Hello. Welcome to summer 2023/2024

This is the page for Summer 2023 and 2024!

Sunflowers! 6/1/2024

Happy bees and sunflowers.

The sunflowers have opened, and the bees are having a great time I think!

These sunflowers are supposed for making the type of sunflower seeds for snacking. We will see if the seed packet was right!

Tomato plants 6/1/2024

The tomato plants are growing well, along with the sunflowers mentioned above!.

There is also chamomile plants next to the tomatos and sunflowers, and the chamomile has made delicious tea!

The chamomile has decided to flop over after some rain, which makes walking a bit hard but otherwise its been all good!

I am thinking of tying up the chamomile to the sunflowers to keep them upright.

Dwarf tomatoes, corn, and others patch 6/1/2024

This area has lots of things!

On the far right is dwarf tomatoes in pots, the variety is Sean's Yellow. It's the first time I am growing them, but it has been promising so far.

In the middle had some red cos lettuce plants that has bolted, which was removed. There was also mini red onions which were ready, and harvested. I might get a different variety as it feels like they bulbed a bit too early. I will be putting some bok choy starters and replacement lettuce in there tomorrow. Next to that is some lettuces that are not quite ready to harvest yet. (I have been getting too much lettuce at once)

In the back is two varieties of corn, the ones you can see there is an early sweetcorn variety, and behind them, (planted much later to avoid flowering at the same time) is a popcorn variety.

To the left is two salsify plants and a ground cherry plant. I am excited to see what they taste like.

There is also a bayleaf tree in a pot to the far right, and a pomegranate bush in a pot in the far back as well. (never made pomegranates but its a nice looking bush)

Another view of the same plot. There is lots of weeds back there, but I let it that way as there are lots of large perrenial flowers, trees, ferns, and a big tree stump there. Also gone wild potatoes... Might as well just let the weeds take over for the wildlife. The area to the far left of it really does need a weed though.

What was the other lettuce patch 6/1/2024

There was lettuce here, which is all harvested now. The big plants that are left here are cabbages (small, but ready to harvest now!) the flowers, amaranth, a shallot plant at the base, a couple lettuce plants and a couple beetroot plants.

I planted some new plants in replacement of the lettuces and some of the beets that I ate. I put in some onion seeds in the back for spring onions (idk if it will work but we will see) and some more beets planted at the front. I planted the classic red beet and golden beets. The other colours I planted were not as nice (They didn't grow to be as dense, and was not as tasty)

I already harvested two cabbages. They were small, (I did grow a small variety on purpose) and they had a strong taste. Much more flavor than the supermaket ones! Does cabbage taste nice to me? Not really, but it must mean it has more nutrients!

The pepper, and corn patch, (also a bigger garden view) 6/1/2024

In the middle was the corn and pepper patch i showed you last time! it is growing nicely. The corn here is glass gem corn, and I planted them later than the sweet corn so they dont cross pollinate.

There is a chance this corn pollinates with the popcorn on the other side of the garden, but it shoudln't make too much of a problem as they are both a hard corn, and can be popped.

The peppers and basil behind them are also growing nicely. I didnt get a good photo of them today but they are getting there. We had lots of very hot days recently, so they are starting to get growing.

What was the garlic patch 6/1/2024

The garlic patch has been harvested, weeded and replaced with new plants!

In their place, I planted carrots, raddishes, and I planted a melon plant at the bottom. I have lots of melon plants in large pots (I'll show you later), but I had heaps of starts in punnets left over, so I put one in the ground.

On the left, you may think those are weeds, but most of it is not! its mostly beets! I like beets. They are still small, and I may have planted them too dense, but hey! we will see how it goes.

Oh look there is a random shallot plant on the bottom left that I planted there. haha.

My melon project 6/1/2024

Whoah, 5 melon plants. All of them are each a different variety!

This is in the other side of the house, where there is much more sun.

Each melon plant here is of a different variety. These melons are honeydew and cantalope types.

The plan is to let them all cross pollinate, and eventually create a "landrace". Every year I will save the seeds from these plants, while adding in more melon varieties to cross polinate between them. Over time there will be a lot of genetic diversity within the seeds and plants, which should allow the melons to be more acclimated to my climate (and living in pots) over time!

Not sure if it will work, as I only really have the space for 5 plants. But in theory it should work out! I may get some strange melons as there are both cantalope and honeydew melons in the same area, but I know they will still be tasty. I might get something unique!

Runner beans! 6/1/2024

The runner beans! We had one handful of beans which we ate already (We did not weigh as predicted), the rest are taking their time, though.

FINAL BROAD BEAN UPDATE 2/12/2023

THEY GOT HARVESTED.

The total weight of shelled broad/fava beans was 2.09 kgs or 4.6 pounds over four harvests! (Most of the weight was from the final harvest though)

How they looked right before harvest:

I got a lot! I froze most of it and a lot of it was cooked in various things like curries and stir fries. They are tasty if you get the skin off.

NEW KIND OF BEANS 21/12/2023

With the broadbeans gone... its time to show off my... RUNNER BEANS.

They are big! and have lots of teeny tiny beans in there. I am unsure if I will be able to weigh it as we tend to pick and cook small batches at a time. I will try though!

The variety is scarlet runner, and I have been growing this from home saved seed for at least 7 years now. This variety grows back the next year after being cut down with the roots intact, which the ones on the far left and right did. (They are the ones with the earliest beans)

Say hello to my flower pot. 21/12/2023

Flowers. I pick the flowers to put in a vase sometimes. There would be more flowers there if I didn't pick them! hehe

They smell good. Not the pansies though, the others! The pansies are edible did you know that?

New plantings! 21/12/2023

The beans were gone, so I planted some corn, basil, pepper plants and one eggplant in there. they have been in there for a week now. I will start harvesting the tops of the basils soon so that they can get all bushy. Maybe for Christmas dinner!

Also, I left the broad bean roots in there. It's because I pulled one out and saw lots of nitrogen nodules, so they should feed the new plants as they decompose.

What was the lettuce patch 21/12/2023

There was lots of lettuce here, and beetroots.

The beetroots grew well, and large, and I harvested most of them, but there are some left. I replaced the raddishes with the cabbages, and... they aint going too hot. I might get.. two heads from there maybe?

The lettuces in the middle was harvested a week ago. and I put amaranth sedlings there. They look very pretty.

The front was just harvested, there was a few lettuce heads that was "harvested" here. (The centres rotted I think I waited too long yuck) It needs stuff put in its place. I might plant more beetroot or raddish seeds here? Not too sure yet. I should have planned head and made punnets of something.

One of the lettuces i planted that was not harvested is flowering as of right now.

The pansies I planted at the front are very nice and gives the garden a nice pop of colour!

Tomato, Sunflowers and Chamomile! 21/12/2023

Whoah! more tomatoes. They are very healthy! they need to be tied up!

You may think the tomatoes do not get enough sun however the photo was taken at around 2pm and they get full sun untill about 1 pm. The tomatoes planted there last year did great! So i'm sticking to this location.

The sunflowers are too tall for the photo. They havn't opened up their flowerheads yet.

Underneath and between the tomatoes are chamomile! (and some small weeds)

this is very densly planted with different plants, so we will see how the harvests go. So far, So good!

Wuf, that's a lot. That is not all that was done in the garden since last update but this update is getting long! More will come another day!