Feeding Time

usual strength usual food

Onions

There is a gap in the onion patch so time to plant some new ones. In the planting chamber went 10 each of onion, red onion, leek, and spring onion.

There is also a gap in the spinach section so it was re-planted with fresh seeds (last of the packet). A few lettuce seeds went in at the same time, again in gaps in the rows.

Finally, harvested seeds from the rhubarb plant, seperated them, dried them over night, and planted several in pots in the green room. I'm told they might not come true because they come from a probable cross-breed, but lets see!

Inside Tomatoes

Some plants are determinant, others (like these?) indeterminate. Determinant plants grow to a determined size and indeterminant just keep growing. An estimate of the height of the tall one is 8 feet.






Flowers are a very distinctive shape and a fantastic yellow. Note the tiny tomatoes growing on the vine.

And larger ones too. Although still green, these will (hopefully) ripen on the vine. I'm told vine-ripened tomatoes taste fantastic by comparison to artificially ripened shop kinds.

Red, White, and... Yellow!

Red carrots really are red. Yellow carrots really are yellow. White turnips are white too. The red carrots taste better than the yellow ones. Garden salad for lunch, lettuce, carrot and turnips fresh from the garden. Excellent!

Cat and Rabbit

Returning from a two week trip an inspection of the vege-patch revealed the rabbit's favourite dinner - young cauliflower plants. Total devastation - nearly all those planted this season have been eaten to the ground by the rabbit. The cat seems to have befriended the rabbit - so much for the cat's hunting ability! Last season's cauliflower have survived so there should still be a harvest this season.

Food for Thought

20 lm fertalizer to 4 litres of water. A couple of days early, but this upcoming weekend it has to be done on Saturday.

Brassica Harvest

Planted some seeds 100 coloured carrots (kaiotes), also white turnips (kaiotes) and black radish. But first made space and this time remembered to take some photos.

Black Radish (66 days) look black when wet and photographed.

Turnips that were planted last year that sprang up and grew well.

White turnips started to flower so I dug some up, and thined out the others.

Radish Taste Test

Well I should have taken a photograph, but didn't. Pulled two of the black radishes only to discover one was white and the other grey. They were long and slim, about the length of my hand and and about a broad as a finger. After a clean under the tap a taste test of the grey one suggested it was completely tasteless - a good bite revealed this was not the case. This must have been the hottest radish I ever ate, after a few seconds I was gaping for water. The white radish was not as hot but still excellent.

Bunnies

There's an escaped black and white rabbit that has started to hang out in the patch. So far it has eaten 3 purple cauliflower plants to the ground. The SPCA know the animal, it has, apparently, proven hard to catch. Lets hope it does not destroy this year's hard work.

Anyone know how to catch a farrile rabbit?

Tomato Stakes

Daily watering of the Tomato plants - one has started to flower and the other has bud. It looks like tomato stakes are essential, one had toppled under its own weight after a few days. Both now have stakes they are tied to. Both remain in the green room.

Blood! (and Bones)

4 litres of the mixed up fertalizer spread all over the vege patch, applied to leaves and to soil in root areas

Last Night's Dinner (and Tonight Too)

Cauliflower for dinner yesterday, today, and tomorrow too. The first for the season measured 21cm on the longet edge (see photo). These things grow quite well in Dunedin. Be careful not to leave them too long because they flower and go spindley.

Transplant

Took what had been growing in the srouting chamber and planted the outside. This included 6 purple cauliflower, 4 green cauliflower, 9 romanesco brocollo, 1 cauliflower, and 5 brussel sprouts.

Also transplanted 1 pumpkin and 2 squash that had sprouted and were ready to see the garden.

Cauliflower Crop (and tiny turnips)

This cauliflower was planted last year and left over winter. Its in flower and in just a few days will be be dinner!

Two tiny turnips showing that there are, indeed, signs of supper in thus years plantings.

Pumkin and Zucchini and Tomato and Capsicum

Transplanted three pumpkin from the green room into the patch. Also tranaplanted two (I think) zucchini.

Trying tomato in the green room. Two seedling vines, both from Nichols, one sweet-100 cherry tomato the other "Home Harvest Cherry Tomato Sungold Evandale Gardens". Also took the opertunity to plant a capsicum at the same time, again from seedling, "Home Harvest Capsicum Gold Medal Evandale Gardens".

