garden share: june

 

I’m a bit all over the place lately (I apologise if I’m not reading your blogs in a timely manner), so I missed last week’s garden share collective posting. Or rather, I thought was this week. In which case, I am on schedule. For something. Anyway, what’s happening in my vegie garden right now?

It’s all about the soil (above; all these photos were taken just after the sun came up one very frosty morning this week. My fingers are still thawing out). I’ve gradually pulled all the summer crops: the zucchinis, corn, beans, tomatoes (okay, Dad did those) and kale are all gone. The kale went to mum and dad’s chooks. Waste not, want not; though the girls seem to have forgotten their side of the deal — that is, laying eggs. We think they’re too well fed right now. Still, the kale plants were a few years old, getting a bit tough and bitter, and full of aphids. So off to the chooks.

A row of frosty carrots

 

I’ve been digging the bare beds over, and incorporating great handfuls of ‘stuff’ to replenish the soil after the growing season. Sheep poo, dolomite, blood and bone, gypsum; a bit of everything and anything that dad has given me. I currently have four bags of horse poo, from a work colleague, in the back of my car. It’s smelly work. The neighbours must love it.

In place of growing green manure crops (which we seem to discuss endlessly but never get around to doing anything about), I’ve been gathering bunches of newly-sprouted nasturtiums from a garden bed ‘out the front’ (my flower gardens). I didn’t want them smothering the bulbs, so I figured digging them in to the vegie beds would be a great solution. They’re so soft and tender and juicy and should provide good green nutrients.

I’ve also been taking bagfuls of chickweed from mum and dad’s garden. We laugh that I am taking weeds. But again, it’s soft and fresh and should break down easily once buried in the soil.

In some patches there are an amazing quantity of earthworms – it really is exciting to see! Other areas are ‘vacant’, so hopefully fortifying with this organic matter (and my kitchen scraps, which I continue to bury here and there) will help.

There’s been a little planting going on, more so than in previous winters. I bought some organic Tasmanian garlic (my harvest was not big enough) and have about 30 cloves in.  I’m doing an experiment: I’ve planted some in a row in one of the beds, and some in a white polystyrene box. I want to see which grow better, those in the ground or those in the container. Rotting off versus drying out…

I’ve also planted three sprouting broccoli (below; not purple), and four small silverbeet seedlings (from mum and dad’s garden) and a few rows of different pea varieties. I’ve only recently learned that peas should be grown in winter, and after seeing some flourishing crops in people’s backyards (while on my lunchtime walks — I’m very much a stickybeak!), I realised I had to get to it.

It looks dry, doesn't it? We are not getting much rain, and I need to water regularly

 

I’m not harvesting anything: I’m getting all of my fruit and vegies now from either mum and dad (apples and pears of many wonderful varieties, good for eating and cooking; carrots and silverbeet and delicious pumpkins), or the shops. And I continue to collect and scatter marigold seeds — it’s become a bit of a compulsion.

Winter has set in: it’s been very cold and snowy, and by the time I get home from work, it is cold and dark. So all garden work is done on the weekend. But it’s wonderful to rug up, make a thermos of tea, and potter about in the garden. Digging warms me up, and it all keeps me connected with my garden space.

The almost-empty beds, save some valiant marigolds, bee-attracting larkspur (much more purple than this photo captures, and a self-seeded pumpkin, severely burnt by the frost).