dear diary: 30th May 2025 - i love it when a good garden comes together

OBSERVATIONS:

At least one BROCCOLI is ready! Maybe two! Going to have to cook it and eat it this weekend! Whee!

I've never really managed decent BRASSICAs before, so this is very exciting. Hopefully it tastes as good as it looks!

Even better is that they're not all growing at once. The two that are ready grew over the last couple of weeks, and are now full-sized. Another couple look like they're going to grow over the coming weeks to full-size. There are CAULIFLOWERs that are building those 'cover' leaves. And the KALE is going great guns.

KALE is harder to sell to my sister, but I rather like making kale chips from them - they're pretty tasty and crunch and excellent.

PURPLE PODDED PEAS are growing in the backyard, and doing okay as they climb the CHERRY TREE.

GARLIC has all taken off in their various spaces.

CHOOKS:

Haamyu is going okay, no more vet visits. They want to do more tests and more investigations. But we've spent way too much on her, and B1 really doesn't like saying 'no' to these nice people at the (nearby, expensive) vet who do everything in their power not to have to terminate the chicken. So, basically, the next time she flags, it'll be the chop, and the parentals have offered to assist.

That'll be interesting. I do want to learn how to do it, because I think it should be a part of responsible chicken keeping. That's a whole other discussion to be had, and I've put it off for the last five years since the first time one of our chickens started flagging. She gets extra nutrients because she can't seem to process them, but when those no longer help, it'll be the end for her.

Kerry (well, all the girls) have scaly leg mites. We treated the entire flock, but Kerry has them badly enough that she needed some painkillers, and she and Gladys get extra treatments at night because their situation is so bad. And Kerry is running out of feathers because the others are just picking on her something ferocious.

The only chicken in our current flock who hasn't needed any vet attention at all is Goongbao, possibly because she goes broody several times a year and doesn't lay. That presents its own set of inconveniences, but at least it's manageable and not expensive.

Otherwise, eggs have dropped down to just about one every couple of days (Gladys). Unfortunately, we no longer have our extra eggs from the last month: one of our cats, Smokey, jumped up on the bench and upset the egg carton...

COMPOST:

Making leaf mulch from collected leaves. Take a couple of black boxes out with me when I'm going places, scrape up the leaves and pop them in the composting box.

PREPARING:

The HAYBALE is being watered every couple of days with a liquid fertiliser or worm wee. Still not 100% on what's going in there...

SEEDING:

No seeds being planted right now, might have to sow the next round of BRASSICAS. I wonder if it's an okay season for the heirloom BRASSICAS. (I wonder if the heirloom aspect is why the previous BRASSICAS got aphids and this round doesn't)

PLANTING OUT:

Still have a punnet of BRASSICAS (not sure which ones now) and...a couple of other punnets (I think one is CHINESE CABBAGE) to go – there's also a very badly-eaten punnet of what might be another CHINESE CABBAGE.

COFFEE seedlings

LYCHEE seedlings

HARVEST:

Otherwise, the ORANGES are going nice and bright. A couple came off when I tugged them from the tree, I'm not sure what's happening there, though, because they don't smell ripe. The

KUMQUATS are once again producing a nice small crop of about thirty fruits. Something to munch through the day is the theory.

AVOCADOs are going okay, the ones that get picked don't amount to much right now. I'm not sure what season they are. All seasons? Any seasons? I was taught that you could pick them and ripen them inside, but they seem to be rotting or going brown by the time they're soft enough to open. 

I picked a SINGLE TOMATO at the start of this week. The last one from those plants, which have been there for a couple of years, just steadily producing tomatoes, battling caterpillars and slater bugs. (The slater bugs were on the verge of eating the tomato - they'd gotten the little stem-leaves, and all rolled off once I picked the thing. Greedy buggers! They've got the entire plant to eat and have been munching away on it for months.) But these tomatoes have been very faithfully producing ever since January 2024, when I got back from going away. I planted them in the spring of 2023, so a good 18 months of tomatoes, although not very frequently eaten. My bad.

LOOFAHS are still too heavy to harvest. I think I'm going to harvest them once they're a bit yellow, so there's less rot on the membrane.

The two metal beds I planted out (ESPALIER-TRIANGLE? I don't know what to call the bed) before I went to Melbourne have solidly bedded down: ONIONS, SPRING ONIONS, GARLIC, BEETROOT, BRASSICAS (probably BROCCOLI, I can't remember) - actually, go check the post CROP: BRASSICAS Timing because that's got the details needed.

I also harvested the BANANAS and chopped down the stalk. The bunch are sitting in the laundry cupboard. I should set up a hook that will enable them to be hung, so they don't ripen quite so fast... 

PRUNING:

I keep on saying I need to do some pruning, but I really really do.

THOUGHTS:

I think this weekend, I might try to lay out the LOUNGE ROOM BED. It'll be the GRAPE, KUMQUAT, PASSIONFRUIT, HOPS also ROSELLA and BLUEBERRIES maybe COFFEE bushes... Wait, what happened to my COFFEE seedlings... *runs outside to check* Oh, they're fine.

Whew!

