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