Seeds and Blood and Bones

The weekend's planting took a few days to catch up on but finally got done. 100 mixed coloured carrots (Kaiotes), Black Radish (kaiotes), White Turnips (kaiotes), and regular turnips (seeds saves from last year).

Also another round with the fertilizer. 20 ml of Yates Nitrosol organic blood and bone (NPK 3.3.6) to 4 litres of water spread over the whole vege patch with the garden sprayer. Some applied to soil, the remainder to the leaves.

A look at the crops suggests little white turnips and little regular turnips are growing. Carrots are sprouting so at the least there'll be carrots and turnips. One of the cauliflowers (from last year) is growing flowers so a close eye will be kept on it.

Rhubarb and Squash

Rhubarb has gone to flower, does anyone know if it's possible to harvest the seeds?



Pumpkin, Giant Pumpkin, and Zucchini. These are physically located in the background of the picture above.

Chives or Spring Onions?

Does anyone know the difference between Chives and Spring Onions? These were in the garden when we moved in. They die down over winter but come back in spring. Please, if you can tell the difference, let me know. What ever they are, they taste good!

Brassica Portfolio

Turnips on the left, carrots in the middle, Japanest (Tokyo) turnips on the right. oops, next year the carrots go on the summy side of the turnips!



Last year's cauliflowers in the background, this year's in the foreground. Parsnips behind the cauliflowers.




Black radish with onions in the foreground


Purple cauliflower plants appear to be purple!

Onionesque

The onion and leeks in the planter were moved into the patch. Rows of 6 spring onions, 9 onions, 8 red onions, and 8 leeks were taken from the planter and put into the area dug-over last weekend.

Lettuce (cos) and 2 rows of spinach were planted from seed directly into beds by the onions.

3 Purple cauliflower and 5 brussel sprouts were transplanted into the brassica beds. No luck (at all) with green cauliflower. It looks like green cauliflowers from Kaiotes are bad.

New squash planting. 5 zucchini (Watkins), 2 squash (Yates) and 4 pumpkin (Watkins). Addiionally a seedling tray (2 rows each) of Purple Cauliflower, Green Cauliflower, Romanesco Broccoli, and one row each of Cailiflower and Brussel Sprouts

Organic fertaliser for the first time too.

Seeds

Quiet weekend. 100 mixed carrots (Kaiotes), White turnips (Kaiots), black radish, and some turnips from the saved seed. A little thining out of cramped areas, but other than that, not a lot happened.

Also spend some time preparing the right hand patch. The area on the righr was dug over to one spade depth and 1 inch of compost added. Decided in the end to do the whole side which meant removing the artichokes and the spinach.

Clearly things are growing.

Green room to Garden

Seedlings that sprouted during the week were moved into the garden, again the area by the tree. 1 Giant Pumpkin, 1 Pumpkin, 2 Squash, and 3 Zucchini. All the previous transplantings appear to be living, but a few might die over the next week. There has been snow in the last week so it isn't that surprising that something might have died.

Also spent some time digging the remaining areas in the patch for the season. Compost is needed.

Rhubarb is doing very well and might flower soon. It got very big and might have to be moved soon.

The sprouting chamber is showing almost total success with onion, red onion, leek, and spring onion.

Seed Day

Another 100 mixed colour carrots, this time from Niche seeds. Also another row of Tokyo turnips (Kaiotes), black radishes (Kaiotes), and turnips (seeds collected by me).

Although the second patch is not yet ready, in went a row of spinach near where the artichokes are. With some luck the cat won't dig the spinach up this time!

Contact!

There's others in Dunedin also trying to grow vegies. Today Leigh Blackall sent me a couple of emails about his vege patch. His blog gives some details. He had success with potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, spinach, strawberries (and more). None of these are in our patch - mostly because I don't like potatoes. We just never tried strawberries.

Squash

Moved some of the pumpkin and zucchini that had sprouted in the green-room into the garden. Just checked... 2 giant pumpkin (kaiotes), 1 regular pumpkin and 2 zucchini (Watkins). In previous years both pumpkin and zuccchini have been washed out so they were placed by the tree over the back of the patch. This spot is a little more sheltered than the patch and a little dryer too. Last year zucchini did well in the house but with all male flowers there was no fruit. I'm told that zucchini do very well outside in this city.

