Category Archives: Capsicum

Say hello to our little friends

07 Sunday Apr 2013

Posted by in Capsicum, Carrots, Growing, Herbs, Lettuce, Planting, Seeds, Spinach, Vegetables

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It’s officially Autumn. Cool nights and brisk days have arrived. There is excitement around the Patch, with pretty much everyone planting new crops – walking around the crates is a guessing game of what-do-you-think-is-that-seedling?

On our list this season:

Snap sugar peas (handy to have our tomato trellis already installed)
Snow peas (Lisa likes them loads)
Lettuce (Cos)
Carrots (yes, we’re trying them again)
Chives
Baby spinach

Mystery interloper:

Kale – two plants have mysteriously arrived in our patch. Unknown source. We think we’ll eat them anyhow.

The Big Lesson #1 – Don’t plant too much stuff

The mystery plant, Kale (in front of Craig, not where he is pointing)

New plants on the block

A Farewell to Beans

23 Saturday Mar 2013

Posted by in Capsicum, Growing, Lettuce, Tomatoes

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Last call for Summer

It was time to say goodbye to our Summer crops. Although the tomatoes, beans and capsicum were still producing a little fruit, we wanted to give the soil a few weeks to relax before we launched our next attack of seeds and seedlings.

So out came everything (aside from the our capsicum) and into the compost it went. We dug the bean plants back into the patch, added a couple of bags of compost, watered in some worm wee and sprinkled over a handful of organic compost.

We’re going to let that soil have a break for now.

So the final tally was:

Corn
Disaster. We finally had to accept the fact that they weren’t growing well, and pulled them all out. Not a single corn cob to be seen.

Beans
A handful every few days meant we were relatively happy with these plants, especially considering they had been overshadowed a good deal by the much larger zucchinis and pumpkins. As they got bigger, they did become stringy, if we plant them again next year we will be harvesting them younger.

Capsicum
A late bloomer, but worth planting. Once we had culled all the nutrient hungry pumpkins and zucchinis, this little plant was finally able to thrive. Every few days there’s a new capsicum starting to grow. We’re hoping to keep the plant through Winter, depending on how much room we need for other crops.

Tomatoes (Black Russians)
When they finally began to produce, they were absolutely stunning. Gorgeous flavour, large fruit and heaps of them. Would we plant them again though? Unsure – it was difficult to see all the early-flowering smaller tomatoes and not feel very jealous!

(100) Days of Summer

20 Wednesday Mar 2013

Posted by in Capsicum, Eating, Growing, Pumpkins, Tomatoes, Vegetables

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Waiting, waiting, waiting…

For a while it seemed that we would only ever be eating pumpkins and zucchinis.

Thankfully by late-February we were starting to harvest our plants every few days, with tomatoes, beans and capsicum starring at dinner. Having planted some lettuce seedlings in the gaps left by the zucchini plants, we were harvesting them too.

All in all we are pretty happy with our first few months.

(Weather note: According the Bureau of Meteorology, daytime maximum temperatures were much warmer than those usually experienced and averaged 27.4°C – departure from normal 2.1°C. Total rainfall for the past summer – Dec 2012 to Feb 2013 – was 108 mm, this being slightly less than that usually recorded)

Take a look at a few of our harvests…

Almost ready…

Pumpkin flowers, Black Russian Tomato (green), Green Beans, Pumpkin

Black Russian Tomatoes

Pretty much a meal!

A bagful of goodies

New Year: New Resolution

24 Thursday Jan 2013

Posted by in Capsicum, Carrots, Corn, Growing, Pumpkins, Structure, Tomatoes, Vegetables, Zucchini

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I admit, the tomato stakes were pretty haphazard. Planted in a state of plant emergency when it was clear our one plant was spreading all over the ground rather than growing up, it’s become necessary to give it (and the patch) a spring clean.

So with a bit of help from master Carpenter Craig, we now have a much better looking tomato plant, with a strong trellis ready to support all those tomatoes that we hope are on their way. The really nice part about having a well built structure is that we can stop continually tying up the branches to various stakes. Instead, we just thread them through the nearest support and let them do their thing.

Trellis support

Crop Report
Along with the new trellis, we’ve revamped and re-arranged. We’ve added a heap of mulch to keep more moisture in the soil (around 2/3 inches thick) and got serious about culling.

Zucchinis
After attending a workshop run by Lucas from Libertas Gardens, we decided that the zucchinis had to go. As much as we have loved eating them, the plants are simply so big that we feel our other crops are suffering, either not getting enough sunlight, or possibly nutrients. We wanted to give them a fighting chance.

Beans
Whilst our bean plants are looking healthy, they’re not producing many actual beans. We’re going to give them a few more weeks to see how they go with our new look, but beans, consider yourselves warned.

Pumpkins
With their main competitors out of the picture, these guys are doing just fine.

Capsicum
We have only one plant, it has a heap of flowers, and just the first sprinklings of little capsicums. Fingers crossed.

Corn
Ripping out some of the weaker plants will hopefully allow the others to really thrive – we can feel the corn starting to grow, it’s just a waiting game now.

Carrots
Complete. Disaster.

No access to sun (see above mention of zucchinis). Too many other plants growing around them. We’ve completely given up on these guys.

Our new trellis in action, our new mulch and space for a lettuce maybe?