Super Late Post!! Red Cabbage Harvest in April 2020

Hello again everyone! I will be posting a lot of super late posts in the coming few days as I had not been very good at keeping up with the garden for a few reasons.

First of all, I had an unfortunate first trimester pregnancy aversion in gardening. Yes, the sight of soil makes me want to puke. Haha... It's probably a good thing though, as I tend to go a bit crazy with gardening and overtire myself. I also had aversion in house work, especially dish washing.

Secondly, the weather had cooled down significantly here in Melbourne and for some reason I didn't cope too well this time around. Maybe it's to do with the pregnancy too. Anyway, I spent a few weeks taking frequent nap and being super duper bloated. Very unpleasant because my brain wanted to do things but my body refused.

All of these aversions mysteriously disappeared when the pregnancy reached around 11-12 weeks. Now I'm back to my old self and back in the garden again despite the freezing weather and doing a lot of tidying up around the house.

This brilliant looking red cabbage was harvested in April and it was so satisfying to process into a few different meals. I called this one the lucky cabbage as I planted two and this particular one seemed to successfully avoid slug and caterpillar damage, unlike the other one. It's also so pretty, like a bouquet.

Spring 2019 Planting Stage 1

With the weather (finally) warming up in Melbourne, I decided to transplant some of the seedlings that look ready.

First are the pumpkins, the below photo was taken 1 week ago. They have grown more true leaves and the roots have grown very long.

They are now at the front garden where they should get ample sunlight during the day.

Second, the cabbages, cauliflower and lettuce seedlings have grown enough number of true leaves, so they were planted at the front garden as well this morning. Also on the photos are lettuce and spinach seedlings.

Photo from 1 week ago. Cabbages (back right), cauliflower (front right), broccoli (back left) and lettuce (front left)

Photo taken yesterday.

The cabbages and cauliflower were planted around the poppies bed where they will get lots of morning sun.

Some of the lettuce seedlings were planted at the front garden as well, since they were doing well on that section last year.

Third, lettuce, spinach and broccoli  seedlings were ready.

The big lettuces were from last winter and new seedlings planted in front of them.

Broccoli also occupy the same spot this spring as last time.

The remaining of lettuce and spinach seedlings were planted in garden bed 3 this year.

Lastly, the tomatoes that I planted in August 2019 were finally ready to meet the outdoor weather.

Garden bed 4 were cleared yesterday to make space for the tomatoes.

New occupants of garden bed 4, with some space left on the right hand side for cucumber, capsicum and beefsteak tomatoes.

All of the seedlings have been covered with with pea straw mulch since the photos were taken.

Garden bed 2 filled with broad beans, long beans, anak beans and all sorts of beans.

Photo taken 2 weeks ago.

Photo from this morning.

With new beans seedlings popping out.

Raspberry bush is back and growing new branches. There are a few flowers already showing and I hope there will be walls of raspberries soon.

Cranberries have grown it's leaves back. 

Seedling Preparation for Spring 2019

As the weather warmed up in Melbourne, I started my batch of seedlings for the 4 beds crop rotation this spring. This year, I didn't prepare too many backup seedlings because I finally figured out the right time to start the seedlings and also to transplant them outside.

The usual suspects are tomatoes and pumpkins.

Tomatoes, seeds planted in the first week of Aug. Photo taken in the second week of September.

These 4 trays are pretty much the only seedlings I prepared this year. They are the vegetables and herbs that we regularly consume, such as pumpkin, capsicum, chili, lettuce, spinach, brocoli,  cabbage, cauliflower, parsley and basil. These were planted in the last week of August and photos were taken in the second week of September.

The pumpkin seeds are the usual early sprouters.

And the lettuce, brocolli, cabbage and cauliflower.

I really hope I will get cauliflower this year, I'm going to plant them at the front garden.

LittleMsGreenies Garden Update February 2018

Summer is well underway here in Melbourne, the weather is warm (sometimes even hot), with cool mornings and nights.
The fruits are finally starting to ripen up and harvest had even started already, especially the tomatoes. Lots of activities going on in my garden in the last few weeks. Lots of harvesting, tidying up, and replanting flower seeds.
It's definitely a nice feeling seeing the garden beds looking lush and green.
All photos were taken on 2nd and 5th February 2018.

On the Garden Bed 0, the bay tree keeps on growing new leaves, I'm confident that it had survived the winter. It looks like I will have a good supply of bay leaves as well in the coming months. Lots of herbs on this garden bed, we have tarragon, oregano (not visible on the photo), sage (not visible on the photo), and stevia. The dahlia is finally flowering, we've already seen light orange, purple and dark purple coloured flowers. I'm still waiting for the sign of seeds from these flowers. The random apple trees seedlings (from last winter's compost) still survive. I didn't have the heart to pull them out, so, you'll see lots of apple seedlings throughout the photos today.

On Garden Bed 1, things are well underway, the cabbage and brocolli are growing significantly and I'm checking every few days for signs of florets. We have had a good harvest of spinach, lettuce, and the herbs from this bed. Definitely excellent types of leafy vegetables that I will plant again next spring. The nasturtium plant is growing up steadily and it is an excellent companion planting as they attracted the caterpillar, so the other plants don't get attacked too much.

The look in Garden Bed 2 was not very pretty at the end of January. Melbourne's windy weather had proven challenging for the tomatoes to grow neatly on the allocated sticks. So, after a few hours of hard work, I managed to untangle the vines and run them properly up the sticks.

We have had ongoing harvest of tomatoes, left right and center.

Also on the Garden Bed 2, the corn and chilies are growing, I even saw capsicum flowers started to bloom this morning. It's going to be exciting time ahead.

The corn plants are showing the corn. It's my first time planting corn, so, I can't wait to see how this will turn out.

On Garden Bed 3, the radishes that I planted earlier had bolted. We collected the seeds and replanted them. It looks like they have started sprouting. I'm giving them another chance, not giving up on them yet. We shall see how this batch turns out. 

The carrots are slow growing on this bed for some reason, we haven't had any good harvest yet.

But, I planted some more seeds in there, hoping they will turn out successful.

The Kipfler potatoes were a good harvest, it was a bit challenging to dig them out without bruising them, but we tried to be as gentle as we can (as gentle as a 3 year old boy can be, that is).

Some of the smaller potatoes were planted back.

On Garden Bed 4, the beans are so glorious, indeed they enjoy the sun. They grow bushier when there was a hot day. 

We have had a few harvest of the green and purple beans. And now starting to see the snake beans and adzuki beans being ready for harvest.

The large photo on the top left corner is one of the many surprised tomato plants that grew in the garden. They grew from the tomato kitchen scrap that I planted as compost material around the garden last winter. Look at the size of it. Not bad for a freebie!

The pomegranate has 4 fruits, that are still green.

Bell Chilies are gigantic, I bet they really love heat, these 2 are positioned on the west side of the garden.

The photo on the bottom right hand side is the mandarin pipsqueak with a surprised tomato plants (again), apple tree seedling (also from kitchen scrap, apple core), and spinach cutting.

I have some excess pumpkin seedlings this spring, so, on top of the climbing pumpkin on Garden Bed 2, I planted the extra seedlings on the unused part of the garden. The soil on that area is not good, but, it looks like they are thriving in there. Lots of male flowers already appearing. I keep on checking every morning to see if there is any female flower.

The flowers on the front garden is in full bloom now. We have lots of solitary bees fluttering about from flower to flower, mostly the lavender, sunflower and zinnia. I hope there will be more bees here, but I've only seen one or two at the same time in the garden.

A few days after these photos were taken, I planted some borage seeds on this section, hoping to attract more bees.