Things are growing

There has been a bit of rain here in the last couple of weeks and it is making things grow quite fast. It is busy work now trying to keep up with it all.

The first cucumber was picked about 6 days ago.

Then a couple of days ago I got the first of the zucchini and a couple more cucumbers.

These two were eaten with dinner just before.

My barren basil patch that I posted about at an earlier time is still struggling. So I am planting my basil in pots for now. I have about 6 pots going around the yard.

Zucchini plants. With a sneaky self sown tomato in the bottom left.

About one quarter of the cucumber plants that are growing.

The Butternut pumpkin patch.

Some of the sweet peppers. Store bought as I had a bad germination rate with mine this year.

And finally. Some tomatoes. These are Juanne Flamee.

 I really need to post up my growing list and I am really going to try in the next post.

Late April days

It is mid autumn here and as many years before us the weather has been divine for this time of the year.. Typical sunny days and cooler nights.
I'm waiting for the winter veggies to grow and that will be some time away.

Bees are still enjoying whatever flowers they can find in the sunshine. In this case it is an African blue basil plant. It is great having this plant around as we can get fresh basil all year round.

The spinach is starting to come on.

As is the silver beet.

Our beautiful chickens continue to provide us with fresh eggs. Some very nice pasta was made yesterday. I was not quick enough to take a picture of it before it was turned into the most scrumptious pasta bake. The baby pumpkins are from another self sown plant that was very late producing so it got pulled out.

And here are the girls on another one of their free range forays. You can also see here another one of the self sown pumpkins. The kind posters at Ozgrow have identified it as a Jarradahle.

More autumn days

I've been trying to prepare for some autumn plantings and in the process harvesting the summers leftovers.

I started by pulling out the last of the cucumber plants and harvested the cucumbers. There were another three that had started to yellow so I left them out of the picture. These ones will be good to eat. The worms can have the yellow ones.

I was also going to pull all the butternut pumpkin plants then found a couple more immature pumpkins so I left the plants and harvested the pumpkins. Hopefully there will be a couple more pumpkins in the next few weeks. We have already eaten about five of these and they are superbly delicious.

The beans are still going great. These are Blue Lake. Some were picked for last nights dinner.

Looks like it is the end of the potatoes. It is sad as they taste so good. We have been eating them for nearly three months now. It will be store bought ones from now on.

Of course our beautiful chooks gave us some more eggs.

All together now.

And some red to offset the other colours. This is a Jimmy Nardello in a pot. There are still plenty of chillies and capsicums around.

Pumpkins

I grew some butternuts for the first time this year. Actually it is the first time I have tried to grow pumpkins in my short time I have been gardening.
I put in 6 seedlings I grew from seed and I have been rewarded with 6 butternut pumpkins. I'm not sure if each plant produced one or if two grew on the one plant. These things can ramble in the garden.
One was taken by someone and cooked in the oven with a roast before I could take a picture.
I can assure you it was absolutely delicious.
If I had the room I would grow lots of pumpkins. It has crossed my mind to grow them across the lawn in the front yard next season. I think I may as it would be fantastic to get a stockpile of yummy pumpkins.

As mentioned in a previous post there have also been a couple of self sown pumpkin plants this year. Gigantically flowing ramblers they are and have had to be checked a few times as they tend to grow over/into anything in their path. This part of it is covering a lot of chillies in pots.

At least the rambler has finally produced something. Two of them this size. Maybe more, It is still very overgrown in some parts of the vege garden and surprises pop up every now and then.

Green

This pumpkin is self sown and has nearly been pulled out a few times now as it takes up a lot of space. It has finally produced 2 good size pumpkins so hopefully I will get to eat some of it. It is spilling out of the main vege bed in this picture.

And another picture of tomatoes of course.

One of my all time favourites. Brandywine. Just picked these 3 not long ago.