Friday, February 8, 2008

Recent Harvests, for Staycalm

Staycalm asked "What's producing up there at the moment? " on February 2.

I think my vegies have been as hit-and-miss as yours have! My suspicion is that the shift to La Nina in November, when summer plantings were adjusting to the previous El Nino conditions, might have caused poor growth.

Successes
  • The French Beans: 'Stringless Dwarf' and 'Italian Romano'.
  • 'Spacemaster' cucumbers and the 'Golden Bantam' Corn above it
  • Jalapeno chillies
  • self-sown oakleaf lettuces
  • Welsh onions
  • sorrel (pity the culinary uses are a bit limited)
  • perilla
  • Lemons. Millions of 'em.
Disappointments
  • The tomatoes. Poor plants and yields, and my Tommy Toes (if that's what they are) don't taste too good. The second they ripen, they rot.
  • The 'Mini White' cucumbers -- nice, but we've only had two so far.
  • Chervil from seed. Can't see any!
  • The quinces have all fallen off the tree.
  • I think the chooks ate the strawberries.
Verdict Still Out
  • A floriferous Scarlet Runner bean has reappeared.
  • The eggplants have started to flower.
  • Self-sown pumpkins -- they're probably Up To Something!
  • I pulled out the early squashes but am waiting for later ones.
P.S. My brassica seeds are up: pak choy, kale and cabbage in the punnets, and the radishes in the garden.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cool. Very interesting reading. I don't know half of those things!
Now that Pascal's op is over (and successful) I can start thinking about the garden here. The tomatoes have been so prolific. Maybe 3-4 kg of tiny toms from one bush.
We've been in survival mode for a few weeks. A lot of failures to pull out first. Some digging in and manuring as well as some watering should see us ready to start our next round of crops. Nothing as interesting as yours though!

Chookie said...

I just list the cultivars so that I know what I've tried. I suppose sorrel, perilla and kale a are a bit unusual, though!

David said...

chookie,
Do you grow any local heirloom seed? I tried that for the first time last spring, and even in a drought, my largest problem was that plants grew so large that they crowded each other. My corn produced very little, but everything else was fairly low-maintenance and productive.

Chookie said...

E.R., I do use heirloom seeds, but they are from a grower in Victoria. I am not in a position to join Seed Savers' Network, which probably is slightly closer. I do find that *some* heirlooms work well, but it's still a bit hit-and-miss. I'd guess Sydney seeds would work a bit better!