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.