What are you picking now?

I am often asked what are you picking in your veg patch at the moment. We are always curious to know what someone else has succeeded with or to get ideas on something you may have forgotten to grow or did not know grew at this time of year.

The things we are harvesting at the moment are as follows:

- Carrot (I swear they have grown slower than last year)
- Beetroot
- Tomato
- Beans (Climbing and Bush types)
- Rocket
- Silverbeet
- Chicory
- Lettuce
- Potato (majority now in hessian bags)
- Last lot of Sugarloaf Cabbage
- Radish
- Celery
- Perpetual Spinach
- Zucchini
- hanging is the garlic and the balance of our poor onion harvest

In the Herb garden we have the following, tho some are recent plantings from cuttings or seeds recently transplanted as I am growing this aspect of the patch.

- Rosemary, Sage, Thyme and lemon Thyme, Oregano, Lovage, French Tarragon, Winter Savoury, Italian Parsley, Mint and Peppermint, Lemon Balm, Bergamot.

I have 6 plants of Rhubarb however most are less than 6 months old so still growing.

The tomato harvest is kicking along with 4 1kg strawberry punnets filled yesterday with much blanching of the beans happening for eating through winter.

So what are you harvesting at the moment? I know of some eating Corn, tho mine still need more sun to sweeten up (check photo below).

Capsicum "Antohi Romanian" - Each plant seems to have 10 capsicums

The Corn is still not quite ready

Can you see the tiny watermelon?

Winter Kohl Rabi germinating

So what are you harvest

Food Inc

If you have never seen the movie Food Inc, I recommend you do so. It is a documentary that brings you back in touch (or is a revelation if you had no idea) with the majority of the food supply chain. 

I came across some interesting facts about your food when viewing the Food Inc website. Some of these are listed below. Makes for interesting reading. (Note these facts relate to the US)

Growth of Factory Farming

In the 1970s, the top five beef packers controlled about 25% of the market. Today, the top four control more than 80% of the market.

Factory Farms Dominate

In the 1970s, there were thousands of slaughterhouses producing the majority of beef sold. Today there are only 13.

Monsanto in 1950

Prior to renaming itself an agribusiness company, Monsanto was a chemical company that produced, among other things, DDT and Agent Orange.

Lack of USDA Power

In 1998, the USDA implemented microbial testing for salmonella and E. coli 0157h7 so that if a plant repeatedly failed these tests, the USDA could shut down the plant. After being taken to court by the meat and poultry associations, the USDA no longer has that power.

 

Monsanto’s Soybean Monopoly

In 1996 when Monsanto introduced Round-Up Ready Soybeans, the company controlled only 2% of the U.S. soybean market. Now, over 90% of soybeans in the U.S. contain Monsanto’s patented gene.

 

Minimal Food Inspections

In 1972, the FDA conducted 50,000 food safety inspections. In 2006, the FDA conducted only 9,164.
The average chicken farmer (with two poultry houses) invests over $500,000 and makes only $18,000 a year.

 

Sewing Seeds of Discontentment

Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas was an attorney at Monsanto from 1976 to 1979. After his appointment to the Supreme Court, Justice Thomas wrote the majority opinion in a case that helped Monsanto enforce its seed patents.

 

Illusion of Options

The modern supermarket stocks, on average, 47,000 products, most of which are being produced by only a handful of food companies.

 

Diabetes Rates on the Rise

According to the American Diabetes Association, 1 in 3 Americans born after 2000 will contract early onset diabetes. Among minorities, the rate will be 1 in 2.

 

Foodborne Illness Becoming More Widespread

E. coli and salmonella outbreaks have become more frequent in America. In 2007, there were 73,000 people sickened by the E. coli bacteria.

The Arithmetic of Growth

This 8 part lecture is an excellent discussion on why we as humans need to start changing our ways of consumption, and politicians need to start getting serious their types of policy making and move away from our current economic basis of growth growth and growth. This guy explains the basics well with much of what he discusses quite thought provoking.



