The Vegetable garden is in a transition phase at the moment. Because we have had quite a mild autumn a lot of my summer vegies are still producing, but yet I am trying to make room to get some winter vegies started.
Summer vegetables still hanging on are tomatoes, capsicums, pumpkins, zucchini and chillis. I've managed to preserve a lot of each of these, so I could probably pull them out now, but it just doesn't feel right when they're still providing such bounty.
The tomatoes look TERRIBLE - point in case....👇
The capsicums and chilli bushes still look great. In fact I am thinking I will dig them all up, and put them in pots in the glass house. Pepper plants are actually biennial, that is, their life cycle lasts two seasons. The problem in this area is they don't tolerate cold very well, and frosts will kill them. So in previous years I have succeeded in getting two crops from them by digging them up and moving them indoors.
If you have been following this blog for a while you will remember I planted a row of alternating basil and parsley. We picked lots of basil over the summer, but as usual once the weather got too hot, it ran to seed quite quickly. I did prolong its life by pinching as many of the flower heads off as I could, but it is well and truely finished now. The parsley however is also biennial, so will grow well through the winter and well into next summer!
I grew two varieties of pumpkins this year, butternuts and Kents. They both managed to send their tendrils throughout the entire garden, and I'm still finding pumpkins that I didn't know were there as they were hiding under the zucchinis or buried in straw. I think I have picked 16 butternuts so far. The ones still out there are a bit green, so whether they ripen or not will depend how much sunshine we get before the first frost. Similarly with the Kent pumpkins, I have actually only picked 2. I think there is another 4 or 5 that are ready to pick, but I suspect the rest are not quite ripe.
Aren't zucchinis amazing? They are prolific during the summer months, until everyone is sick to death of them. And sure they have definitely slowed down now, but they are still producing. Every year my zucchinis get a dose of powdery mildew. Some years its worse than others. This year wasn't too bad, the plants seemed to keep outgrowing it. So the middle of the bush looks quite miserable, you'd think it was dead, but the tips look perfectly fine.
Really the only other vegetable I'm consistently picking this month is the swiss chard and ruby chard. And it looks soooo pretty!
At the end of January I planted a couple of brussel sprout plants and they are going really well now - not long before they will be ready to pick. I also dug up all my sweet potatoes at the start of the month, and was pretty happy with the yield.
So with regards to new plantings - I have planted some broccoli, spring onions, and also some winter greens - rocket and bok choy, I think. In the next few weeks I'll get some beetroot, and peas planted from seeds, as well as some pick and grow lettuce.
What's happening in your vegetable garden. Let me know in the comments below....👇
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