Luscombe Street Update - Week 18

I hadn't been out to the plot for two weeks, and as the weather has warmed up over that time, I was faced with a massive amount of new growth when I arrived!  The plot has just gone ape!

Purple sprouting broccoli everywhere, the carrots and rashes have grown about two inches, the broad beans are beginning to flower, and the spinach is going crazy!  Its so great to see that just a little bit of warmth and the plants just love it :)

I harvested so many veggies today - spinach, lettuce, coriander and radishes.  I will leave the broccoli until next weekend I think as it could do with a little bit more growth before I pick the first lot. 

Root / Fruit bed

Legume Bed

Brassica Bed

Allium Bed (see the Coriander at the bottom!)

First flowers on the Broad Beans

Purple Sprouting Broccoli!

Spinach, coriander, garlic, spring onion...

Nasturtium, radish, carrot and coriander...

Hawthorn Week 12 / Luscombe Street Week 11 Update

Sorry - I forgot to post photos of Hawthorn from Week 12!  Trying to catch up I'm afraid :)

This week brought on the first harvest of radish from the Luscombe Street garden!  I was incredibly excited, and just couldn't help myself.  I ate the radish straight out of the patch!  Delicious :)

We're in the depths of winter, so things are going at a bit of a slow pace, but all is going well and everything is looking very healthy.

Legume Bed

Brassica Bed

Allium Bed

Root / Fruit Bed

Radish!!!

Radish and Carrots growing along...

Butter lettuce seedlings that have sprouted

Sprouting broccoli, spinach and kale

Spinach, butter lettuce and spring onion

Garlic, spinach, spring onion and lettuce

The Hawthorn Planters - Broccoli, snow peas, nasturtium and various seedlings

The Hawthorn Planters - Beetroot

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!

Hawthorn Garden Update - Week 9

All of the lovely plants continue to grow at Wattle Road!  We are at full capacity at the moment, just waiting for all of the vegetables to continue growing in what has been very wet and cold weather!  The shortest day of the year has passed, so we - and I'm sure the plants feel the same - are looking forward to the brighter, longer, warmer days  to come.

We built the last of our container boxes this weekend, and have planted a heap of beetroot seedlings to mature whilst the seeds are continuing to grow in the hot house.  The garlic has also shot out of the ground and is looking very happy!  The snow peas continue to flower and the pods on the plant continue to grow.  The only work that I'm doing with the plant is pinching out any wayward sprouts.  You will notice that each new flower/leaf growth also has an additional sprout that forms perpendicular to the branch.  I have been pinching these out and leaving the new growth that comes directly adjacent the new flower.  I have been told that this helps with flowering and means that the plant spends more time producing flowers than unnecessary plant growth.

Snow peas, spinach, broccoli, spring onions, nasturtiums and catnip

The new beetroot box!

Snow peas continue to grow and ripen

Kale and fennel seedlings

Oregano, rosemary, mint and thyme doing well through the winter

Sage and parsley.  New parsley plants are beginning to grow.

The garlic has sprouted!

Companion herb plants ready to be potted out...

The leftover spring onions are being snipped and eaten as we go :)

Beetroot seeds are beginning to sprout.

Hawthorn Garden Update - Week 8

Attack of the moths!  Having left the garden to fend for itself for a week (we have again had very cold and wet weather so not nice to be heading outside!), I managed to bypass checking for caterpillars and moths and found two big, plump specimens on the broccoli plants at home!  They have really had a go at two of the plants so here's hoping the plants will still do well and continue to grow.  It just means that I will need to keep a really good eye on the plants and squish as I see them.

The two containers - the peas are doing fantastically well!

Not exactly sure what these are!  Maybe droppings?  They were also on the new shoots toward the centre of the plant.

 Little villan on plant

So the Cabbage Moth apparently lays its eggs on the underside of leaves where they hatch and feed mostly on new growth.  These caterpillars are very well fed and are at least a couple of days old.  The best way to deal with them in a small garden is to spot the little villans yourself and kill them as you come across them, along with any eggs you find on the underside of the leaves.

I will have a look at the EcoOil as well and see whether it may help with the problem.  First things first, I have investigated whether companion planting might help the cause.  As a quick solution on Friday afternoon before we heade away I tied a bouquet of herbs to the stakes to ward off any of the moths over the weekend.  There weren't any eggs when we came back so I hope this might be a solution!  The other recommendation is to place crushed up egg shells around the plants.  Apparently this tricks the moths into believing that there are already a lot of moths hovering around the plants and they look for somewhere else to lay their eggs.  Will try that with the egg shells from breakfast this weekend!

 

The two little monsters - squashed!

A temporary solution - bouquet garni of mint, rosemary and sage

The last of the Spring Onions are well and truly ready to be planted!  Once we have constructed the final container this weekend they will be free of their black plastic pot.  The Parsley is also doing well, along with the last of the Kale, also to be planted into the container.  The Beetroot is yet to germinate but should do soon!

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.