Sunday 17 February 2013

Harvest Monday- 18 February 2013


My Summer garden is winding down - fungal and mildew problems abound, not to worry I've had my fair share and anyway Autumn's coming and is almost here. Spinach, Broccoli and cauliflower will thrive and Autumn always makes me feel so alive. When Winter comes planning will start and i'll take it easy if I'm smart.

Sorry if you don't like poems, I was feeling wordy this morning.

My main bed of tomatoes is gone, a fungal problem swept through and they were dead before I could stage much of a fight. At least I planted 3 more tomatoes as a back up in another part of the garden and my Blondie (blondkopfchen) is producing like crazy- below is a kilo of the golden orbs of deliciousness.
I finally pulled out a beetroot that popped up in the garden, it came in at just under 500g. Most likely I'll make a roast beetroot and feta salad with this monster.




The eggplants are really coming in now, I sort of only have 2 dishes I like to make with eggplant - Baba ganoush and Moussaka. I really don't know why I grew the Little finger variety as its not suited to either dish, but the long purple may go into Baba ganoush to have with Turkish bread I made on Sunday. 

The Beit alpha Cucumber has really come back into production after I gave it a good feed of seaweed fertiliser, but its suffering from powdery mildew(like all my Curcubits). The Rattlesnake beans are producing again after a period of mid 20 degree weeks and the Chills and Capsicums are loving the constant temperatures. That being said we are having a hot end to summer, Saturday and Sunday were around 30 and todays forecast for 35. Oh well, summers almost over and my garden is defiantly reflecting that. Its a good thing I love Autumn and Winter, this year i'm going to invest in some Agribon row cover to try and protect my winter crops from the crazy wind we get. 



7 comments:

  1. I wish someone else in our household would like eggplant too. I never grow it as a little goes a long ways for me and my husband won't touch it. I get a hankering for it though now and again and wish I had some growing.

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    1. Yup, I really want to like it but my family never ate it when I was younger so i'm just not accustomed to it. I have a friend who likes it so she gets most of my eggplants :). I think next year I will only plant 1 and use the spare room for more sweet peppers.

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  2. That looks amazing! We grew Blondkopfchen last year, they were amazingly bountiful, a little slow to start but they went for a long time.

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    1. I had the same experience. They stayed green for soloing and the Bam! so many orange tomatoes. They are kind of a pain to pick but many are the productive.

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  3. That orange capsicum looks great - what variety is it? My tomatoes are looking pretty past it but I'm still hoping I'll get a few more. I pulled the zucchini though - I'm over it and the powdery mildew was pretty unsightly.

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    1. That orange capsicum came from a Diggers 7 colour mix and It doesn't really fit with any of the listed variety.....Orange bell, they are defiantly mini size- A hungarian hot wax also grew from that mix hmmmm. I'll be saving seeds from it if you would like some- they are all a mini size and very sweet. Yea the mildew is not looking good - I couldn't give up on my beloved zucchini, so at the start of january I started another 2 seeds and they are flowering now. There is no sign of PM yet so i'm keeping my fingers crossed.

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  4. what a lovely harvest! You will love the argibon. Here I can get it in several thicknesses that protect against different amounts of frost. The lighter weight ones are great for covering greens and young cold hardy seedlings. They can be layed right on top of the plants, but if you have snow or hard rain followed by freezing then the agribon sticks to lettuces and burns the leaves, so for them a support to drape it over is better. Otherwise just love this stuff.

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