$40.15 + postage

After reading the (somewhat funny) special issue of NZ gardener "Homegrown 2: Live off your land for less" (which is cheaper direct than at the supermarket) I was inspired to grow borlotti beans - the photo in the magazine is of these fantasticly coloured spotty beans and pods. It turns out theyre actually called borlotto beans, demonstrating that the editor can't spell (but consistently can't spell).

After getting a price from Trademe I (to ammuse myself) compared the price to Kings Seeds's price. It wasn't amusing, Kings was a fraction of the trademe price. So I got inspired by the Kings web site and was up until late choosing seeds (consider me a Kings convert). It didn't help that you get 2 free packets of seeds if you spend $40 (so I did). Here's what I got:

Broccoli Italian Precoce
Cabbage Copenhagen Market
Cauliflower Green Macerata
Cauliflower Violet Sicilian
Pumpkin Austrian Oil Seed
Radish Oriental Watermelon
Spinach Bloomsdale
Turnip Tokyo White Cross F1
Turnip Red Round
Bean Borlotto Fire Tongue
Eggplant Black Beauty
Zucchini Black Beauty
Turnip Golden Ball
Cauliflower Snowball Improved
Spinach Strawberry

And for my free packets I chose:

PARSLEY BARTOWICH LONG - this is a kind of root vegetable
ONION BORETTANA

This should do for seeds for the whole season - but then again those yellow zucchini look good, as do the multi-coloured squash.

Carrots

The rabbit has stopped eating the brassica (because there aren't many left) and has moved on to the carrots - luckily it only eats the tops and not the roots. That said, no leaves leaves little carrots - and here they are. Several varieties, orange, purple, yellow, white. The best tasting are the purple and the orange ones. Yellow are a little tasteless (but still better than shop ones).

Capsicum

Capsicum grow well inside in Dunedin. These three demonstrate that green turns to yellow. There were harvested over the weekend and, since we don't eat many, given to parens.

Fresh Pumpkin Smells

The two little (of the four) garden pumpkins

Wow! Never before has the kitchen smelled so good. Cut into a fresh pumpkin from the garden and the smell is fantastic. These two (and one other) were harvested and left for a few days to dry. We had the larger one between 4 adults and one child and it did more than one meal. The colour, the small and the taste were unbelievable. Vegies from the garden taste great, but this one topped the lot.

Pumpkins

Here's one of the four pumpkins stull growing. As this is the first pumpkin it remains a mystery as to when to harvest them.

This is what is mean by pumpkin

Just to clarify, this is what is mean by pumpkin. Although this is the largest, there are a total of 4 of comprable size. Not sure when to harvest them so until there are signs that its time they get to stay where they are.

Purple brocolli. As suspected, if planted too early they flower before the plants get big and produce little heads. This one survived the rabbit (how has not been seen for a few weeks)

Zucchini for dinner

Zucchini for dinner tonight. This is the first one from the garden ever and it tasted great. Very moist, very firm. There are also 4 decent sized pumpkin, just waiting for them the mature before picking and drying.