Plantings

Seedlings into the garden seeds into some pots.

The cauliflowers and broccoli in the planting chamber went into the garden. The Romanesco, purple cauliflowers, and white cauliflowers did ok. It remainds unclear whether the green even sprouted. There new lot from a week ago are in potting mix so if anything sprouts its clear what it is.

New into the sprouting chamber are 10 each of: Leek, Red Onion, Onion, and Spring Onion. New into plastic trays went 8 each of: Yellow Corn, White Corn, and Brussel Sprouts.

Brussel Sprouts (Watkins) sprout 7-10 days, harvest 16-18 weeks.

Oh, and tons of peas (that expire in 2007) in the front garden just because there was space there to put them.

One Week Late

Last weekend was to have been carrots this weekend turnips, except the carrots weren't planted last weekend.

Today's plantings were:

Carrots, 4 mixed coloured varieties from Kaiotes and the Red Barron from Red Barn. 100 seeds mixed then planted in no particular order, but in the right row.

Turnips, seeds harvested last year. Japanese turnips from Yates. All planted as the next row in with the others. Finally, the blach radishes from Kaiotes.

There are signs that carrots, red onions, radish and turnips are all sprouting.

Seedlings for the green-room was planted in little plastic punnets with 6 holes per punnet. As there was time, this included:

3 giant pumpkins
3 squash
6 red onion
3 zucchini
3 pumpkin
6 purple cauliflower
6 green cauliflower
6 onion

That's the lot! The green and purple cauliflower in the sprouting chamber (with the plastic lid) all appear to either have not sprouted, or to have died! No giant pumpkin sproted either! Lets hope it was bad luck and not bad seeds.

Sprouting All Over

The barrels of letuces out the front are sprouting too! Pak choy, spinach and lettuce in this case, other lettuces in other barrels.

The cauliflower and broccoli in the sprouting chamber have also started to sprout. It isn't clear whether the Kaiotes cauliflowers are any good or not because they were hatched in soil and its hard to tell the grass from the cauliflowers.

Vege Patch Today

From left to right in the wooded area are turnips, carrots, japanese turnips. From back to front is red onions, onions, then raddish. At the front is rhubarb. Rhubarb comes back each year. The strings are where the next row will go. Turnips and carrots will converge and japanese turnips will converge on the onions.

Behind the wooded area (from left to right) is yellow corn, white corn, squash and finally cucumber.

The other patch (on the right of this picture) hasn't been dug over this year because it had the cauliflowers and the parsnips (as well as carrots, artichokes and more) still growing from last year.

Left Over from Last Year

Cauliflowers from last year. It seems as though planting one year for flowering the next is a good way to get cauliflower in Dunedin.



Parsnips take months (and months) to grow. These were planted last year. We'll have some for dinner soon. If they're anything like carrots they'll got all hard and flower if left too long.

Signs of Life!

Japanese Turnips (left) look like all brassica sprouts with that distinctive set of early leaves.





Carrots sprouts (left) look a lot like grass - don't go weeding the patch until they get big enough to distinguish grass from carrots.

Second Row

Two weeks ago the first turnip rows went in. This week the second rows of turnips went in. Three types are being used - Yates Turnips (Purple Top White Globe), half a row. The other half of the row was last years seeds harvested by me - they were originally the Yates Turnips but went to seed and so they're being tried. I have hundreds of these seeds!

Turnips - sprout 6-10 days, harvest 10-12 weeks.

The second row of Japanese Turnips is the Turnip Tokyo Cross from Kaiotes. It will, indeed, be interesting to compare the results from Yates to those from Kaiotes - both in size and taste.

Turnip Tokyo Cross - sprout ???, harvest ??? details not included!

Radishes in previous years have been a complete disaster. For two years none grew, but at the end of last year a last-ditch effort to grow some in an otherwise empty spot resulted in a bowel of small ones. This year Radish Black Round (Kaiotes). They are apparently Raphanus sativus. Two short rows. As nothing else has grown to shade the spot (yet), they should get good sun.

