Garden Diary, 1 February 2006
Finally finished the big compost bin. No excuse for dumping green waste now!
Harvesting strawberries and potatoes now. Strawbs are doing really well, got a couple of punnets off yesterday and they've probably got a month to go. We'll extend the patch next year since they've been such a good crop and everyone likes them :-). Lots of potatoes too and the karaka (or whatever) taste really nice. That said, the potatoes haven't quite met my high expectations in terms of quantity, but the ground (even though it was full of chewed up tree) didn't have a lot of compost in it.
In the patch where the broad beans were, I've planted: leaks, parsnips, carrots, mesclun, rocket, basil, spring onions, coriander. The rocket, mesclun, carrots and onions are doing well (heaps of mesclun), the coriander less so, and hardly any of the rest. Not sure why - maybe just not the right conditions or I assumed too high a strike rate. Maybe just more seed next time with thinning out if necessary.
Runner beans cropping well, peas cropping for the last two weeks (not heaps of them), corn growing well, carrots still ticking along. Next year, I might leave patches of the vege garden with lots of oxalis without crops so I can progressively get rid of it - it's all through the peas and corn.
Worm bin is going well now. Just put the next layer on a few weeks ago, but made the mistake of putting a chicken carcass in there. Checked it yesterday and it's seething with maggots :-) Never mind, at least they're breaking it down. The worms seem to be migrating in there as well. I seem to get a few watering cans of rum every month as well. Next step is to get another worm bin for the oxalis and transfer some worms from the first bin. Might be able to become a worm supplier one day !
I need to actually prune the apples this winter, to get some decent shape into them. Might need to get Richard Bushell over for a bit of advice ...
Checked the broad beans in the freezer recently and a lot of them seem to have freezer burn. Maybe they ned to be blanched first.
Harvested most of the garlic yesterday. Tiny wee bulbs, but then the soil was pretty crap, the garlic were competing with the roses and got relatively little water. The soil was also very free draining so the little water I gave them probably didn't hang around for long. Still, should get a few meals of out what's there. I'll definitely plant more next year, in a much better spot.
I found some self-sown pumpkins and tomatoes and transplanted them to a patch around the side of the house a couple of months ago. They seem to all be flourishing even though there's not as much sun around there, and there's a few pumpkins growing. Interesting to see what happens.
The beefsteak tomatoes by the potatoes are starting to bear fruit, but I really need some lessons on how to handle them, i.e., nipping out the laterals and tying them up properly. Same for the other patch of cherry tomatoes. I think I'm missing out on a lot of production because they're not properly trained.