I've managed to thin out our beetroot crop now and we used the thinned out seedling leaves for salads in the process. Yummo!
The roots are forming nicely and we've covered with a layer of sugarcane mulch - so I'm wondering if a good fertilizing now would be worthwhile? I've been checking up on organic fertilizers, and so far the option seems to be a decent fertilizer 'tea'. This will work for us as we can use our worm wee as the basis for the tea - in fact it IS the tea! :o)
The best thing about growing beetroot is that it's so easy, as long as you prepare the soil and add some good compost. A bit of a water while they are seedlings helps them along and then a good deep watering every so often as they mature. They also love the sunshine. Here are some other tips for growing beetroot.
Anyhow, while checking out how others grow beetroot, I came across a site called 1stop Organic Gardening by Julie, based in the Barossa Valley in South Australia. She has one mean no-dig garden, I'll give her that! I've added this site to our 'Companion plantings' list to the right of your screen.
Julie also has a pickled beetroot recipe, which, once our beetroot are ready to harvest, we'll have a go at!
Great blog Julie, thank you for sharing you learning.
Tuesday, 25 November 2008
Fertilizing beetroot
Thursday, 20 November 2008
Singing in the rain
11.4mm of rain! Hooray!
Our plants say thank you :o)
Tuesday, 18 November 2008
Spring rolls on into harvest-time
Harvested the garlic yesterday. 10 small to medium sized bulbs. They are better formed than last year's crop too. The soil in the Bed (i.e. bed #5) is a bit compacted now, and I wonder if this may have diminished the size of the garlic? Anyway, once the broad beans have finished in this bed, we can turn it over and build it up again with some more manure and mulch, etc.
The broad beans and carrots (a line of carrots in the pic above) have also been cropping well. I think we've had more rain this season than last year which has paid off.
The spring onion seed heads are now ready to store - I will put down a late crop now to see how they go as well. I've also let the chard go to seed too - hoping to store these and see if they'll produce for us too. We may need to build a small seed propagation area too, I'm thinking - that can be our next project :o)
Planted a second lot of corn about 2 weeks ago, only a half dozen in a small area by the shed - they've come up quickly. The first lot of corn is about 20cm tall now and the purple beans I planted around them about 2 weeks ago have also taken off. The corn stalks make good support structures for the beans.
The beetroot I planted en-masse have been thinned - we used the small plants for their leaves in salads, rather than transplanting them. The remaining plants are now starting to form a root ball - the beet! I love beetroot :o)
Our new garden beds are proving their worth so far! Let's hope the corn and beans crop well to consolidate this! That also depends on how hot our Summer is this year - it's shaping up to be a hot one apparently. Fingers crossed!
Tuesday, 21 October 2008
Vegetables and plantings for Spring 08
I've been meaning to post our plantings this season and just haven't had a chance to sit down and do so, ...so here goes!
We've made the most of our new garden beds and now seem to have more space for things too.
Bed #2: Dwarf broadbeans are very healthy here and are starting to produce now - I just love the scent of their flowers too. Also in this bed are some potatoes - Desiree, which are already poking up through the soil. We've also moved some of the herbs here (sage, tarragon) to a sunnier spot (garden bed #3a).
Bed #3a (by the back gate, left of the shrub above in graphic): beetroot (2 rows) and cos lettuce, along with the abovementioned herbs.
Bed #3b + 4 (along the fence as shown by #3 above): more cos lettuce (as a border), 3 blueberry shrubs (1 early-season, 1 mid-season and 1 late-season variety), corn, snowpeas, galangal, lemongrass, golden and black zucchini, plus a couple of rogue tomato plants. This bed gets really good sun, but will need some attention when it really hots up!
Bed #5: More dwarf broadbeans, chard and celery, plus carrots (2 rows) and garlic. A Silverwood and recently sown yellow squash and patty pans. Also some lemon balm doing really well and some lemon thyme. There's a transplanted parsley bush here too (you can tell we love our parsley). After cutting back the bay tree, this bed gets much more sun and is producing well now. The garlic are almost ready to harvest too. We've also let some of our spring onions go to seed (much to the delight of our bee friends) and will save these for next season.
Our compost is doing really great too! We beefed it up with some cow poo and lots of green waste from our spring clean.
The citrus trees are growing well in the half wine barrels. The lemon has lots of flowers and the kaffir and Tahitian limes each have lots of new growth. I have lots of carrots around the kaffir lime as well - I wonder if this will impact the flavour at all - we'll soon see!
Simon pruned the passionfruit vines right back as well, ready for new summer growth - can't wait for those plump passionfruit to start dropping from the vine!
That's a quick rundown for now, will post as we harvest or as more news from the garden occurs (like our aphid moment!).
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