Vege Garden Round Up :: March

Well about 6 weeks has passed since I posted the first round up.

My how those seedlings have grown!

I've been employing digital pest control on the brassicas, but you can see where a few caterpillars have got away from me!

The tomatoes really do need to go, but I'm delaying the inevitable as I'd like those last few fruit to ripen.... I plan to buy a few kg this weekend to make sauce, and more relish to see us through the winter. Next year I have grand plans for enough plants to make all my own tomoatoey preserves.

I did a bit of weeding.....just need another bin now! How do you process your compost? I've been thinking of one of those bin systems that has three wooden bins connected together, but for now I'll probably just start a pile somewhere.

I need to decide what to do with these purple sprouting broccoli!! They have been in the ground since mid-september, and seem to be doing not much except blocking the light! They are huge and I hate to think of all the nutrients they have sucked out of the ground, but there's really no sign of edible shoots! Have you grown them before? Would you persevere or cut your losses and plant something else?

On the fruit front, the rhubarb is well and truly done, it is retreating!

I remember I had trouble identifying the roots when we moved in last year- even Mum did, and she's grown rhubarb forever, so it must be a variety that hibernates completely, unlike hers. Does your plant do this, do you know what it's called?

I discovered some flowers on the tamarillo tree, hopefully we get some tangy red fruit.

And I was so pleased when I looked closer at these 'weeds' which are growing everywhere! The changing colour of their papery cases was a dead giveaway for these cape gooseberries!

Nana and Grandad have always had these in their garden, so I hope to keep one of these plants going, in a more suitable location that everywhere!!

I picked up lots of manure from this guy,

who's been living in the paddock behind our house for a wee while now, the pukekos have done a good job of picking through it and breaking up all the lumps, and I put it in where the corn had been, and planted brassicas into it. Hopefully we will be eating them in the middle of winter. I also planted some red onions and leeks. It might be a bit late for them, but we will enjoy them in spring in that case.

We are still getting beans off the vines, and as I was cleaning them up a bit I found some dried up cases I had missed, I shelled them, and wondered if you might like some to put in your seed stores for next spring? I've got 3 sets of 10 beans to giveaway. So if you've made it this far, well done! And leave a comment below if you would like the beans, sorry, but only open for NZ folk.

And I'll leave you with a photo of the onions I harvested mid-Feb, next year I'll plant enough for a whole sting of them, enough for all the tomatoey preserves, and to last though the winter......