Part 2 -  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb3JI8F9LQQ

Part 3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFyOw9IgtjY

Part 4 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQd-VGYX3-E

Part 5 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHuwgxrTKPo

Part 6 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3y7UlHdhAU

Part 7 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyseLQVpJEI

Part 8 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoiiVnQadwE&list=SP6A1FD147A45EF50D&index=8

How Pesticides Harm Children’s Health and Brains | Healthy Child Healthy World

Two reports out in the past few weeks confirm that parents should indeed be concerned about how pesticides can affect our kids’ health. Read the link to an interesting article below.




How Pesticides Harm Children’s Health and Brains | Healthy Child Healthy World

38-26-King Edward

I left for the week for work tentatively as Monday was forecast for hot with low humidity and a severe fire risk. As evening arrived I was was feeling more at ease with no new fires seemingly reported in my area. Monday ended up reaching 38.1 degrees Celsius with humidity reaching a dry 12%. What is worse is I am the green thumb in the family and leaving beds with directly sown seeds which need monitoring in this extreme heat made me uneasy. My wife Genevieve has enough to do with 4 kids let alone check the beds on days of these weather extremes. Plus I am the only one who knows how to start the fire fighting pump which also waters the patch. I gave instructions on what and when to water (using valuable house water) however some of the seeds which I had sown still have not come up. The carrots have, but the brassicas have not. Strange as I was trying hard to keep the bed wet. Anyway, we win some and lose some.

Fortunately I also sowed some of these seeds in the hot house just in case the extreme weather and lack of rain caused non germination. These seedlings will be planted in the next week after they have hardened off a bit. The following day on Tuesday was our first rain of some note (over 10mm) since Dec 15th (13mm). We ended up with 26.4mm for the day which allowed some nice top up to the water tank and stress relief for the gardens. Hopefully we get some follow up rain to keep getting more moisture back down low in the soil profile.

Today I harvested the last of the main potatoes. The King Edwards did not seem to be as consistently large as last year which is most likely due to less rain in December and January. I have not weighed them yet as they are sitting in te sun for a couple of hours to dry off before storing in hessian bags. Originally I was targeting 150kgs, however it appears I will be well down on this forecast. If I have about 30 kgs of King Edwards with another 10kgs left in the patch, I will end up around 100kgs which is the same as last year yet I planted more.

I have decided that I will put all my spuds under soil from now on. When times are dry it seems the spuds in soil did better than the ones under hay. Again likely due to retention of soil moisture. I am not about to baby things when times are dry so will always pick methods which enhance yields without massive quantities of water required.

King Edward Spuds

With Autumn quickly approaching, now is the time to get some of your winter crops in. With some of my seeds not germinating, I now still have to get some seedlings in over the next and will be pumping the manures into the beds which will receive green manure (tic beans) over winter. This year I am freeing up more beds so I can get more green manures through them for next summer.  About half will be under green manure once the corn, pumpkin, tomato, capsicum are finished.

Organic Gardening - Weed Control

Some interesting ideas to battle weeds and reduce your workload. The newspaper and mulch would aide soil moisture during the dry times such as we are experiencing at the moment.

No Rain, more hot weather

It is so dry in Tasmania at the moment and while today was forecast to be 28, my weather station currently reads 33.3 degrees with 30% humidity. The  next few days are also forecast to be hot with Monday set for 34 (likely to be high 30's).

It is impossible to keep adequate moisture within the veg patch at the moment. It is ok if you have a small area to maintain, but with the size I have I have come to the realisation I need to improve my irrigation set up. I recently invested in a decent fire water pump and installed a new point where I can run three hoses off. One goes further up the hill to fill a 6000 litre tank that feeds the toilet, another will be dedicated to a new overhead sprinkler system. I figure the pressure from the pump may not suit a drip irrigation system but will read more about this. The other point is for a general hose. Should a fire come my way there are two hoses to use facing North/North West which is where the fire will come from.  But in reality if a hot fire comes flying our way our plan is to get out.