Radish Black Round - sprout ???, harvest 53-80 days.

Atlantic Giant Pumpkin (Kaiotes). Four, each planted in their own little pot and placed in the sun room upstairs. Once they sprot they move to the garden - probably under the tree.

Atlantic Giant Pumpkin - sprout 3-12 days, harvest 120 days.

Six Black Beauty Zucchini (Watkins) went into a white plastic six-hole propagation pot. These also went into the sun room upstairs. Again they'll go under the tree. Again in previous years no success. Two years ago they grew well outside but no fruit. Last year they did badly outside and inside no fruit because all the flowers were male!

Black Beauty Zucchini - sprout 5-10 days, harvest 5-7 weeks.

Carrots

Planted a row of mixed carrots, 100 seeds. 4 varieties of Kaiotes seeds, and one from the Red Barn (in Dunedin). Five varieties, 20 seeds of each, mixed together, randomised, all in a row.

20 seeds each of:
    Red Barron orange carrots from Red Barn
    Purple Dragon purple carrots from Kaiotes
    Nitru Red red carrots from Kaiotes
    Kinbi yellow carrots from Kaiotes
    White Belgian white carrots from Kaiotes

Sprouting and harvest details are not included with the seeds.

Kaiotes Seeds

Winter was an chance to decide what to grow over this summer. For some reason heratige seeds took my fancy. After successes with Yates and Kings seeds, growing unusual vegies has appeal.

After all, as some say, why grow cauliflower in your garden when they'll flower just when they're cheapest and pleantiful in the supermarket. Well, because its fun, but point taken. There are two solutions, either grow them when they're not in the supermarkets, or grow something you can't buy.

So where do you get purple cauliflowers and red carrots? Trade-me (www.trademe.co.nz) is one place. The local merchant who had what I wanted Kaiotes. They were fast and efficient, we'll see if their seeds work later!

Kaiotes is:
Kai Flowers
25 Cowes St,
Kaitangata
New Zealand
kaiotes@xtra.co.nz
Phone (3)413-9896

Experiments

Planted a few seeds that in the past have been unsuccessful. This time, not expecting much, they were panted in an the area at the base of the tree behind the vege-patch.

One row each of:
Honeysweet Sweet Corn (Yates)
    Sprout 6-10 days, Harvest 12-14 weeks
Country Gentleman Corn (Kaiotes)
    Sprout 5-10 days, Harvest 90 days
Organic MarketMore Cucumber (Mr.Fohergill's)
    Sprout unknown, Harvest 8-10 weeks
Green Button Hybrid Squash (Yates)
    Sprout 6-10 days, Harvest 6-7 weeks

The Yates corn expired in August 2005 so not much hope there!

The area wasn't prepared too well, it wasn't dug over too deeply so not much hope is held. In previous years the corn hasn't sprouted and the cucumber plant remained about the size of my hand - no fruit. Cucumber was successful in the house last year and a few fruit, but the didn't grow larger then my thumb and were never harvested. Eventually through winter the plants witered and died.

Purple cauliflower and spiral broccoli

Time to get the germination box back into use. This time broccoli and cauliflowers.

Two rows each of
Violet Sicilian Cauliflower (Kaiotes)
    Sprout 4-10 days, Harvest 3 months
Green Macerata Caluliflower (Kaiotes)
    Sprout 4-10 days, Harvest 85-90 days
All Year Hybrid Cauliflower (Yates)
    Sprout 10-14 days, Harvest 15-16 weeks
Romanesco Broccoli (Niche)
    Sprout 14-24 days, Harvest 70 days

There were onions in the germination box so they were planted out in the patch.

Turnips and Onions

In go the first rows of turnips. One of the Yates Japanese Turnip (Hakurei). One half of Yates Turnip (Purple Top White Globe), and the other half row is from the seeds gathered last year and stored over the winter. When tested last year these home-seeds sprouted but were not grown to completion.

Turnips: sprout 6-10 days, harvest 10-12 weeks
J. Turnips: sprout 6-10 days, harvest 10 weeks

Yates Onion (sweet red). The packet says plant mid-autumn to late-winter. Spring is very late winter. Lets see if they work. Planted one row.

