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 :)

Butter Beans

This year we thought we'd try some butter beans early in the season.

Last Years Vege Garden

The vege garden as it stood last year.
*note the fence now has aussie natives planted all along it. (protea, water gum, and others). A year or two and you wont be able to see it anymore :)

Tomatoes are in!

There's still a little bit of frost around in the mornings so we've used some plastic surrounds to protect the plants. They will only have to stay on for a couple of weeks hopefully.
The soil the tomatoes have been planted in is a mixture of homemade compost and soil from the nursery. The soil has been worked and turned over to about 50cm's. Its a deep black colour now and the worms have found their way over.
This year we have planted Burkes Backyard, Grosse Lisse, New Apollo, Black Russian and a Roma variety.
Last years tomato seaon wasn't as good as previous years, so with any luck things will be back to normal again and the tomatos will be bulging off the bush :)

Some shots from last years crop

Cos lettuce, Silverbeet and some Thai Chillies

Started planting this week

Great news, the drip system has finally been installed! Looking forward to some great vegetables this year. The soil has been turned, the compost heap is breaking down and the worms are going crazy. Just waiting for the right weather and we will start planting in full flight.

So far this week tomatoes and beans have gone in. Tomorrow i'll take some photos and put them up. Hopefully i'll get to post photos every week so we can all see the growth :D

till tomorrrow