Everybody needs good neighbours

I'm not a fan of the soapie, but I am a big fan of neighbours. I love our house and garden, but what money couldn't buy was landing in an altogether friendly pocket of suburbia. As well as lovely adults, there is a bunch of kids around our boys' ages with whom I'm looking forward to them growing up. And it's the sort of street, without us being overly chummy and all over each other, that there's no shame in asking a neighbour to collect your mail or feed the chooks.

The patriarch of the block is an elderly Sicilian gentleman (any lesser descriptor wouldn't be appropriate) who has been in the neighborhood for years (and spread his loquat seeds) who knows everything there is about everything. He's our real estate sales reporter, neighborhood watch and voluntary handyman, sometimes to the point of embarrassment: he ended up showing up, goods in hand, to fix our fence, then wouldn't accept a bottle of wine (he makes his own), or a cake (no good for his cholesterol).

Our next door neighbours were away for a few days after Christmas and asked us to put their bins out, and help ourselves to their ripe tomatoes. Good deal... until their bins migrated to the street without our input. Ok, we were too slow. Then, early the next morning as the boys and I waved to the garbage truck we caught a glimpse of the Sicilian rocket whiz out his gate in the truck's wake and return our neighbours' bins to their yard, still warm from the garbage truck's exhaust. With a small splutter I wondered, who needs good neighbors when you've got the Super Neighbour?

Days 4 and 5: changing seasons

It was a hectic weekend with lots to do that didn't quite fit with my Project a Day rules: Wiggles concert (watching excited kids=heaps of fun!), play group Christmas barbecue (watching excited kids=heaps of fun!), plus the usual run around of weekend activites. But in between all that I managed to pull out the broad beans, salvaging 1.5kg of pods.

I haven't yet found broad beans in shops or markets that look as good as the home grown version, so it was definitely a sad farewell to an old friend- the broad beans had been planted way back in autumn, so for an annual plant they have stuck around for ages, touching every season. But as Pen said about her broad bean crop, its demise is bittersweet- they need to move on to make room for the summer crops. And certainly we did seize that opportunity- today Little Bro and I started to plant out our tomatoes that have been patiently waiting in the seed house. Welcome, summer.

Images to come...

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The highs and lows of a vegie patch

It was a gorgeous, warm, sunny weekend- well, gorgeous if you were human, not so gorgeous if you were one of three tomato seedling that had been potted out on Friday and neglected.

I felt a bit bummed to see their withered corpses when we got home on Sunday evening. Even more bummed when I found Minnesota Melon #2 with a broken neck and bite marks within 24 hours of being potted out. Bummed enough to not take any photos- that's bummed! Melon #1 had withered unexpectedly when I had potted it up, so I was feeling pretty down about my prospects of getting a melon this year -continuing my failures from previous years.

More generally I was wondering why I bother trying to grow vegies from seed when I could just roll down to Bunnings and pick up some fruiting beefsteak tomato plant

Then yesterday I pulled up two thumb-size carrots and picked three pods of peas.Not much at all, so I popped them in a bowl for my no-raw-vegetable boys to eat stare at. Little Bro sampled a pea and a carrot, and rejected them as usual. But Big Bro declared the peas delicious and snaffled them up.

Then, wonder of wonders, one long carrot became this:

And suddenly I remembered why I have a vegie patch.

So what's been happening?

A couple more signs that Spring is only 10 days away: nectarine and fig buds swelling.

I think I've polished off my list of winter jobs in the garden:
- roses and stone fruit pruned: in my case this was 36 roses and one nectarine
- sprayed the nectarine buds in the hopes of reducing fungal infection of the fruit
- major garden restructuring jobs achieved to take advantage of wet weather and dormant plants- most of this centred around the Colorado Bed. I've also shifted a spider plant which was spreading into the vegie patch (how dare it!) and a pittosporum which wasn't doing much next to a fence
- we haven't done a lot of new planting other than annual vegetables, apart from three new blueberry plants and three strawberry crowns in the now-dedicated shade/acid lovers bed, in between the camelias.
- I've been trying to get ahead on the weeding while the soil is moist. Big Bro is starting to get the idea of weeding and while is hasn't yet met the high standards set by other children, he's keen enough to deposit pulled weeds in the bin. This will be my third spring in this garden, and I'm starting to see through some of the pseudo-ornamental weeks. Canna lillies, a bulbous grass (I originally thought it was crocuses) and a spreading ground cover have persisted long enough that they are now on my "show no remorse" list
- after procrastinating for six months, I have finally taken the advice of a stranger at Bunnings who recommended Grow Organic for home-delivered manures. Most of the beds have now had a top dressing of manure; take it from this stranger, Grow Organic manures are a great product, and they were very easy to deal with over the phone
- rosemary cuttings have been started to make a hedge for the Colorado Bed; I've had about a 50% strike rate for rosemary cuttings propagated in pots (inside or out), directly in garden beds, or in water. In future I'll probably only propagate Rosemary cuttings by putting them in water for a month or two as it seems as good as the in-soil methods, and takes a lot less space and effort
- spring vegie planting has started, albeit slowly. So far we have two zucchinis and one Minnesota melon that were germinated inside and are now joining three overwintered tomatoes in the mini-greenhouse. Capsicums, eggplants, cucumber and more melons are next on my list. I have never got a melon or a cucumber past the flower stage (and usually not even that far) but I'll live in hope!

