Soaking Wet

Beans, that is, not the weather. Things in the seed trays are sprouting. One borlotto bean sprouted (they grow quickly), but 5 were planted. In an effort to get a few more beans sprouting 10 borlotto beans were soaked during the working day and then planted in seed rising mix and put in the green room. With some luck some will sprout and we'll get some beans (later in the season).

Seeded

With 25c-30cm between rows you don't get many rows in a vege-patch. Luckily the rows are long. Starting from then end that is adjacent to the rhubarb, one row was sewn yesterday and 4 rows today. The rows (from the rhubarb end) are now:

Parsnips (Yatesnips)
Parsnips (Niche)
Turnip Red Round (Kings)
Turnip Golden Ball (Kings)
Carrot (a mix of red, white, yellow, purple from Kaiotes and Red Barron from The Red Barn)

Of course the Yates, Kaiotes, and Red Barn seeds are from last (and previous) years.

Dig dig dig dig dig dig dig dig dig dig dig dig

Spend the weekend digging. Then once the digging was over spent it seiving the compost heap and then digging again. The (old) left hand side vege patch is now dug over, compost added (1 inch of compost for the top 4 of soil) and ready to go.

The compost heap was very wet, very woody, and very wormy. So wormy that it looks like the entire Dunedin worm population is hanging out there. While seiving many of the worms were hand picked into the seived load while others were left in the hard-woody gunk that went back into the compost heap. Once moved into the vege-patch they quickly set to digging, hopefully good news.

Niche at Mitre-10 ($27.38 later)

A trip to Mitre-10 to get some irrigation pipes ended up costing $27.38. Mostly in an effort to avoid a second trip later to get the missing bits, but partly because a whole load more up-rights were needed due the the back edge being put on the parch.

Those Niche seeds that came from Oamaru last year are not available in Mitre-10 too. One packet of parsnips later ($5.96) there'll be something to plant tomorrow.

Tickets at Nichols Garden Center

Tickets to the November 1 talk by Lynda Hallinan are available at Nichols - so we went and got one. Her talk last year was very funny and well worth the price.

Rest & Relaxation: Seed Sewing

After a busy day digging the vege patch (and not even finishing one bed), rest and relaxation took over. That is, an evening spend sewing seeds into seed trays. The 2 new trays are now in action and in the green room (which is cold tonight).

First tray:
15 * Artichokes Imperial Star F1
15 * Artichoked Green Glove Improved
10 * Cabbage Copenhagen Market

Second tray:
15 * Spinach Bloomsdale
15 * Strawberry Spinach
10 * Lettuce Cos.

The strawberry spinach seeds are the finest seeds I've ever seen and were hard to work with.

Finally, in an effort to get the Borlotto Beans up and running

5 * Borlotto Beans

Planted in seperate pots. The beans were not soaked overnight, which apparently helps.

Rhubarb Rhizomes

Uprooted last year's rhubarb - there were two of them. One was small and so it was planted in the new "extended" part of the vege patch. The other had 5 buds coming out of the rhizome so I sliced it into 5 separate buds and planted each in the new "extended" part of the vege patch. That's 6 rhubarb plants in total. Well spaced - in an effort to avoid overcrowding in that part of the patch.

To my amazement the larger rhizome was huge. I expected something the size of my hand but got something more the size of swede. A good strong kitchen knife cut through it easily enough. It was a beautiful woody colour inside. The roots I expected to be small but the larger roots coming out of the rhizome were as thick as my thumb!

Also been digging over the patch that was the left patch (but is now second from the left). This is the patch were the rhubarb was - and remnants remain. The reason they say to keep the plants 3 feet from each other is that the roots are huge and go a long way - easily a meter.

They say rhubarb is hard to kill, but of the 6 that went in I expect at least 2 to die. We'll see.

Not Spring Onions

First sewing of seeds for the season. The old seed tray from last year (that's right I've got 3 now) has been filled with potting mix and 40 seeds planted in it.

15 * Onion Borettana
15 * Onion Pukekohe Longkeeper
10 * Onion Sweet Red

Last season's Pukekohe Longkeeper produced excellent "normal" onions. Several were given away but a winter's worth were kept and used. We don't eat many (less than one a week) but did have one in tonight's casserole (and it was good). They continue to keep well (in the kitchen). They were harvested when the tops tipped over

Last season's Sweet Red produced tiny onions. They are also in the kitchen but will get planted back out shortly. They were harvested too easly, the tops had not tipped.

The Borettana are new so no experience there.

Leeks from last year produced badly. One was left in the garden and it had continued to grow over the winter and it now quite respectable.

M-10 Out. But $85.25 spent!

Went to Mitre-10 today to get tickets for tomorrow night, but they are sold out. Had to make do with some plastic irrigation pipe and some joiners for the vege patch (total cost of $11.28). Add to this some potting mix and 2 new seed propagators from Nichol's (total cost of $73.97) and its been an expensive week.

As this is the vege patch blog and not the herb patch blog little discussion will be given of the planting of rosemary, mint, and some potting mix for an old whisky barrel - currently with nothing in it.