots of googies

and I have my gardening mojo back.

Item 6: Proof of my dabbling in the veggie patch.

So after a bit of weeding, hoeing and ho, ho hoing,

I am hopeful that we may

have something to eat from the garden

in the not too distant future.

Ambivalence

Ah, Autumn is here.  

The daylight hours are shrinking.

Daylight savings finishes on the weekend.

As a season, I think autumn is my favourite.

However, despite my 'Winter Wednesday' ravings last winter 

about all the good things about the season...I don't really like the cold.

So here I am...quivering with ambivalence.

The first of the leaves are beginning to turn.

Well, they are pretty

and they will be added to the compost.

That's good.

Because I did so much work on the magazine

last week, the Cook Editor was shamed into helping

prepare for some more winter plantings in the veggie garden.

That was AMAZING...and good.

The moaning that accompanied the digging?

Not so good.

It's a jungle, out there.

Summer veggies are still rampant.

C'mon guys, you've had your chance!

Enough already!

Some are showing signs of slowing down.

EXCELLENT!

Foraging in the veggie jungle

for dinner and coming in with six different veggies.

That is BETTER than excellent!

A delicious vegetarian meal.

Some little quiches,left over from last night 

(albiet a little singed on reheating)...

with a plate of roasted veggies is blissful.

Count those, ladies and gentlemen...

eight different, home grown veggies and quiche, golden

with our own googies from the girls.  

The cheat puff pastry from the freezer, a bit of cheese 

and a dollop of sour cream means this isn't a 

100% meal...but close enough to make

this gardener salivate and celebrate.

The first fire of the season always feels like a celebration too.

The short period of time it takes for the animals

to stake their claim in front of it always makes us laugh.

Laughing is always good.

But really, Claude, I could live without having to watch

you warming your rude bits 

and doing your ablutions in the lounge!

Intimate photos

Tommies

Mmmm!  Maybe some oven dried tomatoes

and some pasta sauce for the freezer

are on the cards.

Succession

One of my goals for the garden,

 has been to stagger my plantings of crops,

 to ensure I have produce over a longer period.

Although I haven't perfected it,

I am improving.

This lot of corn was planted at the beginning of January.

It is just starting to flower.

The two earlier plantings have cropped.

I am about to pull them out for some

Autumn/Winter plantings.

This net is over the latest lot of brassicas.

Broccoli and cauliflower,

interplanted with some fast growing

Chinese pak choy.

In the background, behind the pink cosmos,

is another lot of brassicas (broccoli) which

is about to flower.

I also have some beetroot and carrots in

and this week I will plant some more.

Eureka! Gold

Well, eventually it did stop raining. We had 104 mm in less than 24 hours!  (That's a little over 4 inches)  So, I did go out, and dig those, Toolangi Gold potatoes.

They were mostly of a good useable size,

and some of them made my 'pride-meter' really ring!

I could hardly carry the basket, it was so heavy.  My dad always said that potatoes were a good 'first crop' in any patch of garden.  These particular ones were planted in a 'no-dig' garden.  I put down newspaper, with some compost, manure and some pea straw layered on top.  I added straw as they grew, instead of mounding soil around them.

I don't enjoy digging,

but this was more like 

a treasure hunt!

And now I have a lovely bed 

with lots of organic material already mixed in.  

I am just going to add some manure, 

a handful of blood and bone, 

and plant some autumn crops.