Growing Fruit and vegetables at home

I have always been involved with growing fruit and vegetables. My father is a keen gardener, and we always had a vegie patch. The right aspect for growing vegies was a major contributing factor to why we bought our current house in 2000.




February 2011
Melbourne has certainly gone through an unusual Summer - not as many hot days in January as has been the norm for the last few years, and heaps of rain.

Tomatoes
Today I was in the vegie patch, pruning the dead branches from my tomatoes. 2 days of heavy rain (over 150 mm yesterday alone!) has damaged many of the small branches. They quickly rot and can damage any fruit which they are touching. I have picked over 20 kgs from my 6 bushes, so I should'nt complain. Hopefully they continue to fruit - still plenty of green / orange fruit and many flowers.

Egglants
My Lebanese egg plants are doing very well in this weather. With more than a dozen already devoured, there are still approximately 30 on the plants at various stages of ripeness. Not bad for 5 plants!

Chillies
As usual, the 6 chilli plants for the year are doing very well. A few "touch" insects have had a nibble, but altogether doing very well

Potatoes
2 years ago, I planted seed potatoes of Kifler and Dutch creams. I am still reaping the rewards from both these varieties. Today I dug up the Kifler patch - 9 kgs of spuds (not counting the small ones I left behind).
The dutch creams have been doing very well. I have not kept track of how many kgs I have dug up so far, but we have not bought potatoes for at least 4 months. I still have 8 plants in the patch, waiting to be dug up when needed.

Pumpkins
As with last year, jap pumpkins have self seeded. I bent back the runners today - otherwise they will take over the garden. Unfortunately the heavy rain has knocked off all the flowers. Plenty of time left for more to develop.

Beetroot
only half a dozen or so left at the moment. A fabulous vegetable both for summer and winter. I use mine for beetroot relish, beetroot chips (served with a garlic aeoli) or roasted. Just perfect!

Cos Lettuce
My lettuce has bolted! fantastic crop this year from just 6 plants. They have lasted since mid November, but sadly are in the green bin now,


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July 21 2010
Despite the cold at the moment there is plenty to do in the garden.
I work by the rule prep vegie patch grandfinal weekend, plant Melbourne Cup weekend. So now is the time to get the compost ready for that "one weekend in September"

Happy Gardening!