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. 

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.

Here is the end result of the garlic.
I have been advised to not braid it up till the stems dry so tomorrow I will unbraid it and leave it dry naturally. A couple of years ago when I got a garlic harvest i did not braid them and they dried well.

Anyway, the weather has been really cool. I don't think it got over 20C today. Everything continues to grow.

Here is the main patch with potatoes in the fore ground and tomatoes in the background.

First cucumber. I nearly picked this today and sneaked off somewhere to munch it all by myself. Here's hoping for plants laden with fruit like last year.

The lazy housewife beans. I am also growing Blue Lake and another variety that grows purple. Pics of those at a later date.

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.

First planting

Planted the first of my seedlings today in the vege patch. Eighteen corns. Stupidly enough I didn't take a picture of these babies in the patch. But I do have one of them in the punnet before planting out.
They are Golden Bantam variety and it is the first year I am trying this variety out. I've heard it is not so sweet but that is ok as I usually slather my corn with salt and butter so there is no room for sugar.

I think next weekend I will remove my artichokes to make room for more productive plants in the front yard. Whilst I love artichokes  there is not enough plants to get a good harvest all at once. Having one artichoke at a time is a tease I cannot live with. Sort of like what is happening with the asparagus. I did get a couple of scraps after the kids got stuck into it.

 I suppose I can dig up the dreadful lawn at the front and fill the area up with artichokes. hmmmm, maybe one day...
So I picked the largest artichoke before it flowered up.

Then I promptly peeled it back to get to it's heart.

And I scoffed it down raw. Uncooked. Yes I know that is ruthless but sometimes you have to be.  Wasn't too bad either. Not the way I would usually eat artichokes but there was not much of this one after it got peeled.

I also have a couple of the purple ones growing. They seem to be smaller that the standard green ones. Maybe it is because the plants are still smaller.

My tomato seedlings are coming along quite well. Depending on the weather this week I may start planting them out next weekend.

Cucumbers are coming along as well joined by the zucchinis. None of the zucs are in the pic below but there are a few about.

Run to the hills...........

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.

Old Friends

Heard from old friends yesterday and they ended up coming around for dinner. It was good to catch up as it has been a couple of years.
My, how some people have grown.

I warned them before they came over that I would be busy all afternoon in the yard as I had a lot to catch up on.
I am now at the pulling plants out stage. Cleaning of all the ripe and green tomatoes. Not sure if I will make green tomato pickles this year. Made it last year and it was a huge success with everyone that got a jar. We are not big eaters of it. I can assure you it is delicious. Just that eight 600ml Fowlers jars can get a bit much.

Pulled about five plants out and harvested a lot more ripe fruit from a few others. I know that when I made my first post I said that most of my tomato harvesting was done but I have once again underestimated.
Lots of peppers coming on that should last a few more weeks and one lonesome dried up corn that I had totally missed. I'm toying with the idea of drying it and trying to make popcorn. It may not be the right variety but what the heck.

Had a bumper cucumber crop this year. Best ever, and there are still more to come. Also still have a few potatoes hiding around the place.

And of course some eggs from my lovely girls. The chooks.

As you can see there will be more tomato salsa making in the next couple of days.

Brandywine alert bottom left hand corner.

After having a great time catching up all afternoon and having a nice dinner, old friends departed with a big bag of home grown produce. I know they will enjoy it.