PUMP IT UP

PUMPKINS are one of the easiest and most satisfying vegetables to grow.

 

Toss the seeds in, thin out the seedlings, cut off any excess globes and a few months later these wonderful orange and yellow veggies are ready to be turned into soup or roasted with and served with goats cheese and thyme.

 

 

In my new vegetable garden i did indeed toss the seeds in but neglected to thin them out enough with the result that the pumpkins are not taking over the garden, the lawn and some are even climbing up the fence and giving the beans a run for their money.

 

But its a great problem to have.

 

Now the plants are well established, i have taken down the fence and the hens can ramble around them and eat any insects silly enough to pop their heads up.

 

Roll on autumn.

HEN WRANGLING

KEEPING chooks out of the blooming vegetable beds is a never-ending story.

 

In an attempt to keep the little vixens out of harms way while i continue digging out the triffid-like bamboo, I've wired off the yard into several sections to herd them about and preserve plants and my sanity.

 

However, when i do need some lawn ripped up and new beds established, they really hoe in and do a great job.

 

This method also allows me to dig and use a mattock without the risk of a dear little hen getting in the way with disastrous consequences.

 

Here's I've recycled old platic-covered fencing wire held in place by bambook poles gleaned from the first bamboo beheading in August. Now they have dried out they are proving useful for this and growing beans and peas.

 

Crop Rotation

Now we are finally removing he last of the late-ripening veggies, it’s a good time to get your head around the crop rotation system so that you can be sure of a great crop of winter and spring veggies.

Check out the excellent SGA info on spinning sround your crops.

Preparing a vegetable bed for the next crop.

It’s obvious that different vegetables require different soil conditions. So when rotating the vegetables, the soil needs to be treated to suit the new vegetable. For example tomatoes like their soil to be acidic whereas onions prefer it more alkaline. So you need to lime a garden bed where you grew tomatoes before planting your onions.  Then after harvesting onions you plant beans and peas (legumes) because they also love sweet soil. Legumes are fantastic because they capture nitrogen from the atmosphere and pump it into the soil, so they can be followed by leaf vegies such as broccoli, cabbages, cauliflower, spinach, bok choy,  lettuces and silver beet. After these guys you can sow the yummy root crops suh as beetroot, carrots and parsnips as they don’t need much manure to flourish.

 Crop Rotation Tips
• Rest your beds for a few days (a week is even better) if adding manures to allow the soil to absorb the goodness
• Put your chooks in the old bed as they will delight in turning over the soil and eating any leftover bugs such as caterpillars
• Use a garden fork to turn over the soil and mix in your compost as this will aerate the soil and you are less likely to damage the worms.

Autumn Joys

It’s an exciting time in the garden. Sure, the tomatoes are looking a little ragged and the corn is drooping a bit but all the rain has meant that it’s greener than normal.

Gidget is already keen to get out and turn over the summer veggie bed.

Now is the time to pull out the old veggies, replenish the soil and get in the winter and spring crops. This weekend I will pull out on bed of tomatoes – the heritage varieties which di so s well and then let the chooks go to work! By giving hem a few hours a day for a week or so in this patch I’ll meet the twin aims of turning over the soil and give the girls some bliss as they eat all the bugs and leftover fruit! Their droppings are also a bonus. Plus I will fork in some compost and then plant the brassicas - there's nothing better than fresh broccolli

The fruit trees will get a light prune, the roses will be have black-spotted leaves removed and I’ll also plant a heap of garlic. We enjoyed a bumper crop last year and I’m going to plant two beds this time as it’s such a popular item in the “local barter swap”. One lovely neighbour mows the grass walkways between my eight vegetable beds in exchange for a few bunches, another swaps me her home-baked bread while another gives me gorgeous nashi apples. Everyone wins!

Nest week I’ll go into the joys of bartering and swapping tools and skills and how it makes gardening all the more fun and productive.

Broad Bean Bonanza

Yesterday I harvested the last of my broad beans. I say ‘harvested’ rather than picked, because I reckon there was a good 10 kilos in the box by the time I’d finished. Not a bad result from around 45 plants. We have been eating and giving away the delish little green things for a couple of months now and I really cannot eat enough of them. After picking the broadbeans I then stripped all the leaves from the stalks and added them to the compost bin underthe fig tree. Now I just have to chop up the stalks and add them to the other six bins. Their garden bed will be gently turned over to ensure the barow-load of chock-full-of-worms compost I added to it is mixed well in the soil – it’s a bit like folding in flour when you bake a sponge cake. Then I will look at planting more basil, lettuce, silverbeet and Asian greens.

Meanwhile, we are enjoying eating broadbean pesto – simply substitute the beans where it says basil in your recipe. Last night my husband made a yummy risotto and used the broad beans instead of celery (I had given the last of it to the chooks, ooops) and it was fantastic! Braodbeans are also wonderful mashed with a little garlic, black pepper and olive oil and spread on hot toasted sourdough.