Winter Solstice

It's just happened here.
So we are on the way to longer days.
There are a few things growing in the yard, namely weeds in the main patch. The weeds will be taken care of soon.

And also a few pretty yumalicious edible greens. (Maybe not the Kale)

Baby lettuce, mustard greens and a few beetroot.

Baby silver beet, endives behind them and pak choy hiding behind them.

The kale which is not very popular here. I had some seeds and threw them in and they germinated well.

A firm favourite here every year.

Snow peas.

And surprisingly, I still have a few small capsicums growing on my plants.

look out for a couple of busy bodies in the picture.

(pic wont behave)

Last day of 2011

Well another year is nearly over and where did the time go?

I know I have said a few times I will post up my list of tomatoes that are planted and I better do it before the year ends.

So here goes.


Brandywine Red (Landis Valley Strain)
Granny Cantrell's German Red
Juanne Flamme
KBX
Marizol Red
Marizol Purple
Cherokee Purple
Olena Ukrainian
Greek Witness (unknown seed variety)
Honey of Mexico
Japanese Onion
OzGrow Cherry
Malakhitovaya Shkatulka
Old Ivory Egg
Brandywine
Koenig Humbert
UK 2000
Franchi Red Pear
Marmande
Oxheart
An unknown beefsteak variety (grown in an inner city backyard for at least the last 20 years)


And.....
I have four Dwarf Varieties
Grizzly F2
Tidy F4
Peaty Pink F4
Frosty Brown (purple) F5




Most things are growing ok. There has been a lot of humid weather and I have had some fungal disease on some of the tomato plants that I have tried to control. It does not look like I will harvest as much as last year. 
I'll be happy with whatever I get.


So on to the pictures.


Once again this year the zucchinis are not doing to well. I have not had the best of luck with them the last couple of years and a lot are dying very small. These are Lebanese.

The potatoes are starting to come on. These are Nicola.

The cucumbers are again doing very well this year. We have been eating them for about 3 weeks now.
I have burpless and Green Gem.

The only ripe tomatoes so far have been the Jaune Flammee.

But that will soon change. (Insert evil laugh here)

Some capsicums and peppers are in. There is a lot more to pick. I'm thinking of pickling some.

I picked the first of the beans yesterday. These are Lazy housewife bean. I preserved this lot in my pressure canner. 

And finally. I dried some of our Oregano in my dehydrator.

That's it for this year. I hope everyone has a happy and safe new year. 

Eight more days....

and summer is here.
I'm looking forward to some warmer weather as our spring has been rather cool. Not too unusual for us as it can go either way in our part of the world.
Anyway....I have not been well hence the lack of posts. That and my trusty camera died and I a having to use two other ones that I am not too happy with. So some of the pictures are not the best.

Onto the greenery.
My basil patch this year is looking like last years one. It was a hard slog getting basil to germinate in this patch and it's looking the same again. Stay tuned in the next couple of months for lush green basil plants. (I hope).

Where's the basil?

Some new Swiss Chard. That's a fancy way of saying silver beet, and some fresh endives next to the ever expanding potatoes. Also some leeks and cucumbers.

The main potato patch.

The main Tomato patch.

Still need to post up my final list.

I have four different kinds of dwarf tomatoes growing. Three varieties are in pot like this one and one is in the ground.

Egg plants.

Butter nut Pumpkins and capsicums. the pumpkin vines will be trained to grow the other way. That's the plan anyway.

And finally some cantaloupe plants. Here's hoping there is a harvest this year.

Have not posted for a few weeks.
Some picture might say a lot more than I can right now.

Tomato seedlings about 3 weeks ago.

Nearly all of the remaining tomato seedlings as of today. A lot will get given away.

The last of the carrots got picked about a week ago. The season was not too bad.

The asparagus has been steady but unfortunately there is not enough of it.

Got an artichoke harvest.

Roasted in the oven and served with a shoulder of lamb.

I have not had much success with capsicum germination this year, just a few so far and very late. So I had to use store purchased peppers and capsicums.

The main vege patch. Potatoes on the left and plenty of tomatoes on the right. I have planted 20 plants and will be planting a few more. Leeks can be seen as well.

Some non related yard shots. 

Home made dumplings for home-made wonton soup. 

Then someone had the bight idea of frying them. It was all over at that stage.

I ate about 3 times what is seen in the below picture.

And finally. Taking a walk on a windy plain.

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.

Todays stuff

I promise this will be the absolute last picture freshly harvested of tomatoes for this season. I finally got a chance to pull the last two plants out late this afternoon. There are no more.

Surprisingly I still have a few more smallish cucumbers around. Every other year they would barely last till late February. I knew this and one more were about but I found about three more today. It was yummy to eat.

Of course there was a mini harvest for part of tonights dinner. The bulb is from a spring onion.

One of my 7 pot chilli plants. You may have noticed by now how much I like chillies.

And finally. The bug eaters were let out for their daily scrounge. I know they found lot of yummy things to eat.

Capsicums

Had to pick these quickly as I am just running out the door. Could only take one picture as someone was in a hurry to chop them up for a stir-fry.
The red I believe is a Gourmet and I'm not sure what the orangey coloured one is due to my poor record keeping skills. Or is that the other way around?

Hopefully my record keeping skills will improve.

Todays Lunch

Here is what we had for lunch today.

The tomatoes are from top left. Arbuznyi, under that is red pear and the last one is an unknown beefsteak variety that has been grown in a backyard in the inner city for at least the last twenty years.

The cucumber are burpless and Lebanese. They are rather overgrown as it is getting towards the end of the season. Still good eating. Nice and crunchy when freshly picked.

The peppers are Jimmy Nardello and the smaller orange one is an unknown sweet variety that was donated to me. It is unknown because I lost my paperwork. Maybe now I have a blog I will keep better records.

Our family is by no means vegetarian. This was just a light lunch with produce we had on hand. There is a good chance that you will see pictures of giant meat cook ups in the future.