Onions: sprout 10-14 days, harvest 25-28 weeks (thats six months!).

Lettuce, Pak Choy, Spinach

The two barrels out the front were dug over and planted with lettuce. The beer-barrel had relatively moist soil whereas the other barrel had relatively dry soil. Both were broken weeded, broken up by hand, mixed through, and leveled off.

Wet wooden barrel was scattered with tons of Mr. Fothergill's Lettuce (Green Mignonette). They'll be thinned later if they sprout.

The other barrel was successful last year at both Yates Pak Choy (White Stem), and also at Yates Lettuce (cos). This year the same were planted, but a few (half a dozen?) Watkins Spinach (Winter Queen) were added in the middle seperating the two.

Pak Choy: sprout in 7-10 days, harvest in 6-8 weeks
Cos: sprout in 7-10 days, harvest in 8-10 weeks
Spinach: sprout in 7-20 days, harvest in 8-10 weeks
Green Mignonette: harvest in 10-12 weeks

Dig Dig Dig

Mid Semester Break. Time to dig the garden.

Spent what felt like the entire day digging over the left hand vegetable patch. Dug down one spade depth where the soil turned to clay. Took the top soild and broke it up by hand. This, needless to say, resulted in saw hands. The solid broke up easily. Green weeds were pretty much left in the soil but roots were removed. Large green weeds were added to the compost heap.

After digging it up, breaking it up, and turning it over, it was leveled off with a rake. About an inch of compost was added from the compost heap. Actualy, not the heap, more the compost dump. The clif on the left where the excess is being composted has a tone of compost. Barrowloads were dug up, seived through the large wooden seive, and then layered on top of the soil. From there it was worked with a hand-fork into the top few inches of soil.

Did not stand on the patch at all - this is, apparently, bad.

Finally, in went a single row of Niche Carrot (Rainbow Selection). More would have gone it but just too knackered to do it.

Carrot: sprout 7-21 days, harvest 10 weeks

Cauliflowers

Cauliflower number two for the season. The last one was bigger than this too (and tasted excellent)! This one was harvested from the garden about 2 weeks ago and lasted a week in the fridge where it continued to grow. A third was harvested just a few days ago but it wasn't as good as this one. There's a purple one and a while one still growing - good eating for later in the season.

Coccinella

The ladybirds arrived in tact. It was raining so in an effort to avoid them all dieing in the rain they were kept inside and fed on aphids overnight. Next day 10 were released, 5 on the brussel sprouts, 5 on the cauliflowers. The remainder were kept two more days until the weather cleared up a bit and released. It's now a few days later and no sign of any ladybirds anywhere!

I have noticed that the aphids are not spreading very quickly. It is as if one plant is weak and the aphids prefer that one - leaving the others relatively unaffected. Alternatively, the wasps are doing their job. Its a sunny day today and there's a few hoverflys around too. They, apparently, eat the aphids too. It's reasonable to assume the spiders in the cauliflowers are doing likewise.

Undecimpunctata

Zonda can supply 25 of the 11-spotted ladybird (Coccinella undecimpunctata) to chomp on my brassica aphids for $12.50 (+GST +shipping = $25.31 total). Time for another habitat experiment in the vege patch. This time, with the right species, there's some chance the aphids will be someone else's supper and the brassica mine.

Kakanui Garlic

Was in Kakanui and visited the man responsible for the Kakanui Garlic line. He calls himself the Dirt Doctor. Very nice gentleman who spent some time showing me his plot and talking about organic growing. His greenhouses are very well established with tomatoes, corn, pumpkin, zuccini, and other stuff too. It turns out you can be very successful growing vegies in the south of the South Island.

He recommended two books:
[1] Joseph Smillie and Grace Gershuny, The Soul of Soil: A Soil-Building Guide for Master Gardeners and Farmers. Chelsea Green Publishing Company ISBN:1-890-132-31-4.

[2] John Jeavons, How How to Grow More Vegetables: And Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains, and Other Crops Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine. Ten Speed Press ISBN:0-89815-767-6.

