Harvest begins!

Since the end of last week, we have begun the harvest of strawberries and raspberries from the garden. With the onset of warm weather, the berries have been turning red overnight, or probably, overday. Last night we picked a big bowl and put them in the fridge. This morning our whole fridge smelt of ripe berries. So delicious!

Other garden progress: we've lost another red pear : ( so now our harvest will be only one. Amanda tells me about the blackcurrants and gooseberries she has; my redcurrant and gooseberry have produced exactly nothing. Although the redcurrant has also been affected by sap-sucking bugs.

The apples are ripening nicely, turning pretty shades of pink where they are getting some sun. They are getting bigger, too, and have a faint clean apple smell about them. I think I may finally be winning the battle against the sap sucking bugs on the apple trees. The leaves are still badly curled but when I check them now there isn't a sickening nest of creatures under there.

Of the many tomato plants, so far only Shirley has flowers. No fruit. However the bought-in eggplant has a baby fruit on it. I've planted out some cucumbers in pots and put them down near the shed with some netting hung over the fence for them to climb up. I put some Qld Blue pumpkin in pots there as well, and one into the garden on the shady side, hoping it will climb the fence. The bought-in chilli and bell pepper have flowers and so should soon have fruit. The blueberries are starting to show signs of turning blue, slowly slowly.

But in terms of what to eat, lettuce, kale, chard and chinese broccoli should be next on the list. They're all looking good. And diligent use of the slug pellets means that the lettuce has survived in the garden.

Flower surprise: sweet william is in flower. I planted these last year and they were swamped by the kale but this year they have shot up and are flowering. Sunflowers are also trying to flower despite the attack of bugs and snails. Sweet peas have flower pods on them so will flower soon. The teasel is now over six foot but not any more attractive than it was. Really, what was I thinking? No flowers on the bottlebrush yet, although Keith and Alison's bottlebrushes are flowering already. Maybe this is the year that we set ours on fire to truly replicate Australian conditions.

June... and harvest not too far away.

Why is the scarlet kale scarlet in one part of the garden and green in another part?

Apples and pears in progress. Unhappily one of our three pears has fallen from the tree so our harvest will be reduced by one third.

Raspberries: this year subject to aphid attach which has never happened before. Damn and blast. Still, the bushes are thick with fruit, we just have to fight the sap-sucking insects for it.

So much expense, so much careful planting and hoping, but in the end, all I got was three Pretty in Purple chilli sprouts.

The teasel. It is now approaching six foot and growing taller every day. It's not an attractive plant by any means.

More tomatoes planted out. More tomatoes potted on. I feel like I have hundreds but we'll see when it comes to fruiting whether that's the case.

Squashes all potted on: got Queensland Blue, Waltham and Jamaican grey (shall we call it). About 12 in total.

All Morton's secret and a large part of the Salad bowl lettuces are in the ground now.

Aubergine has a flower and hints of another flower so we shall have a fruit. Hurrah.

All the purple beans are in the garden now, in three separate clusters. So far surviving against slug attack. If I get beans I will be very impressed.

Some 20 sweetcorn sprouts. Only about thumb height right now but I think they grow quickly.

Five cucumbers: the Tatoma seem to be the tall ones, close to 12 inches/30 cm tall by now. The Wautoma are much shorter.

Melon: only one melon hatched and I am in two minds about what to do. I've put it outside the greenhouse and so far it's doing OK. I don't know whether to keep it in a pot or plant it out into the ground. I guess we see how the summer goes.

First of the strawberries is turning red... not long now!

Lazy

This is the time of year my blogging seems to drop off. Here's what I wrote about last week, I'll follow with what is happening this week.

Reconciliation time: time to look at the seeds planted and results produced and decide what to keep and what to put away. I chucked the tray where I’d tried to grow cabbage. Only two had sprouted and they had both managed to be eaten inside the greenhouse. By deciding to cull some pots with seed plantings that had been less successful, I made a little more room… for more seeds. Oh, and amongst the pots I was chucking out I found what looks like it may possibly be an aubergine seedling. Considering I planted maybe only one of these, I think that is a good result. I've potted it on, and will keep an eye on it.