In the veg patch, I have a large number of winter seeds just germinating at the moment and this heat and no rain is not good. I hosed this morning, and also at lunch where the carrots are and am pumping water into the corn. I will also hose tonight. If the seeds are allowed to dry out too much I will have wasted my time in the past 3 weeks planting and will have to rush seedlings in of poor varieties from the shops.

With hot days and lots of sun forecast, pick your vegies in the early morning for freshness and to last longer in the house, and pick all your tomato that have changed colour a little so they do not get damaged by the coming heat. They ripen perfectly inside away from the risk of damage from hot sun.

And the blackberry harvest is well and truly on with out 5th punnet collected earlier. They might be a declared weed, but at least we can eat their fruit!!!!

And fingers crossed no fires flare up.

Dave

tomato not fully ripe picked to avoid damage from the heat and blackberries from the weeds on our property

The Power of Community. How Cuba Survived Peak Oil.

This is a fantastic documentary on what happened to Cuba when peak oil hit and the effects on the country and how they have pulled through, especially with a food production focus. If you find the time it is well worth a watch.

How to make compost - Making your own compost

Beans in Tasmania

Today I picked the first of this seasons beans. Both the french bush bean (Cherokee Wax) and climbing bean (Purple King). The bean harvest is one of my favourite times of the year as they are one of my favourite vegetables. Either fresh off the vine/bush for the sweet crunch or steamed. However the rest of my family do not seem as keen on them which just means more for me. When the harvest ramps up we blanch them for freezing and eating during winter.

Due to the dry summer this year I noticed some of the beans where off to a slower start. To combat this I mulched all beans heavily with mushroom compost. This seems to have worked wonders and since heavily mulching all beans have taken off.

Today's harvest was not massive, but judging by all the little beans on the vines/bushes, there will be a few weeks of picking ahead of me. I also have 6 rows of bush beans planted three weeks after the first lot to hopefully extend the bush bean picking. Regular picking and not allowing beans to get too big is generally recommended, plus I tend to break a few leaves off the vines if they get too heavy with leaves as this is supposed to promote new shoots. Not sure if this is the case but Steve Solomon in his book recommends it so I will continue to do so.

On a side note I saw something quite hilarious today. With the kids playing backyard cricket and me inspecting the beans, they saw some goats on the edge of our property. We went for a walk and I stumbled upon a goat stuck on a paddock fence with its mates watching. This goat had tried to jump the fence but the fence was a little too high and it was half over the fence unable to move. I proceeded to introduce myself to the goat, let it have a sniff of my hand and then gave it a pat. With a few pulls and pushes, the goat managed to remove itself from its predicament and we walked it back to its home at Brightside where there was a big enough hole that this goat and a few of its mates where getting under. In no time the goats were gone.

The past two years I have stumbled upon a way to grow celery successfully after years of struggling with it. After a little research, I found out that celery is more of a swamp plant in its natural environs. If the plant is allowed to dry out too often it stresses the plant which then means as it matures to decent eating size, it bolts to flower. Allowing celery to suffer any stress will mean bolting at the time you want to harvest.

What I now do is only plant celery near my front door step. This means that I can ensure the plants are drenched with water regularly to ensure no stress. The spot I plant also does not receive any hot afternoon sun which seems to be another important factor in successful growth. Whatever is the reason, it is working and freshly picked celery kicks butt on the week old stuff for sale at the shops!!!

today's bean harvest

Citrus problems

Do you have or ever have had issues with your citrus tree? I put a lemon "meyer" in last winter and it was doing well until about 1 month ago. The older leaves are yellowing and dropping off.

I have tried iron and watered with trace elements. Now I will try epsom salts.

