Fast Germination

Into a seed tray last weekend went 20 lettuce and 20 spinach seds. They have started to germinate already!

Seeding is believing

Time to get some more seeds in since the weather is so bad today:

4 pottles with:
Zucchini - ambasador f1

3 pottles with:
Pumpkin - spooki

A tray of:
Leek - winter giant

6 each of:
Cabbage - Copenhagen market
Spinach - winter giant
Kohlrabi -early purple Vienna

Seed Seeds Seeds, on the grow

All three seed-trays were empty, and its summer. This was a sad state of affairs that needed resolving. The seed-trays were washed in hot water, then rinsed in hot tap water, then filled with black-magic seed mix.

Into the three trays went 20 each of:
Spinach (winter giant)
Spinach (bloomsdale)
Cauliflower (all the year around)
Cauliflower (violet sicilian)
Cabbage (copenhagen market)
Brocoli (italian Precore)

That a load of Brassica and a lot of spinach.

As its early summers its also time to get the cucurbits in. They are a lot larget than the tiny brassics so they go into individual pots rather then seed trays. Into 4 pots each went:

Pumpkins (harvest gold)
Squash (sunbeam)
Zucchini (blackjack)
Zucchini (blackbeauty)

In previous years the pumpkins have suffered mold and not produced fruit - perhaps this year will reverse the trend.

Patch Pix

Early days yet but there's life in them there patches. Front and Middle is Cauliflower and Broccoli planted in autumn. They survive the winter and have started to take off. With luck they'll go to flower (which is the part we eat). In the background is Spinach.

Those shoots between the brassica is the garlic. The first shoots sprung up a week or two ago - and there should be more to come. They're grown from left-over sprigs from last year's crop planted close to the shortest day. In the background (above) you'll notice a few little white markers... they're marking out the radish that didn't yet sprout.

Radish and Spinach

To the vege patch was added perpetual spinach from Red Barn. Also planted some radish seeds - with the hope of slow growth over winter. In order of left-to-right (from front of patch) the radish types were Cherry Belle, Black Round, and German Giant.

That bed now has cauli and broccoli at the front (interplanted with Garlic) then spinach, then radish.

Weekend Pottyness

Five of each of the two tomato varieties (Purple Calabash and Riesentraube) went out of the sprouting chamber and into pots. As did the Thyme, but they are tiny so three plants went into each of three posts. Strawberry Spinach also went into pots, one plant pot.

Soaking large seeds overnight for planting tomorrow:

Peas
Beans (Albenga and Borlotto)
Punpkin (Australian Seed Oil and Jack be Little)

Also planted remaining strawbetty spinach in the patch. The Zucchini in the patch is doing badly. It didn't help that is sonowed today!

Seed This Done That

Finally manages to get some more seeds into the green-room. This time:

Squash
Tomato (both types)
Strawberry Spinach
Thyme
Coriander

The Zucchini have gerninated as have some of the cucumbers.

The Onions and Spinach Leek

Transplanted from the seed trays into the vege patch:

2 spinach (the first to germinate here ever!)
1 borettana onion (which within a few hours was mistaken for a week and half-pulled)
6 leek
3 egg plant

The whole patch got a good weeding (it needed it) then a row of root-parsley by the stratwberry spinach (the spinach plants are about the size of my thumb nail!).

Finally, by the turnips went in a row of coloured carrots (niche seeds) then a row of orange carrots (red barron from red barn a few years ago) and finally a row of white turnips (Kaiotes).

Yuck!

Started to dig the final section of the vege patch and its wet, very wet, very wet indeed. Its like a thick muddy goop down there. As a consequence the irrigation system has been turned down from 5 mins a night to 3 mins a night. Everything got a feeding with the organic fertiliser.

Almost everything is growing well. A few things are not: the strawberry spinach is growing very slowly. The parsnips (which are always slow to germinate) are not showing signs of anything and at least one lettuce has died. Parsley hasn't reard its head either.

In the green room a second corn has sprouted as has one pumpkin (seed saved from a supermarket pumpkin) and one zucchini.

The kings radishes have sprouted well and as there were a gap between the rows black-radish from last year was used as a filler.

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.

Seeds for pots for $12.00

The Warehouse has sets of 10 little plastic flowerpots for $4.00. Three loads was loads (for $12.00). After soaking zuchini seeds, white corn seeds during the day they went into the posts and got a good soaking.

Also soaked during the day were peas and sunflowers that went into seed trays. The seed tray was then filled with onions and spinach. Pumpkin seeds (saved from the supermarket pumpkin as well as giant pumpkin from last year's seed stock) remain soaking and will (hopefully) get transferred into pots tomorrow.

Venturing out

The seeds from the seed trays had been there a little too long and the time had come for them to venture from the home into the world (well, the vege patch anyway). All three of the seed trays were emptied into the garden which included:

Onions: Both the longkeepers and the sweet red did well with most seeds gernimating and growing. The Borettana did badly with only about 2 sprouting and only one making it into the vege patch.

Articokes were a similar disaster. One Imperial Star sprouted and amde it into the garden whereas about 6 of the gren globe made the transition.

Lettuce (cox) and the strawberry spinach. The strawberry spinach are tiny brittle weak littl plants; it'll be interesting to see if they survive a Dunedin summer.

Also finished the sprinkler sytem by laying the last few meters, burying it, adding uprights and so on.

All in all a good weekend.

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.

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!

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.

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!

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.

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