Things to remember: GRAPE, PASSIONFRUIT, and HOPS are vines. HOPS will spread. ROSELLA and BLUEBERRIES are bushes that can be trimmed. COFFEE is less trimmable.

Maybe the BLUEBERRIES could go up under the APPLES?

KUMQUAT is citrus and will have shallow roots, while GRAPE can go deep.

CROP: BRASSICAS timing

FIRST PLANTING of BRASSICAS

6th Feb - planted BRASSICAS - Serenity CAULIFLOWR and Monty BROCCOLI (and one CAULI Snowball)

28th Feb -  Serenity CAULIFLOWR and Monty BROCCOLI have sprouted

14th March - planted out - mature seedlings

29th April 
- driveway bed are doing well - large leaves, plenty of feeding
- backyard APPLE-CREPE and CREPE-APRICOT aren't doing so well.

SECOND PLANTING OF BRASSICAS

9th April - planted  CAULIFLOWER: Macerata Green (HVS), CAULIFLOWER: snowball early (HVS), CABBAGE: Early Jersey (HVS), BROCCOLI: Aurora F1 (AV), CHINESE CABBAGE: Matilda F1 Early (AV) - only the F1s have survived

8th May - planted out BROCCOLI Aurora F1 in one of the front beds, interplanted with BEETROOT
- spring onions, Garlic (oriental red), 
- a box of GARLIC (spanish purple stripe)

9th May - planted out BROCCOLI Aurora F1 in the other front bed, interplanted with BEETROOT, CHINESE CABBAGE, SPRING ONIONS, GARLIC (Master jack) and one CAULIFLOWER Macerata Green that survived

Dear Diary: autumn harvests

OBSERVATIONS:

Nice cool weather, then suddenly a mad heatwave.

The CORN in the APPLE-CREPE is growing decently but not super-well. I think it may need a more steady water supply: that was what did it for the vegepod corn by the driveway. I haven't worked out how to do this from the water tank right now, but I guess I'm going to need to.

CHOOKS:

Looks like Haamyu has finally laid! We found a very long, oval-ish egg, along with the two from our regular Lockdown Ladies (Gladys and Kerry). Siyao does a slightly longer egg, and Goong does a perfect but petite egg. So we think it must be Haamyu,because she was feeling very 'full' a day or two ago and she seems to feel better now.

I finally dealt with the weevil-infested chook seeds. A giant sack of them that was basically riddled. To the point where the dead piled up thick enough that you can barely see the tile underneath. Maybe I can now start sorting that corner of the porch?

PREPARING:

Set up a garden bed under the frangipani, but it's not very deep. I really do need to get a mattock and dig the soil up properly, to give vegies a decent chance.

Planning to put a garden bed in between the APPLE ESPALIER and the DUAL STONE, although the watering will, again, be a problem. May need a sister's help.

Netting over the seedlings to protect them from brassica moth.

SEEDING:

Planted out a bunch of other BRASSICAS about a week ago: CABBAGE: golden acre, red acre. MUSTARD GREENS yukina Savoy. BROCCOLI sprouting (home seed) – all of them have geminated, CAULIFLOWER macerata greens.

I have a feeling at least some of the failed ones should probably be grown later in the season. But I'm too busy trying to work out what should be planted when.

PLANTING OUT:

The various BRASSICAS have been planted out. Note: leaving them in the seedling tray for another couple of weeks helped them grow that much more sturdy before planting out. Unfortunately, I planted them out right before a heatwave weekend, so...we'll see how many of them survive! BROCCOLI is Monty F1, CAULIFLOWER is F1 Serenity, and maybe one CAULIFLOWER Snowball

HARVEST:

PERSIMMONS are still going. The ones that are under the netting are ripening so much slower – and also growing so much larger than the ones that came before. It's kind of amazing.

Have finished harvesting APPLES: the last of the golden delicious, and they are huge!Dark spots on the skin appear to be like some kind of spore that rubs off with a cloth. I have no idea what and should go look it up.

The POMEGRANATES were amazing this year. I got at least twenty of them, and turned about 8-10 of them into pomegranate molasses. Used it for basting goose with a little left over and it was amazing.

Otherwise, there are two PUMPKINS (galeax d'eysine) and a handful of RASPBERRIES – I think they're the autumn canes, not the spring ones. We seem to have more Autumn canes than spring ones. A TOMATO here and there. A couple of EGGPLANTS, a CUCUMBER, but not that much.

FEEDING:

The big thing right now is watering. All the seedlings need seasol, especially the BRASSICAS in the DRIVEWAY bed.

PRUNING:

I can get the garden guy to do the pruning, but the chipping is going to be a different matter. I wonder who up and down the street might have an electric/petrol chipper... That, or working out who can do some electrical/motor repairs...

THOUGHTS:

What if, for planting, I set up envelopes by month? JANUARY – roots, fruits, leaves FEBRUARY – roots fruits leaves, etc. And then ALL YEAR or something like that? IDK. Maybe it needs to be more carefullly managed than that.

Planting mixed seeds in a tray of soil, then planting that out seems to work pretty well for things like lettuce and beetroot – those have been doing well. Not sure about the onions. I have yet to manage some good onions that I didn't have to leave for two years to get to a decent size.