Dale's Garden

[Dale]

Hi everyone.  

I've got a bit of a vegie garden going.  Basically, we have the space, I enjoy growing my own food, and it's a great way to get the kids to eat vegies (nothing better than eating what YOU grew).  I also like taking close up photos of the vegies as they grow.  I find it's amazing what you can see when you look really closely.

"Do you like my ears?"

My corn has started forming ears.

Growing Blackjacks (zuchini)..... one plant can produce up to 4 a week.

Spinach and Silverbeet harvest from a month ago.

[Jason]

Welcome to Workshop @Dale. 

Your vegies look fantastic, well done. Many thanks for sharing.

Looking forward to reading your tips. 

Jason

[Dale]

Thanks @Jason.

Last night I was cooking sweet and sour chicken.  Just a Kan Tong jar, nothing fancy.  But I love the fact I can just walk out to the garden, pick a zucchini or capsicum or squash, and within 2 minutes have it in the wok.

That's the best thing about having your own vegie patch.  You cannot get any fresher.  All that flavour and goodness is all there.  Coles and Woolies vegies taste like cardboard compared to home grown.  

[Dale]

I picked the first of the tomatoes last night.  It hasn't been warm enough for them to vine-ripen so I'm storing them for a week to finish off reddening.

Also facing an issue of yellowing zucchini.  They grow nicely for a few days then the end starts to yellow.  The yellow bits stop growing but the rest of the zucchini keeps growing.  Googling the issue it looks like it's due to poor polination.  The recommended action is to take a male flower and rub the stamin into and around the insides of the female flower.  This should ensure good polination.

Will be trying this with interest.

[bluebec]

Hi @Dale

I get the same issue with my pumpkins.  I have to manually pollinate all the flowers or I won't get any pumpkins at all.  Bad design fault there. 

I haven't had any luck with getting zucchinis to grow in my vegie garden, I'll try again next year.

[Dale]

A new batch of zucchini starting.  I've got about 7 female heads and 3 or 4 males.  I'll have to keep watch for the flowers and do the manual polination.

Three ears of corn in progress and heaps of tomatoes on the vine.  The toms I picked the other day are starting to redden in their container.

Carrots and lettuce taking a while to get going though.  Onions you can almost watch growing.  

[Fyre]

Pollination issues are common in areas that might suffer from bad air quality (like where I live) if the pollination is insect spread.

Side note: You can help the pollination process with corn with a small paint brush.  Rub the brush in the pollen (tassels at the top of the plant) and then brush it on the long fibers coming out from the corn ear.  Make sure you give them all a good coat as each of those fibers links to one kernel of corn.  Repeat each day for a week and you will have big, juicy corn cobs in a few weeks.

[Dale]

Never had issues growing corn, but thanks for the tip.  

[Dale]

So after what I would say is the most successfull tomato crop I've ever grown, it looks like it's coming to the end for these vines.  The weather has hit them a lot in the last few days and there's no new flowers coming up.

The corn has flopped, only have a couple of ears that are filling in.  The zucchinis are still going but still having trouble growing them to full size.

Might be time to start preparing the beds for the autumn crops.

[Jason]

What are you planting for autumn @Dale? 

Jason