What is currently growing in your garden!

I squeezed in a lemon and a lime today. Purchased a big planter pot to jam in some more herds and grow them a bit closer to the house. My bananas are loving this wet weather and are suckering 3 months after planting. Put in some sprouting potatoes, some were from my last crop and some from the shops. I planted them in an isolated quarantine garden to limit the introduction of disease and viruses.

I think i’ve potentially buggered my house yard garden. While we had all that rain i put black builders plastic over most of it to kill weeds. I took it off after 4 months and let it dry out. i think it’s more compacted and tends to crack on the surface when drying out. It could be that it is still pretty wet in the subsoil but current plantings are very slow. Winter won’t be helping either.

I’m thinking the plastic cover may not be good for the organisms either.

Got some corn, beans and zucchinis in yesterday.

Has anyone got ideas on how to use 200L HDPE drums for growing potatoes? I’ve got 2 options, cut across on the x axis or along the Y axis. X axis would give consistent soil depth but reduced surface area. Cutting on the y axis would give more surface area but less consistent soil depth. I’m thinking y axis to give more surface area and keeping a closer eye on watering and fertilisers.

My garden has been affected by the very wet spring. For about 2 weeks about half my garden was under an inch or two of water. A lot of the corn drowned, zucchini and cucumbers stopped growing, so I had to replant. Everything is at least a month later than it normally would be. I was away for nearly a month in mid spring, which meant that I wasn't there to drain water away. If I was in a real SHTF situation, I would be missing those fresh vegies. The soil has become very hard after the water dried up, so i'll have to work extra hard to get it back in good condition again - lots of organic matter.

What I have been able to pick are carrots, beetroot, sprouting broccoli, cabbage, kale, silverbeet, spring onions, potatoes, more potatoes, self-sown lettuces, parsnip and a good variety of herbs. I have picked my first zucchini from a plant which wasn't flooded.

I have been picking meyer and eureka lemons and cherries. Stone fruit has been a wipeout because of blossom blight in the area this year, but there is a good crop of apples coming on.

The summer vegetables are now starting to perk up with a bit of warmer weather. I'm looking forward to crops of tomatoes, capsicums, chillies, corn, pumpkins, eggplant, leeks, cucumbers, beans, snow peas, okra, rat-tailed radish, sweet potato. I've had to replant quite a few things because of the wet and cool spring.

Well, now we're at the new place there's very little growing in my garden. That being said, there's a lovely hedge of lilly pillies across the back fence. They're flowering now and due to fruit in a few weeks. Lilly pilly jam? Yes please.
My extremely talented mother in law makes her own spirits so I might also suggest a batch of lilly pilly gin. I've been told the fruit straight off the bush is a bit of an acquired taste but that just like with a lot of other bitter or unusual fruits like cumquats they make a great drink/jam.

We also have a huge purely ornamental hedge of bushes that are going to get chopped and mulched down another fence line, that hedge is almost 2m wide so it'll give us a lovely big space to plant some citrus trees. Stabilizing the soil may prove tricky as we've got extremely sandy soil and a slight downward slope. We may end up putting in a retaining wall to flatten out the yard and give us some easier to manage growing space.
At least we have the option now.

Moved into our new place early December - snuck in a few plants before we moved - tomatoes, chilli, lots of herbs.
Had my best crop of tomatoes in the last 10 years - very happy, but sad it's over.
Lots of chilis too - yay.
Just planted out beetroot, cabbage & broccoli seedlings, as well as onions and radish.
Snow Peas and Broad Beans are next.

We process excess using all three methods, freezing for short term, dehydrating (its on now) and bottling for chicken and stock etc.





The closer the collapse of an empire, the crazier its laws.