This link I found as very useful for trying to diagnose my lemon issue.

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/hs141

February Planting Guide for south of Hobart

Here is a general planting guide for areas generally 150m asl or below south of Hobart. Much also depends on your gardens aspect and locality to frosts etc and winter sun.

February Vegetable Plantings

Endive

lettuce (endless varieties - I like royal oak)

English spinach

Broccoli

Purple Sprouting Broccoli

Kale

Silverbeet (early in the month)

Cabbage

Cauliflower (Feb 1^st – plant diff varieties, can grow earlier but they need lots of attention)

Kohlrabi

Swedes (to mid month)

Turnip

Beetroot

Carrot (to mid month – do double size planting to last winter)

radish

Coriander (monthly sowings till March)

Asian Greens ie:(Mizuna/Mibuna/Cabbage)

Spring Onion

I personally found that earlier Feb was better than the end to get most of the above in. This is so the plants can have enough leaf size before winter arrives to ensure plants maximise the low light levels and continue to grow mid winter. If you plant towards the end of the month I would get seedlings into the ground rather than direct sowing of seed. But if we have a warm autumn you may get away with seeding till late Feb. People in Hobart probably have two further weeks up their sleeve than us.

Also start planning which beds will be vacant if you plan to grow green manure crops. I use tic beans for green manure as I am on heavier soils. One of the biggest challenges we all face is leaving beds free for the winter plantings, yet still getting some beds free for winter green manure. The green manure beds are the healthiest beds next season and I often get the Tomato and Corn into these beds. This year I backed off the summer plantings due to the dry weather to allow more beds to go under green manure.

Winter Carrots and Beetroot at top, Potato close to harvest

Pumkpin update

So what is happening with the pumpkins. We are starting to get to the business end of the growing season now. This time of the year is when we ideally want to ensure fertilisation of those female flowers to allow enough time for the last lot of pumpkins to mature and sweeten before the cold weather returns (especially the potential April frost).

Here is how mine are tracking. How are yours going? If you live south of Hobart, I would love to hear what varieties you have success with and how they usually taste.

Gold Nugget - About 6 to 8 pumpkins per plant of varying age - some ready to be picked in the next couple of week.

Gold Nugget

Buttercup - Each plants has 3 forming pumpkins with another couple at early stages. Hope these young 2 or 3 mature nicely by mid April

Butternut- I am happy to see the 2 butternuts both with at least 1 well sized pumpkin. There are another 3 to 4 young ones so should see them ready before the cold weather arrives which is a good result for butternut down this way.

I also have a Red Kurri which has 2 large pumpkins, but would like to see more pumpkins forming.

The worm farm has two pumpkins that have popped up from past compost. I let these go as well as a tomato to see how they went. I have no idea what the pumpkin is, but they are forming pumpkins so will be interesting to see how they taste.

The bush and climbing beans are flowering now, with some climbing beans having grown faster than others. It has been hard to keep the water up to the beans, and this has been evident the last few days with some bush beans curling (a typical sign of lack of water). Below I took a picture of the climbing bean (Purple King) as they are pretty.

Climbing Bean - Purple King

<a href="http://www.hypersmash.com">www.hypersmash.com</a>

Tomato Blossom End Rot

Most of us have experienced some form of tomato blossom end rot (BER). And lately I have noticed a few people experiencing varying forms of severity of this on their crop this growing season.Last season I personally noticed not a sign of BER, but have noticed a few mild cases of it this year despite having put the hard yards into soil preparation.

Blossom end rot (BER) in tomato

Did you know that the scientists are still researching this issue and that in fact it is not yet a resolved case!!! People who blame a lack of calcium uptake would be correct to some degree, but it is not as simple as that. A study by Saure (2001) found that BER is not caused by a single factor of calcium (CA) uptake, but rather is a sequence of two equally important factors.

