Need to remember garden stuff.

OK boring garden post coming up, look away now…

Am blogging this because I need to remember and if I write it down on a piece of paper odds on I won’t be able to find the paper when I need to remember… so since this is a multi purpose blog this will do nicely.

The girls and I planted carrots today.. three varieties… but all basically the same LOL. First row is yates all round carrots, second is the diggers carrots that did well with neglect last year and third row along is some old carrot seeds I got from my MIL, just to see how they will do. Fourth and fifth row along we put in parsnips. There is still plenty of room left in that bed so in a few more weeks, when these seeds have sprouted I will put in some more… have to learn to stagger my plantings so we don’t get a glut all at once.

We also planted the garlic.. probably a tad early but the girls wanted to plant something and the garlic heads are big and easy to manage. Hopefully they will supply us with endless garlic for both us and chooks.

I’ve had a bit of a dig in the long top bed between the cucumber and the melons… the melons are on their last legs but we are hanging them out as long as possible to see how many we can ripen since they went in so late after the first lot were eaten. The cucumber is still looking ok and we may get a few more fruits off it if the frost stay away and the sunny days hang around. But between the two I want to put in some peas… hopefully put in a few now and then add some more when we take out the cucs and melons, again trying to learn to stagger plantings!

I had originally planned to put the peas where the tomatoes are currently (cause that is supposed to be a good thing to do.. legumes after tomatoes to fix the nitrogen in the soil again, or something) but the tomatoes are still going strong and showing no signs of letting up so we’ve no intention of ripping them out any time soon. We are finally getting tons of tomatoes… just heaps and still have heaps that may be yet to ripen. I know it is late for tomatoes but they did go in a tad late (as did almost everything else) so maybe that is why. I have plans next year to plant some tomatoes super early, get the seedlings going inside in September and them put them out under cover in the hope we may get some early on. Planning to do the same with some other summer things too… just need to get my act together and remember to do it!

We’ve been freezing tomatoes to use through the winter which is nice and simple all round, but I want to have a go at making tomato sauce or something… though lack of motivation and no clue how to preserve things is hampering that plan a little.

We are still getting monster zucchinis… but we are a tad over zucchini in everything! Next year I am only going to put in two plants instead of three. We have a heap of pumpkins sitting out in the grass. The vine has all but died back and the pumpkins should be ready to store in the next week or so. What we are going to do with all the pumpkins I have no idea… I don’t even like pumpkin! So anyone who I see regularly and who’d like some pumpkin let me know!

The corn is past it’s prime but we have eaten THE BEST corn off it for the past few weeks. The plan is now to let it die back and let the corn cobs dry on the plant. We’ll collect some for seeds to try again next year and see if the rest will make pop corn… maybe! The beans are still producing… I love sitting out there eating green beans off the plant… YUM!

Baldy Boy put in some more lettuce as he is going salad crazy for his lunch/dinner at work, which I guess is not a bad thing. His mini eggplants seem to be not quite ready to harvest but they may just be too late to resurrect at all. I need to get him out there in the next day or two to re-dig and weed the old lettuce bed so I can put in some spinach and other winter greens.

So I think that is about it… for now anyway. I am resurrecting my old camera so I can take some photos of the end of the harvest (since my DSLR is in being fixed hopefully) so with luck I will be able to show off the huge mound of tomatoes currently on my window sill! :) At least that may be a little less boring than the plant diary!