Luscombe Street - Week 10 & 11 Update

Two weeks away from the garden and the blog has flown by so fast!  We were busy with my Mum and Dad last weekend, who had come down for the weekend for Dad's birthday.  It was lovely but it meant that I didn't have time to check in on the plot, or potter away at home in the garden.

Things are going incredibly well in the Luscombe Street patch.  I pulled my first baby radish on the weekend and it tasted just delicious!  Not too zingy which was great, just very fresh and delicious.

The Legume Plot

The broadbeans continue to grow, and the lettuce has picked up as well which is great.

The Brassica Plot

The Broccoli is going really well, and continues to grow.  There are also little clusters of Coriander that have sprouted and growing really quickly which is great - hopefully we'll have all of the ingredients for an asian feast once the bok choi, spinach and broccoli are ready!

The Allium Plot

Its amazing how much has happened with this section of the plot over the past few weeks.  Coriander is growing wild, there's heaps of butter lettuces that have sprouted and are growing well.  And who would have known, but the garlic has also sprouted!   I was so worried about it because the bulbs at home sprouted after only a week or two.  The plot has taken ages! The spring onions are also growing, along with the spinach!

The Root / Fruit Plot

 Soooo exciting - I pulled my first radish on the weekend!  It was amazingly delicious - I can't wait for the rest to be ready :)  The carrots are beginning to develop their mature leaves now as well which is incredibly exciting!

 Radish, carrots and coriander

 Buttler lettuce seedlings

 Broccoli and Bok Choi

 

 Spinach doing well, along with butter lettuce seedlings :)

 Spinach, butter lettuce, spring onion and garlic shoots!

 A baby radish!  Soooo cute!

Luscombe Street - Week 5 Update

The first Sunday of every month is Working Bee day at Luscombe Street, so there was a lot happening in and around the plot this weekend.  We're installing a second water tank down near the front of the block which will make watering the apple crates a lot easier!  Not that we have needed to the past five weeks - it has been raining an awful lot.  It makes life much easier only having to head out to the plot once a week to check up on things!

Very exciting news - the broad bean seeds have germinated!  In fact all of them have germinated so there may be a glut of broadbeans over the next couple of months!  Doesn't worry me - you can easily freeze or dry excess beans for use later on in the year.  The other plant that is going really well is the rhubarb.  It was only when I had returned home and took a look at the photos that I realised how green and healthy the plant is.  If you compare it with the photos, even from just last week, the plant has just grown from strength to strength.

There are little sprouts making their way up across the plot, having spread the heap of lettuce, rocket and herb seeds last week.  It will be great so see such a variety of foliage over the next couple of months taking over the plot.

Root / Fruit Bed

I thinned out the radish seeds a little this week, just relocated the sprouts to other parts of the bed.  The carrots continue to sprout and the nasturtium plant is growing well.

Legume Bed

 The broad beans have sprouted!  You might be able to see them surrounding the bottom edge of the photo, and also towards the centre.  There's probably 10 or so that have sprouted.

Brassica Bed

 The rhubarb plant is going really well, and the bok choy continues to sprout.  The purple sprouting broccoli is changing colour and looking really beautiful.

Allium Bed

I planted out some of the spring onions this weekend so this bed will be chock full of onions come spring.

I stocked up on bulk Seaweed Solution at CERES on the weekend and noticed that they also stock a product called Fish Emulsion, which I had heard of, but knew nothing about.  It is a great liquid fertiliser for the garden, particularly for fruiting and leafy vegetables.  It contains all essential nutrients your plants need to thrive.  The helpful person at CERES said to think about Seaweed Solution as more of a tonic for your plants, where Fish Emulsion provides a balanced and comprehensive fertiliser for your plants.

So all of the plants received a generous dousing of both Fish Emulsion and the Seaweed Solution this weekend.

Luscombe Street Update - Week 3

After a morning spent at CERES shopping for our fruit and veg, and helping a lovely friend of mine plant out her own little potted garden for her balcony, we headed up to the plot to have a look at how things were going and plant some seeds!

Everything is doing great.  The lettuce is going well in the Legume bed - the broadbeans haven't come up yet but I'm sure they will do in the next couple of weeks.  Radishes are sprouting in the Root / Fruit bed, and the bok choy seeds are also beginning to sprout in the Brassica bed.  We spread some parsley seeds across the plot along with coriander seeds in a few of the beds.  Apparently they are a great companion plant for peas and beans so I made sure we put plenty into that bed!

Our neighbour Jill kindly gave us some horse manure that she had picked up from a farm closeby so I spread a fair amount of that around the beds as well.  I'm sure the plants will appreciate that!  The spring onions are still to be planted but that will be a job for next week :)  Everything got a good water with Seasol as well.

The other cute thing that I put up were my homemade mobiles that made use of the offcuts from the plastic cup coloshes on the plants - you can see them dangling in the photos below.  Hopefully they will keep the birds and things away!

 Lettuce doing well in the Legume bed

 Radish seeds sprouting in the Root / Fruit bed

Planting some Coriander seeds in the Legume bed

 Bok Choy sprouts in the Brassica bed

The Plot - Looking North East