(1) a higher susceptibility to various stresses due to an increase in physiologically active plant hormones that influence the development process and a resulting decrease in Ca ions, causing the enhanced permeability of cell membranes,  and
(2) some kind of stress, e.g. by soil water deficit, high salinity, or high NH₄⁺ activity, causing the deterioration of cell membranes with subsequent loss of rigidity of cells.

BER seems to occur when stress exceeds stress tolerance, most frequently in young fruit at the beginning of cell enlargement. At this stage, usually the highest amount of physiologically active plant hormones and the lowest amount of Ca are found, i.e. stress tolerance is lowest.  Calcium per se is considered neither a primary nor an independent factor in the development of BER.

Nonami et al  2004 did a study on Calcium metabolism in tomato fruits. They found that calcium deficiency in fruits may not be the direct cause of occurrence of blossom-end rot in tomato plants. When two varieties of tomato plants were compared for Ca ion uptake abilities, it was found that occurrence of blossom-end rot was unrelated with the Ca absorption. This suggests that occurrence of blossom-end rot is related to metabolic disorder regulated with gene expression under stress conditions.

There is much out there to read in the scientific paper world, however what now seems to be the case is that the growing environmental conditions has a large part to play, and in our case it is the dry spell. We have had some cool and very hot days with some very dry conditions, humidity has ranged from high to very low. Sub soil has all but dried out even if you have been watering every day. And from my readings, even allowing tomatoes to dry out for 3 days, combined with the weather or a sudden day of 10mm when we have had so little can aide in the formation of BER.

So what to do???

The good news is you can still get good tomatoes if you mulch & address water issues. Be sure to mulch with a material that allows water to slowly penetrate into your soil. This type of mulch makes what water you receive from nature available longer to your tomatoes - a thick layer of straw, newspaper, or wood chips will do the trick.And water the soil before laying the mulch!!!!!  Next year, plan to space your tomato out more. a spacing of 1.5m (less for bush types) between each plant would allow the root of each plant to not compete and allow a much wider zone of tolerance if the weather is varied and dry. This spacing sounds like a lot and is unrealistic to most people, but one high yielding healthy plant is better than four poorly performing plants.

If you've seen Blossom End Rot in your garden this year and are doing everything else right, be sure to check your soil pH. If your pH is below 6.5, add some lime to raise the level as too acidic soil can affect the plants ability to uptake calcium. But test your soil first!!!

Cauliflower

Found these interesting tips on growing cauliflower. If you are going to plant you need to start getting it in now if your in the Huon Valley so there is enough leaf in winter to maximise the lack of sun and continue growth.

Growing cauliflower

Cauliflower beginning to grow

This is one of those strange vegetables that you know is good for you and you should eat more of but how do you make it interesting? Smother it in a cheese sauce or toss it into a stir-fry. There are heaps of cooking opportunities for this versatile vegetable.

And if you didn't know, the white curds of the cauliflower is actually tightly packed immature flower buds.
Growing conditions

• They like a free draining soil and prefer growing in cooler conditions.
  
• Cauliflower loves a heavily manured soil which has been limed.
  
• In a 4 bed rotation system cauliflower is grown with broccoli and cabbage, following or before peas and beans.
  

Garden care

• You can directly sow cauliflower seeds into their bed or into seed raising mix (our preference).
  
• Seedlings are transplanted out into the garden after they've got their first two true leaves. Cauliflowers take up a lot of space so leave at least 60cm (two feet) between plants (check spacings for your variety).
  
• Cauliflowers need the same garden care as their brassica brothers, the cabbage and broccoli.
  
• This vegetable has very demanding nutritional needs so feed them fortnightly with a potash and liquid manure mix.
  
• Keep the water up to your cauliflowers, especially if things start warming up. Remember to water the soil, avoiding the white head.
  
