January in the Vegie patch

With Christmas and the New Year it usually takes me a couple of weeks to get back into things again, and this year has been no different.  We had a busy few weeks with family visiting which was fantastic to catch up with everyone - but it means that the garden and farm gets a bit neglected.

Anyway I am back into it again now! 

Our warm January weather in Australia results in tremendous growth in the Vegie Patch. I love seeing almost daily changes, and certainly we are starting to harvest a few things already.  We had reasonable rainfall in December, but January has been quite dry so far, so watering has been my main job. I do have a dripper system set up, which is a great time saver, as I can turn it on and then come back in an hour or so, and most of the garden has had a good watering.  However there are some areas that it doesn't reach, so some hand watering is still needed.  I quite enjoy standing out there in there in the evenings or early mornings with the hose - there's something therapeutic about it for me!

Weeding has been my other main task out there!  Unfortunately the weeds also love the warm weather and lots of water!  I have tried to mulch everywhere, including the paths in-between the rows, but it has still been a bit job to keep them under control.   I usually start at one corner, digging out the volunteering grasses, but by the time I get to the last row, I definitely need to start from the beginning again.  Marmalade our house cow is very happy for me to throw the grasses and thistles over the fence to her!

If I move through my rows, right up next to the chook pen, I have my perennial bed, which has horseradish, rhubarb and asparagus.  They have pretty much been ignored and done very well all the same!

Next I have strawberries up one end and then onions down the other end.  This is the first year for the strawberries, so the crop isn't huge (particularly as I have been sharing them with a very large stumpy tail lizard!).  In fact the ones I do pick don't make it inside as I eat them then and there - they are deliciously sweet!  I have actually put a wire cage over the whole strawberry patch in an attempt to keep the lizard out.

This year has been my best yet for onions.  I have nearly picked them all, just a couple of smaller ones I'm leaving to see if they get any bigger - I have picked over a 100, and they have been bigger than I have ever grown before.  I have certainly ensured I kept the water up to them, and also scraped the dirt away from around the bulbs as they grow, which I haven't done in previous years - so maybe that has been the secret.

Corn: I have four rows of corn, they are about  1.5 metres tall now, and besides keeping the water up to them, I don't do too much else with them at the moment.  They haven't started developing their cobs yet.  As soon as they do, I'll sprinkle some fertiliser underneath them.  Corn is always better grown in more short rows rather than less longer ones, as they need to be quite dense in order for them to pollenate properly.  Corn is a self-pollinator and it needs the small seed like bits that fall from the tassels at the top of the plant (male parts) to land in amongst the silks (female parts) that grow out of the top of the cobs in order for the cobs to develop fully.

Pumpkins:  I often grow the pumpkins next to the corn, as I like they can trail around under the corn stalks, which is great from a space saving point of view.  The corn has usually finished and I am pulling them out before the pumpkins start maturing.  Even still, I often have a problem with my pumpkins not ripening before the cold weather starts, particularly with the larger varieties.  So this year I am only growing the smaller butternuts.  Because the first lot I planted were killed by the late frost we had in November the plants are a bit slow still - plenty of flowers but no fruit as yet.

At the other end of the corn and pumpkin rows I've got lettuces, potatoes, silverbeet, zucchini and rockmelons (Cantaloupe).

The lettuces are nearly finished, although a few have gone to seed and are regrowing, so if I can keep the water up to them, I may get a second crop.

My potatoes are all hilled up and hopefully growing into lovely big fat spuds under the ground.  Thats the only problem with potatoes is that it is impossible to see whats happening below the ground, you just have to hope for the best.  I do occasionally get impatient and dig in the side and steal a few, but I nearly always regret it as they are often small and this can also sometimes damage the plant.

I also have a sweet potato plant growing, that I grew from a supermarket-bought potato and sprouted on my  kitchen window ledge in a glass of water.  The vine that I can see above the ground seems to be growing beautifully so hopefully the same is happening below the ground!

I have picked lot of silverbeet already and some of it is going to seed now.  I did pull some of the older plants up yesterday and feed them to Marmalade, the rest I'll pick over the next week or so, and freeze to use in casseroles etc in winter.

The zucchinis are going gang-busters as they always do.  A very reliable and easy plant to grow, I always have an overload of zucchinis and end up adding them to just about everything I make.  

The rockmelon are also growing really well.  It loves to be quite wet in order for the fruit to grow nice and big and sweet, so I tend to give them some extra water, and even some liquid fertiliser in January just to get them growing quickly.

In the last few rows I have a couple of Brussel sprout plants, two rows of capsicums and 4 rows of tomatoes.

The Brussel sprouts are a bit of an experiment. They are usually a winter vegetable as the grow the best sprouts when they grow slowly, but these are a red varieties, as opposed to the usual green ones, and apparently they have more heat tolerance, so we'll see.

The capsicums are growing well. Really all I'm doing with them is watering them, although they could probably do with a dose of liquid fertiliser.

I always grow lots of tomatoes. I think I have about 30 bushes, with three different varieties. I have lots of Roma bushes, as they make the best preserving tomatoes. They'll be my canned tomatoes and also go into sauce and relish. I have about five Gross Lisse bushes as I like them the best for eating, but they are a later maturing variety, so I also grow some Apollo as they are also quite a good fresh eating fruit, but ripen a bit earlier.

The only other vegie I haven't mentioned yet is the beans. I have four different varieties, two lots of bush beans; green and butter beans, then I also have some purple climbing beans and some scarlet runner beans. These are staggered amongst the rest of the garden, as I was running out of rows to put them in. The green and butter bush beans are at the end of other rows, the purple beans are growing up the fence and the scarlet runners are growing all over the compost heap! I am picking butter beans, but that's all at the moment.

Well that's about it I think, so long as I remember to keep watering and can stay on top of the weeds, it should be a productive summer.😃🍓🌶🌽🍅🥒🍆🥔🍠

Let me know what's happening in your vegie garden....