October 22, 2008
· Filed under Garden · Tagged cauliflowers, peas, produce, vegetables
We have harvested all of the peas and frozen about 800g (of probably only a total harvest of 1kg of shelled peas!)
Next year we will definitely have to plant many more rows of delicious peas given how easy they have grown and how yummy they are!
Now that all the pods have been harvested, the pea plants have been cut off at ground level (to keep the roots that have fixed nitrogen in the soil) and the top of the plants put in the compost bin.
All our cauliflowers are also gone – they got a little dry towards the end (not surprising given the hot weather). Also, the earwigs thought they were a great hiding spot.
October 8, 2008
· Filed under Garden · Tagged Back yard, Garden, peas, vegetables
When I came back from 2 weeks in the Philippines, I was delighted to find that our peas plants had grown, flowered, and now had pea pods. The pods are one by one becoming ready to pick. Yum!
The peas took about 115 days, or 3 months and 23 days, to go from seeds in the ground to ripe pods ready to eat (planted 8th June, first harvested 1st October 2008).
August 17, 2008
· Filed under Garden · Tagged Back yard, cauliflower, chinese celery, gardening, lettuce, marigolds, peas, vegies
The peas are still growing and now have some stakes and jute string to climb along.
We were given this plant as a little seedling at our housewarming. It was labelled as Chinese Celery. It doesn’t have much of a stalk, but it’s leaves are huge and going everywhere. Maybe it’s not celery after all? It’s really huge.
The cauliflowers are also growing, but only leaves. I’m pretty sure they were put in too late to grow heads. We’ll see what happens.
The rogue marigolds are everywhere. They came up from mystery seed in the potting mix and are crowding out the little native in the middle and the daffodils around the sides. Mr Gnome is doing okay amongst the marigold crowd.
Meanwhile, the lettuce (from seed) in the pot, along with the potted parsley, is doing fabulously. The baby spinach, strawberry and coriander are suffering from the cold, I think.
Time to start thinking about spring/summer seeds…
June 18, 2008
· Filed under Garden · Tagged Back yard, gardening, peas, raised bed, vegetables, vegies
It’s taken about 10 days, but now I can see little green shoots from the pea seeds that we planted in the first raised bed.
No photo – they are very small and not that exciting.
June 8, 2008
· Filed under Garden · Tagged Back yard, cauliflower, Garden, no dig, peas, raised beds, vegies
With the help of some old bricks from mum and dad’s house, we have started a raised bed vegie patch. Eventually we hope to have a 4 bed rotating vegie patch.
I started by lightly digging up some of the big bits of grass, but I think this was a waste of time.
Then we laid one row of bricks. About 8 bricks by 7 bricks.
Then we put down some newspaper. We only had 3 messengers so I think we’ll have to save up more paper for the next bed. The paper was put down 2 pages thick and overlapped onto the bricks. We put the second layer of bricks over the newspaper edges to secure it.
Then, I put down 2 wheelbarrow loads of a mixed assortment of mainly old leaves and grass clippings. On top went some seaweed from Brighton and then a light sprinkling of lime and dolomite for sweetness. This is what it looked like.
Then mum and dad brought some more bricks and we put a third layer of bricks down.
I did a layer of sugarcane straw, a layer of compost mulch, a dusting of lime/dolomite, a layer of sugarcane.
To plant, I added Marion council organic compost (compost made from Green bin ‘waste’ collected in the Marion council) and planted directly.
There are 7 cauliflowers, a chinese celery, a daisy and two rows of peas (covered in mesh which is held down with some bricks so that the birds/dog/cat don’t dig up any seedlings when they grow.)
Then it started raining. Here’s what it looks like now.
