We’re calling them zumpkins.
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…and so do our plants.
Turns out the apple crates are the business – looking around the rest of the car park, most gardens are flourishing. Those who decided to plant salad leaves are harvesting already. Ours will take a little longer, but we’re pleased that almost all of our transplanted beans have survived (toilet rolls and all).
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First lesson learnt from the patch: think carefully about what (and how big) your plants will grow. This week we realised that our zucchinis are growing so well they have dwarfed the pumpkins, the beans and the capsicum.
Unfortunately, this means that we had to cull some plants, all for the health of the patch. Whilst savvy gardeners may be well used to this, it broke our hearts a little to see them go in the bin 😦
– Super useful wheelie-rubbish-compost bin
We’re also finding quite a few suspicious looking foreign plants in our patch – they look quite a lot like snow peas. Unfortunately for them and as pretty as they are, they’re not wanted, and as many a gardener has said before me:
”If I don’t want it in my garden, then it’s a weed.”
– Ladybirds mean we’ll get lucky, right?
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Our veggie patch is located at Federation Square, Melbourne’s (newish) city square (the old one was on the corner of Collins Street and Swanston Street). In fact many people don’t realise just how close it really is.
So I thought it was about time I showed a few of the views from our garden – not a bad sight when it’s watering time!
Federation Square, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image and the Forum Theatre
Looking East over the Yarra River and the Melbourne Cricket Ground
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One of the things I had to consider when signing up was how to ensure the plants were always watered. I don’t live in the city, nor work there, so the idea of heading into town every couple of days (or every single day when Melbourne throws those plus-40-degree days at us) was not something I wanted to do.
So may I introduce to you my watering brigade –
Craig
Alecia
Thanks guys, hopefully I can repay you with loads of yummy home-grown veggies!
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Two weeks after planting the seeds, it became clear that the half-toilet rolls weren’t going to hold the rapidly growing beans for much longer. It was time to transfer them to our garden.
Carefully packed into a left over case of beer box, the beans got on a 67 tram to the city, amidst some curious peak hour onlookers.
We planted the beans in rows around the corn – the two types of plants grow well together – something to do with potassium, although I’m unsure which plant has it, and which needs it.
Bean seeds planted: fourteen.
Bean plants transferred to the garden: twelve.
We’re definitely counting that as success 🙂