• Never let anyone tell you that it's impossible to grow cauliflowers in containers. You can because we've done it in the past. Just make sure you use a mini cauliflower variety, and give them plenty of space for their roots. We discovered this when container gardening during the first time we'd harvested cauliflower. We pulled the whole plant from the container. The roots had woven themselves so thickly through the potting mix that there was absolutely nothing left at all in the container. We had to shake the potting mix out of the roots for a couple of minutes. The roots really shocked us. But when we cooked our cauli it tasted beautiful!
  
• When the white cauliflower head starts developing you'll need to protect it from the sun and rain. Tie two leaves together using rubber bands. This will blanche the head. Otherwise it goes brown. Tie bigger leaves together as the head grows.
  
• When it comes to pests watch for caterpillars (Cabbage White Butterfly) and spray every 10-14 days with Dipel (Bacillus thuringienis var. Kurstaki). Don't forget to reapply if it rains.
  

Harvest time

• It usually takes around 4 months for a cauliflower to reach maturity.
  
• Harvest the head around 20cm (8 inches). Heads bigger than this may discolour and lose their firmness.
  
• Pull the whole plant from the ground. Cut the cauliflower head off and compost the rest.
  
  courtesy of http://www.thevegetablepatch.com/patch/cauliflower.htm
  
   

The thin line from disaster

Dejected is how I felt this morning. Upon entering the veggie patch, it was quickly obvious that something had found its way in through my defences. Was it a possum, a rabbit, a pademelon, a chook??? It was the Tasmanian Pademelon. The damage was not massive, but enough to have me walking around in some form of delirious anger. My 6 Broccoli "Summer Purple", which where my autumn/early winter crop has been hammered to no leaf bar the mid stem. The Kohl Rabi leaves where eaten the same however they are ready for harvest so I can cop that. Carrot leaves have been nibbled and the Radicchio also nibbled but not to badly. It seems the Brassicas were the main focus. Surprisingly the Beetroot has been left mainly in tact.

My main issue now is did they eat the seeds I planted last week. I had not checked on whether they had germinated yet so am not sure but may have to replant these also.

A pain it is but it is a good lesson to do regular inspections of the fence. It was not easy finding how they got in but there was a weak area where they made there way through in the chook wire. This has been patched up and I will add a new line of chook wire for double strength.  I have observed an increasing number of wallaby scats recently around the house and veg patch, a result of the dry conditions and less food availability for the wildlife. This is when our defenses are put to their test.

And how am I sure it was a Pademelon? Because I found their scat (poo) within the veg patch.

I will now be out of Broccoli until mid winter, and have doubled the seeds in the hot house so I have spares next planting. I am sure this will happen again and it is just part of life in a rural area (at least I don't get hammered by blackbirds). But in the meantime I am still disappointed as the Broccoli "Summer Purple" had been growing so well and was close to forming a flower head.

The evidence

The fence is not tight as I am told a possum does not like climbing loose wire!!! Floppy top for the possum also.

Broccoli eaten

This is the entry spot and the patch job

10 tips for growing Tomato

1. Don't crowd the seedlings

You will be amazed how aggressive the roots are. Follow the seed packet and if you are unable to keep water up to the plants, space them further apart. Some bush tomatoes are fine at 75cm spacings, but many large vines are no closer than 1m spacing. 1.5m is even better.

2. Provide lots of light

Tomato seedlings will need either strong, direct sunlight or 14-18 hours under grow lights. Plant your tomatoes outside in the sunniest part of your vegetable plot.

3. Preheat the soil in your garden

Tomato love heat. Cover the planting area with black or red plastic a couple of weeks before you intend to plant. Those extra degrees of warmth will translate into earlier tomatoes.

4. Plant varieties that suit your region

This seems like a no brainer but many new to gardening do not realise just how many varieties there are out there and that many are not suited to your climate, especially in Tasmania.