The second in is held by the Dunedin Public Library. Also held at the library is Jeavons' other book

[3] John Jeavons and Carol Cox, The Sustainable Vegetable Garden: A Backyard Guide to Healthy Soil and Higher Yields. Ten Speed Press ISBN: 1-58008-016-2

So I borrowed [2] and [3]. The latter is very good. The take-away message is to double-dig to a depth of 2 feet, dig in tons of compost (1 inch into the top 4 inches of topsoil) and never to stand on the beds (loose compact for air and water retention).

The Dirt Doctor also gave me a tour of his compost-tea making methods. He uses the Encironmental Fertalisers home garden compost / fertaliser brewing kit. They have a Compost Tea which they call a microbial inoculant - what ever that means. Seems to be a one-size-fits-all cure for all ills while also being a liquid fertiliser. This stuff is being used by the Dirt Doctor to cure fungal infections and (I think) as a fertaliser.

Heritage Seeds

Couple of places that sell heritage seeds:

Konga Gardens Center for Sustailable Living. They sell organic heritage seeds from New Zealand including (subsequent generations of) those brought into the country by settlers.

Niche Imports (PO Box 8, Ashhurst, NZ (Ph:0800 115 343)). The garden center in Oamaru sells a seed range from niche seeds. This includes mostly seed mixes but there are some intereting combinations including "Carrot rainbow selection", a mix of different coloured carrots.

Ladybirds not Wasps

Zonda kindly replied to my email with the information that only one wasp has been recorded attacking Brevicoryne brassicae. I'll bet it isn't Aphidius colemani because there appears to be no appreciable difference in aphid numbers.

Zonda told me that the 11-spotted ladybird likes to eat my aphids. Anyone got a supplier?

Wasps

There are only two suppliers of wasp in the country, BioForce and Zonda. Neither can supply Diaeretiella rapae. Zonda tell me Diaeretiella rapae is, itself, parasitized.

No commercial suppliers of the wasp leaves two possibilities, either domestic supplies or source a different preditor.


Wasp mummies in an oragami basket put out in the hope they will attack the aphids.

Aphids

Aphids
The seemingly never-ending hunt for the cure for aphids has lead to a new experiment, but first aphids.

According to the Wikipedia article on aphids there are over 4,000 different species. There are even native New Zealand aphids. There's tons of good words associated with aphids - look these up: parthenogenetic, ovoviviparous. Pretty nasty hu?

Of course any nasty insectaside will kill these beasts, but I don't want to do that. One of the reasons for growing vegies in the garden is to avoid toxins. The alternative "naturals" include Yates "Natures Way Insect Spray" which you have to keep applying every week. I don't want to do this either, for the same reason.

According to this article - planting flowering plants to attract the hover flies doesn't work.

Removing and insinerating plants is hardly control - so I'm not doing that. The other often cited control method is to rub then off by hand (no thanks).

Aphid Control
Take a look at the photo, I think these are grey cabbage aphids. Actually, they aren't grey they are green but covered with a grey waxy substance. Species Brevicoryne brassicae. Populations peak in October-December and March-April.

They are seen in the vegetable patch on brassicas including: cauliflower, brussel sprouts, and sweed. They no-doubt also attack: turnips, cabbage, broccoli and others in the family.

There's a natural parasitic wasp Diaeretiella rapae that lays it eggs in this beast and will keep aphid populations under control.

Aphidius colemani vs. Brevicoryne brassicae
The experiment is this: I can't find a supplier of Diaeretiella rapae, but BioForce Ltd. supplies Aphidius colemani, a tiny 2-3mm parasitic wasp that attacks several species of aphid (hopefully including mine). 100 wasps for 10 bucks. With some luck they'll attack my aphids and the problem will be a thing of the past. BioForce doesn't have a web presence. I ordered 100 wasps, they come as mummues (aphids with the lavae in it) and I've released then in half a dozen places in the garden a couple of days ago.

Unfruitful Beginnings

Does anyone know how to grow good vegetables in Dunedin, New Zealand? If so, please let me know because I don't. I started a few years ago and got pretty much nothing. What did grow was covered with pests and was at best fit for soup.

Some vegetables grow very well in the open in Dunedin, (or at least in my back yard). Its taken time to identify them, to work out what varieties to grow, when to plant, and how to take care of them. The purpose of this blog is to try and keep track of what works and what does not, and to log some of the experiments.