Rhubarb Crumble

2.8KG of rhubarb came out of the parch and into the kitchen. 800g went into rhubarb crumble (which was excellent) and 2KG was stewed and went into bottles. This is the first (non-jam) bottling endeavour for the patch and it seems to have worked well.

For Christmas dinner Kohlrabi, Cauliflower, and turnips. The cheddar yellow cauliflower is excellent both raw and cooked. The remains went into filo-parcels for dinner tonight. They, too, were good.

Tomatoes are starting to come, but the plants are yellowing. They need some tomato food.

Kohlrabi, Asparagus, Onions, and Lettuce

Sounds like quite a salad, but was quite a weekend. The Kohlrabi migrated from the seed-trays into the vege patch. Into the seed trays went 5 kinds of lettuce. Of couse, red lettuce is brassica not lettuce; and miners lettuce seeds don't look at all like lettuce seeds and so probably aren't lettuce either.

Red onion and green onion seeds went into trays as did asparagus seeds.

The rhubarb has started to show its head over the soil. As there is an abundance three plants were dug up and given to collegues. These were replaced with a different variety (Victoria) that were grown from seed last year (and kept in pots over the winter).

The tomatoes that were planted about 3 weeks ago (and I neglected to record) have germinated. They have grown to the size of a pin.

The brassicas planted a month ago need about another week before going into the patch.

Some Seeds Sewn

Spent the evening getting the seeds of the plants for the sun room this:

Tomato
  Purple Calabash
  Riesentraube
Cucumber
  Mini White
  Marketmore
Watermelon
  Baby Doll

As well as some plants that need to be strong before being planted out:

Eggpant
  Black Beauty
Zucchini
  Black Beauty
Rhubarb
  Glaskings Perpetual
Onion
  Italian Long Keeper

Lets hope germination happens

Rhubarb Rharvest

Rhubarb from the patch harvested today. 3.5lbs in total, and it hardly made a dent on the plants. 2lbs went into the freezer and 1.5lbs will go into a crumble tomorrow.

Cucumber

Cucumber seeds into little pots and placed into the green room. The packet recommended direct planting in clumps so three seeds were planted into the rhubarb beds. The Rhubarb is doing well and all the artichokes that had properly sprouted are doing well (one died). Also planted out the last borlotto and fertalised everything.

One more seed tray went in. This time:

15 * Egg plant
15 * spinach
10 * leek

One of the white corn has sprouted, noting else in the green room is showing signs of anything.

Pic-ing vegetables

Rhubarb
At about week five after divison three of the plants are doing well and the other three are doing reasonably well. Certainly no deaths (yet).

Borlotto Beans
The first of the borlotto bean plants to be planted out. This plant has been in the garden about two weeks and continues to do well.

Cabbage
Relative new-comers to the vege patch, cabbage also seems to be thriving.

Been there

Last year the red onions didn't grow very large and at the end of the season were brought in from the cold. About half a dozen survivedin a bowel in the kitchen and one was showing signs of life so they were all planted back out in the vege patch.

Also took the time to plant out the borlotto bean plant that had sprouted. The other 4 still have not sprouted.

The rhubard appears to be doing well with all 6 plants still living.

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.

Rhubarb?

After planting many rhubarb seeds, one sprouted after about 10 days and another after about twice that. Here's a photo of one. Its growing very slowly and it isn't obvious (yet) that it is rhubarb. Once it grows a bit it might be a lot more obvious what, exectly this plant is (rhubarb or not).

The outside rhubarb is doing very well. It seems to have branched several times with what look to be about 4 centeres. Over winter it will be necessary to seperate these out and re-plant them for next year.

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!

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.

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.

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.