January 2010 - One
The
First Tomato
He had been hoping for tomatoes
for Christmas, but that was not to be.
However, the first Tommy Toe was shared in January, which I thought was pretty
good.
(Jonni doesn't look terribly impressed, I have to say)
It has surprised Jonni that the
stuff he planted has actually grown.
I think he expected total failure of his first effort.
We've enjoyed heaps of lettuces
for weeks and voted our friend's seedlings
heaps tastier than the ones bought from the nursery, so Jonni has saved seeds
for next year.
The basil has done well, and the
parsley is lurking in there somewhere.
Snow peas haven't produced a huge crop, but we did have enough for a pre Christmas
dinner for fourteen,
and for ourselves quite a while afterwards
The sweet corn is growing amazingly
and the tomatoes look as
if they will do well as long as the caterpillars leave us some.
Jonni planted new lettuce seedlings
and built them
a wee shade house while they get established, as we're getting some very hot
days.
His four potato plants have grown
and died down and I'm dying to fossick in the soil to find one or two for
dinner.
Jonni tells me this practice is called bandicootting, which makes it sound
all the more attractive.
And as for the two pumpkin plants - well, they have been running amuck!
We've been told that you should chop off the long stems and then they'll put
all their strength into growing the fruit,
but I'm dying to see just how far they can travel.
Here you can see how they've escaped the garden bed and grown down the wall
and across the path, heading for the lower level.
There's a little pumpkin you can see growing half way down the timber wall.
I keep asking Jonni to build it a little platform so it has something to sit
on and stop the weight of it
crushing the stem that's in danger of being squashed against the top slat.
Now it's crossing the lower path
behind the garage and is heading for the front gate!
Compost Bays
All the messy bit in this photograph is where other raised beds are going
to be built.
And at the top of the photo you can see the back wall of the compost bays
that Jonni's now working on.
These are designed to be hot composting areas (yes, he's done a heap of reading
on this too -
and is not going to follow my system of having heaps of sundry choppings and
weedings all over the garden)
In his usual systematic way he has
completed the first bay and once he's filled that
with layers of organic matter etc. he'll finish building the other two bays.
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