It’s hard to believe, but we have been caretakers of our little patch for a whole six months.
In what was probably a first for many of us, we attended a party at the Patch to celebrate the event and ‘brought a plate’ with us – ideally made with some of our home-grown produce.
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
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!
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…
Finally, our plants have started to come into their own. Streaming over the sides of the crate, there are clear signs that we’ll be making pumpkin soup, roast pumpkin and even perhaps a pie (for our Canadian friends) sometime soon.
And when they decide to grow, they don’t mess about. With the amount of sun and rain they’ve been getting, I would estimate they grow easily an inch every few days. Somewhat surprisingly, they seem quite happy to grow all over the concrete carpark flooring, not caring the least bit that the surface isn’t soil. As long as their stem is watered, they’re happy chappies.
…and welcome to the Year of the Snake. Today the Patch had some visitors, wishing us all prosperity and luck for the next year.
