A Late Start

It's Been A While

Pumpkins , Zucchini, Cucumber & Climbing Beans in front of a row of assorted Tomatoes.

   

                                                         

          

Pictures - Tomatoes, Lettuce, Spinach, Eggplant, Climbing Beans, & Butternut Pumpkin.

It was an extremely late, last minute decision to get the patch up & running again. Once again it proves it's never too late to have a go. I am just about to plant sweetcorn, potatoes & watermelon to make use of the whole patch.
Missing the enthusiasm that Kimbo (Dad) brought to the table. He had no problems spending hours out there. This year I have had more problems with grass trying to grow in there than weeds. Some extra sugar cane mulch should sort that problem out.
Once again the drip system is making the difference. A drip every 20 mins or so makes the extremely hot days bearable.

No More Weeds

Weeding is tedious! Hopefully we wont slack off and let the weeds take over again. With fertile soil and the warm weather we are getting at the moment all of the weekends work could be for naught.
On a lighter note the soil is still in great condition with worms visible nearly every time you break the soil.

Getting There

Weeding is tedious! Hopefully we wont slack off and let the weeds take over again. With fertile soil and the warm weather we are getting at the moment all of the weekends work could be for naught.

On a lighter note the soil is still in great condition with worms visible nearly every time you break the soil.

Should Not Have Let It Get This Bad

The plan is to turn this disgrace back to what it should be. Luckily the earth is still pliable and most of the weeds will just lift straight out. Next thing to do is obvious :)

5 Years On

5 years on and a lot has changed. The Vege Garden has become a playground for all sorts of unwanted weeds. Circumstances have made it difficult to maintain the garden to the standard we would of liked. Kimbo is no longer with us and I will forever miss his enthusiasm and desire to grow produce from the earth. I'll post a picture of the garden in dissarray as to remind myself and the rest of you of the situation I never want the garden to get to ever again. With any luck the motivation will return and the satisfaction of just a tiny little bit of self-sustainable living will re-ignite the spark.
I am hoping to get my Brother, Rosalind & Jhai and some close friends more involved this time and see if we can outgrow our previous efforts. With any luck we might even enter something in the Berwick Shows Agricultural section. - it has been a secret dream of mine to win a ribbon from the Royal Agricultural Society for a while now, don't tell anyone ;).
Hopefully this is not just another hollow intention but a mission statement. It's something i enjoy and the time is right to get involved.

Beans are Climbing

The hot weather has helped the beans to throw out a few climbers. If last year is anything to go by it should be full stean ahead form here.

Planting Out

As the weather improves we are able to plant more and more vegetables. From top left we have Capsicums and Eggplants, Zucchini and Cucumber, Cabbage and Broccoli, and a mix of lettuce.

Potatoes are Booming

In only a few weeks the potatoes have taken off. Don't need to do much here, just let em' go. In the next few weeks we will build up the rows a little more to help increase the yield.

Tomatoes Settling In

After a bit of a slow start the tomato plants are beginning to settle down. With all the rain that we kept having in melbourne it took a couple of weeks for the soil to dry out enough for them to set. We've just had our first week of >20c temperatures and the plants are loving it.
We have Tommy Toe and Grape varieties on the stones and Apollo, Burkes Backyard, and Black Russian planted in the soil.

It's Tater Time!!!

This year we have 3 varieties. Toolangi Delight, Desiree & Kipfler. If you look closely you can see that we've let at least 2 eyes form on each potato before we planted them. This helps guarantee each potato will strike.
Last year we had a lot of little potatoes so this time around we'll start to build the row up a bit higher once the tops to start forming. We have also worked the soil a bit deeper this time as well. At the moment we are only using the sugar cane mulch in the centre of the rows to help with water retention, as soon as the tops start to form we'll bring the mulch up on top of the row.
Even with the small taters last year we had more than enough, so this year with any luck it will be taters all round :)