Have I forgotten anything? Bring on Spring!

Third sign of spring

More a sign of my spring mindset than real spring weather:

the first glimpse of a germinating zucchini seed.

This year I am hoping to stagger my vegetable planting to avoid feast-and-famine harvests... and to avoid watching everyone else eating homegrown tomatoes while mine aren't yet flowering. So hopefully this will be my early zucchini crop! Time will tell...

Static garden

The garden has been having a quiet patch at the moment. I'm waiting for the last climbing beans to dry, and I am deciding what to do with the eggplants that only just flowered, too late for any harvest (I'm hoping that I might be able to overwinter them in a pot). I've been gradually shifting the leaf drifts onto the garden as a cheap mulch, and pulling out the last dried remnants of the zucchinis and tomatoes. I'm having a mental break too. I have all sorts of things on my to-do list- plant the vernalised tulip bulbs, plant broadbeans, order a delivery of manure, plant more brassica seedlings- but to be honest, the kitchen is a more inviting place at the moment. I think I was a bear in a former life- hibernation sounds like such a good idea right now.

Beach holiday

Work took me to Queensland's Sunshine Coast for a few days so I squeezed B and the boys in my bag and we added on a few more days of R&R in Noosa. We had a wonderful time- highlights included the beach and pool, Eumundi Markets, the Ginger Factory (a boat ride, a train ride, icecream and gingerbread man souvenirs: who can complain?), riding the Noosa Ferry and ascending Mt Tinbeerwah to look over the Noosa River and hinterland ("climbing" is a bit of an exaggeration for the degree of difficulty for the adults, but as I said before, it was Big Bro's first unassisted mountain ascent).

Food-wise, Noosa certainly isn't home to obvious bargains, especially with the near-universal 15% holiday surcharge over Easter, but our favourite meal was at Trios at the Noosa Marina (floor to ceiling glass and no balcony combined with a late lunch meant Little Bro could cruise in the vicinity of our table without risk of a watery plunge... and a good view of the boats). An honourable mention goes to Rasa in Noosaville for the best children's menu item, a delicious chicken noodle stirfry.

Eight days away didn't feel like long (and wasn't) but in that time the garden had a few developmental leaps- infantile capsicums, tomatoes at the end of their season, yet more parsley, and a few too many weeds. The holiday is certainly over!

Partial pot luck

A few months ago I posted on my experiments and accidents with 10 year old tomato, eggplant and basil seeds. I had planted four types of seeds and then managed to overturn the pot, mixing or losing who-knows-how-many seeds.

A week or so ago, this was the outcome. Three germinations, though I can't definitely identify what they are yet. Definitely not basil, but the front two may be Outdoor Girl tomatoes or eggplants, whilst the back sprout has shinier cotyledons.

Unfortunately one of the front pair succumbed to warm weather (and my negligence) over the weekend, so I have two more hopes. Not a great outcome, but an outcome.

We shall see...

New plot on the block

I'm always wanting more space to plant vegies. Our garden has brick-and-mortar edging and paved areas put in by the previous owners, so it's hard to adjust the size of the garden beds. And despite all the talk in the blogosphere about the "green cancer" of lawns in gardens, B and I like to have a grassy patch at home for the boys to run around on. So I was quite pleased to finally turn my thoughts into action and put some large pots in an unused corner 10 days ago.

They're on a rarely-used rear driveway behind the garage, so it is not an area we would permanently convert to garden, but it's a good addition to the regular beds. The fence faces North, but is shaded in the afternoon by the garage, which I hope will reduce overheating in summer.

Big Bro was thrilled to have the chance to do some "seeding" and watering, and has proudly shown off "his" plot to visitors. We planted some strawberries and lettuce seedlings around the corners, radish and carrot seeds in the middle (I'm hoping that the muncher won't find them) and climbing beans at the back; I'll put some lattice up on the fence for the climbers. On the far right is my out-of-season feral tomato that was evicted from the mini-greenhouse to make room for seedlings.

And who says you can't have fun planting radishes?

Woo hoo 2!

Every successful seed germination gives me a small thrill, especially at this early stage of the season when I am impatient and anxious about whether I have used the right medium, watered too much or too little, used seeds that are too old, planted too deep.....

So here are two tomatoes:

And two melons and a zucchini:

Of course they have a long way to go before I can declare success or failure, but it's good to get out of the starting block!

Meanwhile, at the other end of the continuum, we are getting oh-so-close to our first broadbean harvest. The recent warm wet weather has pushed the pods from being Little Bro-finger size through to bigger-than-Dada-finger size in only a week. Big Bro has been nagging me to pick the pods, so I have promised we will when we can count 20 that are of an acceptable size. Any day now, I hope...