5. Bury them and add potash

Bury tomato plants deeper than they come in the pot or in your home raised pots, all the way up to a few top leaves. Tomatoes are able to develop roots all along their stems. You can either dig a deeper hole or simply dig a shallow tunnel and lay the plant sideways. It will straighten up and grow toward the sun. Be careful not to drive your pole or cage into the stem. Add potash to their planting hole for strong fruit and side dress with potash durng growing season.

6. Mulch Later.

Mulch after the ground has had a chance to warm up. Mulching does conserve water and prevents the soil and soil born diseases from splashing up on the plants, but if you put it down too early it will also shade and therefore cool the soil. Try using plastic mulch for heat lovers like tomatoes and peppers if you are in a very cold area or at higher elevation..

7. Remove the Bottom Leaves.

Once the tomato plants are about 10cm tall, remove the leaves from the bottom 1/3 of stem. These are usually the first leaves to develop fungus problems. They get the least amount of sun and soil born pathogens can be unintentionally splashed up onto them. Spraying weekly with compost tea also seems to be effective at warding off fungus diseases.

8. Pinch & Prune for More Tomatoes

Pinch and remove suckers that develop in the crotch joint of two branches. They won’t bear fruit and will take energy away from the rest of the plant. But go easy on pruning the rest of the plant. You can thin leaves to allow the sun to reach the ripening fruit, but it’s the leaves that are photosynthesizing and creating the sugars that give flavor to your tomatoes.

9. Water the Tomato Plants Regularly.

Water deeply and regularly while the plants are developing. Irregular watering, (missing a week and trying to make up for it), leads to blossom end rot and cracking. Once the fruit begins to ripen, lessening the water will coax the plant into concentrating its sugars. Don’t withhold water so much that the plants wilt and become stressed or they will drop their blossoms and possibly their fruit.

10. Getting Them to Set Tomatoes.

Determinate type tomatoes tend to set and ripen their fruit all at one time, making a large quantity available when you’re ready to make sauce. You can get indeterminate type tomatoes to set fruit earlier by pinching off the tips of the main stems in early summer.

Cygnet January Weather Averages

January Weather results are in and are as follows:

January	2013	2012
Max Avg	24.5	25.1
Min Avg	9.8	11
Highest Max	40.6	37.7
Lowest Min	5.4	5.6
Rain	27.3mm	69.3mm
Avg Wind	5.3 km/h	4.6 km/hr

It seems the warmer than usual start to summer has subsided with max and mins lower this month compared to last year. This combined with the very hot record day and dry spell might explain why the indeterminate tomatoes seem to have back off a bit in their growth compared to last summer. However the Break O'Day variety is large and covered with large toms. The Rouge de Marmande is a little disappointing in comparison to last summer so far however.

Last Sunday I planted the following in preparation for late Autumn and winter:

• Mizuna
• Rocket
• English Spinach (English Winter Giant and Tyee)
• Kohl Rabi

And seeds have been put in punnets in the hothouse for later transplanting of the following:

• Brussel Sprouts
• Cauliflower (mix from Inspirations Nursery) - I found last year this mix did well and the cauliflower matured at different times for longer harvesting)
• Broccoli (Arcadia and Purple Sprouting) - Purple Sprouting are fantastic, and the Arcadia seemed to handle the winter well and produced massive heads with heaps of side shoots which kept us in Broccoli for months
• Kale (Red Russian)

This weekend I will be planting about 10 metres of Carrots (Merida) and Beetroot (love Derwent Globe and Bulls Blood). Lettuce and Cabbage (Savouy King will also be planted. Last year I did Swede (Tasmanian Butter) however we were not hugely keen on the taste so will be skipping it this year and will do some turnip instead. The spring turnips were quite tasty steamed in thin slices.

We had 16mm of rain in the past 5 days which is more than half of our Jan rainfall. This has given things a perk up and I got out last night after the recent rain and hosed to ensure more water got into the soil thanks to the rain. Fingers crossed Feb is not as dry.

happy gardening

Jerusalem Artichoke next to cauliflower