Donna's Garden - 03/11/08

[Donna McCallum]

I have been having a shocking time with tomatoes recently - not only did I have most of my fruit split (attracting some sort of fungus), then most of them have been 'stung' or something similar. One had a black & yellow caterpillar that I must get around to identifying... Some sort of random cherry tomato from my compost sprouted in the grass near a garden so hubby put bricks around it without weeding it, and staked it up. The interloper has done beautifully and has NO problems while my heirloom varieties have done crap and suffered nearly everything known to man! Taught me a little lesson about planting varieties suited to your climate - cherry tomatoes apparently do heaps better in our area, and I noticed Green Harvest recommend two - one of which resists splitting - yay.

Powdery mildew I have mostly kept at acceptable levels with spraying diluted milk, yellow ladybirds and not watering the leaves.

I keep meaning to spray most of the fruit trees with a mild bordeaux but still haven't done it yet (this weekend the excuse was it was going to rain... Maybe next weekend, the citrus really need something done about them and have a number of things wrong with them (1 has curly leaves - homemade pest oil and 1 ALL leaves have dropped ? waterlogged).

Anyway, there is still lots growing and doing well - might get one more side dish of broccoli and silverbeet, I have a baby rockmelon, the one little paw paw is still ripening, the tamarillo looks like it has some fruit set. The veggie garden is still a bit productive with little zucchini, broccoli, silverbeet, beetroot, with still a few tomatoes.

After my abysmal seed raising efforts a few weeks ago, I am happy to say I can now get seeds to come up. Planting them directly in the garden, watering daily and use of shadecloth have worked well. As a result I have way too many plants in my gardens and will have to move a whole heap but I hate thinning plants, no matter what books I read it still feels wrong. There are random plants anywhere and very close together, no actual organisation at all (which may well be a good thing). These include rockmelon, watermelon, pumpkin, ground cherry - actually this will take too long ... pretty much at least one (and up to 10) of everything in my seed list that might possibly grow at this time of year! ;)

Saying that, I have a few more that I was generously given by the lovely couple who organised the lesson at the Inala library (from Northey Street City Farm) - including luffa and ceylon spinach which I am keen to try, and a few more seeds from Green Harvest have interested me. Somehow I think it may be time to build another vegetable garden.

Summary To Date (started in May/ June 2008)
2.4m x 1.2m raised garden x 5
1.2m x 1.2m raised garden x 1
0.6m x 0.6m raised garden x 2 (specially designed by hubby to avoid tyres for potatoes - can be built up to 4 high)
Generous size (around 1.4m sq) herb garden
Along the back fence x 1m wide - probably about 5m long

32 fruit trees

Maybe there should be a warning - Growing Can Be Addictive!

[Vanessa]

Hey Donna, looks like you've got the opposite problem to me - ALL I seem to be able to grow is tomatoes at the moment! They are all rogues that shot up during the spring rains. I ran out of stakes for them all so I've just let some fall and grow all over the place. It seems too hot for anything else lately.