It’s been a long time since my last entry. February has been very slow in the garden as it has been dry (no real rain – just a couple of light showers) and hot – same as January and December. We’ve been watering the fruit trees every 1-2 weeks with old drench drums.
Fruit tree watering
Earlier in the month (about 9 Feb), I planted 20 leek seedlings that I bought. The seeds I’d sown were not doing well as we kept going away and it was so hot and dry that they were dying while we were gone. The new plants are doing well.
Leeks
18 Feb we harvested the first of the tomatoes – both Dagma (large yellow fruit) and Island Bay (large red fruit). We are in for a good crop this year.
Island Bay plants.
But I obviously didn’t think there would be enough tomatoes, as yesterday (25 Feb), I bought 20kg of tomatoes from Funky Pumpkin,. They cost $0.99/kg! Today (and probably the next few days!) I’ll roast these with basil, garlic etc, puree and freeze them. They will be great for pasta, chilli etc over winter. Also for converting into tomato ketchup when we need more.
We have had a few really big cabbages. When I’ve harvested them, I’ve left the base of the plant in the ground. Each stalk has regrown 4 small cabbages.
Small cabbages growing where there was one large cabbage.
The rest of the garden is going crazy – the beans and jerusalem artichokes are tall – I’ve harvested some, but am leaving most of them to grow into big beans which I’ll freeze and use over winter.
The pumpkins are running rampant – they are growing over the beans, asparagus and rhubarb! There are a good number of fruit on the vines.