The Qld Blue pumpkins have all hatched and so I’ve moved them into bigger pots. I also spent a lot of time putting tomato seedlings into bigger pots (tomato seedlings everywhere! I guess it’s because I used soil from the veggie patch as mixer with bought compost, and that’s where the tomatoes grew last year) and for a couple of plants, they have now graduated to being planted out (into the veggie patch).

All the biggish scarlet kales have been planted out. I planted out a few more lettuce and thinned out the beetroots, distributing the seedlings around the garden. The four miserable chard seedlings that sprouted have gone out too. (And I’ve potted on the bonus tomato seedling that grew in with them).

The biggest of the purple bean seedlings have also been planted out into the area where the peas were shredded by snails last week. I circled the new plantings with slug pellets, despite having a secret belief that these pellets actually attract slugs and snails (as well as killing them). Well I am probably right – this morning there was a gastropod conference going on by the plants but I couldn’t tell if they were dead or not. Hopefully they are dead but hubby is going out today to make sure.

Out of earlier plantings of herbs, I got only one basil plant. This was a very disappointing result so I’ve planted up four more herb pots: basil, thai basil, chives and parsley. If I get a good result this time, I’ll give away any extras to the gardening club show in July.

Also into pots were some more pumpkin seeds, these ones labelled “grey-skinned, good roasting”. They came from the pumpkin we buy from the Jamaican stall at the market. I also planted up a whole packet of sweetcorn. Probably left it too late again but I have to try. The cat, little beserker that he is, tried to eat the dried corn seeds.

The money I spent on chillies from Real Seeds was not best spent. I have got only two sprouts of the pretty-in-purple and none of the Wenks Yellow.

Now to the weekend just passed...
I hit the fruit plants with a spray of dishwashing liquid - I have it in my head that this will work against aphids and kill them. The little blighters are getting big and fat and I hate them.

The sweetcorn is taking off - looks like I will get a good crop of seedlings, but whether I've left it too late for produce only time will tell. I'm going to stick them at the back of the veggie patch when they get big enough.

In a few weeks things will look great as there are lots of flowers with buds ready to break open. Even the teasel which has turned into some kind of monster about 2m tall.

Our rosemary bush has died! The landmark for our property that has guided so many visitors to our front door has up and died after the long cold wet winter. We've offered it to Keith as some kind of barbeque fuel since he cooks on coals, we thought he could do a rosemary scented lamb roast with the dried wood and leaves. In the meantime, I'll have to keep some magic scissors in my pocket and walk the neighbourhood looking for a rosemary bush from which to snip a shoot or two to grow a new plant.

With the onset of warmer weather (some days), I'm going to have to keep a closer eye on the greenhouse and open the door in the morning to let the sun in and stop it from turning into a sauna. I know I want the plants to keep warm but I don't want them to cook. The cucumbers are getting very tall (or at least one of the varieties is) and will need potting on. The rest of the purple beans will need to be planted out somewhere (where?). I gave a few to Amanda along with my spare red kale: she has more luck with beans than I do. I also gave away a few bunches of lettuce seedlings - may as well, I seem to have hundreds and they're likely to die unless I get them into the ground soon.

There are berries on the strawberries, if we get some good sunny days over the next few weeks they might even ripen. Live in hope! There are definitely apples on the apple trees, maybe as many as a dozen between the two. They are fattening up nicely, although it will be many months before we get to enjoy that harvest.

So what will be the first harvest from the garden this year? Could be the red kale and the chinese broccoli. None of the tomatoes (except the shop-bought "Shirley") are near to having flowers yet (and Shirley, despite having flowers, doesn't seem to be enjoying her full sun position). The Chinese broccoli are going a bit leggy - they keep spitting out flowering stems which I'm cutting off to make them branch out. I thought they would be more like asparagus, with thickish stalks, at least that's what I remember from Chinese restaurants. Maybe I have to do some more research on them.

And spring onions - why bother? Am I cursed? I just wanted to grow something that seemed quite simple and easy and was relatively expensive to buy when you only even need one at a time (and supermarkets only sell them in bunches). When I think of all the seeds I've planted over the years that have not grown... grrr....