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Garden Updates April 2015

by | Apr 17, 2015 | Green Thumbs

The cold has just started to set in properly, the mercury dipped down to a chilly 11 degrees last night! The days are getting shorter & it is certainly getting harder to crawl out of bed in the dark each morning & drag myself to work.

I’ve planted my winter veggies in their mini greenhouse – kale, Brussel sprouts, purple broccoli & green broccoli. They look like they’re taking a while to make an appearance & are slowly growing in the shade.

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My Mila radishes are almost ready to eat, my basil has almost stopped producing & my butter beans & snake beans are giving out the last of their wares. The peas that I’ve put in last month are making a steady appearance with the cold. I’ve created a decent amount of pesto from my basil, given that I was late in planting them out this season. I must say, I’m pretty proud of the pesto. It’s the first time I’ve made it from home grown basil.

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I’ve also put in a fresh crop of silverbeet & rainbow chard as my current plants have been going for a good 5 months or so. I figured it was time to remove the old, revitalise the soil & put in some more. They were one of my better producing crops, with very little maintenance required apart from keeping the bugs away!

Being verge collection in the neighbouring council, we managed to get some nice big pots & I have made a start on more planting with them. I’ve put in the long white icicle radish & have plans for a few more items like leeks & onions just to make use of the portable space afforded with the pots.

I’ve got many other things growing in the garden too at the moment – chillis (Devil’s Brew, jalepenos & 2 other unknown types), capsicum, sweet potato, carrots, broad beans & chives to name a few. It’s going to be a pretty good growing season ahead!

What have you got in your garden this month?

Garden Updates March 2015

by | Mar 13, 2015 | Green Thumbs

The weather has just started to turn to the colder weather of autumn with the much cooler nights. Tropical Cyclone Olwyn is in the State’s North at the moment & we will be feeling the effects of that in the Perth metro area tomorrow or so, with a deluge of rain. I don’t mind rain so much if I’m indoors & don’t have to be anywhere urgently. It’s when I have to be somewhere & it is storming when I really don’t like it all. I remember the one time where it was in the middle of winter & I was drenched from feet to knees from trying to get from my car to a site that I was visiting & I didn’t have spare pants in the car. That was an experience in itself.

The cooler temperatures of autumn has brought about a bit of a change with my veggie garden; the tomato plants have stopped flowering, the brown grass patch is now slowly turning green again and all my plants aren’t getting scorched from the summer heat!

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My snake beans have been growing rather well, with the longest of them measuring a whooping 30cm! I’m pretty excited to see these as they were pretty easy to plant & look after. All they required were some supports so that they could creep & some general fertiliser in the pot I put them in. Considering the space they take up, they produce pretty good yields & I would recommend them for the amateur gardener any day.

In the past week, I’ve put in some purple sprouting broccoli, brussels sprouts, peas & some radishes. It will be May before I even can look at harvesting any of them, but I guess it will be worth the wait if they all germinate in the moderate weather.

What are you planting in your garden for winter? Let me know in the comments below.