Last day of winter

This afternoon I vaguely mentioned to Big Bro that if he were interested, we might have some seeds that could be planted... well, there was no stopping him!

We put in tomatoes (Irene's Tiny Toms, Yellow Pear, Black Russian and Tigerella) and three ancient squash seeds (my last remaining crookneck from a holiday in San Francisco in 1998, and two yellow scallops from Digger's).

I'm trying out home-made jiffy pot equivalents- aka folded toilet rolls, the idea being that the seedlings can be transplanted straight into the garden without their roots being disturbed. I'll report back on how they go.

Tomato rainbow

Our neighbour welcomed the warmer weather with a delivery of compost for her vegie patch. This got us discussing our planting plans, which led to me offering her a sampling of my archived tomato seeds.

I've been saving tomato seeds for over 10 years, and I have found that they do retain viability for that long (at least). To save them, I squeeze the pulp onto a paper towel and leave it to dry, then store in a ziplock plastic bag. To plant, I can pick the seeds off the paper, or else just snip out a portion of paper with seeds attached and put the whole thing in the pot. I think the paper helps to keep moisture closer to the seed to aid germination.

These are the tomato varieties I passed over to my neighbour. She has small children, so I hope they enjoy the different colours, shapes and sizes, not to mention flavours! Most are heritage varieties available from Digger's, which provides a lot more information on the varieties than I can.

Unusual colours:

Tigerella "Mr Stripy"- red with orangy stripes

Green Zebra- pale green with darker green stripes

Black Krim- very deep purple

Yellow Pear- bright yellow cherry tomato with a pear shape and sweet taste

Red cherry:

Gardener's Delight

"Irene's Tiny Tom"- my name for a very sweet red cherry tomato grown by B's mother's friend's daughter

"Standard" red

Mortgage Lifter

Moneymaker

Amish Paste

Outdoor Girl

Grosse Lisse- maligned by many for a weaker flavour, but B and I quite liked it.

Burke's Backyard Italian (Costoluto di Marmande)- I got this as a freebie from the tv show, which claimed to have selected it from tomatoes grown across Italy as the tomato most suited to Australian conditions and palates. And then they renamed it! Maybe not one for the purists, but I have a soft spot for it as the were the first tomato variety I grew.

My fingers are itching to get some seeds into pots!

And a final point of irony that my mother will mention if I don't: as a child I hated tomatoes!

Pot Luck

Yesterday the weather was decidedly spring-like and I decided that my spring planting could wait no longer. My Digger's seed order is still in transit somewhere in the virtual or real world, so I just had my dusty seed archive box to work with. And a bit of common sense- the broad beans are just setting pods so I won't be planting out in those beds any time soon.

As I pulled out a label to reuse I saw that waiting until late August was very restrained on my part- evidently last year I was planting squash seeds on August 3rd!

I decided to try out a few old tomato (Gardener's Delight and Outdoor Girl) and basil seeds that I picked up in the UK, believing they might be more suited to the Tasmanian climate than Australian varieties.

When I say these seeds are old, I mean really old. I bought them in 1999!

I won't say they're in top-condition, but I managed to get some tomatoes from these seeds last year, so I am fairly confident about more success, whilst the viability of the basil is more dubious, so I sowed them densely. I also planted some relatively young Blacknite eggplants, that expired in 1998.

The four seed types went carefully into the wells of a 2x2 punnet, which I carefully labelled, and carefully placed in the mini-greenhouse, full of excitement about what might eventuate.

Today I stopped being careful. Momentarily. But for long enough to change my mood. As I reached in to check the pot, CRASH!, and out spilled the contents. Oh no!! With my remaining ounce of optimism for the exercise I returned as much as I could of the spilt soil and jumbled up seeds to the punnet. So apart from being more careful in the future, all I can do is hope that I salvaged something.

Fingers crossed!!

Signs of spring

It's starting to feel like spring is on the way. The garden agrees!

The daffodils are well on their way

And I'm not sure whether I'm just noticing them this year, or whether the hellebores are putting on a better show than previous years.

Our old fig has started to shoot. The lighter green bud on the top is leaves, while on the left side is a "breva" fruit which was formed last summer, and has been waiting all winter to come out.

The nectarine buds are nearly open. Last year our crop were all fungally mummified, so I'm hoping this year we'll have a bit more luck. We'll see...

In the vegie patch the broad beans are flowering, and the caulis are starting to bump shoulders. I never believe that the weenie little seedlings are going to get so big and am always guilty of planting too heavily! Last year it was a good call as between Big Bro's gumboots and the caterpillars, we only harvested from two of the twelve cauli seedlings I put in. This year we have a strike rate of 6/6!

The sugar snap peas were from Digger's seeds that were supposed to have expired in November 2000. Yes, 10 year old seeds and they've shot up the 2m fence to reached the top (hidden amongst the ornamental climber). I love garden surprises like these!!

Meanwhile, in the mini-greenhouse, the tomato and chilli haven't realised that winter has almost been and gone. They're in for a cold shock when I evict them to make room for spring planting!!

But with all these signs of spring, I am getting more concerned by the day... what's happening with the asparagus??